A successful fundraising campaign for a very successful medical mission in Merti, Kenya

 

 

 

It is October 2017, in Merti, Kenya, a town in the middle of a desert-like landscape where the temperatures average up to 100 degrees under a blistering and relentless sun. Dee Belliere, the founder of MEAK, has gathered a scout, a male nurse and a couple of other volunteers to search for more patients that might need eye care, those that might have been missed at the first round up.

 

 

This is happening while at Merti’s hospital the medical team is screening patients and operating on the ones that need surgery. During the week 2652 patients will be screened, 201 cataract operations and 578 teeth extractions will take place. An outstanding success! I am so honored that through my fundraising campaign I was able to participate and help MEAK make such a difference in so many lives.

I am one of the volunteers for that afternoon expedition and we all climb into the truck that will take us North from the town, deeper into the desert. Merti is located in the eastern part of the Isiolo district in Northern Kenya.

 

During the drive I stand in the truck, and lean out of the window to better take in the azure sky dotted with small white clouds, and the flat sandy barren landscape that unfolds around us. There is very little to look at. There are no exotic leafy tree, nor the ubiquitous acacia tree, no bush or plant and no distant mountain to admire. In the very far distance and only seen with binoculars trees with weaver nests hanging on their branches, like fluffy decorations are possible points of interest.

The emptiness is deceptive however; it is mirage-like. When we stop for a photography moment the emptiness slowly becomes alive.  A tiny spot in the distance is actually moving.  I wait, and as time unfolds and my eyes adjust, the image expands. The dot metamorphoses itself into a human figure . I discern one donkey, then two, then three! I am intensely aware of time, space, and movement. I smile.

I find myself strangely happy! This landscape devoid of seductive luxuriousness feels so freeing. I feel at peace. Maybe it is in this bareness that I can truly be in my own skin, no longer compulsively distracted; Nothing to cling to, to romanticize, or to ruminate about.

I remember ten years ago the first time I felt like that. My then lover and I were driving north to go to Marsabit. We drove in silence, his attention solely focused on the treacherous road and mine on the increasing desert like landscape. We were in synch, I remember feeling. A Kenyan safari guide, farmer and conservationist who thrives on harsh conditions, he could feel I liked the bareness, the starkness and harshness of the land with the occasional herdsman and camels appearing along the road. I have no idea why it felt right perhaps because both of us had so much to let go of: He, a deceased wife, and I, a failed marriage and loss of family life. That stark landscape suited our broken hearts. I have since gravitated towards the North of Kenya during my yearly visits where conditions are harsh and the land can be unforgiving yet so deeply moving.

We did meet a little boy who has one malformed foot and Dee immediately gets on her phone and makes arrangements for him to be seen in Nairobi. She will have to find the money to pay for this.

During this time in Merti I am mostly a witness. I observe the MEAK medical team screening, giving care, doing surgeries and MEAK leadership making plans for the next eye missions. I offer my help where needed. Accompanying us are a photographer, Tom Munro and a video maker in charge of documenting the mission.

We all sleep in the same make shift camp, in the middle of the town and eat at the same table in the mess. The mission is going well, no unexpected complication has cropped up. However something is making me uncomfortable. At each meal the medical team, all black Kenyans, sit together at one end of the table and the rest of us, all white women and men from England or the US sit at the other end. Granted, many (the team and us) are on our cell phones, the team prefers to speak Swahili, and this is not a social occasion, but still I feel uncomfortable with this racial, cultural, and hierarchical divide and distance. I express my discomfort but lethargy prevails on both sides until the video artist starts to interview each member of the medical team and their stories become heard. That is the beginning of a slight change, a relaxation of that distance.

The real shift happens when a snake appears while we are all hanging in the yard. It slithers quietly towards one of the huts where a tent had been erected. I notice it and ring the alarm. Mayhem ensues. Everyone is searching for the snake, first in the hut and tent then in the adjacent huts and tents! I ask: Do snakes go up walls? Can it have really traveled to another hut?

Nobody knows but every one is acting as if there is nothing stopping this snake. The driver refuses to sleep in the doomed hut and decides to sleep in the Land Rover. Some of the female nurses decide to sleep in the bus parked in the yard. All of us are talking to each other, laughing and forgetting our differences, united in our fear of the snake!

By the last day we are sharing stories about dating in different cultures and communities. We have not become best friends but we feel closer, we shared something. We are more ready to sit next to each other and inquire about each other’s lives.

 

I also watch the comings and goings of the people who live in Merti. They belong to the Borana tribe. I learn that they have more in common with people in Ethiopia then other Kenyan tribes. 99% of the Borana tribe lives in Ethiopia! It sure brings home the craziness of the original partitioning of the region by the Western powers. The people from Merti feel a bit forgotten by the government in Nairobi. Very little government medical funding reaches them and with the endless nurses strike in the country, there is almost no activity in the hospital. They are extremely grateful for MEAK’s medical help.

 

 

I discover a peaceful community. It wasn’t always so I am told. Three years ago you could regularly hear gunshots. Today the sounds I hear – crying children, the occasional motorcycle or car passing by, the yellow weavers chirping away, the sounds of goats and obviously the call for prayers, as it is a Muslim town – suggests that times are better. However, the relentless heat and drought are a big strain; during three days of our time there the charity organization Action against Hunger was distributing food to mothers and children. Life is precarious here.

 

On our last day the community and its dignitaries express their gratitude to all of the team and the elder women of the town sing and dance for us. We all get scarves, tunics and wraps!

Thank you all of you who have helped!

The next day we fold camp and wait for the plane from Tropic Air  to take us further north in the Ndotos mountains where we will hike for the next 7 days. It took us a while to  find the airstrip! Another adventure! Check out my next post for more images of the hike .