ON BUCKETS AND BURNS

Since September 24th, there have been thunderstorms, mostly in the afternoons, followed by downpours. Was it Tuesday that it rained for over 3 hours, and not a Vancouver gentle rain.  Sometimes it rains during the night.

The rains affect power and internet.  While the power goes off and on, even within minutes –the internet was unavailable from Sunday, the 25th till the 28th.    When Internet is your lifeline, it’s exasperating.  Although I am just discovering it doesn’t work well when it’s storming,  I have bought a modem with 1.5mb of time so I can be independently online.  Never knew such a thing existed.  It looks like a large flash drive.  I was very fortunate to find one; they are a hot commodity in Kakamega these days.

Still, it was the water going off on Monday that really did us.   The city water line provides kitchen and bathroom water.  We did have one tap in the laundry area that runs off rainwater collection.  What we didn’t have were buckets.  Virginia, the ACCES cleaner, came around Wednesday  with 3 of them.  I had no idea I could get so excited over a bucket.  Now we could cart water and flush toilets.  I used one for heated water for a warm shower on Thursday; the cold shower the previous day was, uh, bracing.

The dishes have been a complete drag.   Our usual procedure is to wash them in the city water and then sterilize them with boiled water.  With our one tap, this took an enormously long time and many, many trips.  As the power was also off at the same time, we boiled the water in pots on the propane store which also took a while.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, it takes the time it takes in Kenya, and so with the dishes.  When I heard a chug on late Thursday, I was thrilled.  I had stopped expecting the return of the water.

The burn.  Ouch, ouch.  I learned the painful way that riding piki pikis takes some skill and knowledge.  Alighting from my Monday afternoon ride with my usual clumsiness– wearing a longish skirt and carrying a large hat and a purse made me even clumsier - my right inner calf just grazed the exhaust pipe.  For less than a second.  I winced, and as soon as I got back to the apartment, I shoved my leg under the tap – water was still on at that time.    By the next morning, I was sporting a 2 by 1 inch blister.  A few of us looked it over and decided to let nature handle it.  

Nature screwed up.  Half an hour later, when I got on a piki piki for our next village school visit, the blister burst.  One of the teachers at the school soaked the blister in disinfectant and put on a cream – aftrer she took off the skin from the blister.  Ooooo....  By the time I arrived back in Kakamega in the later afternoon, I was limping.  

By Wednesday afternoon, the burn area was very sore and surrounded by a red hard puffiness.  I decided it was time to see a doctor.  Who and how.  First things first.  Phone my Canadian insurance company.  One hour after I began, with 5 of us trying to figure out how to dial the number, I got through to Canada once the lady at Safaricom advised I had to put a + sign in front of the 1.   LONELY PLANET DID NOT MENTION THIS!

OK, cleared for the hospital.  I went to a recommended private one.   Of course, you know how I travelled there, reckless one that I am.   I was in and out in less than an hour – registration, very quick doctor consultation (used to piki piki burns, he was a little disgusted with me), treatment by the nurse.  Oh, yes, it rained again, but not for long.  I hardly had to wait to go round to the chemist for my antibiotics and burn cream.  Folks, it was then a half hour walk home  and I was relieved to be walking.  No piki piki ride this time for this girl.

My total medical costs were 1350 KES($14.03), inexpensive by our standards.   Unattainable by at least 40% of the population here.    That amount represents about 20% of the paycheque of one of the teachers in our schools.  Humbling.

So is the fact that the ACCES schools and the homes of many of the students lack any power service, and some of the schools and most of the students don’t have any water.

Thursday we had water, power, internet – and I’m healing.  Friday, no power but water and internet, at least for a while.  It’s all relative, isn’t it.