Mombasa

I’ve also been in Mombasa for a week, which has meant a lot of site visits to organizations in the area.  Mostly I’ve been feeling pretty off thanks to a bad rash and skin infection, but some of the organizations have been informative and interesting.  Yesterday were the site visits that I found most fascinating, one was to a school for children with cerebral palsy, and the second was to a medical group that works with children (and some adults) with deformities.  While there, we also met a group of mothers of children with spina bifida and hydrocephalus- deformities that can cause women to be left by their husbands and shunned by society in this area.

The day filled with marginalized groups was interesting for comparisons amongst organizations and for comparing what I know about how each group would be treated and cared for back in the US.  At the CP school, all the children had CP, but many also had autism, emotional disturbance, and hearing issues, as well as potential Down’s syndrome or fetal alcohol syndrome.  While the care of CP and specialized classrooms were impressive- the management of these specialized secondary issues was severely lacking.  All of the children were lumped together by ability, with little regard for other issues, with the exception of hearing impairment, for which there was a special classroom.  At the second location, the hospital/organization for children with deformities, there was a similar classroom, where children from all disability areas (and some non-disabled) were grouped into a single class with one teacher.  This lack of specialization was frustrating to me, especially knowing the difficulties presented to teachers and classroom participants when students are combined. 

As stated above, following our visit to the hospital, we met with a group of mothers of children suffering from hydrocephalus and spina bifida.  In the rural areas (and, in reality, all of ) Kenya, children with these disorders are associated with witchcraft and other social taboos that can cause the children to be abandoned or killed and the mothers to be shunned completely.  As a major portion of a woman’s life is childbearing- once she bears a child with such an obvious deformity, she is considered to be bad luck.  Her husband will frequently leave or find another woman to bear his future children.  I think that I’m going to try and do my Independent Study Project with this women’s group, so more information should follow as time goes on.