TwoHelp Kenya

Malindi part 1: Fear

The woman in the orange head scarf was scared – I knew from the moment that I saw her. Outside of her home, a large group of men drank themselves into oblivion on the local hombrewed beer. One of them had donned a purple dress and a beret. Perhaps the beret was from the security guard job from which he claimed to have just returned. The men were full of histrionics, ocassionally chasing chickens and leaving the young children unattended. They wandered around on the dirt and garbage that was the central square of their village. It was brutally hot and it was only nine o’clock in the morning.

Asha, in the orange scarf, is a client of the Malindi branch of the Kenya Red Cross. Having come under the care of a Red Cross community health worker (CHW), she had been found bedridden, covered with sores, on the verge of death. Jen, the CHW who visited her twice a week, had convince her, some time back, to go to the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) center to find our her HIV status. The promise was one of prolonging her life. If she qualified, she could go on Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART).

Malindi is a unique location for the Kenya Red Cross. Most of the CHWs who worked with the branch had been nominated by their village to represent them with the Red Cross. The stigma of HIV is an overwhelming force in any part of the world, but here, respected village members were able to bring the truth of the virus home to the same villagers that had elected them to the program. It takes trust and guts for anybody to reveal their HIV status, especially in some of the impoverished villages of Kenya where it is a commonly held belief that HIV is witchcraft. In other areas, particularly amongst the Luo communities in western Kenya, it is widely believed that having sex with a virgin will cure the disease. Instances of rape and incest have skyrocketed, with most of the victims being young schoolgirls.

Malindi is a predominately Muslim community. It is also a popular tourist destination for Italians and Germans. Most services in the area are geared towards aggravated Germans who prefer that their vacation spot be as similar to their home environment as possible. I sat at the bar at the Eden Roc Hotel, trying to read my book in peace, while 10 feet away a group of 50 or more German senior citizens played Bingo, bad music from the 1980s blared on the speakers, and the evening’s recap of European soccer matches flashed on the television. The view was one of beautiful palm trees and through the sultry heat of the evening sky the full moon provided extra light. All of this: utterly spoiled by tourism.

Just a few miles away Asha was probably winding things up for the evening. While her neighbors, George and Beatrice (also Red Cross clients), had electricity, Asha’s home was just a 2-room mud hut with a thatched roof and lacked power. It was dark, even during the day. The only light came from the embers under the 3-stone cooking fire, filling the house with acrid thick smoke and the smell of boiling chicken and herbs.

The ART that Asha had received since testing positive for HIV had brought her body back into shape. The final sores on her head were healing and she was able to move around without difficulty. The Red Cross seeks the bedridden and brings them hope and care. Yet, they cannot alleviate the fear. Asha settles into bed with her husband and her four children, none of whom have been tested for the virus. Her youngest daughter hovers around the house, coughing violently – she recently recovered from a bout of malaria. You see, it is not the drunk men in the village that Asha fears. It is the possibility that everbody surrounding her is also HIV positive. It is the fear of knowing her entire family is positive only to know that they are too poor to seek treatment.

So, the problem with encouraging testing in impoverished Malindi continues. Quite simply, for Asha, it is better not to know.