Jam Doughnut

4th January, 2009

My final day in Kenya. I didn't wake up at 6:30am and didn't unlock the clinic. Instead I lay in bed until 7:30am then got up and had a long shower. I then changed into some swimmers and went down to the pool and had a swim for 30 mins. Drying off I moved across to the breakfast area opposite the pool and had a lovely breakfast. Fruit, toast and jam. I avoided the hot food as I was going out to lunch with Mike and Evelyn at the Mathago club so wanted to save room for that.

Back up in my room I fired up the computer and saw that Mum was online. I took advantage of having an internet connection and fired up iChat for a video conference with her. During the call I showed her a few photos of my trip. It was good to see her and Doug again. After the call, I saw that Hank was online so also had a chat with him and Tehani. Again, it was good to have the connection to someone back home.

Last night when I had got into the hotel, I had fired off a quick email to Brendan. I had thought of him from time to time during my stay and thought, not only would he get a lot out of this, but he could contribute a bit too. I have already decided to return to Kenya in August to undertake some larger projects. This time though I would like a bit of company to help achieve more. Brendan was one of my first picks. I had written a brief summary of what I had done, what I planned to do and asked if he would be interested in joining me. I included a photo of one of the orphans at the end of my appeal for his assistance. When I checked my email in the morning I was pleased to have a reply from him. It started, "You had me at hello!". I was so happy that he was willing to help. I now needed just a few other people to help undertake the new projects. As an added bonus, Brendan had grown up on a farm so was reasonably handy in a rural environment. Plus he and I had done some basic carpentry projects when we were living in Japan building furniture for our beach house.

The children have only a single set of swings between 50 of them. One project I wanted to attempt on my return was to build them some more playground equipment. Not that I've done anything like this before but I'm sure it couldn't be too hard and I had about 8 months to do some research. The other more important project was to help make the home a bit more sustainable. To do this, I wanted to build a cow pen and chicken coop. This would not only provide the kids with free milk and eggs, if there were any excess it could be sold and used to offset other expenses like rice and meat.

As I was waiting for Mike and Evelyn to arrive I sat at the computer catching up on world events. I had the overwhelming desire to burb and when I did there was a familiar sulphur taste. Giardia Lamblia. Perfect. This is a waterborne virus that can be got from either unclean water or fruits and vegetables washed in unclean water. I had caught this before in India so knew what the effects were. It manifests different ways in different people. For many people it is accompanied by diarrhoea and malaise. The third most common manifestation is excessive gas (burping and farting). That is the one that I've tend to get in the past. For me it is more of a burping thing. The gas build up gets to bad that unless you burp every 15 - 20 mins you will find yourself in extreme discomfort. It normally takes about 8- 10 hours from the first signs until it's at it's peak. It can take 24 - 72 hours for the effects to subside. This is exactly what I needed for a long flight!

About 20 minutes later it was time for Mike and Evelyn to arrive. I went downstairs to wait for them and sure enough they arrived 5 minutes later. As the car pulled up I was surprised to see two other passengers in the back. I had been expecting Milicent, Evelyns sister, to come along but in the car was her daughter Tracy. Tracy was supposed to fly back to Monte Carlo on Friday night where she is studying. As i got in the car, I inquired why she was still here. On Friday night she was called by the airline prior to her leaving home and told that the flight had been cancelled and she would have to take the Saturday night flight. On Saturday night she went out to the airport, queued to get in, checked in and waited only to have the flight cancelled again. They were going to put her on the Monday morning flight now. She had spent a considerable time at the airport and generally being stuffed around but none of this had changed her radiant outlook on life. I guess being Kenyan, she is used to this sort of thing.

We arrived at the Mathago club to typical colonial style service. Immaculately dressed African men served us drinks, gave us menus and showed us to our table. On Mike's recommendation I went for the curry buffet. It was surprisingly good consisting of separate beef, chicken and prawn curries with the standard range of Indian condiments. This I washed down with a gin and tonic in an effort to stave off any further infections. A longish lunch turned into tea and cakes in the afternoon on the garden. Whilst the ladies enjoyed their tea, Tracy and I sipped a nice cool glass of wine. It really was quite a decadent afternoon. Along with the traditional Devonshire tea accompaniments of scones with clotted cream and jam, where cucumber and watercress sandwiches and strangely enough jam doughnuts. These round glazed treats stuffed full of bright red jam were being eaten by many people around us. Most of them were children but it seemed almost every plate had one. Evelyn and Milicent

At around 5:00pm we left the club and I was dropped back at the hotel. We all bade our farewells and I promised to return around August for a repeat performance. I went back to my room, caught up with a bit more online news, and packed my bags ready for this evenings departure. At around 6:30pm I decided that a power nap was in order so set the fog horn alarm for 7:30pm and promptly fell asleep.

At 7:30pm I leapt 10cm from the bed as is the customary response from being roused by a fog horn. Feeling a bit fresher I started to do some writing. Unfortunately, the giardia had not finished with me and I spent the next two hours burping more and more as the effects of the giardia took hold. At about 9:15pm I went downstairs to reception to check out. It was a very prompt and efficient service and scarcely 5 mins later I was ready to leave the hotel. I was big goodbye by name from several of the staff that had come to know me over the last 24 hours. It was a genuine farewell and one of the guys on reception gave me his email address and told me to let them know when I was coming back. Obviously the manager had told them what I had been doing for the last week because they thanked me for coming out here both from themselves and on behalf of the children of Kenya. I was so touched.

Several staff walked me to the door, loaded my things in the car and within moments I was in leaving the Serena, the orphans and Kenya. This was goodbye for now but I was already planning my next trip back.

This was a good day.