Nursing Mothers Seminar

There is an alarming number of malnourished children in the camp, food security is a big problem Kenya wide, and along with the drought has been has been big news across the country. Food prices have soared across the country with live stock and crops dieing from the lack of rain. The issue in the camp has been ongoing, past volunteers have noticed it and made several efforts to provide food or food vouchers to the mothers of these children. This caused several issues because with food vouchers, the mothers would still just buy Ugali and Sukuma Wiki which doesn’t make a balanced diet, and sometimes you would be giving food to families which seemingly have plenty of food.

It is my belief that through education Kenya will be able to work through many of it’s issues, and it struck me that maybe the mothers didn’t know what they should be feeding themselves while nursing or to their children. Much of the food in Kenya especially with high food prices comes down to more bang for your buck, or more accurately, maximum filling up for the shilling and foods like Ugali are cheap and fill you up but have limited nutritional value. So with the help of Linnet the camps resident health worker we decided to hold a seminar for the nursing mothers, to show them the sorts of foods they should be eating and donate some to get them started.

The day before the seminar, I took the bumpy matatu ride into Nakuru town with fellow volunteer Aimee in search of the different food tems we needed based on a list we’d discussed with Linnet, it included green vegetables, serials, and other high protein foods. When we were in Nakuru, dark clouds rolled in bringing the daily onslaught of rain making it hard to move around sans-umbrella, so we headed to Gillanis an Indian run wholesale supermarket in the center of town. Aimee and I split the list and went on search of the different items, we were slowed down by the unfamiliar products and not knowing our way around but with the help of no less than half a dozen store clerks we finally sourced large quantities of, special high protein baby porridge, beans, ground nuts (peanuts) and mixed flour totally about 200KGs. We found a waiting Tuk Tuk outside the giant store and a series of Gillanis staff proceeded to wheel out trolleys laden with the dry goods, packing them tightly into the back of the 3 wheeled taxi. We still needed to find the all the fresh vegetables, a crucial part of the proposed diet.

Our next planned stop was the Nakuru open aired market, not the best place to be with torrents of water coming from the sky above. As our Tuk Tuk bumped and splashed through the wet Nakuru streets we came across a series of impromptu street vendors selling the exact vegetables we were looking for. The stalls consisted of large mats, spread out on the side of the road and the fresh farmed goods piled on top. After what I thought was some quick keen bargaining, I purchased pretty much all the contents from three sellers with many bundles of spinach, carrots and corn. An enterprising teenage boy then proceeded to charge us for the normally free plastic bags he’d handed us to fill with. I was a little put off by having to pay for the bags, but we definitely needed them, so I conceded and we loaded the bags fully of veggies into the tiny plastic covered cab and whizzed off into the rain towards the camp.

The next task was to divide the food up into small bundles which could be distributed to the mothers after the seminar was over. Using a simple coffee mug as a measure, we scooped cups of the beans, nuts and flour into small clear plastic bags, then the vegetables into small bundles, it turned out we only had 48 bags of beans and 48 full bundles of the fresh goods, so it made sense for this to be our target number. Using a list of babies born in camp and luckily there are 48 children 8 months or younger. Although there are a tonne of kids in the camp, and it’s common in Africa to have many children, it surprised me that so many would be born in in the camp where food and health issues are so common, some of the young babies are the youngest of 7 or 8 kids.

We setup the seminar under a tree in a nearby paddock where camp meetings are often held, women gathered with their children in the shade of the large tree. When enough of the mothers had settled in Linnet began her nutrition lessons, it was all in Swahili so I only understood parts of it, but we’d already discussed the topics to be covered. She explained how using a variety of vegetables provides a balanced intake of vitamins and minerals for both mother and baby. The mother of four also explained how adding a small handful of nuts to the diet can greatly increase the amount of breast milk the nursing mothers make. The women listened intently, asked questions about various topics, complaining that they couldn’t afford to buy all these extra things, we answered explaining that it’s was about making choices and supplementing diets, and that eating a variety of foods was key to the health of their families. The seminar went for just under two hours including question time, and as we began to pack our things, several of the mothers continued questions and thanked us for sharing our time and knowledge.

In the early evening when we knew that mothers would be home we began slow process of handing out the food bundles. Although we could have handed out the food at the seminar, because we only had enough food for babies of 8 months and below, we feared that the other mothers would cause a commotion, so we set out with a list of baby names, birth dates and tent numbers. The camp layout can be quite confusing, and despite numerous efforts to find or create a map, none have been successful. We went tent to tent with Mr John, the chairman of both the education and health committees in the makeshift community. John is a sweet man who is always enthusiastic to help with volunteer projects, partly because they fall into the areas of his committees but also because he has a caring kind heart. One by one we went from tent to tent, finding the babies of the right age, handing out the food to the mothers and reaffirming the messages Linnet had given during the seminar. Most of the time our donations were received with thanks and praise, but we also got a few blank stares and looks as if to ask ‘is that it?’. The process took a total of 6 hours across two evenings. By the end we were stumbling around in the dark, lighting the list and path with our mobile phones.