What a incredible weekend I’ve had – soul warming, humbling and filled with a new sense of purpose, that has left me feeling more content than I have felt in a while. For those of you that have been with me from the beginning – you might remember my weekend trip to the holy Sikh temple of Makindu? For those that missed it, please take a moment to read about this wonderful spiritual escape and the magical tale behind it all. This year, I visited again and each time, I return home vibrant and with a new appreciation for all that I am blessed with.
Taste Safari is always going to be about great, healthy delicious food and my endless thirst for culinary adventure. I will always be searching the world for cultural self education and exploring new ways of life so different to mine, but at the heart of it all – I also know that I would like my love of food and adventure to bring me to the people who could really do with my help.
With the recent success of the work I did with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, I know that this is the kind of work that really refuels my soul – brings a new fire to my cooking and with this new level of self reflection, it also helps me value this great and wonderful adventure I am on. It’s always healthy to step out of your world, your safe haven and face real life – the kind that is not always easy to look at, or understand or accept for that matter. So that is exactly what I did this weekend.
My curiosity always gets the better of me and this year as we arrived at the temple for prayers, I heard a free medical clinic was being run at the Makindu Sikh Hospital, right opposite the Temple, by a group of volunteers from Nairobi. So off I went, (more interested as I heard my younger brother who had arrived earlier was apparently helping in conducting blood tests – this I had to see, considering, of course, his very different current choice of career!). So, here I arrive in this charming little hospital. Within seconds, I can already feel the buzz and the energy of all the volunteer Doctors and nurses consulting patients, organising, translating and moving the growing number into orderly queues. Now, this is quite a neat little operation.
The Chief Organisers who have been running this clinic for a few years have it all under check, and they have some very enthusiastic volunteers, such as my usually very private brother, happily helping with testing for blood sugar levels. He makes me chuckle, with his white surgical gloves – completely happy and relaxed as he jokes and laughs with the villagers. Then there are the volunteer ladies group, clad in their traditional Indian garb, chatting and organising and joking with the long line of patients. It’s fantastic, this set up here in the middle of the bush. The Clinic has been advertised to surrounding villages from weeks before and a chance to see a Doctor from Nairobi and have medicine dispensed for free, has bought them flocking. And they have walked. Good Lord, I am humbled over and over again, as we assist the youngest of our patients – a six year old girl that has walked for over 35 km. No parents in sight. She is just there to see the good Doctor.
The lady volunteers are an absolute hoot! Their sense of focus to help is quite surreal. Women in their forties and fifties that have everyone sorted, organised in neat lines and drinking the free vitamin supplements that are being distributed. Their natural mothering instincts are fully on display with the little ones and communication is easy and relaxed. This year, the theme was also focused on hygiene, so it was a hilarious sight to see an old ‘soso’ ( old grandmother ) try minty mouthwash for the first time and burst into a fit of giggles at the new sensation in her mouth. The volunteers had organised donations of toothbrushes and toothpaste, sanitary pads, creams and mouthwash – all given to patients for free. Then there was our oldest patient, an elderly gentlemen of the ripe old age of 105 that I just felt, blessed us all with his toothless, happy smile.
I’m unsure of how to exactly describe the sense of being part of this. ‘There is this wonderful sense of kindness in the air. There is laughter and jokes, one human being to another – each from such different polarities in life. There is a sense of sadness as we see some of the families that are really, truly, very sick – but overall there is just some sense of love and care that comes from all this giving. It was amazing actually, as the preacher read the evening sermon and I just remember one simple line he kept repeating – ‘ don’t forget the two arms of God – pray to him and then remember to give, give as much as you can to a charitable cause – known as ‘Seva’ in Sikhism. The act of unrelenting, unconditional giving. On that one day, this Clinic helped 580 individuals from new born babies to a man that has seen over six generations born before him. There are so many people that I remember from that day, from the serious Doctors to the full of life lady and gentlemen volunteers, the young girl who had come from the UK for holidays and spent the weekend packing the free donations, the hard working pharmacy team and the nurses that hustled the children back to their villages in their native language, all of them – too many to mention – I really would like to dedicate today’s blog post to them and their wonderful work. Thank you for giving me a chance to be part of your journey.
Taste Safari is so much about my love of Kenya and it’s people, so it felt right to share this with all of you. I can always write a recipe and give you a foodie tip, but at the heart of it – there will always be another movement, another charitable drive, alongside the blog. There is always something that you can do, as small as it is to help you find your own sense of ‘Seva’ in your life. The simplest things that come from a small service and for me, I feel blessed today with the riches of a smile from someone who has so much less than all of us put together.
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