Today, I think I experienced the most intense range of emotions I have ever had.
We spent the day in Kisumu, Kenya, visiting health clinics and homes that have benefited from PEPFAR (the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) funding. Our first stop of the day was Miriu Health Centre, where treatment is free for women and children. The men we talked to were really informed about all aspects of the clinic, including the knowledge that their mother-to-child-transmission rate for HIV is about 5 – 10%, which I think is pretty amazing. When a woman is HIV positive, they start her on antiretroviral medications (ARVs) at around seven months, and then give both her and the baby drugs during labor. The child is tested at six weeks, and then again at 18 months.
One of the other things the clinic provides for women is HIV counseling. When a woman (or man) finds out she is HIV-positive, the doctors offer her counseling to help her learn how to take care of herself. Pregnant and nursing mothers also get counseling to teach them how to take care of themselves and keep their children from contracting HIV. While the clinic has a number of excellent programs to offer women, one thing that they don’t have is space. Their birthing room has two beds in it, there is no privacy, and occasionally there are up to four women in there at one time. There is also no privacy in the maternal room, where women and their children are given vaccinations and other necessary medical care. It is just one large room, and with no funding to fix that, it will most likely stay that way.
Family planning is another one of their wonderful programs, with counseling on HIV/AIDS, contraceptives, safe sex practices, and safe family practices. Mostly women attend, as men are either no longer the head of the household or aren’t interested in attending. The family planning program encourages male involvement, but many men are still not interested in using contraceptives or controlling family size. The average family size in the area around Miriu Clinic is around 4-5 children. Since the men are not interested in family planning, many women receive an injection of birth control; the physician’s assistant said they use Depo-Provera, which is also used in the United States. The injection is easier to hide than birth control, which also has a high rate of failure in the area because many women forget to take it.
I think the most amazing part for me was learning how strong Kenyan women are. There is no medication for when they are in labor, and while they might get a small amount of pain medication after the birth, many women head home within the day. Does that sound like something that would happen in a hospital in the United States? I didn’t think so either.
Two other hard things for me were learning that the youngest mother to give birth in the area was 12 years old, and also that rape is still not reported in Kisumu, or even in Nairobi. Many women still believe that rape is their fault, so they will not say anything about it to anyone.
Later in the day, we arrived in Kagwa to learn about APHIA II (AIDS, Population, and Health Integrated Assistance Program) – Nyanza, and the kind of work they do in the homes they are in. We arrived at the compound of APHIA II workers to women singing and children yelling “Mzungu, mzungu (white person)!” Every single child I met seemed to be fascinated with the color of my skin, the feel of my arms and the texture of my hair. One beautiful little girl named Emma climbed into my lap while the people of the compound spoke to us about HIV/AIDS and how it affects families.
A lot of what we learned on Tuesday helped me to understand how women are seen in Kenya. The part that definitely helped me learn that was our night visit; an unprecedented first visit to an area of town that could essentially be termed the “Red Light District.” We met some peer educators who went around town, both at night and during the day, to talk to people about getting tested for HIV, and then we met some women who made their living as sex workers.
I was nervous to go, because when I think of sex workers, I think of prostitutes, and I think of the ones in the United States. These women were nothing like that. We had a chance to sit down and talk to them, and most of them lost their parents or just had to start making money at a very young age. Most of them are mothers, and most of them insist that their daughters will never live their lives this way. It was pretty hard to talk to them, because they weren’t very open to sharing, but it was interesting to learn from them. I think every one of them would have given anything to go home to their babies.
It is the end of another long day filled with insane emotions, so I will leave you with this: the women of Kenya are beautiful. I don’t just mean their faces or their skin, but their spirits and their work ethic – just absolutely beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment