Final Week at Rafiki

Well I can't believe I am in the last week of my trip to Kenya.....next Sunday I fly from Nairobi to London where I will stay with my grandparents and undertake some well deserved R&R before heading back to the States and the next phase of my life as a student at the University of Florida...Go Gators.!!!

I will greatly miss the students and staff at Rafiki and once I catch the "wi-fi bird"  again I will  be providing a full write up of the impact my time in Africa, both in Kenya and The Gambia, has had on me....needless to say it is life changing and spiritually re-affirming....

In the meantime I wanted to share will you something that my Dad will never be able to do (and I don't just mean fitting into some size 32 jeans  :)).

Love Niamh

Here are the respective BEFORE and AFTERS

Before the braids

After the braids

Before the kids

After the kids!!!

Eighteen-18

While in The Gambia I celebrated my eighteenth birthday and this got me thinking what it meant to be 18 in different cultures. 

At the age of eighteen you are seen by the law as an adult, you can vote, you can buy a lottery ticket, and if you commit a crime you are now tried and sentenced as an adult. But are you really an adult? Do others perceive you as an adult? There is some unseen line that we cross on our eighteenth birthday the line between childhood and adulthood. It is like crossing the border from Florida to Georgia, one minute  you’re in Florida and the next you’re in Georgia. It almost seems like you are in the same state, like you never left Florida in the first place. The only way to know is the sign saying “Welcome to Georgia.” What most people miss however is the sign directly after the welcome sign displaying the Georgia law stating that talking on the phone while driving is illegal, . even though it is legal in Florida. A new state, a new set of rules. Much like the new set of rules you get when you turn eighteen.  When you turn eighteen, you get a birthday card as your welcome to adulthood  and a new book of rules to follow.

However it is not the distinction between a child and an adult that interests me. It is the difference between eighteen year olds around the world. There are small differences like the difference between me and my cousins in the UK when they turned eighteen. Living in England, turning eighteen meant my cousins could go down the street to a pub and legally order a beer. A rite of passage I will have to wait three more years to partake in. For them their eighteenth birthday also signified that they could now drive a car, something i have been doing since i was sixteen. These differences seem small and insignificant compared to the differences I here in Africa.

I first noticed it a month ago when a new patient walked in with her one month old baby. She looked young but many Kenyans do. The baby was sick, just a small cough that seemed to be going around the neighborhood. The nurse prescribed medicine for the cough and paracetamol for the pain and small fever.  She paid and left and I did not think twice about her. Two weeks later she came back her baby was feeling better but she was experiencing some pain while breastfeeding. That was when I looked down at her chart and read that she was only eighteen. As the nurse examined her I sat there holding her now six week old daughter. The pain was caused by a small abscess, nothing serious it would burst by itself in a few days and the pain would go away. The nurse prescribed more pain killers and once again the patient paid and left. This time however I could not stop thinking about her.

The expectation of eighteen year olds today in the developed world is that they graduate high school and go off to college. At least that is the American expectation. But what about other countries expectation. Are eighteen year olds in China expected to do something different? What about in Russia? Brazil? India? In Kenya is it expected for our patient to start a family of her own and have children when i still feel like a child in my family?

I wake up at 8 am  to go to class. Our patient wakes up four times throughout the night to feed her crying baby. I grab a bowl of cereal for breakfast. She milks the cow and makes porridge for her family while she still has not eaten. I spend a few hours in class. She spends her whole day cleaning the house and working in the farm. I throw my clothes into the washing machine and press start. She hand washes not only her clothes but her families clothes as well. I spend my extra time hanging out with friends and watching Netflix. She has no extra time.

There is no difference in age but thousands of differences in life. Eighteen!!!

Love always,
      Niamh

R"AAAAAAAAAA"TS!!!

I HATE RATS (and no this is not related to my previous blog on eating !!!.)

 I will admit I have an irrational fear of rodents. Rats, mice, gerbils, guinea pigs, even hamsters. Walking past the rodent section at PETCO sends chills down my spine and makes me feel sick to my stomach. I have made this perfectly clear to all of the children since there has been several rat sightings in the dorms recently.  

So it should not have come as a surprise when they all heard me screaming the other night... apparently even with my fair warning they were not prepared for what they heard. 

I was just minding my own business walking to my room when i flipped on the hallway light and a big back blob of fur ran past me. The seconds that followed were filled with the sound of my screams cut short by the sound of my hyperventilation and the pounding noise my feet made as I ran away as fast as I could. 

Since then I have turned my mosquito net into a rat net.

Love ( for everyone but the rats),
         Niamh

Enjoying "Haute Cuisine" in Kenya

Jambo Everyone,

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog, but for the last month or so I have had very little access to usable wi-fi....(I thought I had found it in Kenya, but perhaps its moved again!!!)

 Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to give an overview of the foods I have enjoyed in Kenya. As mentioned previously this is not really a place for vegetarians and indeed I have had the opportunity to try a few things that I never encountered in the US. These include quail, rabbit, lamb and some other meats of "unknown origin".

Whilst quail may sound very "exotic" as food to be served at an orphanage, I should explain that Rafiki were donated 500 quail and so we were eating this for breakfast, lunch and dinner or so it seemed. (PS I never want to see another quail again though we were very grateful for the donor !!).

Another interesting meal was "Bear".Before my Dad tells me there are no bears in Africa (I know) I should explain that Bear is the name of my sister's pet rabbit back in Florida.

Needless to say, I could not bring myself to eat "Bear" and therefore stuck with the non-meat option that day.


The staple diet consists of a type of collared greens called "Sukama wiki" and a maize based dumpling known as "Ugali". Sukama wiki is a Swahili word that means "stretch the week" and is what the local population eat when they had run out of money for meat.

We also have sweet potatoes which are the size of footballs!!


Rafiki has a small pond where we raise our own fish, so we have a type of catfish that they call "mud fish" (perhaps a little help from the marketing department  on product branding is needed :))

On special occasions we have "Blue Band" which is a type of Kenyan margarine. I mentioned this to my Dad, who said that this was brand that he had as a boy in the UK, so perhaps it's the fact that it is imported that makes it special here.

We also have a bakery at Rafiki that makes fresh bread and was funded in part by "Anonymous of Boca Raton". So thanks to Mr.Anonymous, I have been able to enjoy beautiful healthy bread as well as having a warm place to hang-out when it is cold here.
(PS I know who you are Mr.Anonymous, so thanks for the "dough for the dough" so to speak).

Talking of the weather, it has been very cold and wet here in Kenya. I wish I had brought some warm clothes with my, but luckily I have been able to "borrow" some from my Aunt and from my friend Grace. Sometimes, I forget that originally I was only due to visit The Gambia and had not envisaged needing more than a few t-shirts and skirts. I have had to become very adaptable and resourceful which is the African way, making do and improvising without complaint.

Finally, after discussing with my parents, I have decided that I will not be returning to The Gambia on this trip as originally "planned". Unfortunately, the Ebola situation  makes travel to West Africa difficult and whilst, there are no cases of Ebola reported in The Gambia thank heavens, it has reached Senegal one of the countries I would have to pass through as explained in a previous blog. So no "Planes, Trains and Automobiles part deux" for now.
Whilst I am very disappointed that I will not be returning to The Gambia  on this trip, I know I will return here soon, it has a special place in my heart,  so it is "bye for now, rather than farewell".

Love to all, Niamh xxx