Care Highway medical team in Africa

24 hours before, I had been treating the well-heeled residents of Chelsea, in London. , I found myself surrounded by the most abject poverty I had seen for some time. Large piles of excrement surrounded us as we made our way to the ‘church’: a burning tin shack surrounded by innumerable hovels. This is a place where people with nothing have to pay the local mafia for the minute amount of ‘free’ water the government provides. This is a place that a routine cut or graze can result in an ‘amateur’ amputation due to infection. This is a place where around 800,000 people are crammed into what used to be Nairobi’s rubbish dump and sewage works.

It was not a shock because I have seen similar devastation in India but no westerner could remain unmoved at this sight. I tried to maintain equanimity and get on with the job I was there to do. I was exhausted but found bags full of energy! Self-pity of any kind quickly evaporates in Kibera.

It was my first mission with Care Highway, a humanitarian aid organisation, and I had not known what to expect.