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 .

Dear Friends:

As some of you know, on November 7th, I will be embarking on a 5 day trek in Northern Kenya, raising much needed funds for MEAK’s (Medical and Educational Aid to Kenya) medical missions. MEAK organizes and funds medical and surgical missions in the fields of ophthalmology, orthopedics and pediatric cardiac surgery. A dollar goes a long way with MEAK and 98% of all donations go directly to providing free medical care to the needy. They have carried out over 70 medical missions, providing over 7,000 surgical procedures and hope to do many more in the future. However, it is getting ever more difficult to raise the funds. Therefore, I am posting this notice to ask you to consider giving a donation to help support MEAK’s work in Kenya and in spirit to accompany me on my journey.

My journey begins in Nairobi where I will fly to Waso Ronga, which is on the southern slope of Mount Nyiru in the North of Kenya , just south of Lake Turkana. There I and seven other trekkers will observe an eye mission performed by MEAK’s medical team.  Under Helen Douglas-Dufresne’s lead we will then walk for 5 days through elephant and zebra country meeting both the Samburu and Rendille people and giving aid to those in need. Our trek ends in Ngurnit with a flight back to Nairobi.  We try to avoid the blistering heat so we wake at 5:30 AM and start our walk at 6 AM.  We walk 7 hours a day with an hour break for breakfast covering on average 18 miles at least a day. That will be a total of 90 miles.

If you are interested, you can give one of two ways. If you want a tax deduction write a check to March to The Top and remember to write on the check “FOR MEAK”.  The organization March to The Top, which is a 501©3, has included MEAK on their project platform.  If you are giving anything less than $100 and don’t require a tax deduction then go to www.justgiving.com/Meak and make your donation online. It is quick and easy.

I thank you for your support. I can assure you that your money is going for a worthy cause and will help change people’s lives. I have made a $10,000 donation to MEAK this year and look forward to raising half more at least – $5000- on this walk.

Send checks to March to The Top: 22631 Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 990, Malibu, CA, 90265

Very truly yours,

Isabel Stainow Wilcox

There are some faces you never forget, that stop you in your tracks and remind you of the miracles in this life.  The alert and happy face of Mbura Mwakia with his beaming smile is just one of those.  Mbura is 14 years old but his body really looks more like the one of an eight-year old boy with brittle limbs and no muscle tone. Yet, despite obvious severe hardship Mbura is open, engaging, and playful.  I met him in the children’s ward at the Mombasa Hospital on the eastern coast of Kenya. He had had open-heart surgery just a few days earlier.

As it was, I had planned to meet up with Dee and Mike Belliere who were overseeing a MEAK pediatric heart mission in Mombasa. I wanted to interview their local Kenyan partners, some of them unsung heroes who work behind the scene.

The heart mission was coming to an end and had been very successful. Twenty- three patients had been operated and all were recovering well at this point. Shortly after my arrival I joined two of the cardiologists from MEAK’s volunteer UK medical team who were on their way to the hospital. We arrived at the Mombasa Hospital, which looked like a spacious country club set on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean. The mood was up, the cardiologists, Dr. Aaron Bell and Dr. Kiberan Pushparajah from the Evalina Children’s hospital at Guys and St Thomas in the UK were eager to show me around and to share their experience of the last ten days and in particular Mbura’s story.

The first stop was the medical laboratory where we met up with some of MEAK’s local partners. Putting together these heart missions is no small affair. Indeed it demands a complex network of partnerships, a lot of coordination and negotiation, and more than anything the absolute dedication and perseverance of extraordinary individuals. MEAK with founders Mike and Dee Belliere bring the medical team and equipment from the UK. Tanuja Walli with her organization, the Paediatric Support Group, is the main coordinator in Mombasa.  She screens the patients, negotiates rates with the hospital, and finds local sponsors.  Nargis Kasmani, another extraordinary partner from Lions Club International, is an essential source of local funding and logistical support.  Lastly, the operations done by the UK medical team could not have gone smoothly without Dr. Moda who runs very effectively the hospital laboratory. He proudly shows us the lab and I stop in front of this blood bank.  I have never seen one! It looks just like a fridge! Albeit, it is absolutely essential to any heart operation, and even more so in Kenya where AIDS is prevalent.

On our way to see Mbura, we stop at the women’s ward, which is flanked by a long terrace with views of the ocean. That view could do wonders for any sick person!   No need for air conditioning, the ocean breeze takes care of cooling the rooms.

We get to the children’s ward and we find Mbura in his little room or cubicle with his dad.  Mbura is recovering magnificently. This certainly explains the big smile on his face whose expression is strikingly wise for a teenage boy.  He arrived in a terrible state, with a heart so large that it filled his chest cavity. He came from a village north of Mombasa near Kilifi.  Due to an undetected infection in his very young years that attacks the lining of the heart and the heart valves otherwise called endocarditis, he had developed a very serious heart condition – severe right heart failure and tricuspid regurgitation – that made his heart swell hugely. Besides stunting his growth, this condition severely impaired his quality of life leaving him most of the time breathless with no energy and plagued with fevers and sweats.  His parents had sought out help but with many other children to care for they could not afford the operation until the Mombasa based Paediatric Support Group with the help of MEAK and its medical team and star surgeon Professor Anderson and other local sponsors had made it possible. For the first time in years he was able to breathe almost normally now that his lungs could begin to spread out in his chest. His vitality was increasing markedly and while he was not bouncing around quite yet he was able to playfully kick a soccer ball that Dr. Bell had brought over for him.

A moment like this is one of the reasons for my going all the way to Kenya for my “vacations.”

We have arrived at this first campsite after a three-hour walk from a landing strip. Our plane from Nairobi was met by Dee Belliere, who with her husband, Mike, founded Medical Education Aid to Kenya (MEAK) 30 years ago. She has come with Shilpa Mawji, a MEAK volunteer who was born in Kenya but happens to be Dee’s neighbor back in Surrey, UK.

Dee, Shilpa and others are just finishing up the latest of several medical missions done each year by MEAK. With no administrative overhead whatsoever, the charity does approximately a dozen of these a year. The purpose of our trip, a walking safari organized by Isabel Wilcox, is to raise funds and awareness of MEAK’s work.

The four of us traveling with her from the United States—Judi Caron, Isabelle Fay, Jennifer Wright and myself—also have been inspired to join the trip by Isabel’s obvious love for this part of the world. It’s sights, sounds and smells Isabel describes as her own Proustian “madeleine.”

“It is a journey into the African wild but also a journey into oneself,” she writes in her email, inviting us on this adventure.

This, along with the promise of the scent of “vibrant flowers, the unbelievable vistas, the track of animals on the dry or wet earth, the sounds of the animals, some wild, some domesticated, and the villagers in the distance” sounded like something I wanted to experience. But in retrospect, I realize it was something I needed to experience, to learn what a gift it is to be taken out of my comfort zone.

At this first campsite, where Dee, Shilpa and other MEAK volunteers have been staying for a week, we meet the eighth member of our party. Nargis Kasmani, lives in Nairobi and has been instrumental in facilitating MEAK projects through her work with the Kenya Lyons Club.

We spend the first night in our tents getting acquainted with the sounds of the birds and animals, as well as how vivid the stars in the sky appear this far away from the ambient light of a city. In the distance, we also hear an extremely rare serenade by the Samburu women. They are moved to give thanks for the tiny bit of rain these last few days.

Normally the area should be verdant and in bloom but there has been virtually no rainy season this year. Helen can count on one hand the number of times she’s heard the women sing in this fashion.

Helen should know. For more than 20 years, she’s been living among the Samburu—in the Ndoto and Matthews mountains of Kenya—working with a team of about 20 tribesmen and 65 camels. It will take all the men and half of the camels to carry our food and gear on the six-day trek.

The plan on the first full day of the safari includes a walk to Latakwen, but the first excitement comes at breakfast when Ndoto, one of Helen’s dogs, chases down a dik dik and almost catches it. The tiny deer is bleating in terror and running from Ndoto, who is followed by Helen shouting at the dog to stop. The fact that the dik dik comes close to getting run down by the dog shows how water-starved the animals are.

The lack of rain has driven many of the people to more remote areas in search of water for themselves and their livestock. The drought also has added to the substantial challenges Dee and the MEAK workers face to bring medical care to the region.

On this mission, Dee, Nargis and Shilpa, along with a team of doctors from Nairobi, have worked together to perform sight-restoring surgery on 144 people. Overall, the mission has been successful. Dee regrets that the weather conditions made it harder to get to more people. I have the feeling that Dee ALWAYS feels more can be done—and my suspicions are confirmed at the end of the trip, when we see some of the work the MEAK heart team is doing.

The Bellieres have organized more than 40 of these missions, bringing in medical teams to perform pediatric, cardiac, orthopedic and other procedures at virtually no cost. It is fair to say that they are national heroes in this part of Kenya. Shilpa later confides that in the UK, the Queen has wanted to acknowledge Dee’s service–an honor Dee has turned down because she is uncomfortable being recognized separate and apart from Mike.

By the time we arrive at Latakwen, most of the patients have left the village, except for a beautiful 16 year-old Samburu girl who has stayed behind with her mother and brother.  Yesterday, the girl, born with congenital cataracts, was able to see for the first time in her life. As the bandages were removed, Shilpa handed her a mirror. The girl, seeing her beaming reflection in the mirror, began to arrange the beads around her neck. Later, she waved to her brother as his bandages were removed, and he saw his sister for the first time.

So many people—including Helen, Shilpa, Nargis and the medical practitioners who give their time to this mission–come together to make moments like this possible. There are also local team members like Daniel, a Samburu warrior, about age 19, who has spent the last five months riding by camel from village to village, convincing patients to come in. Rita, another local, has been trained as a nurse and now has a year-round position thanks to Isabel’s sponsorship. Today and throughout the mission, Rita is on hand to help with screening and other local health concerns. Often families are reluctant to seek medical help, and it is crucial to have local people like Daniel and Rita make the case that MEAK can be trusted.

As the procession of 30 camels passes by with our gear, we say our goodbyes to Rita, Daniel and the rest of the team.  Our trek to the next campsite covers fairly flat, open and dry territory. The terrain has the classic acacia trees and low-growing shrubs. The hornbills circling above, remind me of “Zazu” from “The Lion King.” Social weaver nests hang like ornaments from the branches of several trees.

Lead by Helen’s right-hand man, Lemongas, the Samburu team set up camp as we arrive at a site next to the Milgis lugga, a shallow river that should be swollen by the rains but instead has only a few feeble puddles. The men dig into the sandy bed, producing enough well water for the makeshift shower, the canvas bag raised on a branch within a carefully selected stand of trees.

As they prepare the campsite, we rest on mats in the shade in what becomes our afternoon routine. That first day, I spot two drongos overhead, chasing after a hawk who has veered too close to their nest. The two little birds are scolding the potential predator, who is beating a hasty retreat. Strike one for the little guys.

In the late afternoon before tea, we usually take a short hike. I love to go birding with Helen, and thanks to her I learn to recognize not only the little drongos, but the franklins, white crested shrikes, guinea fowl, and numerous weavers, warblers and starlings.

We’ve also spotted troops of baboons, hyrax– little badger-like creatures who live in the rocks—and several kind of monkeys including an extremely rare De Brazza’s monkey, which reportedly does not exist in this part of Kenya. Helen is over the moon as she records him, barking at us from his tree.

To avoid the heat, the day starts early, around 6 or 7 a.m.. We awaken to the smell of delicious Kenyan coffee and along the route we have a serious breakfast of eggs, bacon and granola.

Each morning we see signs of nocturnal visitors, including leopard prints and porcupines, which Helen’s night camera has caught on tape, mating. The footage answers our scientific interest in the details of the porcupine’s love life. At night we hear other visitors, including monkeys chattering in the trees over head and hyenas growling in the distance—though Helen’s three dogs can hear the hyenas long before we do and set off warning barks. Nothing gets past Ndoto, Sensamon and Conman.

Nothing gets past Helen, either, when it comes to identifying the other living creatures in this part of the world. She can spot at a glance every animal track and tree on the ground, and every bird and constellation in the sky.

You don’t have to be an expert, however, to recognize an elephant trail. The uprooted trees and terrain that look as if they’ve been hit by a locomotive gives us some idea of just how huge they are. Although we don’t actually spot an elephant until the last day’s trek, their obvious presence shows that the “ellies” are starting to feel safe enough to return to this area after years of poaching.

Helen has a trunk full of books about birds, animals and stars, and I have been reading a book of Samburu proverbs.  Some concepts seem pretty universal and would fit perfectly well back home. For example, the Samburus hold that “words are no use unless followed by action.” They demonstrate a stunning connection to our surroundings, an understanding that shatters my western-urban-dwelling assumptions about our ability to communicate with animals in nature; in the hierarchy of this world away from “civilization,” humans, birds and animals are on a far closer plain.

One day, as I walk behind Lemongas, a tribal elder and our lead guide, he stops for an exchange of whistles with a honey catcher perched so close to us that I could have touched him. As I watch in total confusion and amazement, Lemongas and the honey catcher whistle back-and-forth. Then the bird flies away. Lemongas turns and resumes walking. Helen, no doubt sees my confusion and explains that the honeycatcher has found a hive and wants Lemongas to retrieve the honey in the hive to share.

“Well what did Lemongas say?” I want to know.

“That he’s busy now,” Helen tells me, “but he promised the bird he would come back later.”

Each day brings a new discovery—as well as local news. One day we come across an all-male “beauty parlor” consisting of young warriors braiding their long hair. Cosimo, a Samburu warrior and a key member of Helen’s team, normally ties back his braids but lets them down one day so we can have a better look.

At a particularly beautiful campsite on a rock slab with pools of water fed by a small stream, we have more company. Samburu women pass nearby to water their animals. For the rest of the day, we can hear them singing in the distance, praying for more rain. They are very beautiful people, extremely slim with closely cropped hair and long necks. They wear colorful garments and large necklaces of brightly colored beads that reminds me of something Yves St. Laurent would have designed in the seventies.
Thanks to Helen’s radio, we get news from the village that Rita, the local nurse, has successfully performed her first cataract procedure—a development that brings the hope that in the future more people can get this surgery without having to wait for the next eye mission.

Our Samburu team picks up the most dramatic local report on the trail:  a six year old boy has the gift of prophecy. The child has received visitations—visions—of an old warrior with clouds around his head, who tells the boy things he otherwise could not have known. The child then has confronted an elder and accused him of eating an entire goat when he was warrior age—something no well-meaning member of this tribal culture would ever do. The elder, terrified, admits the boy is right—though the incident happened long before the boy was born.

Each day we witness the growing excitement as Helen translates from Swahili the latest updates about the boy. Whether or not the tales about him are real, it’s exciting to see the Samburu filled with the energy and hope of this prodigy. One night, after supper, the eight of us are sitting around the campfire, watching the stars come out as usual. But on this particular night, on the Saiyer lugga, the Samburu sing in what I call the “call-and-response style,” showing they are aware of their fellows. Yet they seem to be losing themselves in the song, and though I don’t think they care whether we are there or not, I feel very privileged to witness this.

We spend a last, glorious night under the stars at Helen’s open air house atop a hill with a panoramic view of the Ndoto mountains. After a bittersweet farewell breakfast, we return to the airstrip to rejoin our trusty pilots, Hamish and Charlie. They are taking us to Sirikoi, a magnificent tented lodge in Lewa, a game preserve south of here.

We are also traveling with Mariya, a six-year old heart patient and his very tense mother.     Dee swings into action, showing Hamish and Charlie the little boys clubbed fingers (a sign of heart disease) and ordering the pilots to stay at very low altitude. Too much change in air pressure could be fatal, and after her stern warning, they fly so low I think I can hear tree branches brushing the bottom on the plane back.

The next few days are spent luxuriating at Sirikoi. The lodge is owned by Sue and Willie Roberts, who show their appreciation for MEAK by opening their beautiful lodge for us before the season starts. It sits on a magnificent game preserve populated with zebras, lions, giraffes, elephants, black and white rhinos—as well as Sheba, an orphaned cheetah so tame she wanders around the lodge like an overgrown house cat.

As we return to Nairobi, we are privileged to see more of MEAK’s work at Kenyatta Hospital, including an open-heart surgery performed by the medical team from Bristol, UK, which Dee and Mike have organized. The patient, a tiny 12-year-old girl who looks more like age six. It is deeply moving to see first-hand how professional and respectful the team is, how the surgeon pauses for long enough to look every individual member of the surgical team in the eye before they begin. They acknowledge by this sacred moment the life they now have in their hands—and the challenge they face. An overhead lamp has gone out, and the oscillating saw they would normally use to open the child’s chest has broken, forcing the surgeon to use more primitive tools. In the end, the surgery takes seven hours.

Meanwhile, we have the chance to see the smiling faces of Mariya, the little boy who came with us on the plane, and his mother.  His operation has gone extremely well, and they are set to return back to their village in a few days. The gratitude is written on their faces. It’s a familiar expression I see on so many of the patients MEAK has helped, and I feel grateful as well, to have had the chance to bear witness to this work.

There is a Jewish saying that to save one life means to save the world, and as I look at the face of that little boy’s mother, I have no doubt she would agree.