Inoculations and other things we take for granted…
on A Serendipitous Journey (Kenya), 29/Aug/2009 19:27, 34 days ago
In one of my very first blog posts, I mentioned feeling like I had been“vaccinated for life and death and ever more” before coming to Kenya. And after being here for several months, relatively immersed in daily life of lower and middle income earning Kenyans, I am reminded about why these are so important.Every day I see countless people with a disability as a result of diseases which are virtually unheard of anymore in the Western world, including polio, meningitis and measles to name a few. I’ve written before about my friend Emma, who lived a typical life of a young professional in Nairobi, until one day she acquired meningitis and lost much of her hearing in her left ear and her sight in both eyes. Another young lady who volunteers with KUB became blind at the age of 3 due to measles. However, she has a two-fold perspective on her disability seeing it both as a fortune and misfortune. The other day she recounted that she is the only member ofher family ever to receive a post-secondary education and said: "It is only through the fortune of my disability that I have been afforded an education." (My jaw dropped in shock and admiration.)Nonetheless, I find it difficult to fathom that all of these lives could have been changed with a few simple, albeit expensive, inoculations.