MALARIA

It’s the rain season and at this time of the year we experience heavy showers nearly every day or night. The roads have loads of water running down them with puddles everywhere. The children are having great fun playing in the water. However, many roads have become mud tracks, the puddles are deep thick brown sludge and the rivers have eroded deep gouges where the rainwater has washed away the ground and are full of rubbish.

The densely packed community of Kawama

The community has to walk through this and the children play in it. It is a breeding ground for many diseases including malaria.

Children playing in a rubbish strewn water channel

The road into Kawama with a Government School in the background

Malaria is found of many parts of the world and especially here in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease is caused by a tiny single celled protozoan that cannot survive outside of its host (mainly humans). There are five species of this protozoa worldwide of which plasmodium falciparum is the one responsible for most deaths globally and unfortunately is the one most prevalent here in Africa. This malaria parasite can only infect two creatures, female mosquitos of the anopheles genus and humans.

The mosquitos breed in stagnant and dirty water and are more prevalent from dusk to dawn as they seek out a human to bite for blood and food. When they bite they transfer the malaria parasite and infect the person. The parasite then travels rapidly to the liver and from there to the red blood cells. These red blood cells are destroyed and at this point the clinical symptoms of malaria start to show. These can include fever, headaches, sickness, tiredness and one minute being very hot and sweaty then the next shivering and coldness. Severe malaria can manifest itself to a coma and severe breathing problems. Cerebral malaria is when the symptoms affect the brain as in a coma.

According the World Health Organisation there were 212 million reported new cases of malaria worldwide in 2015 and 90% of these were in the African region and the most shocking statistic is that there were 429,000 deaths worldwide and again 92% of these were in Africa. Children are recorded as being the most susceptible to the illness.

As the early symptoms are very general and are often found in many illnesses such as colds or general sickness, the usual reaction for the local population is that any illness is called “malaria” so often tests are not done. A visit to a clinic or local hospital is generally free or a minimal cost (as little as 1 Kwacha, about .08 pence). Malaria is often easily diagnosed with a simple “prick” test where a small drop of blood is deposited onto a pre-bought slide and the answer will be available within 10-15 minutes but this of course costs money so it not done routinely. Malaria, if diagnosed quickly, is easily treatable with several different treatments.

Mosquitos breed on damp and wet conditions and prefer dirty stagnant water. This is just the condition that is found around a lot of Zambia at this time of year. Rubbish is often thrown into the streets and this just gets washed into heaps as the rains come. There is very little drainage in the compounds where we work. Kawama is one example where there are very few if any tarmac roads and just gravel or mud tracks. Children are left to play in the roads and water.

 

Children sitting, playing and even drinking the water

Unfortunately it is not unknown to see people using the ditches and water channels as rubbish dumps, places to chuck dirty water or even using them as toilets. Children sit and play in them and as often they have no running water in the homes, these channels are used to collect water for the house and even drink it. This being said it is not surprising that the population suffers badly from all sorts of water born diseases.

Mosquito nets help a great deal, as long as they are used, as the female mosquito is more active from early evening until dawn. Many of the homes do not have nets to sleep under or possibly there are too many people in the home to afford nets. Of course many homes have one or two single rooms and culturally the cooking is done outside so most people including children, are outside at dusk.

Education is also very important in teaching people that malaria is a preventable disease. Trying to support the community and teaching them to keep the area clean and not throwing rubbish out into the roads would help, along with using a clean water supply and not playing in drainage channels. Sleeping under nets at night are also another great way to avoid being bitten. Education also is important in making sure that when any symptoms appear then the patient is given an early and correct diagnosis so that treatment can begin as soon as possible.

To help prevent children from contracting malaria we give out mosquito nets from time to time. If you’d like to purchase a mosquito net to be given to a vulnerable family, visit our Alternative Gift store here. (http://www.beyondourselves.co.uk/donate/alternative-gifts/item/3/2/mosquito-net/?a=sl)

Kilimanjaro

On 6th January 2017, my Dad’s 60th birthday, we summited Kilimanjaro.

The whole climb up was incredible.

We didn’t start climbing until 4pm on Sunday 1st January as we‘d spent most of the morning making sure we had the right equipment, choosing the porters and packing up the 2 mini buses that took us all to the base of the mountain. We had chosen to do the 7 day Lemosho route which meant a 2 ½ hour drive to register and pay park fees and then another ½ hour drive to get to the start of the trail. So at 4pm, just as it has started to rain we made our first ascent full of high spirits and excitement.

Day 1

3 hours in, we were starting to think that maybe we’d underestimated how hard this was going to be. We arrived at camp around 7pm feeling pretty tired and had to find our way around in the dark – probably a good thing we couldn’t see the long drop toilet we were sharing with about 60 other people. I’ll spare you all the details of those toilets!

We were shown our ‘mess tent’ where we’d be eating dinner and breakfast each day complete with tables and chairs and had a sudden realisation that this whole experience was going to be much more than an enduring mountain climb. Between 8 of us there were 27 porters and 5 guides. This is the way it works on Kilimanjaro climbs – it’s probably the most pampered mountain climb I’ll ever do. You have a part feeling that maybe you’re not quite hardcore enough and part feeling of gratefulness for a ‘mess tent’ to eat your food and people to carry your bags – after all you’re still doing the climbing every day and sleeping on a 1 inch mattress for 6 nights J

Day 2

We combined day 2 and 3 from the more popular 8 day route into 1 day for our 7 day route and so walked from Big tree camp to Shira 1 camp and on towards Shira 2. The day was long and hard. It wasn’t a particularly steep climb in fact these camps were named for the ‘Shira plateau’ the flatter bit of Kilimanjaro before you hit the steep incline. However we were slower than the recommended time and the 8-9 hours walk ended being 10 hours. We again fell into camp exhausted with just enough energy to take a selfie at the Mountain sign detailing how far we’d come and how far to go.

Day 3

A slightly shorter walk – only 6 hours – but one to test how we’d cope at high altitude. We climbed over 100m towards Lava tower at 4600metres only to go over the ‘hill’ and climb back down 900 metres to camp. Ever so slightly demoralising to climb that high and then come down again but it was needed to help acclimatise. This camp was cold – winds blew in from all around and we so we quickly changed into base layer thermals and fleecy clothes that evening. We managed to get some great photo shots of the summit from this camp as it loomed above us.

Day 4 – the Barranco wall

This was our favourite day – we’d heard that it was the toughest but actually it was the most fun. Most of the morning was spent scrambling up a rock face and doing some ‘proper’ climbing. There was one part called the Kissing rock where you shimmy yourself along a thin ledge until you are almost kissing the rock – hence the name – and try not to look down behind you at the drop. The ‘summit’ for this day was quicker and we spent a longer time taking some fun photos of the stunning views.

Day 5 – Base camp (Barrraco camp 4600 metres high)

The scenery each day was stunning and so different from the day before – Climbing from Base to summit you go through 5 different climatic zones and each new landscape was spectacular. It almost felt like an alien landscape at times – the plants and volcanic ash soil were so dramatic.

Day 6 –Summit day

3am we began our final ascent - It was cold, it was dark, we were tired, the kids were moaning and at some point we all cried – but we did it!

The walk to the summit was so “Pole Pole” – which is Swahili for ‘Slowly slowly’ and is used for everything on Kilimanjaro – the guides say it all day long, even porters who pass you carrying 20kg on their heads shout it back to you. In fact I’m sure we were possibly one of the few groups in the history of Kilimanjaro that was told to ‘speed up a little’ as we were a little too ‘pole pole’ and did enjoy our long stops along the way.

Three things kept me putting my feet in front of each other that day – Really wanting to reach the top with my Dad on his 60th birthday. Thinking about all the money I’d raised for Beyond Ourselves and how I had to make it and finally wanting to prove I could do it to all the people that had said ‘ it’s fine if you don’t make it, lots of people don’t cope with the altitude and it’s nothing to do with fitness’. Powerful motivation!

I wanted to quit a number of times but I think after about 6 hours my determination just set in and I thought ‘I’m doing this’. About 2 hours from the top my ever encouraging guide patted me on the back and said ‘You’ve hit the point of no return now Emily’ – This was at the point where I was stopping every 5 steps to catch my breath and thinking will I ever make it and can you camp up here?

We finally made it to Stella point – the crater rim of the volcano and knew we had one last hour slog to the highest point – Uhuru Peak.

It’s hard to describe the emotion I felt as I rounded the rocky outcrop and saw ‘The sign’. I was feeling so exhausted with little breath but knew I was going to make it. My son came running back to climb the last bit with me and then the emotions hit – we were all crying as one by one everyone reached the sign with cheering and singing from the guides. Papa Joe being head of the group got the biggest cheer. You cannot stay long at the top due to the thin air at this high altitude. So we had 10 minutes of photos and 5 minutes looking at the incredible view – over the glaciers and landscape below us but also at the other side down into Mount Kilimanjaro’s volcanic crater!

Apparently ‘Uhuru’ means ‘Freedom’ in Swahili, which describes perfectly the elation you feel at reaching the roof of Africa!

By Emily