Shoes, learning and school fees.

So what do shoes have to do with school you ask..... Answer, everything. We were told by the clinic coordinator there was a grandma and a mama we needed to do a home visit for, the mama was suffering from an ulcer and complaints of not being able to sleep at nights. We showed up at the house to find both women sitting outside, bibi (grandma) in her 90’s, shelling peas to sell to feed the family. (check out bibi's shelled peas right below the tin cup in the basket.)

The small one bedroom house was being shared by bibi, the mama, an adult child with a baby of her own, 1 child in school and 2 small children that were left in the mama’s care after their parents died of AIDS. We start the consult and she tells me she’s suffering from anxiety because of thoughts. “What’s worrying you mama?” “My daughter can’t go to school because she has no shoes, and I don’t have money to pay the school fees.” “No shoes?” The school fees I could understand because education wasn’t free, but no shoes? This shouldn’t stop a child from learning. I knew there were certain dress codes the schools held the children to. I’d see them after school in their identifying uniforms headed home playing together in the streets, but I never thought that not being able to meet the dress code by not having a pair of shoes could actually stop them going to school. What difference does it make what you wear as long as the child has an interest in learning? (Kids headed home in their uniforms)

This was one of those times I was silenced by the complexity yet simplicity of my African experience. In the end I wound up buying the shoes, they were second hand and cost me about 5 bucks, and giving the mama the money for the school fees worked out to be about $18. It was hard to know that for such a small expense a child was being deprived of an education. Now that I’m back home, I get up in the morning and start my day with the thought of what to wear, go to my closet overflowing with shoes and choose the one that best matches my outfit. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder about the little girl who had no shoes while my closet overflows with the many I haven’t worn in years, something I take for granted. I often think of her mama too, shelling peas, the only source of income for the family. It’s pushed me to try to do something to help while home. I’m challenging you to help me make this difference by donating your unwanted shoes no matter the condition or the era. Let’s get them outta the closets and to a 3rd world country where mama’s like this one can use them to start micro businesses to feed their families and send their kids to schools. It also gets some feet covered in things other than old tires and smashed down plastic bottles. My ship date is August 1st 2013. Please contact me if you’d like to donate your shoes. Camrhyian1@yahoo.com

Brussels here I come!

I hate Brussels!!… at least that was my 1st impression. After being up for days preparing my house for sale, making sure the kids were all set for after school care and pick up’s for the next 7 months while I was away working in Tanzania and worrying about how everyone would get along without me I booked a 3 day layover in Brussels with the plan to explore the city, but when I got there I was so tired I swear I was cross eyed. I got into Brussels at 5:30am, grabbed a cab to my hostel in the vicinity of Grand Place, (I’ve never seen the movie so I’m not afraid to stay at hostels), with the mindset of exploring as soon as I got there. I had already researched The Atomium, Grand Place, Manneken Pis, various other sites and friends had made recommendations that sounded good, so I had a harty list of places to go. My 1st walk down to Grand Place left me with the impression it was ostentatious and I couldn’t wait to get back to my hostel, but that was the tired talking. After a well needed shower and nap I headed back on the exploration path to sit at Grand Place and just take it all in. That’s when it hit me; Brussels was awesome! And I loving every min of it!!!

For the next 3 day I would wake up and walk to Grand Place and just sit. I would order a pastry and tea, sit and just people watch while look at the ornately dressed buildings shrouded in gold. Most enjoyable for me was walking around the streets and capturing pictures of the many graffiti or is it wall art(?), along the streets. I walked from one end of the city to the other, hopped on and off busses and would hang out in the parks enjoying the weather, I even ended up having tea and good conversation at a cozy little tea shop with a Moroccan I met. Of course I had to eat a Belgium Waffle… I couldn’t come all this way and not have Belgium Waffle! My waffle had whipped cream, strawberry and chocolate, now I’m not a fan of chocolate.. I know, I know, who doesn’t like chocolate?… but I suddenly knew what all the rage was about. Leaving Belgium without buying chocolate to share with my family back home was not an option and it took me to the next experience of figuring out how to use the post office. You actually have to take a number and sit and wait your turn to be called!

No trip to Belgium is complete without seeing the famous Manneken Pis and I spent time coming back to it over and over.

I didn’t see half the things I planned, and in the end I didn’t want to, I was happy to have the down time to transition between what had been a very stressful past few months of packing and preparing and what I knew was going to be a fast paced intense 7 months of homeopathy, and caring for people who are HIV positive. I left Brussels rejuvenated, refreshed and with my sanity intact…. Exactly what I needed for the road ahead. >

Successes and Failures

Most of us, no matter what we do for a living, want to talk only about our successes.  Failures make us seem like we have no idea what the hell we’re doing and frankly, you just feel like a fool. For me the more I’ve fallen flat on my face the more I’ve learned about homeopathy and ultimately myself in the process.

In my 1^st months of volunteering with HHA, I went out to a clinic that we only visit once a month.  While there I saw a patient who had been deaf but had gotten a homeopathic medicine that had restored her hearing except she was still complaining that it felt like she had a scab in her ear and if she could just get it out her hearing would be 100%. She also had ringworm on her joints,( knees, elbows, shoulder wrist..etc.)  I took a look at the list of homeopathic medicines she’d had so far, plugged in all her symptoms in my computer program and decided to give her Psorinum as it looked like the right medicine that covered all her symptoms.  I was so confident in my prescription I KNEW nothing could go wrong.

We get back to clinic the following month and she comes marching in, giving me the stare down, eyes  on death ray beam.  She has gone DEAF! I FREAKED!

She’s in the clinic and she’s screaming at me because she cant hear. I’m trying to calm her down and calm myself down in the process.   My translator asks her a question, she turns to her grandson who had come to clinic with her, and he yells it in her ear and she yells back.  The whole clinic is in chaos.  She keeps yelling she wants her hearing back and that her hearing was good before I came there. In the meantime I’m in a total panic and scrambling to find something to give her that will restore her hearing, all the while contemplating whether or not to call the directors of the program.  The whole time I’m under the death ray stare down.  And I can’t think.

Finally, I’m able to get the whole story of whats happening with her ears and I find out its been draining goop for the past month. I decide to let the prescription stand as it means her body is discharging whatever is in her ear and hope the following month her hearing  comes back.  She never came back to my clinic, and in a way I was glad because I was having anxiety attacks just thinking about her.  I don’t know whatever happened with her hearing but I questioned myself for days after that. What did I do wrong, should I have given her a different medicine, and should I have stuck to my prescription?   

This experience taught me that when we fail at the things we feel we are good at, it doesn’t mean you’re a total dumbass, it just means there is still a lot to learn. >

sitting with Maasai AIDS Widows on World AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day and one of the missions of Homeopathy for Health in Africa, the organization I was volunteering with at the time is; “To relieve the suffering of HIV/AIDS patients using classical homeopathy” so there was no way I was going to say no when we were invited to be a part of the Maasai World AIDS Day celebration. The plan was to wake early on the morning of December 1st, drive the 2 hours to Arusha where the celebration was to be held, treat only HIV positive patients (keeping with the theme of the day) and then drive home that night. Our team consisted of me, Roger our Swahili translator and Popo a local homeopath. As soon as we got to the field where the festivities were to be held we set up our clinic under a tree and got to work treating the line of patients that were already waiting. I swear I still don’t know how there is always so many people to treat! Clinic under the tree. Old Bibi. My most memorable patient that day was a 93 year old bibi (grandma) who came to see us. She had been previously treated by another homeopath and I was doing follow up care for her. Bibi told me she had been blind for 5 years before receiving homeopathic care! Her 1 complaint, when she looked at far away objects with her right eye they tended to be a bit shimmery. Bibi, you can see! Never mind that things are a bit shimmery!! We had a laugh and soon she was on her way with another bottle of homeopathic medicine. Homeopathy still amazes me with results like these that are so unexpected. In September 2013 while volunteering with the Maun Homeopathy Project I hope to see results that are this amazing. Help in giving others results as good as this by making a donation. >

Homeopathy can even help you get better grades! Salma's story

Salma was the one to dub me Dr. Rasta because of my hair style. A shy girl of 9 years , who looked to be 6 years old, Salma was born HIV positive. She came to see me in our clinic in the alley, called this because it was literally in an alley, with her mother and grandma. She was suffering from a bad cough that she’d had for several months and a really bad case of ringworm that covered the majority of her head. Her teachers were also complaining that she wasn’t learning and her grades were the lowest in her class. I later found out the HIV virus attacks the nerves centers and the brain is no exception, so it can cause learning difficulties in kids. Because of the symptoms of cough coupled with ringworm I put Salma on Bacilinum 12c. Ringworm before. Ringworm after 2 weeks. After the 1st month of the remedy, Salma’s cough was gone, and the ringworm had completely dried up and her hair was now growing in. We became fast friends after that and whenever I’d arrive at clinic she would be waiting for me at the entrance, take my bag and my hand and walk me into clinic. Several months on the remedy and Salma’s cough was gone, her appetite was increasing and she was gaining weight. She was doing well in school, her test marks had gone from zero to 30-40% and she even bought in some of her test papers to show me. You could tell she was feeling proud of herself. Through homeopathy I was able to help Salma in many different areas of her life. In September 2013, I'll be volunteering in Botswana, I hope to make a difference in the life's of the children there too. Check out my volunteer Forever page.