Mbakalo! 7/16-7/27

(another multiple-posts-in-one-day deal, see below for the entry from Ugenya!)

Filippo and I arrived in Mbakalo after a long trip first in a matatu (at one police check they actually asked for Filippo and my passports, but I think the woman just wanted to see foreign passports), then on boda bodas (bicycles) through Bungoma to go to the grocery store with all of our luggage, then back on the slowest matatu with more technical issues than I could believe (i.e. the sliding door constantly fell off the hinges and had to be yanked back into place, the taillight fell off and we got pulled over by municipal police or something, and they took the keys until the light was fixed), and eventually on pike pikes (motorcycles) to the Mbakalo/SOTENI dispensary. After a very brief tour, the SOTENI Village of Hope – Mbakalo Chairman, Wycliffe, drove us in his car to Mama Anne’s house, where we’ve spent the week.

We quickly got to know her grandsons, Lionel, Nickson, Ian and Eugene. They can be entertaining and funny and then they can become obnoxious very quickly, but it’s nice to have kids around. Recently they have been attacking us demanding sweets, which we don’t have. This is going to sound cruel, but yesterday Filippo and I wrapped pebbles in paper and the next time they ask for candy they may be in for a bit of a surprise… You have to understand that when I say they attack us for sweets, I mean literally coming at us and pulling at my backpack and digging into Filippo's pockets in search of tiny pieces of candy. We are just taking measures necessary to keep ourselves safe.

Mama Anne and her family have been incredibly welcoming to us. As we sat at the dinner table the other night, I couldn’t help but think what I had ever done to deserve such wonderful company. While I don’t know how much more of the chapatti/green grams dinner I can stomach, I cannot complain at all about the hospitality.

One aspect of the accommodations that has presented several challenges is the presence of GIGANTIC spiders. They come out at night and lurk near the ceiling, waiting to attack us. Granted they tend to stay up at the ceiling and don’t actually bother us, it is still somewhat terrifying. I didn’t have a big problem with spiders until I spent time with both Mo and Filippo, who seem to suffer from mild arachnophobia (Filippo also seems to fear anything insect-like that crawls or flies, although he is slowly overcoming that). One night we came in from brushing out teeth by the latrines (also an experience because the spiders appear there at night as well and you feel very vulnerable to their penetrating eyes), and I jokingly shined my headlamp on a little insect on the ceiling. In turning to look at it, Filippo shined his light on the most MASSIVE spider I have seen to date, I think. I saw it first and was surprised enough to yell a little, and then he was startled, which in turn made me so scared that I bolted to my room, in the process running into the edge of the door with my knee. The dash is all a blur and all I know is somehow I ended up on my bed holding my bruised knee and laughing uncontrollably. Filippo had made it safely to his room, where I could hear frequent gasps as he laughed uncontrollably. I can’t believe we didn’t wake anyone else up. We saw the spider the next day, and being such accommodating hosts, Eunice, the woman who cares for the house, took a broom to the spider. I am doubtful that it died, though, since we couldn’t find it after the strike. Needless to say I am very alert these days and I examine the edges of my ceiling before bed and before getting up in the morning.

While the spiders have been distracting, we have managed to spend every day at the dispensary. Unfortunately, we haven’t really gotten any of our assignments done, since the coordinator, Simon, seems to have a different schedule (and somehow lost the timetable we made earlier in the week). We have done a lot here, though. We spent one day visiting clients of some of the AIDS Barefoot Doctors, which was certainly eye-opening. The first client we visited was one that Mo had seen during his stay in Mbakalo. During that visit, the client, a 21-year-old boy who contracted HIV while nursing his father who was dying of AIDS, was not even able to sit up on his own. All of his food and medications had to be crushed up for him to eat.

When Mo was leaving, he took a bag of protein powder he had brought but not used and asked that we bring it to Mbakalo for this client. When we visited, I was still shocked to see his condition, but the progress he had made was also encouraging. With help he could get into a sitting position and then sit unassisted for a time, although he still spends most of his time in bed. He cannot speak nor make eye contact, and while his mother told us he tries to speak when his young siblings visit, the only sounds he made while we were there were deep laughs occasionally. He has been started on ARVs, which is good, and he is beginning to be able to feed himself again. Regardless, it was hard to see. I didn’t know what to say or how to help. He is only one year older than I am. He hasn’t even finished secondary school. I don’t know enough about ARVs to know what his prognosis is, but I hope that he has a future outside of that one room in his family’s mud hut. Now I feel like I understand what it means to be losing an entire generation at the hands of this preventable yet incurable disease.

To end on a lighter note, today I introduced some of the dispensary staff to the iPod. Filippo and I have become good friends with Victor, the dispensary accountant. I promised him I’d share a little American music, and I finally remembered to bring it today. I wish I had the patience to post the pictures here because it was hilarious. It didn’t matter at all what song came on, they were all was “so nice” and he started doing these dance moves and then he put his sunglasses on and when people came in to talk to him he just couldn’t be bothered to answer right away. Everyone else got a kick out of it, too. I’m happy to be able to introduce such refined culture to Mbakalo!

Baadaye!