By Gardy Chacha

Residents of Golbanti in Garsen,Tana River County, were excited to see visitors with a strange tongue mingling with them.

The villagers, steaming under high temperatures and humidity, showed pleasantness despite ailing from a myriad of health problems. They are at peace with the harsh weather and easily fit into nature’s providence by living in peace with baboons and other wild creatures around them.

It is this normal life that usually attracts other foreign visitors to their land, but for different reasons.

These other visitors — tourists — take photos of the villagers next to the wild animals — perfect pictures to show their friends back home about wild Africa.

But the current visitors are not posing for photos with the locals; they are bearers of good news. The Korean medical experts here have teamed up with five Kenyan volunteers to offer free treatment to the villagers.

human suffering

Among the team, which operates under Promised Land Medical Service, is a general physician, family physician, pharmacist, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist, a dentist, a chemist, a nurse and other supporting staff.

The three-day medical camp was held at Golbanti Primary School.

It was facilitated by Pastor Ahn Song, the head of Team and Team International in Garsen working with other organisations whose aim is alleviating human suffering and encouraging people to know more about God.

The group from Korea was led by Dr Jin-Whan Cho, a medical doctor and professor of Neurology at SunkKyungKwan University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea. Dr Cho spoke of the need to help the underprivileged through all means possible and with the available resources.

Golbanti is located about 50km from Garsen. Its landscape is engulfed by the dangerous Prosopis Juliflora which is locally known as Mathenge.

Locals fetch water for domestic use from rivers and streams which also serve as dens for watering animals and swimming pools for playing boys. Women use the water to wash clothes upstream while wild animals quench their thirst at the same place.

The level of poverty among the people of Golbanti is high and the weather conditions don’t make the situation any better.

Dr Cho’s team had been briefed about the conditions and probable ailments they were likely to encounter prior to taking the trip since no reliable epidemiological data is available on the area which is home to some 1,300 people, according to the 2009 Census.

bloody urine

The doctors attended to about 1,000 patients and the doctors dealt with conditions ranging from bilharzia and STIs to headaches and stomachaches.

Other illnesses included dental disease and ENT infections, among other debilitating conditions. Majority of the boys seen by the doctors suffered from bilharzia, a disease characterised by bloody urine and pain when relieving the bladder.

Dermatologist Shin Dong Shin was amazed to encounter, for the first time in his life, skin conditions that he only studied in medical school.

Ironically, the village is predominantly non-Christian but the people were happy to hear what the healers  had to say about God.

“We focus on helping people to have a better livelihood regardless of their beliefs,” pastor Ahn said.

Though his organisation dwells more on construction of boreholes to provide Garsen and its environs with clean water for domestic use, occasionally Ahn organises such events where specialists meet residents to help them out in different ways.Most of those who were attended to were appreciative that a group of foreign doctors thought of carrying out such a noble function.

Mzee Mohammed Jela, 72, who was treated for an eye infection and chest was grateful to the team.

 

eyes cleaned

“I have never been to a hospital or seen a doctor before. It was so nice to have my eyes cleaned by specialists. I have also been shown how to put the eye-drops. I am sure my eyes are going to be good,” said a happy Jela. He was also given some antibiotics.

Pastor Song explained that the idea of the medical camp came up because the residents lack medical facilities and other  services provided by qualified experts.

Kelly Oketch, who works as a clinician in Maasai Mara, was one of the local volunteers. He was elated to be part of a team focusing on alleviating human suffering and challenged Kenyan professionals to carry out such philathropic exercises for the benefit of their fellow country people.

Even though Dr Shin had to endure high temperatures and scintillating humidity by Korean standards, the trip to Kenya was awesome and one that made him feel proud to be a doctor.

And as the curtains closed  on the medical camp, most  Golbanti villagers hoped that they will get to see again these light-skinned and silk-haired angels with warm hearts and lots of love care and hope.

 

Harsh weather, ‘Mathenge’ to blame for bad health

Many of the people treated by the South Korean doctors suffered from diseases and physical ailments caused by two things: the notorious ‘Mathenge’ shrub, or Prosopis Juliflora, and the harsh steamy weather.

Though poverty in the area is rife and sanitation is despicable, the doctors said the two factors are of great concern if the people’s health is to be addressed.

Dr Shin Dong Shin, a dermatologist, said the high temperatures and the humid weather caused fungal infections. Bacteria and fungi find moisture and warm temperatures  hospitable.

Mathenge, a plant introduced into the country to lessen the encroachment of arid conditions, affects both humans and animals.

Once introduced in an area, the plant rapidly grows and covers an entire landscape.

It also has the unique capability of out-competing other plants and shrubs to establish a solitary kingdom.

Cattle keepers have no option but to feed their animals on the weed and at the same time fetch it for firewood use.

 

fatal prick

The most dangerous thing about it though is its prickly thorns which can swiftly enter the flesh.

Unlike other species, a prick from the thorns of Prosopis Juliflora is fatal.

It has a high tendency to grow into a wound which, with time, develops sepsis.

In other cases, when one is pricked, one develops skin lesions and crusts — which can become hard benign growths.

The plant is so dangerous to the point that a scratch is enough to proceed into a murky infection.