Kid Honesty

Lucy will be 3 in a about 2 weeks.

She’s at the stage where everything she thinks comes out of her mouth (I guess some people never get out of that stage).

Today her winner comments both had to do with Esther our househelp.

The first, announced to the whole family when Esther come out of the bathroom:  “Esther went potty!  Look everyone, Esther went potty!”  Esther was a good sport and laughed it off.

The second announcement was in the car as I was going to pick Eli up from school and we were giving Esther a lift.

“Mom, Esther’s stinky!”   Ok, so yes, she has a particularly potent African odor to her, but I think that I am getting used to it and don’t notice it anymore.

No one commented.  I tried to pass it off and save embarassment for everyone by saying, “Oh, Lucy, I think you are the stinky one!”

She insisted that she wasn’t, kept on with the stinky comments, and then progressed I think to saying it “Smelt poopy” when I told her to stop the potty talk and we were finished with that!

 

Wrong Target

So, it looks like the stork that was stalking me had the wrong target.

The “real” stork made a real visit to Karibu Centre this last week though.

We welcomed our the first baby to one of our vulnerable young pregnant women this week, and what a week it was.

On Monday morning we were informed that the president was declaring Tuesday a holiday.  As in the next day.  National Census Day.   Hey, we’d take a day off!   We were lucky enough though to be informed by one of the nearby elders that our house would be first on the census roundup and to make tea for him at 7pm Monday night.   The census itself was pretty uneventful.  I was glad that we had our “house visit” at 7pm and not at 10pm like our neighbors.

 So, you can imagine my surprise when I heard a rap, rap, rap on my bedroom window at 5am in the morning on our holiday!  I climbed out of my securely zipped up net and peeked out my window to see both of our night security guards looking at me.  “One of the girls is sick” the younger guard mumbled out.  I threw on some clothes and walked over in the still dark morning to investigate.

A short investigation indicated that this girl probably wasn’t just sick, but experiencing some serious Braxton-Hicks, or in premature labor.  We were supposed to have another month or so to go here!  I loaded the girl and our house mother who had arrived one day prior into the car, and off we went to the Municipal Hospital.

Many visits and a day later, Karibu Centre had it’s first mother and son!  Baby and mother are doing fine, and we are busy getting them into all of the necessary appointments they need. 

Beyond that, the whole experience was such an eye opener.  It is something to experience the different foods, or social customs of a culture….and then entirely something different to go with a regular Kenyan to experience the whole hospital/labor/and newborn experience.   The Municipal Hospital here in Thika is the only one around for quite a ways, so it is our option for the pregnant women  here at the Centre. 

I am trying to think of something to compare it to in the States.  I’m not sure that I can.  I guess when you lack the infrastructure to have the necessary number of trained nurses and doctors, then you end up with 15 laboring women sitting in a hall on benches and the floor waiting for the 1 doctor or nurse on duty to make it around to them.  In this instance, it really appeared that the women in the most obvious pain got served first.  Fortunately, at 5am in the morning, with no one around,  a young nurse caved in to the pushiness of a white woman and our girl got seen.  I was pretty proud of myself for pushing her to the front of the line.  Unfortunately, the day nurse didn’t favor me so well, and I had to stay sight unseen in the afternoon after the nurse yelled out, “Who is with that mazungu?  You can wait!”  I’m thinking that the nurse might be bought off with a nice thank you card from Karibu Centre (for bringing the first Centre baby into the world….) and some chocolates.  That should make her a little more willing to like me, for the next mother’s sake.  Either that, or I’ll stay home and let our wonderful Kenyan house mom and social worker do the hospital drops!

For the next mothers, I have learned that the following needs to go into the hospital bag:  Bottle of bleach, cotton rolls, washing up basin, hot water thermos (for tea), and nappies and other clothes for the baby.  Silly me, I just packed clothes for the mother and baby this time.  Who woulda thought that one had to provide their own sterilizing solution, cotton and wash basin???  Good thing there was a nice little shop outside the hospital perimeter selling the necessities.  Quite handy!

The local hospital experience was sobering.  Too many patients, not enough staff.  No supplies.  Sanitation standards that we haven’t seen in the States in decades.  Wheel chairs without their wheels and foot rests.  Hospital beds leaning to one side (perhaps because they are sitting 3 people deep?).  And oh the smells emanating from those buildings.  They really don’t translate into type.

I am thankful that we have access ourselves to good medical care and that through the work of the Centre we are able to ensure better medical care for these women than they would ever be able to receive otherwise.

 

Until now, diapers seemed normal

You know how in the states you just assume that any kid who is NOT potty trained is pretty much in diapers or some type of equivalent?   Silly me for assuming that such would be the case here!

I guess in the program planning here we (or at least I) didn’t consider that there would be little kids wandering around letting nature take it’s course wherever and however….without diapers, or nappies, or underwear.

Let me paint a visual picture for you girlfriends there in Portland with young ones.  Imagine a Portland Public Parks, or Tualatin Hills Parks Play Gym day….with 50 little kids…..all without diapers or underwear!!!  And no experience using toilets.

So, it truly is a miracle that we have not been peed on or pooped on more than we have.  Megan takes the award for actually having a kid poop on her while sitting on her lap.  That whole wet, warm feeling when it shouldn’t be there!!!  I haven’t had the pleasure, just some piddle all over my pants.  I have had the not so awesome pleasure of having to clean up after some kiddos have stood in class and just let loose….wow…I don’t know about you, but I hardly enjoy cleaning up my own kids poo, let alone someone elses when it is all over their pants, their legs, all the way down to their socks and shoes.

With all of that said, these little kids are making amazing progress….in just a few weeks time they have gone from being clueless over how to to use a squat toilet and running wild all messy to being able to walk single file in a cute little duckie type line to the bathroom where they are able to potty and wash appropriately.  That is a great life skill!

So, if you have any grand ideas on how we can move (a whole group of children from the slums whose parents can’t afford diapers, let alone a single nappie or plastic pants) to something more hygienic for all of us, let us know!  We thankfully have some extra baby/toddler clothes on hand here at the center, so we can change them into something clean and dry.  You are all welcome to always send over any used clothes 6months – 4 years on over, they are always put to good use.

 

Mission: Denied.

Last week Ian got to leave mid day for a meeting in Nairobi and then hopefully to pick up Megan from the airport.

Since her plane was delayed, so was  he, and he just hadto spend the night in Nairobi at the home of friends.   He called me that night to check in on me and the kids.  He was calling from the middle of a movie where he was on a “Man Date”.   Cruel.  Simply.  Not only was he alone without the rugrats in the metropolis of Nairobi, but, he had free time and was watching big screen entertainment!   I wished him well and knew that some day my turn would come.

My turn came yesterday.  We got word that it was time to visit the Nyayo House to complete paperwork for Megan’s alien card.  Sweet!   We tacked on some errands for the Centre that needed to be completed in Nairobi and were off!

Nyayo House is not an exciting place to visit in itself. Thanks to expathousewifeinNairobi you can see that it  looks like this on the outside:

and the inside is dark, and gloomy and filled with the smell of way to many bodies in desperate need of a shower.  There are long lines (longer yet if you don’t bring an extra copy of your passport and you have to go hunting around town for a copy machine),  lots of sitting here and there, and the final signal to the end of the process:  undergoing fingerprinting like you are being booked in the county jail.

Anyhow, along with the work errands that needed to be run, Megan and I decided to pop into a beauty salon I’d been tipped off to in the first week of my arrival to see if they might happen to be able to squeeze us in.

They were.

And it was pure heaven.  I haven’t enjoyed a pedicure in a while, and this one was especially sweet and necessary.  This Kenyan dust and dirt is doing some serious damage to  my poor feet….which my pedicurist reiterated time and time again throughout her multiple bouts of rubbing an enormously large pumice stone over my foot.  She went on to prescribe that I no longer wear flip flops and switch to tennis shoes or closed shoes.  I’ll opt for the closed shoes.   Shoes are pretty cheap and cute here any how, and if I’m being told that I am doing permanent damage to my feet by not having proper shoes, well then the only responsible thing for me to do is to do some serious shoe shopping.

For the health of my feet of course.

Anyhow, this story ends with us waking early, driving into downtown Nairobi, chatting with our immigration liaison and deciding to meet at the amazing Java House for coffee.

It’s not this one, but this is what they generally look like outside.  A bit like Starbucks actually but with red umbrellas and logos.  http://www.nairobijavahouse.com/

I had a cafe latte, Megan had a green tea.  And then we waited patiently for our  immigration expert to arrive.

We waited a long time, and had 2 unanswered phone calls.  We were about ready to give up when I received an odd call saying the woman who we had just talked to, and who was on her way to meet us, had taken very ill, could not walk, and was being taken to the hospital.

Guess that means we won’t be doing immigration today?

I called Ian to tell him and his response was, “That’s Kenya.”

We’ll give it a go another day.  In the meantime, Megan better behave, cause she’s not really a legal alien yet.

 

Sniff, sniff

In talking with my twin brother Andy and his wife Kori last night

, Ian and I realized that we have not done a post of the “smells” of Kenya. There are some things here that after a week or two, you just start to take it for granted and you forget how unique or different it is.

That is the amazing ability of the mind….to filter out routine or non-threatening stimuli so that your mind can remain alert for new and possibly threatening stimuli. I started an amazing book before I left that talks about this: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dogby Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Was-Raised-Psychiatrists/dp/0465056520. The book talks about the effects of trauma on children (and people for that matter) giving true life case studies. It has a bit of everything….neurology, psychology, funny, sad.

Anyhow, back to the topic of smells. Everything here smells stronger. Whether it is the pollution, or trash being burnt (that’s how most people get rid of their trash…remember my horror of Lucy’s burning diapers wafting in my window), or the trash just sitting by the side of the road,

or Jikos cooking lunch/dinner (a  jiko is a ceramic container held in a metal frame that utilizes charcoal, or another heat source for cooking), or body odor (yes, American are obsessed with smelling clean compared to anywhere else in the world), or the smell of raw sewage (we are SOO lucky to have the city sewer line run right through our property) when the main pipeline gets backed up, or the many smells that emminate from a herd of cows or goats walking down the highway by your car ,

or untreated industrial waste water, or chemicals used on fields.

There is a constant barrage of smells coming at one here, and after a while, the mind tunes them out and you stop smelling them.

We discovered that this was happening when Ian noticed that he was having to wear about 5 sprays of cologne every day rather than the usual 1 spritz it would take at home. He has to use that much just to compete with all of the other smells that are assaulting the nose on a regular basis here.

We had to laugh at the fact.

That and the fact that if a Kenyan (Ok, not every Kenyan, but most) rides in the car with us the smell of B.O. lingers for a LONG time. But geez, you can’t blame them…most of them hardly have enough money to make ends meet let alone worry about buying and applying deodorant.

Ian says he kind of likes the smell of B.O. here. Figures. If you know Ian, it wouldn’t surprise you that he says that! It just gives him the opportunity to try “something new” and go on another deodorant fast.

Chris Livingston: no cancer from deodorant aluminum for Ian.