Kenya, 2002

I travelled to Kenya in 2002 with fellow OYS member Peter McKavanagh. When I say I travelled with him that not exactly correct. He had already been in the country for 6 weeks prior to my arrival working in a hospital as a medical student so I actually made the journey on my own. I flew to Nairobi via Heathrow. The flight from Heathrow was only 4.5 hours so wasn't too long. At the time I was a nervous flier but I found my mind was more occupied by the thoughts of turning up in Nairobi airport and finding myself on my own. I told Peter if he wasn't standing at the front of the queue in the arrivals lounge waving both his arms in the air I was not leaving the airport and getting the next flight home.

Luckily I spotted his ginger head as I timidly exited passport control after parting with $50 and getting an important looking stamp in my passport. He was accompanied by a priest from Tyrone who had been living in Kenya for a great many years. The priest drove us to the place we were to spend the night.

I thought I would be in awe of my new surroundings and even a little shocked, but driving from the airport looking from the back of our jeep the environment seemed very familiar and not surprising at all. The roadscape was something I'd seen many times on the news on the television.

We arrived at a walled compound in what was apparently in an affluent enough part of the city. We were both very tired from travelling and got straight into bed when we were shown to our rooms.

The next morning we found our way to a dining hall where a few of the staff were having breakfast. We heard a Dublin accent coming through the door and that was our first time meeting Neville, the doctor, and his wife Jill, the nurse  

That day we went shopping for supplies to bring to the hospital where we were to be working. The hospital was a good four hours drive from Nairobi. Arriving at a very large shopping centre for the first time I was stuck by the inequality in the county. The shopping centre was a large gated multi-story building. There was a security hut and barriers at the entrance.

The range in the shopping centre was incredible. You could have bought anything from diamond rings to cars to computers, plus a massive selection of food in the supermarket. The contrast with what the street vendors were selling was stark. I would have estimated 70% of the customers were white, about 20% Indian and a small minority was black. I would say that probably reflected the economic demographics of the population as a whole. 

Bedding down for another night we tucked in under our mosquito nets and I dozed off on my second night under African skies.

Four of us, Peter, Neville, Jill and I and set off with a local driver in a pickup truck for the hospital bright and early. Three rode in the front and Peter and I sat in the back on top of the supplies. The initial part of the journey was interesting as we took in the sights and scenery, and discussed the environment we found ourselves in. After four hours there was a jolt as the road suddenly stopped and we were on a dirt track. Apparently funds had been allocated to the governor of the area to build the road for an extra 50 miles, but he had spirited the money away to a Swiss bank account for when he decided to flee the country. We began to learn from talking with the locals that corruption was a great scourge on the country and was rife from the lowest official right to the top.  

The hospital was a largish compound containing four wards, a convent and six houses behind it. We were made very welcome by the nuns, and they invited us in for tea. We felt humbled to be in the presence of these ladies. It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for a young woman to leave Ireland, as many of them had, and go out to Africa on the mission and still be there 40 years later. The chief administrator of the hospital was a Mercy sister who also was a qualified doctor. She ran the place extremely well. The hospital was always clean and organised and speaking with the one Kenya doctor who was there he told us it was one of the best run small Hospitals in the country.

Peter, Neville and Jill went off to the wards to do medical things and save lives and the like. I was shown into a room and presented with three computers that were older than me. They wanted Windows installed on them, but I had to explain that wasn't going to happen. The sighs of disappointment made me question what I was there for and was there any real need for computer programmers in this world anyway.  

At the time I worked in a bank, so they brought me to the accountant's office. He was there preparing the end of year account which had to be presented to the Hospital trustees. They thought as I worked in a bank I'd be able to help. I worked on computer programming in a bank, so had nothing to do with banking activities. I did however have a degree in accountancy from Queens University in Belfast. Up until then I'd never use my accountancy skills, but they got me working for 2 weeks.  l found l had to adjust to the situation that l found myself in and develop the skills that l had.

I did get some patient interaction when I accompanied the Accounts Clerk on his daily ward round. The doctors made sure the patients were OK and then the accounts clerk had to ask the patients for money. I was a little taken aback by this at first at the patients had so little and I couldn't believe they were charging them.  After all, healthcare at home in Belfast was free. 

The Kenyan Government provided very little funding and a lot of the money needed was raised by the Sisters back home in Ireland. The desire was for the hospital to be as close to self-funding as possible to keep it going.

During my time there, there was a car crash near the hospital in which a jeep had overturned. There were no ambulances, and the dead and injured were placed on a bus that was going towards the hospital. I was in the finance office when the driver of the car was brought into the hospital.  His friend had died and he was physically shaken, and had a few cuts and bruises. It was a reminder that death was never far away out there. The man was treated with great sympathy, but was still asked to pay for the storage of his friend's body and the care of others in his company. I also noticed all those in the car were considerably larger than the men in the village. It came down to the simple fact that the men were politicians who were wealthy and could afford all the food they wanted. Everyone I met in the village was extremely thin because they could only afford to eat a little. That really drove home the level of poverty these people lived in. They struggled to afford the most basic essentials, never mind having money to buy nice clothes. 

Despite the conditions they lived in, the Kenyan people always seemed happy. I did wonder if they were any less happy in their lives than we were in ours with our money and fancy cars. Maybe all humans need to be happy is enough food to survive and good medical care. That is why Mutomo Hospital in which we stayed was so important for the people's quality of life out there.

My admiration for the Sisters who ran the hospital is hard to put into words. These women had given up their whole lives to serve others. The sacrifice they made was very hard for me to understand. We're all only given one life and we're supposed to live it, but these women basically gave theirs away. Becoming a nun in the first place and giving up the chance of marriage and children is a massive sacrifice, but to move to a strange country cut off from your family and every comfort that l take for granted is just astounding. Being in their presence made you feel extreme humble and at times guilty.