Visiting Maasai People
A clinic up above the Rift Valley
Visiting Maasai villages with the HHA outreach clinics was a very interesting experience. The first village we went to was a 2 hour drive from Arusha city up a mountainous dirt road, travelling above the Rift Valley (which continues on its way to Kenya). The road becomes impassable during the wet season which was extensive this year (as it was where I live) which meant the team had not been to this village since February. The clinic is held in someone’s home.
The traditional buildings are made from wood, mud and cow dung with a thatched roof. Not all Maasai live in such structures though, with some people building block houses with tin roofs. The villages are very clean, and swept daily. There is no running water or mains electricity in these villages. Along the road we saw donkeys being used to cart water in 20L drums. The animals live in close proximity to the people.
What sort of cases did I see with the Massai? Same variety as in any population. We saw everything from a sore finger to chronic cough. I guess one of the main things that stood out was the length of time people had their issue for.
For example the sore finger case had been painful for 2 years! An injury working in the fields had produced pus at the time (indicating a foreign body) but had left stitching pains like needles in the finger every since with a strong aggravation from cold – she kept the finger wrapped up all the time to keep it warm. A prescription of a single dose of Silica 30C was given (for the causative factor) followed by Hepar sulph 12C daily (the usual method of taking the remedy in HHA cases) to help the coldness and needle like pains in the finger.
Due to the dust in the environment, chronic coughs are very common. Adamas is a remedy that is often used in this case. This is a relatively new remedy and has been proved by Jeremy Sherr. The affinity is for skin and lungs. There may be an allergy to smells. People often describe how they feel better on clear sunny days (the usual sort of day) and feel worse on cloudy, damp, rainy days. There is aggravation from smoke and traditional kitchens use wood fires for cooking and have no windows, the smoke exiting through the thatch roof and the small space between the top of the wall and the roof so they are very smoky.
Our clinics were conducted outside so luckily it wasn’t raining.
In the morning it was quite cold, warming up as the day grew older. But you did have to think about sun protection.
Not all Maasai people speak the national language of Swahili. A Maasai interpreter translated Maasai language to Swahili, then a Swahili interpreter translated the Swahili to English. This gave an understanding of the term “lost in translation”.
The little girl in the picture above had been treated as a baby. She had presented with a deformed spine due to tuberculosis of the spine, unable to hold herself in any position other than lying down. Now she has a straight spine and is walking normally. A great success story of how a simple prescription of Calcarea phosphorica helped the bony structure to heal itself.
An interesting case was of an elderly gentleman who had a cough for the past 10 years with pain in the joints. The cough was worse at night and gave him a headache. He had dreams of dead people and dead relatives, which is a very common comment from people treated at all the HHA clinics as life expectancy is not as long as in Western countries. Everyone has experienced the death of a loved one and dreams about them. Further inquiry uncovered an interesting dream of being by the ocean, which is a significant symptom in this case as the man had never seen the sea. He also talked about Moses, saying in the dream he walked on dry land like Moses when he parted the sea. In the repertorisation the new remedies Oxygen and Hydrogen came up. Jeremey told us that the remedy Oxygen is all about the ego and pride, think of Pharaoh. Hydrogen is about humility, which is more like Moses, The man is very religious, near to God, Hydrogen is near to God and dead people are near to God. In the proving of Hydrogen cough was worse at night. The prescription was Hydrogen 12C. Jeremy Sherr has conducted proving of many new remedies so knows them more intimately.
Driving home we stopped to take photos of the scenery which had been obscured by clouds on the drive up the mountain.
An unfortunate issue for grassroots charities is using second hand items. One of the cars broke down on the way home. Even though it was a costly inconvenience, we were grateful for so many things about the whole episode. The breakdown occurred on the main road, not up the mountain and good Samaritans helped push the car to the side of the road. The other car was near a fuel station which just happened to be next to a mechanic shop. We were able to drive back to our stricken colleagues with the mechanic who diagnosed a snapped fan belt. A gentleman just happened to have a length of steal cable that could be used to tow the car to the mechanics shop for repairs. And despite being on the highway, in the middle of nowhere, a shop was very near by with a toilet.
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This completes my series on my time as a homeopath in Africa. Just for fun, next week I’ll show some photos of the safari trip I went on afterwards.