Friday 10 February 2012

Bless this our land and nation

After the thrill of illegal activities and travel around rural Kenya yesterday, today has been a bit tame. This afternoon we broke up for half-term. The pupils all looked, (and sounded), happy to be off for a short holiday - they were a lot noisier than usual walking out of the school gates. In honour of the occasion the pupils got to sing the national anthem twice today – morning and afternoon at flag raising and lowering time. It’s very easy to dismiss these patriotic activities in school and write them off as mindless nationalism. It is uplifting watching our ‘scouts’ march into the school's assembly area. It was actually quite funny this morning. I was standing to one side of the assembly and was able to watch the scouts preparing to march in. They all held their right arm up, ready to start marching, and then set off. When you are 9 or 10 years old it’s quite difficult getting the hang of swinging arms and legs in unison. Our two lines of scouts did very well – girls in one line wearing our school uniform, boys in the other line wearing a very unisex blue scout shirt over their own school shirt. (Which they keep on all day - I don't know how they manage it in the very hot weather we are currently experiencing). Arms and legs swung in opposite directions towards the end of the line and I couldn’t help thinking that if they were trying to gain momentum with their movements they just sort of cancelled each other out. They take it very seriously, which is touching, and I really hope that “Our God of all creation” will “Bless this our land and nation”.

During half-term we are hoping that our day scholars will come to school in the morning so that they can continue to have breakfast and lunch during the holiday. It’s always difficult to predict how many day scholars will actually turn up each day in the holidays. I suspect that it will mostly be the younger children this half-term as the older ones will be needed at home to prepare the land for planting at the end of the month. However you look at it life is tough for children in rural Kenya.

It’s no easier for old people either. Today Hilda visited an elderly lady in hospital who has been suffering from a problem with her leg for a few weeks now. She was admitted to the District Hospital this week. Since the beginning of January the lady’s condition has been deteriorating and she is now in a lot of pain. Her leg is badly swollen and, until today, we had no idea what was causing the problem. Hilda prevailed on the sister on the ward to authorise an x-ray for the old lady, which revealed a break in the leg just below the hip joint. The x-ray showed an area around the break that the radiographer said was probably infected. The outlook for this lady is not good. It wouldn’t be in the UK either but at least the care options would be better. In a country where the majority of people have no access to health services the choices for sick old ladies in ‘the rurals’ are stark. This lady’s case illustrates the difficult options facing organisations like ours all over the developing world. It’s a case book example of a “What would you do?” scenario. The lady would have to travel some distance to a hospital able to carry out any of the surgery her case requires, (exploratory surgery to treat any infection or, in the worst case, a very high amputation). Either option carries significant risks and a long period of expensive hospitalisation at some distance from home. Not treating her would mean she remains in a lot of pain and discomfort and, ultimately, faces the very real prospect of dying.  Once you know about a situation like this it’s very hard to walk away from. What would you do? What should we do? What are the long term implications of any of the actions that we might take? They aren’t easy questions to answer.

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