MAKE THEM FEEL GOOD!!

 

Early this year I volunteered to work with a Government Hospital- Mbagathi District hospital here in Nairobi Kenya.

For guys who do not know, Mbagathi District hospital commonly known as MDH is one of the low-end hospitals in Nairobi located at the edge of Kibera- Africa’s biggest slum; it caters for the ‘wanainchi’- that is the commoners.

They offer integrated health services for nearly 10,000 HIV patients, support the supply of critical life-saving HIV treatment and other infectious diseases including tuberculosis and malaria. Also, they offer nutrition education and commodities and family planning services for mothers and young adults.

The services are mainly free or cost recovery and sponsors include global health, DFID, USAID and WHO all in partnership with the national government.

To this day I feel it is one of the best if not the best decisions I have made so far. I enjoyed every bit of the experience- I got an opportunity to interact with people who are not of the same socio-economic class as I am. People, who could hardly afford a square meal, people who saw education as privilege. They shared their ideas, told their stories, we discussed politics, the economy, the weather and I was amazed at the wealth of knowledge some of these people have.

One thing that really touched me was one day when I was all alone in the main pharmacy on night duty at about 11 P.M  and this fine  gentleman walked in and said to me; ‘sema daktari nataka kukupatia mandazi na PK’. He looked at the expression on my face and noticed that I was lost and continued saying pole pole unaongea kiingereza pekee?? Take these mandazis and chewing gum.

Mandazis are very popular here in Kenya; they are made with whole meal flour and fried in cooking oil, somewhat like our popular dough-nut. Very easy to snack on!!

This one was very greasy made with probably very high cholesterol content oil and low quality Unga (flour) - But that was what he had to offer, this was his way of showing appreciation for what I was doing for their community. I was humbled!!

I wanted to refuse the offer. I find it very difficult to accept things from people let alone this man whose situation I know of so well. I felt like I was exploiting him.

My first response was however fear, and then surprise and finally gratitude. I was broken, broken kabisa(completely) this was because this gentle man had practically nothing compared to me- he owned this small duka (kiosk) made from an old container and traded in sweets, chewing gum, mandazis, miambri, nini(things like that). His entire kiosk was not worth up to possibly what I would get as an allowance per month as a student. But he did not look into all of that; that I am a ‘daktari’ and live way better than him. He in his little corner noticed that I was doing a good deed and he had to show that he appreciated me. This reminded me of the story of the widows mite in Mark 12:41-44 when Jesus and his disciples sat near the temple and saw an impoverished widow put in two coins that in and of themselves are not worth much, but presumably represent a significant portion of the woman’s resources, the story presents us with a comment from Jesus that expressed how appreciative he was for the woman’s contribution even though from our human perspective we do not see it as much.

Before I start going on about a sermon on giving let me get back to the point. I am West African and unapologetic about that; growing up in West Africa as young men, we are taught to give-be ‘free-an’. This is evident in how excited we were as kid when we hear of an uncle who would be coming to visit because we know that before leaving he will definitely leave some money for all of the kids except the mean uncles of course for whom we had a list and knew we should not be hopeful when they visit. For these ‘free-an’ uncles, when I hear that they will visit I already have a rough estimate of how much I should be expecting and made  plans in my head of how the money would be spent.

This is how we were brought up- This is the way I know. It started manifesting in me as early as my days in undergrad when I had to starve myself for three months or more to my girlfriend’s birthday in order for me to be able to save enough money to throw her a surprise party.

So I was very surprised when a female friend of mine here in Nairobi told me one day of the story of herself and this dude who had been after her for so long to go on a date and she had been playing hard to get. When she finally agreed to go on a date with the guy, they had coffee at Kaldis Coffee house in central business district (CBD) of Nairobi. They had the meal and when the waiter came with the bill, the dude was expecting the chick to foot the entire bill and not even split. His excuse was that the girl was better off than him; like what the hell does that even mean??? Can low self-esteem get worse than that?

Obviously I was shocked when she shared this with me, because being the male chauvinist that I can be at times, I find it very difficult to take a lady out on date and not foot the bill. It demoralizes me. Even going home from school in the matatu I constantly feel the urge to pay for my female classmates. Not as a gesture to hit on them but it is because that is what I know as the right thing to do.

So one day when I went on date with this really beautiful girl that I was hitting on at this really fancy restaurant for dinner and the bill was almost ten thousand Kenyan shillings, that is like almost 150USD or 100POUNDS STERLING which is way above the minimum wage in Kenya and definitely way, way above the minimum wage in Sierra Leone and she offered that we split the bill, I refused. Not because as ‘WAKONZY’ would say I have so much money or P-SQUARE would say I wanted her to ‘chop my money’ or because I wanted to impress the girl—( I DON’T BELIEVE IT WORKS THAT WAY) but because I believe that as a man if I ask a woman out I should have been prepared to take the bill. Call me unorthodox or old fashioned or any of these things but I still strongly believe that a man should be able to take care of his woman.

This is a battle  for me every day but recently I have come to realize that humans with a good heart; GOOD PEOPLE, would always come through, would always find a way of showing appreciation or would want to reach out and there is nothing we can do about that. It may not be in the obvious ways we would be expecting but they will.

Maybe it would be just a smile on their face, maybe it would be babe who wants to share the bill, maybe hubby wants to help with the dishes, or the neighbor’s kid wants to help with the grocery bag, or your kid wants to pay the bills this month, or the young man at the Duka wants to share Mandazis - MAKE THEM FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT!

I mean it’s the weekend and Shonda is back- MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GOOD ABOUT SOMETHING. Until I am back keep Sierra Leone in your prayers!!

Hugs,

VAL.