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...