Volunteering in Lamu

I have arrived! It is wonderful! I wrote these words to reassure family and friends that I had reached my destination safely but as I reflected on them I realise how prescient they were of my personal journey.  I was embarking on a two month stay in Shela on Lamu Island, off the coast of Kenya where I was working as a volunteer acupuncturist in the village dispensary: it was a life enriching, even life changing, experience both personally and as a practitioner, and Lamu is a little piece of paradise.

The dispensary is a government facility providing western medicine.  There is a birthing room, store for medicines, a laboratory, vaccination and consulting rooms.  Two nurses work there and treat c.30 people a day.  The holistic clinic sits above this and is intended to be complimentary in every sense.

There are health messages all over the walls in the waiting area encouraging good diet and exercise and several others in Swahili which speak to the challenges of addiction, HIV, Jiggers and bed wetting which are prevalent in the community.  But the patients all seem to come for back ache.

I kept the treatments simple, initially to give me a chance to start to get a feel for how the elements manifest.  Over time I began to see colour on a darker skin, hear the sound variations that are under the Swahili tones, detect the odour beneath the smells that waft in from outside, and the distinctive (slightly buttery) odour that seems endemic, and differentiate the emotion from the life experience and expectation.

However focussing on command points actually makes more sense with patients whose own focus has to be surviving day to day, and who don’t have a well-developed emotional vocabulary.  Peoples’ lives here are tough and they are stoic.  At my first clinic I saw a patient who was working at a local hotel as a chef whilst her children live with their paternal grandmother in another county.  Her husband died a year ago in an accident.  A young man of 24 joined the military for a good life but that means providing for his mother and older brothers first.  A young woman, morbidly obese, with two children and the second wife of a man who always puts his other family first, so sometimes she has money and sometimes not!  Multiple wives and errant husbands was a recurring theme.

I learned too that rapport has a completely different meaning when there is a language barrier (I had to work through a translator) and a cultural divide.  A local lady who has been an advocate of the holistic centre came accompanied by her brother.  He spoke at length about how important it was for women not to shut themselves up at home (as long as they were accompanied by their male relatives), and to take care of themselves with diet and exercise (otherwise they couldn’t fulfil their roles as caregiver to the family), and that by doing so they were not losing their femininity or being radicalised…I barely got her to open her mouth. 

Sitting people in a chair and asking questions doesn’t work here.  What seemed more natural was to get them on the bed immediately,  perch beside them, and take their hand.  I asked some simple questions about their lives and their health.  Mostly the answer is irrelevant, but I could listen and feel what’s going on for the person, beyond backache!  I had one patient who in response to a question about what did she enjoy in her life, sounded like she was describing a funeral, and yet she was talking about playing with her grandkids! Everyone has a story of pain, poverty, tragedy and/or life changing health issues.  I am sure that being seen and heard, to feel love was as important as anything I did with needles! 

There does seem to be an affinity with the magic and mystery of Five Element system.  Some patients had burn marks on acupuncture points which had been administered by local doctors:  one Source, many paths? Lamu was an important trading post with the far east and in the 12th century a Chinese trading ship had been wrecked off the coast of an adjacent island and the survivors had integrated into this community, so likely bringing their experience of Chinese medicine with them.  

One patient asked if it was black magic!  He had struggled with a liver and/or kidney problems from polluted water.  His symptoms that had included dark urine and pale stools as well as nerve pain seemed to disappear after a single session.  He couldn’t believe that a few needles in his feet had effected this change.  Equally though, in a rather childlike way, they expect instant cures from external agents.  I was asked if the medicine was in the needles.  I explained that the medicine is in us – the needles just help us find it. 

I did get some incredible results which reaffirmed my belief in system of Five Element Acupuncture.  I have to remember that it’s not me! 

I had a rather shocking example of The Law of Cure.  A young man who had come with hives and a swollen top lip, returned and his entire face had blown up.  I resisted the urge to (panic and) change diagnosis and continued the treatment (noticing that he had a bad burn scar on the site of one of the points I was drawn to).  When I saw him again the ‘bee sting’ swelling had completely gone and the hives were receding, but most importantly for the first time, I felt he was joyful! 

Most miraculously was a young boat captain who came with a painful growth in both eyes.  He had been given drops by the doctors which seem to have done nothing to alleviate either the pain or the progression.  His pulses suggested that he had a X/XI entry/exit block.  Needling under the eyeball is a treatment I dread but the result was spectacular! 

A young girl was sullen and uncommunicative.  She was very upset that she was forced to leave school because her father didn’t believe women should be educated. She was stuck at home with nothing to do, waiting to get married! After a wood treatment she seemed to have found a new purpose and was committed to learning to become dressmaker.

There were challenges and frustrations too.  Often the pain that was the result of injury or life challenges like having to carry 20 litres of water from the well 5 times a day.  Many of the women were very overweight and inactive with joint pains, asthma, high blood pressure and diabetic neuropathy.  Food is the one area in their lives over which they have agency if not control, and I had to consider treatment a success if it encouraged them to take a bit of exercise. 

A pastor came back and asked if I could come to Malindi (on the mainland coast) where he will be taking a position as a preacher.  So many people there suffer he said, and he really believes that Five Element can help them.   An expansion opportunity and perhaps the best reason to return? If anyone would like to find out more about the experience and chances to volunteer please contact your tutor.

Fundraising for the Holistic Clinic which helps support the infrastructure and might contribute to voluteers’ travel costs is primarily through a crowd funder easyfundraising.org.uk.  I am attaching the QR code that links to The Shella Dispensary page should anyone feel moved to donate!