This is MY story

I have been the luckiest person in the world this last year having the opportunity to live and work in Vihiga. I can’t believe I arrived there a year ago today, to a crazy storm, a blackout and a welcome (and lots of cockroaches!!), and now I’m leaving. I’m leaving a place I have been able to call home. And will continue to call home...

I spent the first 8 weeks hating living in Vihiga. The cultural shock was far more than I had anticipated, the type of patients I was working with were far more disabled than anyone I had worked with previously and I kept worrying that I wasn’t cut out for this challenge I had spent years waiting for the opportunity to do...

Thankfully that all changed, and I fell more in love with Vihiga: the people and the work. Plus, I developed a wonderful social life which definitely helped me cope with all the stress of working in such a different environment. 

Anyway, over this last year of writing blogs I have written about a few specific people (as well as moaned a lot) so I thought I should write an update about them all:

Tony – the little boy that had been abandoned by his parents and now his grandmother is looking after him. He is deaf and was so malnourished when I met him. After writing about him on here, a dear friend of mine offered to sponsor him through school. He started at Chekombero School for Hearing Impaired last year and when I saw him in March he was a happy, healthy little boy. The school had worked wonders at making him feel like he belonged somewhere and that people cared for him.

Unfortunately, I went back to visit Tony 2 weeks ago and found him underweight, with a limp and terrified of people again. Not to mention the beating of other children with stones... I found out that school had noticed that anytime he comes back from a holiday of being home with his grandmother and family, he has regressed. This time the limp was unexplainable. I decided enough was enough and arranged a meeting with the Children’s Officer and Education Dept. to try and decide how he can be looked after during the school holidays without being subjected to abuse and neglect. It was the most frustrating meeting of my life, topped off by the children’s officer turning around to Wellington and asking him if he knew of any orphanages around the area.... errrm sir, isn’t that your job??!!! Nothing was fully resolved, but thankfully he has a strong headmistress behind him who I know will do as much as she can to support him... I hope to be kept updated on how he’s doing whilst I’m away.

Maurine: the wonderful Miracle – continues to go from strength to strength. She’s a wonderfully charismatic and full of personality 10 year old who’s a huge chatterbox. I love it when she comes to clinic with her beautiful smile, greets me with a ‘hello Rachael’ and moans about the other children being ‘babies’ for crying, when she never cries when she’s having her physio! I do remind her that she used to... J

She should be receiving free surgery on her Achilles from Nyabondo Hospital in July that will mean she will (hopefully) be able to walk again, and then she’ll start school in January. To this day, no one knows how she’s made such a recovery, but this is her picture. Isn’t she a stunner?!

Marion: FINALLY had her cleft palate repair surgery. She came in last week for me to check up on the repair, she’s already becoming more confident.. Always so serious, but when she came in, she had a huge grin on her face. Already her speech has improved, I have given her Mum some ‘top tips’ on encouraging speech sound production for sounds made on her palate, and I’m confident with those she’ll be much clearer in speech soon. I’m so happy for her, it’s been a long wait.

Schools:

Madzu: the refurbishment has been completed and they’re really happy with the new furniture which was funded through Liz McConachy and some of the money I had raised before coming out. I had a final meeting with the teachers of the unit to discuss the work we’d done together and how they were going to continue without SLT input and we went through all the individual students and the progress they have made. I was really impressed by what the teachers were saying about the progress of the children, I hope they keep up the fantastic work.

Kegoye: Unfortunately I haven’t had the time to go into Kegoye since Easter. I don’t know where the time went, however, I walked into the unit and my mind was blown!! They have taken on board all of the things I’ve discussed with them on ways to make learning as visual and accessible as they can with their limited resources. They’ve broken down the goals we set into long term and short term ones, with step by step work on how to achieve them and records of when they are meeting the goals. The teachers here are really special, I have been so blessed to work with them and have learnt a lot more from them that I can put down on here...

Where your money went:

Before I came to Kenya (and since) I was amazed by the generosity of my family and friends in making donations to support projects I came across out here. It’s been a huge learning curve on how to give money to people without reinforcing the ‘white lady coming to town and handing out cash’ image a lot of Kenyans have. I have learnt that sustainability is key, but at the same time, sometimes you can’t help but fall in love with a child/person and want to support them.

-          3 cleft lip and palate repair surgeries:

Marion – age 9: failed trip to Nairobi to find out that the surgery had been cancelled. Successful trip to Nyabondo in May 2012.

17 year old boy – his family never knew surgery was an option.

15 year old school girl – she used to hide her mouth whenever she was out in public/at school. Now she has a smile she doesn't have to hide.

-          Paid for Wellington Manyola to attend a session of university to get his degree in special education. Other family and friends have since offered to pay for more of his sessions, meaning that he doesn’t have to worry about the financial costs of university until August 2013. He will now be able to continue his work advocating for children with special needs rights, without fear of losing his job because he doesn’t have a degree.

-          Part paid for the refurbishment of Madzu Primary School Special Unit. The children were sitting on the floor as the mainstream school took priority of having the furniture because the children in the unit aren’t really ‘learning things’...

-          Built wheelchair accessible ramps at Ikumba Primary School now they are an inclusive school (Newton attends there and is doing SO well...).

-          The leftover cash will be given to the next volunteer who arrives at the end of September to be used for the patients who she will see at Vihiga District Hospital. David and I have set up a clinic there, and it’s now the first hospital in Kenya (that isn’t private) that offers SLT. However, Yellow House offers a free service, but the hospital charges over 5s for any service, so the money will be given to the volunteer to pay for approximately 100 sessions of SLT at the hospital.

So that’s it. That’s my story. This year has taught me so much about my career and myself. I have loved every challenge and opportunity I have had out here. I can’t wait for Round 2 next year...

Thanks for reading this blog, and for all the words of encouragement you’ve sent me over the year. It’s helped in a way you couldn’t even imagine. Until next time...

Doing a ‘Kenyan’ and making a speech....

So, this past year of living and working in Vihiga has come to an end. I decided a post HAD to be written about an incredible person who I have had the honour of working with, becoming friends with and learning a ridiculous amount from. David Rochus. I salute you!!!!

In pretty much every blog I’ve written I’ve mentioned the royal ‘we’ a lot. That ‘we’ is David and I. The work I have achieved in Vihiga could not have happened without the team work of the two of us. Imagine meeting someone from an entirely different world and being expected to work everyday together to set up a service... yet somehow it couldn’t have been more perfect.

  

We’ve had many a heated discussion on our different views with working, but it’s never affected our friendship and working relationship. Instead, I think it’s meant we’ve both had a lot of opportunities to learn many things.

On all the many days I’ve been frustrated by the various systems/families/colleagues I’ve worked with, David has kept me calm and helped me reflect on it all in a way which has made me learn and not give up.

I’ve told him this before, and I’ll tell him again now... You’re stuck with me forever!!

See you soon...

Mind Games

It’s probably the weirdest feeling knowing that there’s just less than 2 months left living and working in a place where I am 100% comfortable and happy in – there’s excitement of going home and getting to see family and friends, but mainly it’s sadness that I’m leaving somewhere so special to me. Not only that, but mentally I am on wind down with work, whilst quietly panicking that I won’t finish everything I want to. Add to that the feeling of “finally getting somewhere”, but yet not being able to enjoy that satisfied feeling because of having to leave soon. It’s all one big mind game...

It’s been a quiet month: I was away for a couple of weeks with my wonderful family who came to visit. It was a very surreal, but special couple of weeks, especially when they got to visit where I live and meet people I work with. Although, all the gushing ‘we love Rachael’ speeches were a little overwhelming.

Even though it’s been quiet, it’s also been frustrating. Again! I was hoping this update would be all about Marion after she’d had the cleft palate repair surgery that I decided to fund from money generously donated to me before I came to Vihiga. Instead I am gutted to say it didn’t happen.

Imagine sitting by a beautiful pool in the sunshine sipping cocktails (a completely different life than the one you’ve become used to) with family in Mombasa and you get a phone call from a distraught mother who cannot speak any English frantically trying to tell you that her daughter hasn’t had the surgery they’ve been waiting 6 months for. Kijabe Hospital offers free cleft lip and palate surgery approximately 3 times a year, Marion had been booked to have hers done there on the 14^th April 2012, for 6 months. Although the surgery is free, Kijabe is on the outskirts of Nairobi and so there was no way Marion and her family could afford the transport (approximately 8 hours on a crappy bus), food and accommodation costs, so I provided the money needed for that.

They got there a day early just to make sure Marion would be first on that operating table, only to be told the surgery had been cancelled. Why the hospital didn’t think to call Marion’s mother beforehand I do not know. After being politely arsey to the lady from Kijabe I spoke to, I ended up getting in touch with the co-ordinator of the hospital. No reason was given for the cancellation of the surgery, no money was offered to reimburse the travel costs incurred and I feared there would be no second chance for Marion as I do not have the money to give her to return for an appointment they’ve given her... for July!!

I was gutted. More to the point, the family and Marion – who is almost 10 years old, and is more excited about eating ugali than any other person on the planet because it won’t fall through her nose anymore – were gutted. 

Thankfully my dear friend and colleague from Mumias, Martin, came to the rescue and told me of free surgery for cleft palate repair happening at Nybondo Hospital on the 23^rd May. Nybondo is a couple of pounds cost away from Kisumu. I received confirmation that Marion has been booked in for her surgery on the 23^rd, I get to tell her about it on Tuesday. Hopefully (every part of my body that is crossable, is crossed right now) I’ll be able to update you on how she is doing, post surgery, in a month.

In the next blog or 2 that I write, I will hopefully be putting up a link for my Indiegogo Campaign that I hope to go live before the end of May. This is a website which enables me to put up a video of the work I am doing here, with reasons why I want to stay, in the hope to raise the funds for me to be able to come back again next year.

My target is $10,000   :-s 

To put it into perspective of how far that will go - $500 will cover the costs of me doing Speech and Language Therapy across Western Kenya (Vihiga, Kisumu and Mumias) for 3 months. This includes training, transport and resources. 

I hope it’s achievable, because like I said, this is not a place that I want to leave without knowing that I’m coming back...

The 'miracle' that is Maurine

I wrote about a young girl last year called Maurine who, due to poor/mis-treatment of meningitis, had been in an almost vegetative state for 5 years. David and I had taken her to hospital to see if anything could be done for her, and unfortunately we were told that she could have a CT scan, and possibly remove fluid on her brain, but that it wouldn’t make any difference to her quality of life... And, the reality was, we were waiting for her to die.

When I came back to work after being off for a few weeks over Christmas I’d noticed that Maurine was much more alert than she had been previously. Although, no expression, she was now following people around the room with her eyes and seemed more ‘awake’ to the world.

3 weeks ago Maurine spoke for the first time in 5 years.

Last week she was shouting at the Occupational Therapist during her session full sentences in Kiswahili. “I’ll pinch you if you don’t stop!!” “My back hurts the most”...

Last week she asked me my name and could tell me that she was called Maurine. 

She is constantly talking to her mum and being very demanding... We’re all like ‘keep telling us what to do Maurine, keep shouting!’

Maurine has a severe physical disability, and is unable to fully extend her arms – for the last 5 years she has had them curled up to her chest, now she can put her hand out to shake mine as a greeting. 

Never in my short career as a Speech and Language Therapist have I ever come across a recovery like this.

The OT has worked in this field for over 20 years, and has never come across a recovery like this.

And the best thing is... Maurine has told us what school she wants to go to. And more than likely, she’ll go there.

It's all become very 'normal' here....

I was asked the other day why I hadn't written blog for a couple of weeks, and I was like, I don't really have anything to write about. It's a very strange feeling when working with pretty much no resources, with some of the poorest people in the world, with the most complex difficulties/disabilities, suddenly becomes.... Normal...

I had a really interesting meeting this morning with Dr. Fred from Kima Hospital in Emuhya about how we can start up the epilepsy clinic at the EARC again. It used to run really successfully, not only providing people in the local community with a free service of treatment and review, but also offering really affordable prices for medicine that meant everyone could access the treatment they needed. Unfortunately, corruption and greed got in the way of it continuing, but there is such a need here I have decided to use £100 of the money that was kindly donated by my friends and family before coming out here to start up the clinic again. Far too many of the children I assess have undiagnosed epilepsy so any SLT intervention is pointless, if every day they are having seizures, every day they are likely to regress in their abilities. Like all disabilites here there is a huge stigma attached to people with epilepsy, so much so I have even met a family whose son eats from different utensils than them incase they 'catch' it. Not only will the clinic treat the children and adults in the community, but through two amazing volunteers that do outreach work through the EARC, awareness will continue to be raised about this difficulty, and therefore reduce the prejudices attached to those who have it.
The other goal of the clinic is to create a small form of sustainable income for the EARC. Profit can be made from selling the drugs, which can be used to pay for the assessment teachers to be able to do their job and follow up on all of the referrals for children with special education needs to schools they make. Statisically most children don't get taken to the school they have been referred to due to many reasons, this money will enable the teachers to find out why, and support them in attending.

I'm being 'business woman extraordinaire' at the mo, trying to formulate a proposed business plan to create a small sustainable business at the EARC to generate income for the long term. Yellow House CBO and the EARC have been relying on Yellow House Children's Services for funding/donations too much, and now, there's no money. We're waiting for Kenyan power to come and disconnect us... Not ideal. So, we're planning on creating a distance learning computer resource. So many teachers and locals are doing distance learning degrees (Wellington being one of them) and they are constantly complaining on how difficult it is researching online because internet cafes charge too much, there's no where for them to just go and use a computer to type up their essay, nor is there anywhere quiet they can sit and study. We have decided to create this 'space' for them... Through the help of a friend's organisation called access:energy we are looking to install solar pannelled electricity, so we never have to worry about the huge bill from Kenyan power, and we have 5 newly refurbished computers coming our way from Yellow House Children's Services... Just got to work out a way of getting the money to get it all up and running.. Look out for our Indiegogo campaign over the next couple of weeks...

Clinically things are going really well. I am focusing on two schools - Madzu Primary School and Kegoye Primary School, both have special educational needs units, both are integrated schools and the teachers are fabulous. I decided to focus on these because the teachers already know how to interact with the kids, and teach at their level. Other schools I have visited haven't even got these skills and I could spend the next 4 months trying to teach them that, not any strategies to support their teaching which I will be able to do at these 2 schools. After discussing this with my colleagues this is a much more benficial approach than me rarely working at any school.
Plus, a welcome to Kegoye which includes me suddenly being called to address and introduce myself to the whole school can't be beaten!!

I also checked on Elizabeth to see how she was doing in her new school and she was already settled. I was welcomed by her big beautiful smile as she proudly showed me her work, introduced me to her friends and modelled her brand new school uniform (thanks to my dear friend and fellow volunteer Skye who let funds to support Elizabeth's mother in buying the things essential for starting school..). Elizabeth's mum and community are so happy with her being accepted into a mainstream school they are starting a support/community based organisation for other families in the community who are suddenly bringing their children with disabilities out of the woodwork no they've seen what can be achieved. An organisation like this could generate income for the whole community... I have promised to help as much as I can in setting it up. Oh, and not forgetting the invite to Elizabeth's Church by her Pastor they can pray with me as thanks...

So yeah, things are ticking along nicely, work is work. Like I said... It's all a bit 'normal' now. I blooming love it though!!!

New Year: New Challenges: New Achievements...

I have been so slack in writing my first post of 2012. There has been so much that has happened over the last month. So much that I am proud of...

I came back to work after an incredible 6 week travel break around East Africa with a friend in tow. It was very surreal to have someone sharing my Kenyan world with, but wonderful to be able to show someone my life here.

The break also did a lot of good in enabling me to be removed from the work I’ve been doing, giving me more time to reflect and decide on how I wanted to use the next 6 months in continuing to create a sustainable speech and language therapy service in Vihiga. That has always, always been my goal: sustainability and the more I’m here, the more I’m reminded of the importance of this.

The other big decision the ‘break’ gave me time to mull over and digest was that I want to stay here. I want to be here as long as possible and as well as my goal of a sustainable service, the next few months are about me working out a way for me to stay...

A dear friend in the UK who has become much more than a zumba instructor of mine, fundraised last year to buy a wonderful little boy I work with called Newton a wheelchair to enable him to attend mainstream school. It was definitely one of my proudest moments as a speech therapist (ironically, not really a lot to do directly with SLT) seeing him in school on his first day! His face said it all!! Not only has this wheelchair enabled Newton to start school, but that school is now inclusive. Inclusive education is the law here, but many schools refuse to have children who have disabilities, even if with a little bit of support they are able to access the curriculum.  Ikumba primary school is now building disabled access ramps and adapting the path to their latrine. Not only these positive changes, but now all of the children and teachers have been “exposed” to a child with disabilities and learn that they are in fact just like them, they will grow up with a positive attitude towards people with disabilities, and therefore slowly start to eradicate the stigmas and prejudices that surround these people. 

Getting children who should be into mainstream school is becoming a bit of a habit of mine now... Elizabeth is a beautiful young girl who has cerebral palsy. Her mum is a real fighter! They came to the EARC to find out which school Elizabeth should be placed in. Immediately it was apparent that this wasn’t the full story, but I carried out an assessment over a couple of sessions to look at Elizabeth’s cognitive abilities and as I expected, she was age appropriate. After chatting with mum about my assessment findings and that I did not believe that Elizabeth should, under any circumstances be placed in a special unit I found out that she had tried to enrol her daughter in her local mainstream school. She had been rejected and almost chased away from the school. Mum wanted Elizabeth to attend this school because it was just near to their house and it would also allow Elizabeth the independence of walking to school on her own/with classmates.

I went with Wellington, Elizabeth, her mum and dragged the Area Education Officer along to the school to discuss it with them. The reason Wellington and I didn’t want to try and place her in an already inclusive mainstream school is because that local school will continue to reject children with disabilities if it’s not addressed now.

Of course everyone was very polite, and after meeting the headteacher in the street after the meeting in the school, it was decided that Elizabeth should of course join the school, nothing was mentioned about the initial rejection (not worth turning people against me when I want to create a positive working relationship with them) and she’s to start school over the next week.

We had our second workshop for teachers in the Vihiga County – went much better than the first one in November: higher attendance, more involvement and ideas generated by the teachers in how to support children in their classrooms with speech and language needs. That’s over 150 teachers trained now in basic SLT awareness and strategies to use in the classroom.

A huge event that happened over the last month was the 4^th East African Speech and Language Therapy Conference in Kampala. It was such a success with attendees from 16 different countries, and something I am so proud to have been involved in. It was a four day conference with presenters from all over the world, including (geek alert. Geek alert) my ‘hero’ of speech therapy Cath Irvine, the co-founder of Intensive Interaction.... and me!!! I co-presented alongside Martin Nafuhko, Occupational Therapist in Mumias about the challenges facing speech and language therapists in western Kenya and what Yellow House is doing to address them. This was our time to showpiece all the hard work that’s been going on over the last couple of years, and specifically now. It was amazing to receive so much positive feedback on the work that we’re doing out here, and it shocked me to realise a couple of things.. 

1.      In Kenya there’s one speech therapist to on average 5 million people (never will I moan about   NHS waiting lists again!)
2. Apart from VSO, Yellow House is the ONLY organisation in East Africa offering a free SLT service.

The next conference is either going to be in Kenya in either September 2013 or January 2014. Either way, I cannot wait to be there!!

‘Placid’ –

I was shocked a couple of weeks ago when a good friend of mine told me I was “too placid”. After looking up a definition of the word, I am so confident in saying that DEFINATELY does not refer to me. For a start, a ‘placid person’ would not have moved to Kenya in the first place. Secondly, there’s no way a ‘placid person’ would last 7 months here, let alone think about all the possible ways to allow her extend her stay...

It’s 100% a man’s world here in Kenya, and Africa. As a mzungu, I immediately get some minor form of respect from the people I meet and work alongside. As a young, unmarried woman that respect is lowered. As a young unmarried woman, doing a job here that does not even exist in the eyes of the government, that respect is lowered even more. As a young, unmarried woman, doing a job here that does not exist and is coming in to various workplaces that 95% of the time is run by men; I have to earn every ounce of respect that I may get. This in turn will mean they invite me into their workplace and allow me to share ideas and knowledge in a way that will hopefully benefit the children they are working with. It has taken 7 months for me as that white, unmarried, young woman with big ideas that means changing a lot of strict, rigid systems here, to earn the respect which will allow me to the job I came here to do – to create a sustainable speech and language therapy service for the Vihiga County. I wouldn’t call that ‘placid’....!!