The news coming from Kenya have been distressing, but good work and good deeds are being done daily and seem to matter even more when I hear about the destruction and pain being inflicted. MEAK has kept to its commitment to provide medical care. An eye mission in Amboseli and a heart mission in Nairobi in the early part of the year took place as scheduled and went well. They also completed in the spring a medical mission in the Lamu area. I am awed by Dee Belliere/ MEAK and the Lions Sightfirst Eye team’s courage and dedication. They went up to where the Boni tribe, also known as the ‘honey-hunter tribe” lives near the Indian Ocean in the North close to the Somali border. Over 2000 patients were screened and 66 patients had their sight restored. ( link). Life must go on notwithstanding others determination to wreck violence and destruction.

As usual Dee found a patient in terrible need for care that she was determined to help. The lucky one was Osman Mohammed, a 14-year-old young man living near Lamu and terribly crippled. Several fractures had deformed his leg to such a point that it was very difficult for him to walk. Undaunted by the challenge MEAK’s orthopedic team was able to repair his leg and enable him to finally walk. In part due to Dee’s tenacity this young man has a chance to have a relatively normal life.

The security situation in urban centers is such at this moment that MEAK had to cancel its spring heart mission and maybe also its November one. BUT in typical MEAK fashion the Belliere’s while deeply distressed about not being to continue the heart operations on the spot (Nairobi or Mombasa) have been looking for alternatives.

A couple months ago I get a phone call from Dee from Bengalore. I first thought she was on vacation! I quickly became aware of my mistake. She was there in fact to discuss the logistics and the potential funding for an alternative care option. MEAK’s search for alternative ways to help the Kenyan children had led them to Bengalore, India and specifically to the Narayana Health City with whom MEAK is now teaming up to operate on Kenyan children who are being flown to Bengalore for care.

The clinic in Latakwen has done good work this year, with Nurse Rita seeing an average of 200 patients per quarter. Many are new patients. One aspect that I feel needs improvement is the family planning numbers. It would be great to see them bigger. This would benefit women’s lives and be a good step towards curtailing the growth rate of its population. Kenya has witnessed an extreme population growth in the last 30 years with the greater part of its population now under 30. This growth has been hard to absorb. High unemployment is plaguing urban areas and overgrazing is straining the land in rural areas. I am still supporting the clinic and would love to get the help of a few others generous donors to keep its good work going. Sadly I will not be able to go to Kenya this year, the first time in 10 years. The reasons have more to do with the developments of my life here in New York but I plan to go see the Latakwen clinic in Samburu land in early 2015.

In the meantime I am going to South Africa for the Joburg Art fair where I am joining Diane Frankel and a group from the Getty museum and then off to Zambia with my boyfriend. It will be his first visit to the African continent and my first time to Zambia. Zambia is landlocked with Zimbabwe and Botswana to the South, the DRC and Tanzania to the North, and Angola to the West. I have been playing with the idea of going to Zambia for years now. While loving my bush walks in Kenya (my first love) I had wanted to explore different landscapes; on foot preferably. A while back, an old friend, Debo Gage suggested Zambia with its beautiful Luangwa and Zambesi river, but the opportunity did not present itself until now. I have a new boyfriend with no experience of Africa and I thought a trip to Zambia would be a gentle introduction to the African bush prior to going to Kenya where I have so much history. No need to overwhelm him with too many stories from old times. This will be a first for both of us!