Today was back in the similar area as yesterday, just a little further on so another long journey on Kenya's greatest roads! In this area it is very unusual and rare for a kenyan to have seen a 'mzungu' (white person) before! So was lots of stares and screaming children running towards me, was a little over whelming!
Today we were going into the local community and the local school to do dewarming and most importantly the removal of the jigger!
For those of you that don't know what a jigger is; it is an insect that feeds by burrows itself into the skin of a human often under finger and toe nails which can become infected. It is often found on the soles of your feet. The jigger will then begin to lay eggs inside of your skin and you will then become heavily infested. It can lead to loss of toe nails, gangre and other serious infections and sometimes even death. It is very common in povery driven areas.
First off we went to Kanjae school which was a little weird with it being so noisy after visiting the death school the day before you could certainly notice the difference! The children had never seen a mzungu before so they were hundreds of kids running towards me, clinging on to me, jumping on me touching my hair telling me they loved me was so over whelming but was so amazing to be there with them! Posing and screaming and jumping up and down and racing towards the camera for a photo was a funny experience! I then got them to sing for me which was pretty amazing! The school was extremly poor with very little resources at all.
One of the teachers begun talking to me demanding I give him money and that I am very rich and can take him to England which was a bit intense but made him happy with taking a photo of him and his class which was more achievable.
After dewarming at the school we then begun our community visits where we went to remove the jiggers!
The first visit was so heartbreaking it was four young children that had jiggers in their hands and feet and were leaving in exteme poverty. They were extremly frightened spoke no english and were in so much pain they were in tears. They live in something that just about gives them shelter they have nothing no food, clothes, shoes not even anything to slip on but paper. Most importantly they have no parents. There mother walked out on them after finding out their father was a bit of a womaniser and was an alcoholic that just spent all the money that they were able to raise or not even being around. He is never around and if he is he is drunk. The children are not allowed to go to school as they are so poor and dont have clothes or a uniform to wear and are not able to learn from no food, this was just one of the heart breaking stories of Africa, there is so many more like this. But when you find these children and then have to leave them its the hardest thing to ever walk away from, as all you want to do is give them a home and food and a life they deserve and love.
The day certainly did not get any easier, another visit we made me was to an old lady of nearly 90 who was living in just as poor conditions. She had jiggers along with several other infections to her feet along with suffering from many other medical problems. One of the team was a doctor was able to help treat her. Seeing the poor health she was at and the poor conditions she was living in just weasring rags and sleeping on infested rags. We had to burn a lot of these to help prevent further infection and disease through how she was living. Her daughter was also very sick and had HIV but was in denial and refused to accept that she had the disease so we were unable to help treat her.
These are just some of the cases that are so heart breaking to witness, but even harder to walk away from knowing people live this way and people can be so ignorant to such poverty in the world it is more than material poverty but spiritual poverty too. As much as we would love to buy them things and give them what they need its only a short term fix and doesn't help them in the long run. But to know we have helped them health wise can really benefit them.
Today was filmed by a T.V crew that will hopefully gain publicity, and to make other people in Kenya aware of the health issues they may have including jiggers. With it being filmed people will now know how to get help and to treat them which could help more people than we are aware, which would be an amazing result.
To completly remove the jiggers the treatment has to be repeated every day for 30 minutes for the next 2 weeks we have provided them with the treatment to do this to cure this problem. We also fumigated there living areas and all their belongings to get rid of any mosquitos, maleria, jiggers and any infestations that could cause illness or further problems.
Tomorrow I will be visiting the poorest slums in Africa where over 1 million people live.
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