Just the Beginning

I have such mixed feelings. I’ve cried more tears over leaving Msambweni than I thought possible—even though I’ve promised to return and visit my family as soon as I can afford the plane ticket, it seems so much more final than the other goodbyes I’ve had to say in my life. Leaving the USA was hard, but I knew I’d be returning in 4 months. This is so much more indefinite. The only way we’ll have to communicate is by writing letters, and letters won’t capture the vibrancy that Msambweni brings and how alive it makes me feel. My Mama and Baba and siblings and cousins have become a real family to me, and being apart from family means that part of my heart will stay with them.

Arriving back in Nairobi was awesome though! As the bus started passing familiar places my heart swelled with a feeling that I was home; I didn’t realize the fondness I had developed for this city until I started to feel a familiar type of relief after getting back to the city, the type of relief you get returning home after a long journey. I stopped at Masrawy, my favorite Egyptian Restaurant/hangout to say hi to all of the staff that I’d missed so much and was greeted with open arms. It was great to see my first host family too; my Nairobi host brother was completely hyperactive when I returned, a sign that he was happy to see me as well. I walked to the supermarket this morning and felt completely overwhelmed (which will probably make my culture shock not as bad when I return to the US—I think I’m getting some of it now). I realized that I can’t hang out outside in the dark when I make my phone calls at night as it’s not safe here like it is in Msambweni. I went and got a chocolate milkshake and a grilled cheese from Java. It’s good to be back. Ups and downs. But definitely good.

Something Mama said to me our last day together has filled my heart with peace. As we said our tearful goodbyes at the bus depot, she said something that filled me with so much hope. “This isn’t the end of our time together, Molly! Now you have a Mama and Baba and a home in AFRICA that is yours, this is just the beginning!”

Computer Shopping in Nairobi

Before I update on my recent return to Nairobi and goodbyes in Msambweni, I want to share a little adventure I had a couple days ago. I arrived back in Nairobi ready to finish (cough basically start cough) my 3 15-page term papers that are due on Friday. As I settled into Masrawy, my favorite Egyptian restaurant/MSID hangout, ready to type my paper, disaster struck. The computer was plugged into a charger in the wall, and one of the waiters tripped over the cord and sent the computer crashing onto the stone patio floor. The screen was in 2 pieces. Thankfully my data was all okay so I didn’t lose the work I’d started or any of my pictures or anything, but I was stuck without a way to write these papers. Luckily my mom needs a new computer, and I’ll be able to get my old one fixed under warranty once I’m back in Nairobi, so we decided that I’d buy a new computer in Nairobi, get my data transferred, and write my papers. I’d bring the old broken one home to get fixed and it would be come my mama’s. This left me with the task of computer shopping in Nairobi… I’ll just say it was as much of an adventure as it sounds like, and matatu rides while carrying large sums of cash aren’t as much fun as normal ones.

I named my new computer Suleiman because it's so cute

Fatuma

Fatuma is the beautiful 13 year old girl who lives with us in Msambweni. She’s the househelp. Until my last night in Msambweni, I was so confused as to why my family, progressive for their rural town, would let a 13 year old be caring for their child and cooking and cleaning instead of being at school. Then Mama told me Fatuma’s story. She lived in a village even more rural than Msambweni, her family struggling to put food on the table. Because of their circumstances, Fatuma was more of a burden than a blessing to her mother, who decided that the best option was to sell her daughter into marriage. Baba heard about this and, thankfully, instead of taking the preteen as his second wife, decided to help. Mama and Baba hired Fatuma and she now lives a life of relative calm in Msambweni, with food in her stomach and happily unmarried. Fatuma is the sweetest, most agreeable girl ever and Mama struggles to let her go home to visit her mother in fear that she’ll get talked into an arranged marriage. She usually tries to have Mariam, Kinanasi, or one of my other sisters accompany Fatuma for some protection. Mama has plans to send Fatuma to learn tailoring during the day once Suleiman is old enough to go to school and she has some time. Then, when Fatuma is 17 or 18 she will have a marketable skill where she can make a good life for herself and she won’t have to rely on an early marriage. I was so relieved after hearing this story—Mama and Baba are helping Fatuma instead of exploiting her, and Fatuma has a good chance to grow up to live a happy, normal life with Mama and Baba on her side fighting for her.

Baby Crazy

My last week at my internship has been the busiest, most exciting week at the hospital so far. I’ve assisted on over a dozen deliveries, and I’ve delivered 3 babies all by myself! I've never felt so accomplished. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity to learn about maternal-child health in a developing country; it’s really solidifying my interests and furthering my passions. Seeing the lack of healthcare the people in the Coast receive has made something click within me. Women delivering babies don’t get epidurals. They don’t get pain medication at all—every birth is a ‘natural’ birth here. The only medication they receive, if they are one of the lucky ones to deliver in the hospital with a trained nurse (there are normally no doctors in the maternity ward), is a shot of oxytocin in their leg within a minute after delivery to help them deliver the placenta and to help prevent bleeding after the birth. I proudly became an expert at giving these shots, but I wished I could have done more. Msambweni is the hospital for people living over 100 km away—I wished I could have done more for those who couldn’t make it to the hospital for their deliveries. I was feeling defeated and lost; what could I do? Then I realized, I’m gaining the foundation I need to do more. I’m just 21, I have so much more time in Africa ahead of me. After I finish nursing and public health school, the limits are endless. I’ll be back, Msambweni.

One of the babies I delivered

Auntie Molly

My cousins have made my time in Msambweni complete. There are between 4 and 15 kids living in the mud house next door to us, some related by blood and some by the ties that bind. The number at the time depends on whether school is in session and who’s sick and whose parents are having a hard time and who misses grandma. When you add all these kiddos to my host brothers and sisters, you have one heck of a soccer game, hair-braiding session, swimming crew, or dance party! One of the cutest things about this group of kids is that they call me “Auntie Molly”… my heart melts each and every time. Even the little 3-year-olds Abdulley and Alex who speak no English will clamor on in Swahili and then insert “Auntie Molly!” in the middle of their sentences.

I can’t fully describe the love in my heart for these children in words, so just know that they mean the world to me and make my sun rise each day.

Anifa showing her Auntie Molly some love

The gang

Wasini Island

Baba, Mama, and one of my Aunties, Mama Anifa (called that because Anifa is her youngest), took me on another adventure this weekend. Mama Anifa and Baba were born on Wasini Island, a small picturesque island off the coast near Tanzania. There are expensive tours to go swim with dolphins in Wasini, but I had the best tour guides—locals who know everyone on the island! The island community is like one big family, and Baba and Mama Anifa still have most of their cousins and extended family living there.

We took a tiny motor boat from Shimoni, the nearest tiny town to the island. Soon, we were in an interesting mix of a tourist’s paradise and a typical African village. One end of the island is filled with hotels and diving companies, but we spent our time climbing over coral and trekking dirt paths to get to each of Baba’s relatives’ houses to pay our visits. At first I was a little bummed we wouldn’t be going to the famous marine park on the island to see the dolphins, but I realized that that was a different experience for another time—this was my chance to see the lesser-known side of Wasini. Everyone was so welcoming of the mgeni (visitor) and I drank at least 5 cups of chai… no small feat in the heat that was somehow even hotter than Msambweni! Mama and Baba wanted to include a little of the more-known cultural activities in our trip so we visited a mangrove and coral garden. The coral rocks reminded me of visiting Stonehenge, except this was completely natural. Mama proudly explained to me that it was a nature conservatory, however 5 minutes later she gleefully dared Baba and I to climb on the coral and see who could get higher! Always up for some fun :-)

The day was completed with a sunset piki-piki (motorbike) ride home through the South Coast. Unfortunately Kenya hasn’t adopted the motorbike helmet laws that I’m so passionate about in Vietnam—looks like I have my work cut out for me in the East African public health policy realm?

Lookin' cool in our sunnies

Lesser-known Wasini

Oh, you know, just holding a shark

Baba and I breaking all sorts of nature rules by climbing the coral

(at Mama's urging, of course)

No Mo' Scorpions

I love it here. I was trying to come up with a list yesterday of things that I’ll like about leaving Msambweni and returning home to Nairobi/America. I thought it would help me feel less devastated that I have to leave this place in less than a week. I started out my list easily.

• 1. I won’t have to check my shoes for scorpions in the mornings anymore!

But then I started to struggle. It turns out a lot of the things I thought I’d be glad to change have become some of the little reasons I love Msambweni.

• 2. I’ll get cold water whenever I want. But wait—trips with my little cousins Faiz and Abee to the butcher to put my warm water bottles into his meat freezer are great bonding times, and I’m so accustomed to my water bottles smelling faintly of raw mbuzi (goat) that I barely even notice it anymore.

• 3. Hot showers. This one is off the list too. It’s so hot in Msambweni that cold showers are lifesavers. I actually get disappointed when the water in the tank has been heated up by the sun and I have to take a warm shower.

• 4. I’ll be able to buy junk food without driving an hour to the nearest big town. Yeah, having chocolate will be amazing, but it doesn’t compare to my daily breakfasts of chapatti and beans and tea that I’m so in love with or the coconut rice and freshly caught fish we often get for dinner.

• 5. I’ll be with my family again. But I’ll be leaving family, too.

Cooking one of my favorite Kenyan foods, mandazi, with Muntaz and Mrashi

It's going to be impossible to leave my cousins

AIDS Hits Home

In most families, the ex-wife doesn’t come to live with her ex-husband and his new wife. In most families, the ex-wife isn’t HIV positive and in desperate need of the medical care available just a block from her ex-husband’s house. We’ve had some interesting changes lately at my house in Msambweni, and they’re teaching me so much about understanding, tolerance, and love.

Mama Abee, my baba’s previous wife, has five children with Baba (More kids just kept coming over the weeks, but I think it’s just 5!). Msambweni schools are on a break for a couple of weeks, so the four of these kids who normally live in various places and boarding schools in the area are in our house living with us, and recently their mom joined us. The whole blended family is now together under one roof. I was trying to figure out how this works—why my Mama welcomes in Baba’s ex-wife, how everyone is able to get along without conflict. Then I heard a song by Matisyahu, and one of the lines made it all make sense: “Death brings life into uncertain things.” Mama Abee has progressed to full-blown AIDS, and isn’t doing well. The notion that she wouldn’t make it much longer if she continued without medical treatment brought the life, the humanity, into this situation. It makes petty arguments not seem quite so important; it makes the love within this family thrive, even in an unconventional place. Mama Abee is now visiting the hospital daily, and she can be loved on by all 5 of her children (who she normally doesn’t live with) every day and receive the medicine she so desperately needs. After studying HIV in a conceptual way for so long back in Wisconsin and then getting a little closer to the disease while working in the CCC Clinic for HIV patients at the hospital, I’m learning so much by actually living with someone suffering from AIDS. I see her struggles, the pain she faces on a daily basis, the love her caregivers show her to give her strength.

The house is full of laughter and love with all of the extra people around, and I’m thrilled with the opportunity to get to know my host brothers and sister better and have four extra kids join me on my daily swim in the ocean. It’s an interesting situation, but my Msambweni family has embraced it and is making it work.

Mama Abee with her daughter Mariam

Extra people means extra chaos at dinner time!