As many of you know a dear friend and colleague of mine, Mel and I embarked on an experience of a lifetime last October where we joined the Divinity Foundation and other amazing humans to take part in their fall medical mission. We started this endeavour and fundraising campaign thinking it would be a “once” in a lifetime event – considering Mel and I have done a combined 9 humanitarian missions in Peru I don’t know what we were thinking – needless to say, shortly after I landed in Kenya – I knew I’d be back. As we begin the start of our fundraising campaign for 2024 I wanted to share a bit about our 2023 Medical Mission with the Divinity Foundation.

The Divinity Foundation was founded in 2008, by a British Osteopath, Navdeep Matharu who’s vision is to “one day have a more compassionate world, where the basic needs and rights of every human-being are fulfilled in order to have a more healthy and peaceful existence.” The Divinity Foundations objective is to provide care and support to orphaned, abandoned or impoverished children and mothers and fulfils that aim by pooling resources and voluntary skills of professionals globally. We are honoured to be a small part of their initiative and to have worked along side our new Divinity Family and couldn’t have done it without your support. The donations that you contributed in 2022/2023 went towards medications, food famine packs, feminine hygiene packets and children’s shoes; all which were distributed throughout Kenya by our team during the mission. In addition to the mission support, with your help we were able to donate an amazing $11,600 CAD towards the building of a much needed Maternity and Children’s Hospital in a medically isolated community in the Amboseli region.

I’d love to take you on a literary road trip throughout Kenya and share with you the life changing journey we had the privilege to be a part of.

“Roads were made of journeys, not destinations”

Our team was made up of 4 Kenyan Doctors, 2 local Pharmacists, 2 Nurses, 2 Midwives, 9 Osteopaths, 5 logistical personnel and 30 local translators. After a day of orientation, our new Divinity Foundation family jam packed everything needed for the week into our bus and van…and we hit the road. Our first day of treatment was at a local Nairobi Orphanage and Rescue home, where 180 children safely live and study. Many of the children are either rescued from the streets, abandoned at the centres gate or from families where parents are struggling financially and are unable to provide care for their children. The children welcomed us like an ice-cream truck pulling up to a water park – running from all areas of the centre…with smiles from ear to ear and an innocent curiosity for blonde braids, tattoos and hand-clapping games. What a perfect, emotional and heartwarming start to our journey…a true demonstration of “it takes a village” and the profound impact that positive interactions and love can have on those most vulnerable. After a full day of treating, the kids shared with us a vibrant performance of song and dance – a reciprocity of medicinal laughter and love that I carried with me for the remainder of our journey. We then loaded the bus with extremely full hearts for a 3.5 hours drive to our next location, Naivasha.

“Where flowers bloom, so does hope.”

In Naivasha we travelled to a rural community where Mel and I saw our first wild zebras and giraffes on our “commute to work.” We set up our clinic at a local Flower Farm, on approximately 4000 acres of land, growing flowers that are exported to Europe. The farm employs and provides accommodations, schooling and medical care for 1000 families. We had the privilege of providing free treatment and medical care for these families as well as offering deworming medication to droves of kids from neighbouring communities. Here, the wear and tear of laborious and repetitive work conditions, with poor footwear and prolonged pesticide exposure was palpable.  It was a long treatment day in a hot and humid, plastic draped greenhouse-like building, with no air flow and our first introduction to pit latrines for toilet facilities. A very necessary warm-up to the next adventure on the itinerary – Pokot.

“Seeing is different then being told.”

The next day involved a full day on the bus towards the Ugandan border as we travelled northeast to Pokot. Although long, we were entertained by a “sing in your car” worthy play list, amazed by the termite towers on the side of the road and the highlight of buying locally forged honey and watermelons from the window of our bus. Pokot, an eastern part of Kenya, where the thorned African bush is dense, the ground is extremely arid and the temperatures are 40 degrees in the day and cool at night. Food and water is extremely scarce resulting in tremendous need for aid in all parts of this region. The Pokot are one of Kenyan’s last untouched tribes. They are proud people who until recently, remained aloof from the outside influences. Inevitably their traditional way of life and cherished culture will be challenged, impacting their innate capacity to survive in their very inhospitable environment. The women and girls wear intricate beading of large ringed necklaces and looped earrings that represent their culture, status and ceremony. What we would consider dress for a special occasion, these women are adorned daily in their regalia, as if each day was a day of celebration. Despite societal weakness in comparison to the men and a voice that goes unheard or expressed in public forums and  in their own homes, the women still find ways to express themselves through beauty, colour, dance and song. Pokot women and girls braid their hair tightly into thin braids, using red or brown clay to support in place, provide texture and inform community significance. They live in social polygamy, where the number of wives and children is proportional to a man’s wealth. The men dominate the decision-making process within the society, where a council of elders are responsible for maintenance of law and order, social disputes, ceremonies and economical development. Men were seen resting under trees, sitting on their hand-carved wooden stools, many with a knife belt and a thin stick, with some wearing a culturally significant metal ring used to eat meat and strike women.

We slept in single man tents, pitched in the ground of a local church, with pit latrines and barren isolation on land subject to extreme flash flooding. In Pokot we set up remote clinics for three consecutive days; travelling long distances into the African bush, getting our bus and van stuck daily in dry river beds and sinking sand. Each day we were greeted by hundreds of villagers that traveled miles and miles by foot and walking sticks, resting on handcrafted Pokot signature stools when needed. We were visited by goats and camels moving in and around out triage and treatment sites and used “discrete” bushes as bathrooms. We provided free medical, pharmaceutical, osteopathic, nursing and midwifery care for over 1500 people and handed out children’s shoes to prevent parasites from borrowing through the souls of their tiny feet. At the end of our days, as darkness approached, we handed out food famine and hygiene packs to women lined up for as far as the eye could see. The scotching heat, the constant swarm of mozzies and black flies, ticks, ants and environmental vigilance for thorns all over the ground made for long days. Along with a seemingly never-ending queue of women and children seeking Osteopathic care, the confronting nature of infectious disease, fungal and eye infections, parasites and lice was steady. Here, sadly we were presented with many clinical cases of domestic abuse, rape, tribal torture, child marriages/mothers and the high prevalence of Type 3 Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Despite the efforts to educate and share alternative ways for a girls right of passage – the FGM rate in Pokot remains at 95%. Type 3 FGM in this region involves the removal of the clitoris, labia minora and majora (inner/outer folds of the vulva), usually by an unsterile razor blade. Wounded edges are then stitched together by the thorns found on the brush, only leaving a small opening for urine and menstruation to pass. The seal is typically only cut open again for a male to enter or for giving birth, once complete, she will be again – resealed. In this region girls are then isolated with their legs bound for 14 days to allow for optimal healing and can be seen cloaked in dark fabric to signify their recent cut. The practise leads to a number of life long complications, including but not limited to excessive scarring, pain, chronic urinary tract infections, difficulties with child birth, anal/bladder fistulas and non-sterile ceremonial conditions leading to contagions such as HIV. Osteopathically, patients presented with high rates of lower back pain, immobile pelvis’, pain while urinating (many without the presence of infection), menstrual pain, abdominal and digestive pain, dural tension, inferior fascial strain, rigid pelvic floors, lower extremity internal rotation and the palpable multi-layered trauma presented both locally and systemically. It is difficult to fully understand why this practise remains given all the health implications it comes with. FGM is deeply entrenched in culture, intergenerational beliefs and pride, where Circumcisers are extremely revered in their communities and the role is often passed down through their linage. All one can do is be there to serve, to listen, to observe, to be open and to try and understand without judgement and the shadows of our colonial mindsets.

With our bodies layered with dirt, deet, sweat and sunscreen we loaded the bus and traveled from Pokot back to Nairobi for a night to shower, rest and load up supplies for the next week of our travels. It is on this long road trip back, where one begins to integrate the enormity of what we experienced over the last week. Although extremely difficult, on more levels then one can articulate, it is experiences like our time in Pokot that I will remember forever. It is here, in 2005, where Navdeep, CEO of the Divinity Foundation first fell in love with humanitarian work and began to dream a big dream. I feel incredibly honoured, grateful and extremely privileged to be in community with these peoples; not just to simply pass by and offer aid, but to treat, to serve, to laugh, to learn, to dance, to be in song with, to observe, to discover, to share, to communicate with the universal sign for “yes” and to be profoundly in awe. Pokot has left a lasting imprint and teachings that I have only begun to unpack – they will forever be held in my heart.

“The eye never forgets what the heart has seen.”