It is October 2017, in Merti, Kenya, a town in the middle of a desert-like landscape where the temperatures average up to 100 degrees under a blistering and relentless sun. Dee Belliere, the founder of MEAK, has gathered a scout, a male nurse and a couple of other volunteers to search for more patients that might need eye care, those that might have been missed at the first round up.

This is happening while at Merti’s hospital the medical team is screening patients and operating on the ones that need surgery. During the week 2652 patients will be screened, 201 cataract operations and 578 teeth extractions will take place. An outstanding success! I am so honored that through my fundraising campaign I was able to participate and help MEAK make such a difference in so many lives.

I am one of the volunteers for that afternoon expedition and we all climb into the truck that will take us North from the town, deeper into the desert. Merti is located in the eastern part of the Isiolo district in Northern Kenya.

During the drive I stand in the truck, and lean out of the window to better take in the azure sky dotted with small white clouds, and the flat sandy barren landscape that unfolds around us. There is very little to look at. There are no exotic leafy tree, nor the ubiquitous acacia tree, no bush or plant and no distant mountain to admire. In the very far distance and only seen with binoculars trees with weaver nests hanging on their branches, like fluffy decorations are possible points of interest.

The emptiness is deceptive however; it is mirage-like. When we stop for a photography moment the emptiness slowly becomes alive.  A tiny spot in the distance is actually moving.  I wait, and as time unfolds and my eyes adjust, the image expands. The dot metamorphoses itself into a human figure . I discern one donkey, then two, then three! I am intensely aware of time, space, and movement. I smile.

I find myself strangely happy! This landscape devoid of seductive luxuriousness feels so freeing. I feel at peace. Maybe it is in this bareness that I can truly be in my own skin, no longer compulsively distracted; Nothing to cling to, to romanticize, or to ruminate about.

I remember ten years ago the first time I felt like that. My then lover and I were driving north to go to Marsabit. We drove in silence, his attention solely focused on the treacherous road and mine on the increasing desert like landscape. We were in synch, I remember feeling. A Kenyan safari guide, farmer and conservationist who thrives on harsh conditions, he could feel I liked the bareness, the starkness and harshness of the land with the occasional herdsman and camels appearing along the road. I have no idea why it felt right perhaps because both of us had so much to let go of: He, a deceased wife, and I, a failed marriage and loss of family life. That stark landscape suited our broken hearts. I have since gravitated towards the North of Kenya during my yearly visits where conditions are harsh and the land can be unforgiving yet so deeply moving.

We did meet a little boy who has one malformed foot and Dee immediately gets on her phone and makes arrangements for him to be seen in Nairobi. She will have to find the money to pay for this.

During this time in Merti I am mostly a witness. I observe the MEAK medical team screening, giving care, doing surgeries and MEAK leadership making plans for the next eye missions. I offer my help where needed. Accompanying us are a photographer, Tom Munro and a video maker in charge of documenting the mission.

We all sleep in the same make shift camp, in the middle of the town and eat at the same table in the mess. The mission is going well, no unexpected complication has cropped up. However something is making me uncomfortable. At each meal the medical team, all black Kenyans, sit together at one end of the table and the rest of us, all white women and men from England or the US sit at the other end. Granted, many (the team and us) are on our cell phones, the team prefers to speak Swahili, and this is not a social occasion, but still I feel uncomfortable with this racial, cultural, and hierarchical divide and distance. I express my discomfort but lethargy prevails on both sides until the video artist starts to interview each member of the medical team and their stories become heard. That is the beginning of a slight change, a relaxation of that distance.

The real shift happens when a snake appears while we are all hanging in the yard. It slithers quietly towards one of the huts where a tent had been erected. I notice it and ring the alarm. Mayhem ensues. Everyone is searching for the snake, first in the hut and tent then in the adjacent huts and tents! I ask: Do snakes go up walls? Can it have really traveled to another hut?

Nobody knows but every one is acting as if there is nothing stopping this snake. The driver refuses to sleep in the doomed hut and decides to sleep in the Land Rover. Some of the female nurses decide to sleep in the bus parked in the yard. All of us are talking to each other, laughing and forgetting our differences, united in our fear of the snake!

By the last day we are sharing stories about dating in different cultures and communities. We have not become best friends but we feel closer, we shared something. We are more ready to sit next to each other and inquire about each other’s lives.

I also watch the comings and goings of the people who live in Merti. They belong to the Borana tribe. I learn that they have more in common with people in Ethiopia then other Kenyan tribes. 99% of the Borana tribe lives in Ethiopia! It sure brings home the craziness of the original partitioning of the region by the Western powers. The people from Merti feel a bit forgotten by the government in Nairobi. Very little government medical funding reaches them and with the endless nurses strike in the country, there is almost no activity in the hospital. They are extremely grateful for MEAK’s medical help.

I discover a peaceful community. It wasn’t always so I am told. Three years ago you could regularly hear gunshots. Today the sounds I hear – crying children, the occasional motorcycle or car passing by, the yellow weavers chirping away, the sounds of goats and obviously the call for prayers, as it is a Muslim town – suggests that times are better. However, the relentless heat and drought are a big strain; during three days of our time there the charity organization Action against Hunger was distributing food to mothers and children. Life is precarious here.

On our last day the community and its dignitaries express their gratitude to all of the team and the elder women of the town sing and dance for us. We all get scarves, tunics and wraps!

Thank you all of you who have helped!

The next day we fold camp and wait for the plane from Tropic Air  to take us further north in the Ndotos mountains where we will hike for the next 7 days. It took us a while to  find the airstrip! Another adventure! Check out my next post for more images of the hike .

The news coming from Kenya have been distressing, but good work and good deeds are being done daily and seem to matter even more when I hear about the destruction and pain being inflicted. MEAK has kept to its commitment to provide medical care. An eye mission in Amboseli and a heart mission in Nairobi in the early part of the year took place as scheduled and went well. They also completed in the spring a medical mission in the Lamu area. I am awed by Dee Belliere/ MEAK and the Lions Sightfirst Eye team’s courage and dedication. They went up to where the Boni tribe, also known as the ‘honey-hunter tribe” lives near the Indian Ocean in the North close to the Somali border. Over 2000 patients were screened and 66 patients had their sight restored. ( link). Life must go on notwithstanding others determination to wreck violence and destruction.

As usual Dee found a patient in terrible need for care that she was determined to help. The lucky one was Osman Mohammed, a 14-year-old young man living near Lamu and terribly crippled. Several fractures had deformed his leg to such a point that it was very difficult for him to walk. Undaunted by the challenge MEAK’s orthopedic team was able to repair his leg and enable him to finally walk. In part due to Dee’s tenacity this young man has a chance to have a relatively normal life.

The security situation in urban centers is such at this moment that MEAK had to cancel its spring heart mission and maybe also its November one. BUT in typical MEAK fashion the Belliere’s while deeply distressed about not being to continue the heart operations on the spot (Nairobi or Mombasa) have been looking for alternatives.

A couple months ago I get a phone call from Dee from Bengalore. I first thought she was on vacation! I quickly became aware of my mistake. She was there in fact to discuss the logistics and the potential funding for an alternative care option. MEAK’s search for alternative ways to help the Kenyan children had led them to Bengalore, India and specifically to the Narayana Health City with whom MEAK is now teaming up to operate on Kenyan children who are being flown to Bengalore for care.

The clinic in Latakwen has done good work this year, with Nurse Rita seeing an average of 200 patients per quarter. Many are new patients. One aspect that I feel needs improvement is the family planning numbers. It would be great to see them bigger. This would benefit women’s lives and be a good step towards curtailing the growth rate of its population. Kenya has witnessed an extreme population growth in the last 30 years with the greater part of its population now under 30. This growth has been hard to absorb. High unemployment is plaguing urban areas and overgrazing is straining the land in rural areas. I am still supporting the clinic and would love to get the help of a few others generous donors to keep its good work going. Sadly I will not be able to go to Kenya this year, the first time in 10 years. The reasons have more to do with the developments of my life here in New York but I plan to go see the Latakwen clinic in Samburu land in early 2015.

In the meantime I am going to South Africa for the Joburg Art fair where I am joining Diane Frankel and a group from the Getty museum and then off to Zambia with my boyfriend. It will be his first visit to the African continent and my first time to Zambia. Zambia is landlocked with Zimbabwe and Botswana to the South, the DRC and Tanzania to the North, and Angola to the West. I have been playing with the idea of going to Zambia for years now. While loving my bush walks in Kenya (my first love) I had wanted to explore different landscapes; on foot preferably. A while back, an old friend, Debo Gage suggested Zambia with its beautiful Luangwa and Zambesi river, but the opportunity did not present itself until now. I have a new boyfriend with no experience of Africa and I thought a trip to Zambia would be a gentle introduction to the African bush prior to going to Kenya where I have so much history. No need to overwhelm him with too many stories from old times. This will be a first for both of us!

Mike Belliere, co-founder of MEAK recounts how MEAK changed Agnes’ life.

Agnes’ story

Here’s an interesting case study that makes one realize just what a fairly small accident can do to the life of a person in Kenya.

 At just 28 years old, Agnes was about to be condemned to a life of disability and ousted from her community. She had fallen on to her left arm more than six weeks before the MEAK team met her.  As a result of the fall she had sustained a complex fracture of her elbow, the dislocated bones had already started healing in the wrong position, leaving her with severe pain and no function.

As the wife of a Masaai warrior, Agnes is expected to build and maintain the mud hut in which the family live.  On a day to day basis she will milk the cows, fetch the water, collect firewood, prepare food, wash clothes, look after the children and much more.  With her left arm now of no use, she was unable to serve her husband and family and with no means to undergo an operation it was likely that Agnes would be cast out of her community.

The surgeons at Nanyuki District Hospital had heard of Agnes’ plight and arranged for her to travel down from her rural homeland to meet the UK team.  With such a severe injury (that was at least six weeks old) the team were unsure of the best way to help her.  UK Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon and Upper Limb Specialist Archie Hawken and local surgeon Dr Mathenge had long discussions weighing up the treatment options for Agnes and after much deliberation they decided to operate.

During a four hour procedure Agnes’s elbow was re-broken and re-aligned in the correct position.  The bones were then fixed in place with plates and screws.  Amazingly by the end of her operation the surgeons were able to flex and extend her arm as normal.Agnes still has a fight ahead of her, with intensive physiotherapy and rehabilitation required to help the elbow return to full function.  However, the team anticipates that with such a successful operative result she should regain near normal use of her left arm.  Most importantly this will mean that she is able to return to being a valued and active member of her community.

Mike

SUMMARY OF MEAK ACTIVITIES FOR SIX MONTHS TO END OF JUNE 2013

The first six months of 2013 has proved and interesting period for our charity with some very positive aspects to report as well as a couple of set backs.

MEAK has been working in Kenya since 1994 and has been carrying out medical missions since 2001.  We are now recognized as, arguably, one of the most important charities offering free surgery to the poorer elements of the Kenyan population.  One of the problems that have occupied our thoughts for the past few years has been the issue of succession.  Having founded and then run the charity for the last 19 years both Dee and I have been conscious that at some stage we will need to pass the reins on to a younger generation of like minded people.  Happily, we can now see a solution to this problem and several meetings have taken place that will hopefully ensure that MEAK’s valuable contribution to healthcare in that country will be able to continue.

Although neither Dee nor I have any plans to stop working in the immediate future, we have been delighted to have been able to recruit Alexandra Savis to our team.  Alex is an extremely experienced echocardiograph technician who has travelled on a dozen or so of the MEAK heart missions and is passionate about what we do.  She tells us that she is very excited about being more involved with the charity and relishes the challenge of taking over our projects in future years.

Alongside this development, agreement has been reached with our orthopaedic arm, which hitherto operated under the acronym EGHO (Exploring Global Health Opportunities), that the two organizations will fully amalgamate, with the eventuality that the EGHO name will be replaced by MEAK.  This development brings to MEAK an extraordinary organizational and administrative skill-set that has seen EGHO progress from an embryonic idea a few short years ago to the major player it has become in many aspects of healthcare and health education in Kenya.  EGHO is very proactive in training and trauma care and its surgeons undertake many complex and technically difficult orthopaedic procedures during their missions.

During the first six months of 2013, MEAK completed a paediatric heart mission in Mombasa, an orthopaedic mission in Nanyuki, and four outreach eye missions in the remoter areas of Kenya.  Twenty children received open or closed surgery during the heart mission to Mombasa in February.  Twentyfour orthopaedic procedures were carried out in Nanyuki, again during the February mission to that area.  Also, during our four eye missions we screened 3195 people and carried out 209 surgeries mainly cataracts and tarsal plate rotations.  Extensive teaching and mentoring was also carried out by our GRASP-IT trainers during this period.

The above simplifies the bald achievements of the charity in the form of the total of surgical procedures carried out during this time; however, I find that I have great difficulty, when writing these reports, to enumerate the multiplicity and complexity of all the other involvements that occupy our time and energies.  We find that it is almost impossible to confine our attention to the four primary objectives of MEAK ie ophthalmics, orthopaedics, children’s heart surgery and education as there are always myriad other opportunities to help in other areas, many of which are difficult to ignore. These opportunities may be in the form of helping individuals with their medical problems or subsidizing education costs to supporting organizations and groups that have similar aims and objectives as ours.  ‘The Nanyuki–Torbay Health Link Partnership’ is a good example of this kind of cooperation which has enabled us to gain a substantial Government grant to support this element of our work as well as raising the standards of healthcare in Nanyuki – to the obvious satisfaction and delight of the local medics.

I would seek to reassure the reader that the MEAK teams continues to work tirelessly on all sorts of projects in Kenya that match our aims to support and improve the availability of good and safe medicine to the population as a whole.

Rather disappointingly we have been informed by The Mombasa Hospital that after three successful children’s heart surgery missions by MEAK to their hospital, they have decided not to pursue this branch of medicine and accordingly will not be inviting us back.  We are obviously dismayed by this decision, which is apparently on grounds of cost and alleged disruption to theatres and the intensive care unit.  Significant strides had been made by this fine hospital and their staff in the appreciation of the care and rehabilitation of children following open heart surgery and their decision is a terrible blow to MEAK and the PSG group in Mombasa who are constantly looking for ways to save the lives of local children dying from heart disease.  Meantime, we will continue to work in Nairobi whilst we look for another hospital in Mombasa to pick up the baton of this worthwhile and noble enterprise.

In the latter six months of this year we have planned  further heart and orthopaedic missions.  In July we visit Dadaab on the Somali border and in August we return to Turkana in Northern Kenya for a much delayed eye camp. Three further eye trips will take place towards the end of the year.  Most of our missions have comprehensive reports written by the lead participants on their completion and these are available to our readers if required upon request.

Mike Belliere

Founder / Director

M E A K

I love the feeling of the small twin engine plane speeding up the airstrip at Nairobi Wilson airport, the noise that it makes when the engines are on full blast and the following lightness as the plane lifts off the runway. Inevitably a sense of excitement overtakes me.

It’s an old feeling: many years ago I remember taking off the same runway having just arrived from France and on way to Ol Pejeta, a ranch at the foot of Mount Kenya. I felt the same eagerness as the promise of the African bush lay ahead. Today I am on my way to the Milgis just south of the Ndoto Mountains where I am meeting Helen Douglas Dufresne for a three-day stay at Lkanto, her special sanctuary. I get such a thrill sleeping on top of that hill with no cover.

I have been helping fund the costs of the small clinic in Latakwen and I am here to spend some time with Nurse Rita. I have read her medical reports for the last three years and I know  good work is being done. But being a nurse in the bush deep in Samburu land is very different from being a nurse in an urban hospital and I want to see what it entails.

Rita has scheduled a mobile clinic day a good two-hour drive west of Latakwen.  I wake up at daybreak and meet up with her at the clinic. The land cruiser gets packed with all the medical supplies for a day of immunizations and off we go with Francis driving us through the hilly landscape of the Milgis.

It is dry and windy at this time of the year. While clouds hover over the horizon and rain has blessed many rolling hills further to the south, only scattered showers give a little respite.

On the way we stop at Masikita,a village that has grown quite a bit recently because of an influx of migrating herders escaping intertribal altercations in the north.  Villagers and in particular lots of small smiling and eager children gather around the car.  Rita steps out of the car and confers with the elders of the community. Composed and assured she exudes calm and competence; at times when she smiles her face becomes almost girlish.

I love that mixture of equanimity and playfulness. In the midst of daily challenges that dwarf many of my most serious concerns in my life in New York city  I am profoundly touched by her deep love of life and ability to laugh no matter what! I am soon approached by a group of young men, apparently young elders, who speak English. After introducing themselves they ask: “Can you help us find a nurse and pay for her? We have a dispensary but the nurse provided by the government is rarely there.” They have heard that I am the one paying Rita’s salary. They are amazed that someone living so far away from their world is concerned about their welfare while wealthy local Kenyans don’t feel compelled to help. Rita checks on a pregnant young woman who seems to not be feeling well. After checking her for malaria she examines her in her manyatta.

We climb back in the car and after an hour we are driving up a lugga -the local name for dry riverbed – where we encounter a group of women herding a few donkeys and a couple of men sitting under the shade of the acacia trees on the banks of the Masikita lugga at the foot of the Siambu mountains.   It seems that we have arrived at our destination, but where are the patients? I had imagined driving up to a large gathering of patients eagerly waiting for us. I soon learn  that it is not how it works.  Rita confers with the women and it is decided that we are going to set up the clinic on the bank of the lugga under a tree while the word goes out to the various manyattas – hut – in the area.

Rita, Mama Peters, and Esther set up the “clinic” which consists of a weighing contraption attached to a branch, a large container that serves as a desk, and the bend shape of a trunk that becomes a seat. The women then sit down and sip some tea and within a half an hour young women carrying their babies wrapped up in their colorful cloths stroll in with their children in toe. Adorned with multilayered red beaded necklaces their demeanor is strikingly majestic.

Lots of talking ensues, they eventually all sit down in groups and for the next two hours Rita and her team weigh the babies and children, lecture the mothers on health matters and record all findings in a large and unwieldy notebook.

Lots of laughing, talking, especially when the kids get weighed in that strange contraption and without fail scream their heads off. I don’t get a word of what is going on and feel uncomfortable in my outsider observer status. A look of worry does cross the mothers’ faces when it is time to give the shots.  They don’t like their children being hurt and yet they do know that these immunizations have saved many from the deadly effects of measles and whooping cough.  Patience and humor is of the essence.   Two hours of crying babies can drive anyone crazy.  Rita and her team stay focused, unperturbed, keeping their sense of humor while truth be told I do get a bit frazzled by the cries. Fortunately the older children are perfectly behaved and are keenly interested in Rita’s coming and goings.  The babies are given the polio, tetanus, whooping cough, pneumonia and TB vaccines and Vitamin A drops in the mouth.

The women eventually walk away just as casually as they arrived and return to their lives in the bush.  While their world is so far removed from my life in New York city, I can’t help thinking of the many times I sat at the pediatrician waiting for an hour in the waiting room for my babies’ turn to be immunized.

Rita then gives her attention to a group of three young warriors with their hair braided and covered with a reddish clay mixture who want to get tested for AIDS. She pulls out the testing kit, takes blood samples and to their great relief they all test negative! What a surprise when they allow me to take pictures of them. That is a first and I feel privileged. I don’t understand how AIDS can be an issue for these young men in the middle of the bush. Rita tells me AIDS is commonly passed on through open wounds. We pack up pretty satisfied. The day has been productive. Twenty children in total have been attended to.

We drive back stopping here and there to pick up and drop of people, and get back at dusk. The day has been very long and quite tiring for Rita and her team but hugely gratifying for me to see all the good work that is being done as a result of my contribution.

I join Helen and a couple of conservationists around the camp fire while Rita returns to her village where she will be on call and will have to attend to the needs of a young pregnant woman who is not doing well.

This teenager who looks totally dejected is seven months pregnant and it appears she is suffering from preeclampsia and I am concerned that she be taken care of sooner than later. I knew that this was very possibly what she was suffering from having just watched an episode of Downton Abbey where a woman dies of eclampsia after giving birth. (These TV shows can become useful!) Fortunately Rita knows what she is doing.But things are not easy in the bush.  To get good medical help the woman has to be taken to a hospital 5 hours away and her husband says that he has no money to take her there.  I keep bringing the subject up with Helen and Rita, Rita works her magic with the husband, and I find out the next day after landing at my next destination that she has been driven to the hospital in the MEAK land cruiser. I am relieved!

Two days ago I got an email from Helen telling me the woman is doing well and delivered a healthy baby! I was really happy. It is a wonderful feeling to feel like you have made a difference in someone’s life.

It never ends for Rita but she is hugely grateful for her work. Most of all she loves it and it provides for her family – she is the sole provider. She is a grandmother and takes care of her grand child and you can see him running to her at the clinic in the morning, full of excitement and smiles.

Mama Peters is also hugely grateful. She is the sole caregiver to her four nieces and nephews – her sister died and left her with the children.

I ask Rita what she would like to do going forward and what needs to be done. First and foremost the clinic needs electricity! It seems so basic for us but not an easy thing to achieve in the bush.

Rita would also like to develop her midwifery skills and encourage the women to deliver at the clinic instead of in their manyattas. I think it is a super idea and ask her about family planning. I have seen so many babies, small children and unwed mothers that my feeling is that family planning should be a total priority!  I later learn that the population in Kenya has exploded. Thirty years ago Kenya had a population of 6 million.  Today 46 million people live in Kenya!

She also wants to get a certificate to do TPR surgery. Trachoma, which is a potentially blinding and very painful eye condition, is prevalent in the area. Finally she thinks a mobile clinic could be very useful to reach out to the distant manyattas in Samburu territory. There are clearly lots of needs and worthy goals.

Now the challenge is to sort out which ones are the most needed and can be achieved. Funding is obviously the first issue but the follow through and support of the community is also something to take into account.

I think I will start with the most pressing:electricity. A simple scale could do wanders too!

Back in 2011 MEAK Orthopedic team identified the need  to improve the ability of medical practitioners to recognize the signs of deterioration  in acutely ill patients in hospitals.  A new initiative/ course was put together called GRASPIT ( Global Recognition of Acutely Sick patient and Initial Treatment) and taught at several hospitals in Mombasa, Nairobi, and Nanyuki.

The recent report by Dr. Kerri Jones from the South Devon Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust on the success of the latest GRASPIT Course at Nanyuki hospital confirms the importance and effectiveness of the initiative.

“We are just at the end of a really successful week in Nanyuki with the Emergency Department team, paramedics, GRASPIT and Community work teams.  It’s been wonderful seeing the paramedics training Police, boda boda drivers and nonclinical hospital staff in first aid!  No one thought it would happen but it’s been brilliant!  The new ED is open and our ED nurses and doctors have been demonstrating new ways of working and teaching scenarios.  Also we have established a Patient Safety Programme here – this work is really major now in all countries but is as yet relatively unknown in developing world countries despite a big WHO push.  We were also scoping paediatric training needs on the wards for the GRASPIT Paeds and maternity extension courses.  It’s been great and we all feel that we are getting much more effective each time we come out.  We had trainers up from Kenyatta to observe and take part in our work and they will go off and deliver GRASPIT now elsewhere!

I will be back in Nanyuki in November (going on possibly to Kitale) and also in late Jan/Feb – cant wait!”

I am very enthusiastic about this initiative as it complements MEAK’s medical mission work. The missions save lives in the present  and the medical training and education save future lives and effect deep change. It obviously improves the level of care but also offers significant benefits to the practitioners professional lives. It is a very empowering initiative!

One day Layla, a little girl in northern Kenya, will wonder how she got her name. Her mother can tell her that back in November 2012, a woman from very far away gave it to her while on a medical mission.

Beverly Orthwein, a board member of Medical and Educational Aid to Kenya (MEAK), brought Layla’s mother a pair of crutches donated by the local hospital in Greenwich, Conn., Beverly’s hometown. Layla’s mother had lost her leg and was getting around with the help of an old pipe topped with rags for padding.

As she tried out her new crutches, Layla’s grateful mother asked Beverly to name the baby. Beverly, who has three sons, chose the name reserved for the daughter she never had.

When people hear you’ve been to Africa, they want to know what animals you’ve seen, but for me this particular adventure is also about bearing witness to the kindness of strangers like Beverly and the volunteers who bring medical aid to the people like Layla’s mother. MEAK’s activities span all of Kenya, but this particular region, known as Samburuland, borders Ethiopia and Sudan and is largely ignored by the government and other non-governmental organizations.

Beverly is returning home after the mission, but Dee Belliere, who with her husband Mike, founded MEAK, remains behind with seven of us—Gerry Boyle, Mike Fels, Pascal Luse from the U.K., and Isabel Wilcox, Alexandria Skouras, Celeste Rault, and myself from the U.S. We arrive at the end of this medical mission to begin a fundraising trek we hope will benefit this mission as well as MEAK’s future endeavors.

The 70 mile journey will take us from the eye mission campsite outside the town of South Horr, through the Seren Valley and the Ndoto Mountains to end at the Milgis where the Parsaloi and Seiya Luggas come together.

Of course the animals and birds–the mysterious tracks testifying to the teaming life of this beautiful terrain–inspire the humbling awareness that out here, we are just more animals in the mix. For the next six days, we’ll make our own tracks south through the steep and rocky Ndikir Laurie pass and through dry riverbeds called luggas.

When they’re not filled with water, the luggas appear to be a sort of superhighway for the local herds and herders. Based on the number of animal prints visible in the soft sand, it also seems to be a fast lane for porcupines, hyenas, leopards, tiny deer called dik dik—and every sort of critter that cavorts or crawls.

Our guides, Helen Douglas-Dufresne and her partner, Peter Ilsley, are native-born Kenyans who have been taking groups through this part of the world for 25 years. Emma Hedges, owner of the Desert Rose Lodge, also accompanies us. Together the three of them know every bird, plant, animal track and burrow on the ground and every constellation in the sky, though Pete acknowledges that their Samburu team has a special expertise that comes only from a lifetime spent here.

On our first night at a campsite near South Horr, as the eye mission there draws to a close, dozens of Samburu elders and warriors come together to express their thanks through song and dance. The songs, passed down for generations, seem timeless and free of outside influence, and it is deeply moving to witness a performance so few outsiders have seen.

I know their gratitude is heartfelt and can’t help feeling it myself. We have watched the bandages come off the patients as they smile with delight at their first glimpse of loved ones. They look around in wonder at the world, seeing it clearly for perhaps the first time in their lives.

Despite heavy rains and tribal tensions between the Samburu and Turkana, in four days a medical team of three nurses, one anesthetist and one surgeon have restored sight to 214 people suffering from cataracts and other eye diseases.

The women can return to creating their intricate beadwork, and the men and children can go back to taking care of their livestock. Most of all, they don’t have to rely on a relative or anyone else to guide them.

In the eighteen years since the Bellieres started MEAK, more than seven thousand people—including many children suffering from congenital cataracts and other eye diseases—have been treated. All this has been done with virtually 100% of the contributions. MEAK has no paid employees or administrative overhead, and Dee and Mike donate their personal expenses, as well as their time and expertise.

As usual at the end of a mission, Dee sorts out plane rides to Nairobi for still more patients with conditions requiring treatment at a hospital. Meanwhile Mike is at home in Surrey, UK, planning the heart mission he’ll oversee in a few weeks.

Once we start our trek, we will be off the grid—no cellphone, Wi-fi, Internet. We will be “on safari,” but there are no jeeps, game preserves or posh lodges.

This is an area so seldom visited by tourists that some children have never seen a white person, which is why we can’t take it personally when one look at us makes them burst into tears.

Besides, others are delighted to see us. With our hiking boots and safari hats, we create an exotic and amusing diversion for the youngsters charged with watching the family herd of goats, sheep and cattle.

As they smile and greet us with a bemused “Jambo!” Pete confirms my theory: if you dropped us in the middle of the bush and an eight-year-old Samburu child in an even more remote location, the kid would be home before dark while we would be a few links down from our accustomed spot on the food chain.

The Samburu have an understanding of and relationship to nature I could not have imagined or even thought possible. I look at the side of a mountain and see the beautiful striated outcrop of rocks, the varying hues of green vegetation. The Samburu look at the same mountain and spot a tree useful for making a toothbrush, a plant that’s good for soothing a nettle or bug bite. They know every track and how fresh the animal dung is—and whether or not a prospective campsite is safe.

On my first trip here two years ago, I watched in amazed confusion as Lemongas, one of Helen’s trusted elders, had a “conversation” with a honeyguide. The small gray bird lingered long enough to convince me that, yes, he was listening to Lemongas’s whistles. When the bird seemed to fly off in a huff, Helen explained that Lemongas told the bird he didn’t have time to get to the hive the bird had found.

On this trip, however, the honeyguide gets his way. Lemongas gets another visit from a feathered friend, disappears with him into the bush, and emerges 20 minutes later with his share of the dripping honeycomb.

Although the terrain varies a lot over the course of the week—from flat, sandy luggas to steep mountain passes–there’s a kind of rhythm to each day. It begins about 5:30 in the morning, when one of the Samburu team awakens us with his singing and a “good morning.” He pours water in the little canvas washbasin perched outside each of our tents, and we have time to splash water on our faces and come together for delicious Kenyan coffee and biscuits before we hit the trail. We’ll have a huge breakfast about two hours into our hike, consisting of fantastic muesli, homemade bread, and eggs with bright yellow yokes that tell you how fresh they are.

When we arrive at a new campsite at the end of a day’s hike, we have lunch and grab a mat from one of several dozen camels carrying them and the rest of our gear. By early afternoon, it’s hot and most of us are tired. We park ourselves under a tree for a “kip” as Helen and Pete’s team set up the tents, build a fire, dig the loos and create beautiful showers with makeshift “curtains” from brush they’ve collected.

As the sun goes down, we take turns at the showers and, one by one, arrive at the campfire for tea, snacks and cocktails before dinner. This is my favorite time of day. We recall the day’s adventures and tell stories as we watch the sky, undiluted by ambient light, reveal the planets and stars in all their varied sizes, brightnesses and colors.

You can’t help but be awestruck, sitting in the midst of all this natural beauty. However, the subject matter around the campfire covers a wide variety of “philosophical” issues, including how to maximize the staying power of the bucket of water you get to shower under every night—and whether it’s advisable to walk to the loo if you have to go in the middle of the night.

One morning, just before dawn, Dee announces she hears hyenas—reason #182 not to go to the loo in the dark, I tell myself. Besides, it’s much easier to water the land behind the tents.

We never, however, resolve flashlight controversy.

“Do you turn it off or leave it on?” somebody wants to know.

“Turn it OFF! It attracts bugs!” Mike answers.

“Yeah, but then, well, you’re out there alone, in the dark in…a vulnerable position,” I point out.

Any and all topics one doesn’t talk about in polite company move to the top of the list—and all them reduce us to peels of laughter and a level of maturity that would embarrass a four-year-old.

Clearly we are the most wonderfully good-natured mzungu ever to walk through these parts. As far as I’m concerned, that theory gets confirmed the night it starts to rain and we run around laughing in the mud as we struggle to pull our tent flaps closed.

On the trail, if we stop laughing and talking long enough, we can hear the Samburu team singing to pass the time as they guide the camels. One sunny and hot day we stop to rest in the shade and join in the singing. Before you know it, we are dancing, too. In that moment we all get the rhythm of the song, and even the camels seem to get the beat.

Everyday I continue to enjoy the camaraderie but cherish as well my growing ability to read the surroundings and see how they change based on where we are and what is happening overhead. The rain has left a treasure trove of fragrant sage, blooming cadia, yellow cactus blossoms. From atop the acacia trees, the weavers, hornbills, starlings and shrikes return our gaze.  Some of us, myself included, have learned the hard way to duck well beneath the acacias’ savage thorns.

I am also learning to pay attention to the lay of the ground—not just where to walk but what animals have come before us and to admire the work of nature’s architects, including the termites who create giant nests that look like pueblos.

And who knew dung could be so exciting! Less than 50 yards from one of our camps we see fresh elephant spore. Helen can hardly contain her excitement. It’s the first time in decades the elephants have felt safe enough to come to this part of Samburuland. The Milgis Trust, created to preserve the wildlife and fight poaching, seems to be having an impact.

We promise to stay quiet and try as well to tread as silently as Lemongas, who takes the lead. Walking in silence connects us more to what surrounds us and rewards us with a view of seven or eight elephants on the mountainside across from ours.

From our vantage point, we can also see grey sheets of rain, miles away in the mountains, and when we arrive at our next campsite on the Lomolok lugga, the team know this one may not be dry for long.

Then it comes. A rush of water, the runoff from the mountain rains begins to fill the lugga. Sometimes they can fill so quickly that the force of the water can be deadly. This one, however, is a nice peaceful stream, a welcome sight for the animals, four-legged and otherwise.

As the lugga fills, it strikes me as an apt metaphor:  For centuries outsiders have traveled here from far away and wreaked havoc. But maybe one day the little girl named Layla will be able to say that MEAK and its supporters poured a trickle of hope into this place far off the beaten path.

WE ARE BACK! EYE MISSION SUCCESSFUL , TREK AMAZING

We flew into South Horr, just south of Lake Turkana by midday and met up with Dee Belliere, founder of MEAK, and Helen Douglas Dufresne, our walking guide, founder of MILGIS  TRUST and MEAK’s partner on the ground for this mission.

The eye mission was well on its way and despite some very serious hurdles it was turning out to be quite successful. The location had been moved from the original plan. Due to tribal conflicts in the area the mission had to be moved from Waso Rongai to the Horr valley. The Samburu sports center in the town of South Horr had been made available and the community could not have been more welcoming.

The final count was gratifying: 214 eyes operations were done and 4 patients were referred and flown to Nairobi. The medical team (one surgeon, three nurses and one anesthetist) was smaller than usual – one less doctor – and did an amazing job.

However there was clearly a sense of frustration. This mission had been planned for months and one of the goals had been to treat the Samburu and the Turkana people, neighboring tribes. Traditionally these tribes are often warring each other over their livestock. A lot of effort had been put into promoting peace and it seemed like it was working. Many eye cases had been identified among the Turkana people. Sadly shortly before the beginning of the mission the Turkanas had raided the Samburus and stolen 400 head of cattle. As a result no Turkana would risk coming into Samburu land to have their eyes fixed despite the fact that many needed operations. But such is life in the distant lands of Northern Kenya and the MEAK team that worked in partnership with the Milgis Trust team did an amazing job despite the circumstances.  When I am in Africa I always remember a Clint Eastwood line: “Adapt and Improvise.”

There is still much more that needs to be done!
We arrived in time to see some cataract operations being done, and even more gratifying we witnessed the reaction of many of the patients when the eye patches were removed seeing for the first time in years.  The quiet chatter, gentle laughter, and beaming smiles were a sight to behold!

Cataract operations were the majority but a few patients with Trachoma were treated and other eye ailments were also attended to. Trachoma is prevalent in this area and a major cause of blindness. As a result of recurrent infections the eyelids turn into themselves and the eyelashes constantly rub against the eyeball creating constant excruciating pain.  To address this situation, a team has been scouring the region screening for eye ailments and teaching better hygiene.

We took a day and a half to get our bearings. The night before we took off, the Samburu men, many of them dressed in their warrior gear, treated us to an amazing dance and song performance.  It was a gesture of thank you and a very special gift. These dances and songs have existed for centuries and are profoundly moving. We felt very honored.

Most of the Samburu men would be coming along with us on the trek, leading the camels and setting up camps.

We started our trek south towards the Milgis Lugga through the Ndoto mountains. We trekked through a landscape that was breathtaking. We started at the Horr Valley walking across the south end of Ol Donyo Mara into the Seren valley.

We traveled through open plains, and valleys with the bush in full bloom. See the lovely Cadia (Purpurea) flower!

We climbed rocky hills, traversed the Ndikir Laurie mountain pass, reaching heights that allowed us magnificent views of the Ndotos peaks and valleys. We camped near dry river beds or luggas – one, the Lomolok Lugga, turned into a flowing and bubbling stream in 10 minutes – or on mountain tops in Urra that made you want to cry or laugh or just simply sit quietly in awe at the beauty of our planet.

Once the need to talk waned our senses awakened to the bush life surrounding us.  As I walked I would stop to pick the leaves and seeds of the sage bush delighting in its perfume, or loose all sense of time as I followed the movements of the rosy patch bush shrike whose song had caught our attention, or yet again admire the candelabra like sculptural form of the many euphorbia trees in full bloom.

I stood mesmerized by the vibrant yellow blooms along its cactus like limbs creating a halo around the tree.

We encountered young children who are given responsibility at an early age herding the family goats. We were an oddity in this part of Northern Kenya and a great source of amusement and curiosity to these youngsters. We passed by Samburu manyattas or huts clustered together and protected from predators by an enclosure made of twigs and branches.

We did run into the occasional warrior, armed to the teeth and yet very stylish. I was very lucky to get a picture of one of them.

The level of excitement in the group peeked when we ran across very fresh elephant dung! Our chances of running into a big bush animal were seriously improving. Birds, dik diks, herds of goats were great but we wanted the big stuff!  Total silence was requested which I welcomed with great relief and perseverance paid off. Twice we spotted those majestic creatures on the hills feasting on the trees. Some of us who had amazing eyesight could just see them with the naked eye. I, on the other hand, needed my binoculars!

Every morning we woke up at 5:30am to the song of the Samburu man coming to fill our washbasin with hot water. After a cup of tea or coffee, we departed under the rising sun for our day’s journey. Four camels carrying our breakfast, which the Samburu men would set up mid-morning when we needed those extra calories to help us along, accompanied us. Pete and Helen, our guides, made sure we had a full breakfast!  Fruit, eggs , yellow like you have never seen, homemade muesli  we figured that if we marketed it ,we would make a killing it was so good.

Some of us at the end of the day wanted a final challenge before turning in and climbed some pretty steep hills and encountered baboons along the way.

Intermittent rain was mostly refreshing though at times it was unexpected and created quite a stir.  One night we went to sleep under starry skies and rain startled us awake in the middle of the night.  Jumping out of our bedrolls, we rushed out of our tents to undo the flaps of our rain cover with the help of the Samburu team. But by the time we got back into our tents, bedrolls and clothes were wet except for some clever ones who had had the prescience to keep their bags packed and had thought of covering their mattress. I was not one of them!  We did not let that happen again!

Under Helen Douglas Dufresne’s instruction we learned to identify Orion’s Belt at night and Venus and Mercury at sunrise. We fell in love with the dogs that accompanied us. More then once I found myself woken up from my mid-afternoon nap on a mattress laid down on the grass by an over eager dog’s paws on my chest.

The real stars of this walk were our Samburu porters who worked tirelessly to make us comfortable and who on an impulse would break into a song and a dance for their own enjoyment and to our utter delight.

Some of us, unfortunately, fell sick but were amazingly brave. We had to adjust the pace of our walk and did not get to see the Latakwen clinic that is my special project. We all made it to our destination though, which was Helen’s base camp, Lkanto, set at the top of a hill situated at the confluence of the Milgis and Sarya Luggas.

We took in for the last time the awe inspiring, view savoring our accomplishment yet a bit sad because of the upcoming good byes. I confess that there is no place I would rather be then on top of that hill with its 360 degree view of the two large riverbeds with to the south, the mountains of the Matthews and Mt Kenya in the far distance, and to the north the Ndotos hills.

After a quick shower we departed for the airstrip where a final treat was awaiting us. The children from the local school dressed in their Samburu outfits performed a dance celebrating a world where man and nature coexist in harmony.

Still under their spell we climbed into our charter plane after effusive thanks to Helen and Pete Insley who had led us very competently and brought us back safe.

Thank you for an amazing journey.