The new ICROSS Ilkilorit clinic awaiting a doctor to staff it
Pauline ene Koilel
On Thursday (18 Feb), I took a day trip with two ICROSS employees, Saruni and Joe to a Maasai area and site of a future ICROSS clinic / dispensary called Ilkilorit. Saruni, of the Maasai tribe himself, navigated us (in Toyota truck) over the dirt roads and the large rocky hills, past small schools, locals carrying water, firewood, and other goods home, and a woman suffering from diarrhea (thought to be cholera) incapacitated alongside the road with her friends caring for her.
Pauline ene Koilel is one example of a woman’s duties in Maasai culture . . . a young woman, a strong woman, fetching firewood and milk while caring for her child and walking many kilometers to do so. Here, Saruni speaks to her of her village and the current healthcare situation in the face of the cholera outbreak.
Awaiting porridge...
...lined up by class
Upon arriving in Ilkilorit, the school children were outside playing in the dry lands, awaiting lunch. Porridge was the special on this fine day as I played with the younger children and watched the older boys boil it up over the blazing coals. The heat wavered around 90F and while the hot porridge couldn’t have looked less appetizing to me at the moment, the well-behaved and excited children eagerly awaited the time when their class/grade was called to line up and fill their cups. After being served, they all scattered to their respective shade and enjoyed what they were afforded. There’s no McDonalds out in Maasailand… that’s for sure!
Wow, children full of life!
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As the children filed back into the classrooms, we moved down the road to a local manyatta (village) and met with some of the locals. If I haven’t mentioned previously, the Maasai believe that you steal their soul when you photograph them, so many are less than cooperative. Others, like Nkinaiyo ene (wife of) Koiyiankai are wonderfully friendly and welcoming and are happy to have her photograph taken. Nkinaiyo lost her eye many years ago after getting hit by a cow’s tail while milking it. I also came to learn that her daughter’s new husband had past away just the day before. And meanwhile, we were invited into her (dung hut) home to take tea with her… a Maasai tradition. Saruni and I entered and sat on the edge of her bed and they spoke as she prepared the tea. If it was 90F outside, it was easily 100F inside where we enjoyed the hot tea… tasty though!
Taking tea inside Nkinaiyo's home with Saruni
Nkinaiyo ene Koiyiakai
Outside, Silentoi ene Koiyiakai, a second wife of the same man, approached and was similarly receptive to being photographed, even as she was suffering from a stomach illness. Saruni discussed the final stages ICROSS is working through before the clinic is opened as everyone in the area is looking very much forward to it, especially in these times of cholera (and other related) outbreaks.
Silentoi ene Koiyiakai
Nkinaiyo ene Koiyiakai, Silentoi ene Koiyiakai, & Saruni ole Lengeny . . . all Maasai and the two women, wives of (ene) the same man (Koiyiakai)
Back in classrooms...
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And with school back in session, we visited the children one last time and distracted them momentarily from their studies (all taught in English). I felt like royalty walking into the classrooms where all the children would immediately stand out of respect. They were so excited for their visitors, surely a day to run home and tell mom about! As usual, they couldn’t jump in front of the camera fast enough, as they’d all close in as one child jumped in front of the other and so on. Others held up their books and their pens and pencils, appreciative of the little they own. And still others played shy as they’d flirt with the camera from the back.
All wonderful kids, well behaved, and full of life!! Every child I’ve spoken to over the last month truly enjoys school and will even push their parents to go when they are sick. The boy of an ICROSS employee did so just last week, then unfortunately vomited and fainted in school, and discovered to be suffering from malaria. Quite the contrast from my youth, when children would fake an illness just to avoid a day in school!
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