Sawa, Sawa

There was so much drama with the placement at the hospital and so, in true African style I got stood up by the Director of the hospital time and time again and it looked like I would never get the stupid letter I needed to be able to follow a few doctors around for a couple of days.

The night I got stood up by the Director, a guy in a conversation next to me mentioned the Engineers without Borders and obviously my ears pricked up :) Alberto is an ultrasonographer from Italy and his friend is an engineer from Ireland. They're here to kickstart a free ultrasound clinic and teaching centre here in Kibera - the second largest slum in the world. They managed to get a machine donated, and space in Kibera, plus a guy here to look after it when they leave. I told them my woes about my placement potentially falling through, and Alberto invited me to hang out at the clinic and offered to teach me how to do proper O&G ultrasounds.

I must admit I was a little scared to venture into Kibera. I've heard so much about the place from locals... But it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got stared at, a LOT, but I'm kinda getting used to that around this place. Here are a few pics:

This is just a small portion of the slum - the place is HUGE.

How cute is this little girl...

So I spent two days at the clinic in Kibera, which was great. On day 3 I finally managed to get the Golden ticket which would allow me to hang out at the hospital.

On day 1I hung out in the Labour ward - didn't get to deliver any babies, but assisted in a couple of C-sections, and examined lots of tummies, which was good. I mainly hung out with the Obs Intern, Peter, who was so helpful and so sweet, I fell a little bit in love with him. The Obs Reg who was doing the C-sections looked exactly like Bailey from Grey's Anatomy. That was weird...

I ended up hanging out there till 9. Can you believe it! I've never stayed at hospital till 9 at home...

Day 2 was Gynae day. After the ward round in the morning, through a ward that smelt like a mix between urine and period blood, I hung out in Gynae Casualty and practiced my PV's and speculum skills. About halfway through the day, the Gynae reg had to do what they called MVA's. Now, I had no idea what an MVA was, so I naively went into the treatment room. I kept running through all the possiblities in my head as to what MVA could stand for - MixedVaginal Assessment, Major Vaginal Adventure... It turns out it stands for Manual Vaginal Abortion. An MVA is performed when there is a natural abortion and the os is open. I saw my first few abortions and they were not pretty. It wasn't the standard D&C as you'd expect, it was some other crazy shit man. Think a fat ass syringe, a vacuum, a really big catheter in the os, no pain relief and huge clots everywhere... Nothing in medicine has every made me feel uncomfortable like that did.

Nothing a stiff drink couldn't fix though, and I had my first experience of Zappa with a few people back at the campsite.

Kenyatta National Hospital is actually a lot nicer than I expected it to be. I had heard a lot of stories about the place, dead bodies lieing in the corner, and all that. The only complaints I have are the lack of respect for patients dignity. Being in a developing country, it becomes standard that it's the doctors' right to examine the patients without really asking them, or making sure people aren't waltzing in and out of the room. Which really doesn't sit right with me. Just because you're providing a service and the patients really have no where else to go doesn't make it ok to do a PV examination with 6 other randoms in the room.

On Thursday night I went out to a Jazz club called Soho with a few mates. Lucy is a Dutch girl and is currently working around East Africa as a tour guide for a Dutch tour company. Zelalam is an Ethiopian refugee who came to Kenya when he was 12 or so. He lives in Nairobi but is currently between houses so is staying at Upperhill. Ryan is from the US and he's an ex-marine, who spent the last year in China as a flight teacher. He decided he was over being a marine and wanted to use his skills to help civilians. He's in Nairobi and trying to look for a job with companies that need pilots to drop food into war-torn south Sudan. Kim is also from the US, she's been travelling for about 7 months already and is heading to India this weekend.

I had a such great night. Even managed to pick up after all this time.

I love travelling. I love meeting people. I love getting lost and wandering for hours. I love it all!