Food Distribution

Today at the clinic we had the food distribution day. The distribution happens every other monday for malnourished kids 5 and under and also pregnant women. Every child and woman has their height, weight and mid upper arm circumference measured to see if they improve with the food they are getting. There were the most kids they have ever had today and we used all of the food that we had. The food is a corn soy blend that is mixed with fortified vegetable oil. The food is from the World food program and each child gets 3.5 kgs. First the children have ration cards filled out where we recorded all of their measurements and if they had any other problems like kwashiorkor. This is where the child has become swollen due to a lack of protein in their diet. After there cards are filled out they wait in line for their food which all had to be mixed and measured for each child. After 2 weeks if the child has improved they are discharged from the program and another child is taken in. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work today. There were so many people there that all had to get weighed and measured and given food it took the whole day to get them all done. It was really nice to see how many people the clinic is able to help by giving them food. Unlike in Canada these families can not afford to buy much especially anything with a substantial amount of protein. Meat is very expensive for them and this program is a great way to help the kids get the food and nutrition they need.

The Weekend

We had a very fun weekend in Nairobi. On Saturday we went to the mall for breakfast, we were very surprised at the size of the mall it's huge! After breakfast we went to the movies! The movie theatre had two screens one with Winnie the Pooh and one with Captain America. We went to Captain America which cost a whopping 4 dollars! The theatre was very nice, it broke halfway through and we had to switch but other than that it was great! On Sunday we visited the elephant and rhino orphanage which rescues orphaned animals. Most of the animals are orphaned due to poaching for tusks and rhino horns. The elephants were so cute and the keepers fed them bottles and they had a nice mud bath. The orphanage was started in the 70's and has been rescuing orphaned animals ever since. At the Giraffe centre we got to feed the giraffes and get kisses from them! It was really fun and nice to see all of these areas started to help protect and preserve the wildlife of Kenya. Overall it was a really fun weekend! Tomorrow at the clinic is the feeding program for HIV + patients, we will be helping to do quick checkups on the patients in the program and also distribute the food it should be a very busy day!

At the Clinic

Today was a very busy day at the clinic. There was a maternity clinic today for all the babies to come in and get vaccinations. Also pregnant mothers came in to have checkups. The babies are all very cute, before they got their shots we had to weigh them and measure their height. After doing that we had to plot their height on growth charts. Almost all of them were under weight or quite low, except for one or two that were average. After being weighed they went on to get their shots. Ange got to give all the babies their shots, which was a really good experience as she has never given needles to a baby before. James the nurse showed her how first and she did all the rest. The babies got shots for pneumonia, TB, hepatitis and polio. All the babies cried so much when they got their needle one of them sounded like it was laughing hysterically it was very cute! The pregnant mothers that came in got checked to make sure the babies were in the right place and that they had a strong heart beat. Of course this is all done by palpating since their is no ultrasound in the clinic. The nurse showed us how to tell how far along the pregnancy is by counting the number of finger widths the baby could be felt above the belly button. Two of the mothers were expected to give birth any time! Then we checked the iron levels of the pregnant moms and not surprisingly all of them are very low, in fact if they were in Canada they would be classified as anemic however in Kenya the value to be considered anemic is much lower so many of them were just considered low. It is interesting to see the difference in health standards here for example in Canada you are not even allowed to donate blood if your iron level is below 25, and the highest measured level we saw today was 12! We gave them some counselling on good foods to eat to help increase their iron however it is quite expensive to buy meat here which is probably why they have such low levels. We also gave them iron supplements but this is of course only a temporary fix. It was a very busy and interesting day we are looking forward to Monday as there is a food distribution center at the clinic that day!

Our First Week

We've landed in Kenya! We got here last thursday late at night and we have just internet now! The first 3 days we went on a safari because we couldn't start at the clinic until Monday. The safari was great we saw lots of animals, it was amazing! Kenya is such a beautiful country full of amazing wildlife, and huge forests full of monkeys and baboons. Also while on the safari we visited a Masai family to learn more about there culture and traditions. It was very interesting, they build houses out of mud and sticks, and use leaves for the roof. Every 6 years they have to build a new house because of termites. They have an incredible and very interesting way of life. We got to our guest house where we will be staying the rest of the trip on Monday. The guest house is great there are about 10 other volunteers staying there al either in a clinic or in an orphanage. Yesterday we got an orientation on how to get around on the busses which is an experience in itself. We also had a tour of the clinic we would be working at. The clinic is named Urishika clinic which means coming together in Swahili. The community in the slum of kibera decided to start this clinic for their people. Every ward was donated by community members and various NGOs. They have both a girls and boys ward, out patient clinic, HIV and TB clinic and a maternity center.

Ange:

Today at the clinic I was working with one of their two doctors. We saw patient after patient. Some of the things I got to assist with were: blood pressures, injections, medications and wound cleaning. Every day at the clinic seems to have a program. Tomorrow, there is a time for women to come in for cervical exams and on friday there is maternity check up. I will be assisting with both of those and anything else coming up. Me and alex also watched a 6 year boy get circumcised. It was difficult to watch but it is in their culture for all men to get it around the age of 12 as part of becoming a man. Another interesting thing the doctor told me was that nearly everyone in Kenya has latent TB. So they don't even test for it. You come and get treatment when you start having symptoms, meaning you now have an active case of TB. Overall, so far its been a great learning experience and really interesting/eye opening seeing how people live in the slum!

Alex:

I am working with the nutritionist at the clinic mostly doing counselling and growth monitoring. Today when I arrived we had several new moms with their babies come for checkups, the first baby was a new born and weighed 2.6 kg which is low. We counselled her on the importance of breast feeding and gave her a pamphlet to help. The rest of the babies were older and were all proper weights, but for some reason the nutritionist said that almost all the babies he sees are too short for their age. It was very interesting to see the difference in nutrition cases in Kenya and Canada. In Canada the majority of cases dealing with nutrition are about obesity and over eating, where as in Kenya there is nearly no obesity and far far more malnourished and under weight people. It was a great day and a good start to our next two weeks.

Run for Kenya

Over the course of the next year we will be running 300 km of road races to try and fundraise for a medical humanitarian aid trip to Nairobi, Kenya. Nairobi is home to Kibera, Africa's second largest slum, home to 1.5 million people. In Kibera clean water is scarce and HIV is far too common. We will be working in a medical clinic in the slums, help us make a difference by sponsoring one of our race KM's.

LEAVING TOMORROW!!

We are off tomorrow to Kenya! We do not know if we will have any internet while we are there but if we do we will be posting about what we are doing and hopefully some pictures! So keep checking and we will try to keep everyone updated! Thanks again for everyone's support, this trip could not have happened without you!

Thanks so much again!!

And the Winner is.....

The iPad draw is over! Thanks to everyone who bought a ticket and to all the people who helped us sell them! It was really fun and really helped us fundraise for our trip, in the end we sold around 200 tickets! We would love to know if anyone has any suggestions or ideas in case we do another fundraiser like this in the future, you can email us at alexporch1@gmail.com or angela.ledingham@gmail.com. Oh right... and the winner is........... you'll have to watch the movie!

As you can see the name was pretty hard to read, but the phone number was clear and they are very excited to get their new iPad!! Congratulations!