History

Dispute over results of the 2007 Kenyan presidential election resulted in widespread demonstrations and ethnic violence. In the first 2 months of 2008, over 1500 people lost their lives, and over 300,000 people were displaced. As many as 12,000 Kenyans made their way into neighboring Uganda.

Early in March, and under strong international pressure to find a resolution, the Kenyan government has signed a power sharing deal with the opposition party – a first step toward lasting peace.

Kenyans have lost family members, homes and businesses; schools and churches have been burned down. Many of the refugees in Uganda say that it is still too dangerous to return to Kenya. Some say they may never go back.

Current Situation and Need for Aid

The Response

In an effort to meet this need, Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) Team Whole Health will bring acupuncture services to the camps they visit. Recent studies suggest that acupuncture may be as effective as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for psychological conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“Acupuncture is a proven, easily transportable, and cost-effective healthcare tool,” says Megan Yarberry, RMF’s Team Whole Health Project Coordinator “We’re hoping to provide support and healing to hundreds of people each day.”

Acupuncture is used as a regular part of many public health clinics in the United States for conditions ranging from mental health to addictions to HIV/AIDS. It is increasingly recognized as an effective tool for people who have been traumatized by disaster, whether man-made or natural.

The RMF Team Whole Health will travel to Kenyan refugee camps to provide acupuncture services.  Local healthcare workers will be trained in a basic acupuncture protocol to relieve lingering psychological trauma.  RMF is arranging continued support for local teams to supply on-going acupuncture treatments.

In addition to providing acupuncture, RMF will make provisions for a temporary secondary school.  Currently the children in secondary are not attending school due to a lack of funds for shelter, teacher’s salaries and materials such as books, chalkboard, etc. RMF is raising funds for a large tent to shelter the children, annual teachers’ salaries, and supplies.

School teacher, Clare Apio, has requested training in stress reduction techniques. RMF will procure art supplies and provide art therapy.  Director of Team Whole Health, Beth Cole, will lead the children in yoga techniques including simple physical and breathing exercises and guided meditation to reduce stress.  The teachers will receive training and be provided with a yoga manual so the lessons can continue when the Real Medicine Team departs.

Beth Cole can be contacted at her email
Megan Yarberry can be contacted at myarberry@turquoise.net

You can help by donating here, and specifying 'Kenyan Refugees' in the Note to Real Medicine.
Please help us to help!

Megan Yarberry's Travel to Uganda - Part I

I’ve wanted to write sooner, but electricity is sporadic and our days are long and full, so here I am on a Sunday afternoon, ready to write.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since we left Hawaii. Took us 5 days to get to Tororo, Uganda, where the first trainings are taking place.

Judah & I flew from Hilo to Honolulu to L.A. to New York to London (where we took the tube to visit the National Museum of History during our 12 hour layover) to Nairobi.

In Nairobi we stopped over at the Abha Light offices, where I met up with my Real Medicine Foundation colleague Beth, and where Didi (who I worked with in December) got us organized, gave us a bit of a crash pad & repacking centre & refueling site before catching the late night bus to Uganda.

Beth had brought most of the training supplies, so had huge and many bags, which we wrestled onto the big, greyhound style bus that would take us on the 12+ hr ride across the border. We set off only 1 hr late, out of Nairobi and into the black African night. Judah and I entertained ourselves with i-pod stories and the occasional flash of village firelight.

Just before midnight, I felt the bus lurch and looked up in time to see the startled wide-eyed stare of a zebra through the front windshield before feeling a sizeable impact. The bus veered, and Beth & I both had visions of the bus rolling, screams, & glass shards everywhere. Fortunately, the driver kept us on the road, although one could feel that something was dragging (zebra? Part of the grill?) underneath us.

After some complicated back & forth, we pulled over to the side and most of the passengers piled out to see the damage. The front grill was completely mangled, and the radiator was leaking freely onto the tarmac. The poor zebra was a ways back on the side of the road, still warm, and almost unbelievably beautiful, even in death.

We stayed there, on the side of the road, for almost 3 hrs, until a replacement bus was sent from Nairobi (ours being inoperable). Around 3 am our replacement bus came. We monitored the transfer of our heaps of luggage, & rode on until the next pit stop around 4:30 am for refueling. I negotiated the obstacle course of cloth & snack vendors to brave the gas station’s public restrooms (floor level porcelain holes, a bit smelly, bring your own tp – some people had used leaves & other materials).

After we’d all piled back on the bus, we were told we had to switch buses again – apparently the one we were one wasn’t expected to be able to make it all the way. We were fairly practiced at loading our luggage, and there was – by this time – a certain camaraderie between the passengers, so the transfer was made in record time.

We revved up and trundled off down the almost unbelievably poorly maintained highway (really, it looked like a logging road that hadn’t been used in a decade, although huge transport trucks and buses competed for purchase on the best parts of the road).

As the sun came up and we drove through the rolling green hills approaching the border, I started seeing buildings reduced to rubble, charred buildings and fields, graffiti saying things like “Kibaki [Kenya’s incumbent president] must go.” I asked one of the other passengers who said that all the destruction I was seeing were the results of Kenya’s December elections, which were disputed, and the effects of which are still being sorted out.

At the Kenyan-Ugandan border all the passengers have to get off the bus & walk across the border (maybe 500 metres) passing through the Kenyan & Ugandan visa offices. As with other crossings I’ve made, a fellow passenger took us in hand, showing us where to stop & which road to take for our documents, and helping deflect the snack, drink & money lending vendors along the way.

A few hrs later we arrived in Tororo, which was to be our base camp for the next 2 weeks. While Beth made a call from the curbside mobile phone services, Judah & I wandered off to get our first corn of the trip – roasted over charcoal stoves on the side of the road. One of the Franciscan sisters met us soon thereafter in a rented car which helped transport our bags to the Travel Lodge Tororo hotel, one of the nicest places in town (although I’ve only managed 2 hot showers – the rest being of the bucket variety, and the electricity is off fairly frequently).

We went straight on to Mama Kevina school, which was established and is run by the Franciscan sisters. The students were there to greet us, with drums, singing and dancing – very sweet, and very energetic. The kids have mostly come from the North of Uganda, where they were child soldiers in the military operations there (which have been mostly on-going for the past 20 years) or whose families were destroyed by these operations or by the flooding last year. Also at the school are AIDS orphans from this area.

Although the care and effort of the sisters is apparent, many of the buildings are yet unfinished (the school having been established only 2 years ago, and with scrambled together funds from various sources). The kids are packed into dormitories without adequate mosquito nets ( so malaria is obviously a big health problem for them, in fact the head teacher-nun had malaria our entire first week here). In a room probably 50 feet by 20 feet there are perhaps 25 3-story bunkbeds, and almost not one spare yard of floorspace. Hopefully, when the next 2 buildings are finished, the kids will be able to spread out some.

There is also a rather amazing bakery, as one of the emphases is vocational training for the kids (almost none of them are likely to go on to university, so it’s important to give them wage-earning skills).

The bakery building and industrial baking machines were donated by folks from Holland. Because the machines take so much electricity – obviously a problem here – the sisters are also building huge charcoal or wood ovens. One wall of the bakery (which is still under construction, and currently is used as a sitting/eating room for the sisters who live rather far from this site) is made of tile made by the people in Holland who were part of mobilizing money and resources for this project.

There are 205 kids at the school, and most don’t have any support from families, so the sisters raise money for their school fees (one has to register for national exams, there are book, pen, uniform costs) as well as for food. The 16 teachers have been basically volunteering for the past 2 years, and so it’s hoped to locate funds to pay them as well.

The students – besides being full-time students – also do the gardening (sweet potatoes, greens, corn, and other things. The students are also making the bricks that are being used in the new buildings – bringing water from a nearby stream, mixing mud and straw, putting them in molds, and drying them in the sun. Lots of work!

After a tour of the school & some passion-fruit juice in the sisters’ sitting room, Judah passed out & I began to hallucinate from fatigue (remember – this was the end of 5 days of almost constant travel – no time in a real bed). A taxi eventually came to ferry us back to our hotel through a full on thunderstorm. We had a bit of masala for dinner (there is a strong Indian influence in food and business here) before turning in for the night.

The next day we met Charles Naku, a counselor from PLAN international who has acted as our facilitator here. Under Plan’s aegis, we have been able to avoid a lot of the red tape that would otherwise have been required in providing services in a refugee camp. Charles has been amazing, easing our way, helping us know who to talk to & how to negotiate some of the obstacles inherent in this work.

We went out to the Mulanda transit center (a refugee camp of Kenyans who spilled over the border after the violence from December’s presidential elections there.) to have a look around, get oriented, and take steps to identify the people we would be training in the NADA 5-needle protocol.

It was a bit surreal to see the acres of UNHCR tents spread across the landscape. We met with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees representative, a woman from Holland named Yolanda (and later met with other folks from UNHCR, Red Cross, Save the Children, World Vision and other relief agencies working at the camp). We explained our mission, she asked some questions, gave us some advice, and we went off to meet with the camp’s block leaders.

Our original vision of training relief workers (from org.s like Red Cross etc.) to do this basic acupuncture protocol had changed somewhat since our arrival. We had learned that most of the refugees would be relocating to a more permanent camp several hours to the north (Kiryandogo camp) the following week, and that many of the relief agencies were pulling out. So we decided instead to train the refugee workers themselves, choosing those that had healthcare or counseling experience back in Kenya.

The camp was organized into 6 blocks = A,B,C,D,E & F. While the block leaders were notified and assembled, we met some of the other relief workers, including Miss Tororo, who was using her considerable charm & looks to mobilize support for various camp activities.

We met with the block leaders in an incomplete brick building – sand floors, & no windows. We gave them a basic description of acupuncture, a more specific description of the ear protocol we were proposing to teach, how we would like to select trainees, and asked for questions. A few brave souls asked some questions, but mostly there was an ominous silence. Charles proposed that we leave them to talk amongst themselves while he showed us around the camp, so off we went.

He showed us how the camp was organized, visited the volleyball & basketball courts, the playground (all dirt surfaces and very well used), and introduced us to some of the other relief agency folk. We sat and talked with Sarah from Save the Children for quite a while – she is a hugely dynamic woman with a remarkable ability to see the big picture, as well as the intricacies of working with such a population (many unaccompanied children, for example, who fled across the border and who are now living in child-headed family groups). She knew most of the passing children by name, and specifics about their situations.

We also visited the school – very bare bones by US standards to be sure, but with a lot of seemingly dedicated teachers (other refugees from Kenya) and headmaster. Charles found us there, and brought us back to meet again with the grop leaders, who had come up with some very interesting questions and concerns for us. For example, were the needles pushed all the way through the ears? Were there powerful chemicals on the needles that we were proposing injecting into their population? Were there religious implications with this treatment? What were Beth & my qualifications?

We took the questions one by one, explaining again the overall framework of acupuncture, and our goals for the training. Then Beth gave me a demonstration treatment so they would have an idea of how it looked. We offered treatment to them, and a few brave souls accepted.

As the first few block leaders received treatment and didn’t fall over dead, more requested treatment until we had needled most of the group. We all sat quietly for 30 minutes, answering the occasional question, and looking back at the many people looking in the open windows.

The mood had changed entirely by the time we removed the needles, and the block leaders were asking if they could be trained, as they really liked the effects of the treatment. We reiterated that we could only accept 20 trainees, and that we would give precedence to those with healthcare or counseling experience.

Megan Yarberry's Travel to Uganda - Part II

We’ve now finished our 2nd training, which took place at Mama Kevina Comprehensive Secondary School. The school was established 2 years ago by a couple of (Ugandan) Franciscan nuns, Sister Clare and Sister Margaret. The primary 3 populations among the students: children affected by the war in the north (including “invisible children” and child soldiers), those affected by the flooding that affected ½ the country last year, and AIDS orphans. The remaining are just plain poverty stricken, or have other, more personal disasters.

The school is secondary, meaning for high school aged kids (although because of interrupted studies, the students range in age from 12 to the early 20s). Because most of the kids will never get a chance at college, the sisters focus on vocational programming. Some Dutch philanthropists organized the building of a bakery, including lots of industrial machines, although the power to run these machines is unlikely, so some enormous wood stoves have been constructed in the back, which will probably see a lot more use. The sisters also hope to offer tailoring, basic computer skills, and some other things, and as a matter of course the students do agriculture (had just planted sweet potatoes, beans & corn) to supplement school food (most students are boarders), and are making the bricks to make the new dorms and school rooms.

The students are full of personality, although some seemed a bit disconnected, and some – as the sisters say – are “a bit cheeky”. They have a reputation for being very good at music (which we later had opportunity to see), and were extremely well-disciplined when they needed to be.

The student body has grown far too fast to keep up with, as the sisters are soft hearted, and as you can all imagine, there are many hard-luck stories around here. The dorms are absolutely packed: 3 story bunk beds set a foot or so apart, & not enough mosquito nets.

Making things even more difficult are the rising prices: food prices have shot up recently (a global phenomena particularly acute in places like this), as have costs for things like mattresses and mosquito nets.

We trained only 12 people this time: 5 are healthcare workers including 2 from the school (Charles, our country facilitator for RMF projects in Uganda, and Immacilat, the school nurse), 2 from the psycho-social ward at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Tororo (their boss had signed them up after seeing our work at the refugee camp), and 1 from Mella clinic – a rural clinic where a staff of 4 sees 500 patients per day. The other 7 people trained were teachers and admin at the school, and they were trained only in ear beads (ie no needling involved) and also in yoga.

I did the training for the needling portion, and Beth taught yoga to the other 7 and the students. I often heard grand hilarity from the bakery (which had a huge open room ideal for teaching yoga to a large group) when Beth was working with them. Most had never seen or heard of yoga, and although the sisters seemed occasionally befuddled by it, some of the teachers – male & female – and all of the students seemed super excited by it.

We offered acupuncture treatments to the students twice, and asked them to write down some of their thoughts. They reported big improvement to their sense of well-being, being more relaxed, and great improvements in sleep. I didn’t realize the full significance of this until I interviewed some of the children one-on-one. We had asked the sisters to arrange for us to talk with a few of the students in order to get a more thorough history & picture of what they’d been through.

The first boy I talked to was from the north. I’ve read a lot about the civil war that’s been happening for the past 20 years in Northern Uganda – the atrocities, the damage to communities – but it was a completely different thing to sit down with one of the people and talk about his experience of it.

The rebels had killed his father when he was 6, after which his village was moved to a camp where sanitation, food, and shelter were abysmal. School was interrupted for 2 years, after which the kids were taught under trees in communal areas. Invasions from rebel soldiers were ongoing, and when he was 18 (in 2006) he and many of his friends and one brother were abducted by rebels. He was forced to carry 50Kg (120lb) bags of salt on his head for days and nights at a time with no food or water, and beaten with spears and sticks to keep up and shut up (showed me scars). His brother wasn’t able to keep up, and was killed in his presence. He himself was forced to kill a few of his friends to “prove” his loyalty, and to prevent being killed himself. He was forced to fight against government soldiers, given a gun, and probably drugged. During one of these skirmishes he escaped, and was later found by gov’t soldiers and returned to his mother in the camp. There he was befriended by Patrick, a seminary student who also works for the school (who has been taking care of Judah during our long work days), and brought to the school.

The other students we interviewed had equally horrific and/or tragic pasts. All of them said sleep was difficult, interrupted, a lonely time for them. One girl said she woke in the night, imagining her bed had turned into a hole in the ground and she was being buried. Another said that when she woke her tears were falling “without my knowing”.

All of them also said that since receiving the treatments, they had slept well, “like when I was a child,” sleeping through the night and waking rested. A couple of the girls said after their first yoga session that they hadn’t felt so good and safe since before their parents had died (these 2 were AIDS orphans).

On the last day we presented certificates to the trainees, and the students performed songs and dances for us for over an hour. The music went from traditional dances & songs to gospel, to songs written specifically for Beth and me. It was extremely moving, totally beautiful. I’m very much looking forward to sharing pictures with folks when we return!

Our little team of 3 has now landed safely here on the coast of Kenya. Today is our first full day off in weeks of working roughly 7am-10pm, so we’re maximizing with pool and beach time, catching up on mail, and looking forward to pizza for dinner after weeks of mostly Indian and African food.

We left Uganda Friday night, accompanied to the side of the rode that serves as Tororo’s bus station by Charles, Sister Clare, and a gaggle of the Mama Kevina school girls. It was nice to have the company since the bus was 1.5 hrs late. We spent the time talking about the week, but also learning & teaching games with the girls, eating roast corn, watching the roadside traffic & community, like the chapatti lady and her kids at work & play.

The bus finally arrived and we were loaded on with tears and hugs. Within an hour we’d reached the border, where everyone has to deboard & walk between checkpoints across the no-man’s land, getting exit stamps for Uganda, and entry stamps for Kenya. By then the sun was setting in its usual brilliant oranges and reds reflecting off dramatic cloudscapes, so the rest of the ride was in darkness. Much of the journey felt a lot like riding a greyhound bus through a pot-holed construction site at high speeds, overtaken and being overtaken by other lorries and buses, with occasional traffic going the other way. A thrill a minute, though Judah says we only lifted onto two wheels once, and at least we didn’t hit any wildlife.

A total of 12 bone-jarring hours later we arrived in Nairobi. We caught a taxi to the airport in the dawn hours (great time to be on the road in the capital as otherwise one can crawl along at a snail’s pace through the horrendous traffic there), with no ticket and no real idea if there were flights to Malindi, our next destination.

We got lucky and found a little commuter airline leaving in the next few hours. Had some food, brushed teeth in the domestic terminal bathrooms, tried to call my contact on the coast, who I’d not been in direct contact with for some worrisome amount of time (unsuccessful).

In the waiting area I talked with an elderly white woman who’d grown up in the Himalayas, daughter of a British shipping line owner in still-colonial India. Her family had moved to Kenya after WWII, living quite the lush life I’m sure. She met & married her husband here, and later moved to France to live out their golden years. He had recently become suddenly paralyzed, & died within a few days. That was a month ago, and she was just now returning to spend her final weeks/months/years in Kalifi on the Kenyan Coast. It was very much like talking to an anachronism, as she was all about colonial life and mentality.

The flight was about an hour during which Judah and Beth slept, and I read the African news magazines in the seat flap. We descended over palm & mango trees and thatched roofs in sight of the coast to a charming teeny airport in the middle of the green. We hadn’t arranged for a hotel, so the only taxi driver in sight listed some possibilities & drove us through town (“ there’s the private Muslim hospital, there’s the post office, this is the Lamu/Mombassa road”) to where he thought we might stay. It had gorgeous grounds (plumeria and bougainvillea are plentiful here), a play area for the kiddies, luxurious pool, stables, bikes for rent – looked fantastic after our digs in Uganda which were lush by local standards but still limited on power and hot water, and in the middle of a dusty town. Unfortunately, the hotel was too steep for our very limited budget (around $75 per night for a double). We sadly refused a room there, and walked across the street to some cottages we’d spied on the way in.

The price was much more within range, but the place was a bit spooky: the front gate had a padlock, the pool was murky & bug-filled, there was an old Indian man who regarded us steadily and silently all the while we were walking around. The rooms were pretty spacious, but pretty dirty (Judah found a cockroach in the fridge), and pretty oppressive feeling. Beth and I looked at each other thinking “eew, this place is creepy” but saying “yeah, I guess we could be here for a while and maybe change rooms when we have more time to look for something nicer?”

Judah, bless his soul, said “ let’s look at one more place; I saw something a bit further up the road.” So we trudged out with the taxi driver (who was walking with us as we figured things out, his car still loaded w/our belongings back at the first hotel), and along the road until we saw a place called “the African Pearl.” It was also set off the road, had beautiful grounds, a nice pool, thatched roofs on all the buildings, vine-woven hammocks and swings hanging from the big mango trees, murals of lions & elephants on the walls. “Ah well,” I thought, “there’s no way this place is in our range.” But after some negotiations, we accepted a large room w/lanai overlooking pool and grounds, including breakfast for about $8 more per night than the spooky place, so there we are, living in the lap of what feels very much like luxury to us at this point in our trip.

I was able to reach my contact for the Omari Project this morning, and he’ll be picking us up to take us to the rehab center in the morning to start the next training session. This is the place that Nina (TCMCH student) and I visited back in December, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they do. It’s one of only 2 sub-saharan drug detox centers, and I think the NADA protocol will be a great tool for their toolbox.

Well, Judah has been patiently waiting for me to finish to we can get that beach time in.

Megan Yarberry's Travel to Uganda - Part III

19 May, 2008 (Monday)

Dear all, Today's our official "wrap-up" day here on the coast: tomorrow we return to Nairobi, flying out the following day.

Of course it all seems a bit bittersweet at this point, having finished all the people part of the work; just some reports to finish, documents to collate & the follow-up. Beth will be going out to the rehab center this afternoon to do some more yoga with the group since most of our time here has been focused on the acupuncture.

This week training the drug detox staff probably went the smoothest of the 3 trainings - in part because Beth and I have found our stride, are fairly well-practiced and know how to piece all the bits together. Also though, The Omari Project has been great about facilitating us and the training - they even supplied us with a laptop for several days to do our reporting and make up contracts, etc.! Quite the treat after weeks of internet cafe-ing it, which always entails walking through muddy puddles for some distance, limited hours of availability, faulty and sloooow connections.

As most of you know, the NADA acupuncture protocol training that we have been providing was originally developed to address heroin addiction, and only later was found to be useful for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (like for victims and responders at 9/11, Hurricane Katrine, etc.). So I have been excited to see how this training would go over with this population of heroin addicts.

We spent the first part of the week at the rehab center in Malindi - meeting under cashew trees with staff and volunteer counselors, outreach workers, and the clinical officer (like a nurse practitioner). The 19 residential clients (all heroin addicts going through detox) prepared lunch for us, and were very conscientious about allowing us time & space for our meetings, being quiet during the yoga nidra sessions & like that. They also were great big brothers and sisters for Judah: played soccer w/him, gave him all sorts of little presents, and spent hours talking and laughing with him and with us. Unless you've worked with drug addicts in recovery, your preconceptions about this population are probably not completely accurate.

The trainees - many who are ex-addicts themselves - really appreciated receiving the treatment as well as learning the technique & material. In our session the morning after their first treatments, most people reported the usual improved sleep and energy, a few said their hearing or vision had improved, lots of clear heads. One guy, though, said he found the treatment to be an "immune booster" and that his libido had markedly increased, so his partner had not slept well at all the night before. We pointed out that this was not the purpose of the treatment, but appreciated his input.

When it came time for the rehab clients to receive their first treatments, there was a lot of hesitation. We discussed their concerns (these conversations were all in rapid Swahili) which mainly entailed whether the treatments were painful, what the treatment would do for them & the like. The acupuncture trainees also started off by talking about all the negatives (if you feel dizzy, if you get a headache, etc.) so when we adjusted the delivery to start with why the treatments would be useful, the clients became more interested. One of the most vocal clients who did not want anything to do with receiving needles in the ear became one of the first to scoot his chair forward for treatment.

The trainees, who had already needled each other several times did a great job and we were able to do close supervision on point location. One of the trainees especially seemed so plugged into the work that I think he must have done auricular acupuncture in a past life - such a natural.

During the time the needles were in, the usual calm & quiet descended except for one guy who just couldn't stop laughing. He had a big grin on his face the entire time, and his fits of giggles set everyone else to smiling.

After the treatments were done, we discussed the experience. Lots of the usual comments: "I felt like I was in paradise," "I feel relaxed & cool," "I feel less stressed." Besides the laugher, another guy said he cried, which he expressed as a feeling of relief and release . . . letting go of some of his past.

He was one of the 3 guys I did personal interviews with the following day. The residential clients tend to be from well-to-do families who can afford the care. The exceptions are those whose communities or extended families have collected for their detox, or those who the Omari Project staff supports out of their own pockets (these tend to be addicts who show very strong desire to quit, following all suggestions and directions in preparing for detox, like decreasing dose, not spending time with old friends, etc.).

Although heroin in Kenya is pretty easily obtainable and cheap, detoxing here (or anywhere) is not so easy or cheap. The Omari Project offers services for the least expense. Those from poor families or no families are unable to pay for the residential detox services (which are about $100 per month). These folks have to rely on the outpatient and drop-in services (which are free at the Omari Project). Consequently, successful withdrawals using only these services are minimal, and Shosi - the project coordinator - is excited to have another tool (acupuncture) to support these as well as the residential clients.

Anyway, by Wednesday afternoon, we traveled to the newly opened Watamu residential facility - a beautiful old Italian home, very run down, but sort of magical building and grounds. There were only 4 clients currently staying here (it opened in May), and one was an Italian girl of 22 who'd grown up in Kenya. Her family runs a local hotel, and she herself is quite beautiful, speaks fluent Swahili, English, Italian and some other languages. She's been addicted since age 15, has a 5 year old son, and came into the center on Monday with a 1.5 gram a day habit, and was also taking huge amounts of sleeping pills. She is actually a good friend and old dope partner of one of our trainees - a beautiful Muslim woman who is smart, well-presented, and totally motivated to stay clean.

Because there were so few clients, we offered treatments to the community around the center. The population is mostly Muslim, so we treated women in one section and men in another. The women came in mostly in full burkas (head scarves & veils), only lowering them when they would receive treatment. We were very careful (more than usual) to ask before taking pictures. The men ranged from rasta beach boys with dope habits to respected elders in the Muslim community. Most of these latter wore Konzo's (the long robes) and embroidered hats. Some had beards dyed red. Lots of character in those faces!

We offered this type of treatment twice in Watamu, and then did a similar day of treatment at the Malindi main office and drop-in center. Graduation was Saturday, and it was sad to say goodbye to this group. I'm looking forward to seeing data on whether the project's success rates improve (as far as #'s of people able to successfully withdraw and stay clean), as such changes could only have positive impact not only on the addicts themselves, but on their families and the community at large.

Hoping all is well wherever this finds you, and signing off from
Malindi, Kenya,
Megan.