The breakfast room on this morning was very quiet. This was our final day in the camps and melancholy feelings were setting in. Around the room I could see silent tears beginning to fall and team members clutching each other. We are all thoroughly exhausted, but we have shared a very special time together. Our emotions have run the gamut from high-high to low-low and we have formed friendships that will last many years to come. Somewhere in the parallel universe we call "home," our families and friends await our return. We miss them terribly, but leaving each other and this place will be very hard. A full day's work still lay ahead and we were going to need a large supply of tissues to get through it.
Our patient flow today was steady but not frantic. The slighly slower pace, when we can afford it, gives our team more time to spend teaching the moms how to prevent the illnesses we're seeing. Throughout the mission, our team has done an outstanding job with the education piece of healthcare, but some days they've felt rather rushed, knowing how many patients were still waiting to be seen. Today and yesterday, that hasn't been the case.
The concept of illness prevention here is still very new and a plan to implement it sorely needed. Based on what we've observed, many of the basic components already are in place even in the slums. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available in abundant quantiti
es and varieties at affordable prices. Likewise, eggs, milk, and other sources of protein and calcium. People in the slums must walk nearly everywhere they go and even though there are few actual playgrounds, the children run and play in any open space they can find. At least a few homes have TV; we've seen the big satellite dishes, but they don't seem to lure the children into a sedentary lifestyle. Childhood obesity is not an issue.
What the people here need most, it seems, is a few good health educators to help them connect the dots: wash your hands, boil your water, brush your teeth, eat your veggies: very simple and basic stuff. That's not to say the job will be easy. Old habits die hard, as we know, but creating new ones isn't impossible. I sat in on a few of the sessions in our camp being conducted by local health educators and was pleased to see hand shooting up all over the room during the question and answer periods. Kenyans tend to be quiet and soft-spoken people, so their eager responses were all the more indicative of their desire to learn. The sessions were conducted in Kiswahili, most of which I couldn't understand, but the body language and reactions of the audience were enough to convince me that they were tuned in.
During the many times I've been interviewed here by the local media and officials from the Kenyan Ministry of Health, I've been asked what could be done to improve the conditions here. In every case, my mantra has been: clean up the trash and get to work on illness prevention and health/wellness education. I hastened to add that I'm not an expert; these are just my team's observations. We'll probably never know whether or not what we said has made any difference, but given the opportunity to speak, it doesn't hurt to try.
Our patient flow today was steady but not frantic. The slighly slower pace, when we can afford it, gives our team more time to spend teaching the moms how to prevent the illnesses we're seeing. Throughout the mission, our team has done an outstanding job with the education piece of healthcare, but some days they've felt rather rushed, knowing how many patients were still waiting to be seen. Today and yesterday, that hasn't been the case.
The concept of illness prevention here is still very new and a plan to implement it sorely needed. Based on what we've observed, many of the basic components already are in place even in the slums. Fresh fruits and vegetables are available in abundant quantiti
es and varieties at affordable prices. Likewise, eggs, milk, and other sources of protein and calcium. People in the slums must walk nearly everywhere they go and even though there are few actual playgrounds, the children run and play in any open space they can find. At least a few homes have TV; we've seen the big satellite dishes, but they don't seem to lure the children into a sedentary lifestyle. Childhood obesity is not an issue.What the people here need most, it seems, is a few good health educators to help them connect the dots: wash your hands, boil your water, brush your teeth, eat your veggies: very simple and basic stuff. That's not to say the job will be easy. Old habits die hard, as we know, but creating new ones isn't impossible. I sat in on a few of the sessions in our camp being conducted by local health educators and was pleased to see hand shooting up all over the room during the question and answer periods. Kenyans tend to be quiet and soft-spoken people, so their eager responses were all the more indicative of their desire to learn. The sessions were conducted in Kiswahili, most of which I couldn't understand, but the body language and reactions of the audience were enough to convince me that they were tuned in.
During the many times I've been interviewed here by the local media and officials from the Kenyan Ministry of Health, I've been asked what could be done to improve the conditions here. In every case, my mantra has been: clean up the trash and get to work on illness prevention and health/wellness education. I hastened to add that I'm not an expert; these are just my team's observations. We'll probably never know whether or not what we said has made any difference, but given the opportunity to speak, it doesn't hurt to try.
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