A Sunday afternoon walk with a difference

Yesterday afternoon Janet and I set off on our regular Sunday late-afternoon walk along the roads around where we live. Compared to weekdays there is little traffic, little dust and little air pollution which makes a walk that much more enjoyable. After a few minutes walking we came to a water leak and we wondered if it was sewage or clean water as we knew there was a sewage leak a little further down the road. At that moment Janet heard a noise behind us and turned to look. There on the dirt, on his back was a Kenyan man having a fit and foaming at the mouth. He must have just passed us and I hadn’t even noticed. We paused for a few moments. I was giving the scene a sort of risk assessment to wonder if this was some sort of act or scam and then we approached the man.

I have some knowledge of first aid from when I used to do a lot of lifeguard training in my youth. Firstly consciousness: he’s clearly not going to respond as he’s fitting. Secondly breathing… he’s probably not at this moment. His mouth was covered in a film of foam. I knelt to one side of him and turned him onto his side. He then coughed. A car came past and I asked the driver for advice. He pulled over.

Meanwhile Janet had knocked on the gate of a house and on getting no response she returned to the corner we had passed to get some help from several people who were there selling mangos and chatting together.

The patient started to come around and with an unsteady voice said to get the medication from his plastic bag. We found this and he told me to give him one each of the two types of tablets in the Ziploc bag. His muscles were now much more relaxed and others now arrived with Janet to help. One of the men from the corner was the watchman for the house we were outside and so he went inside to get water and a cloth to clean the man up. We helped him up into the sitting position. He asked for some sugar and one person went to get this.

The man’s name was Geoffrey. He had been walking down the hill from Kenyatta Hospital where he had gone to get his epilepsy medication for the month. He worked as a hawker – selling items to drivers as they sit in traffic jams – which is technically illegal and he had been arrested for this a few days earlier and lost his income during those days. As a member of the society for epileptics in Kenya he’s able to get free consultations and subsidized medications from the government hospital. Now at the hospital he had been unable to afford the 725 shillings for one of the medications. He had a nasty infected wound on his neck from a previous fit were he had fallen on a nail. Janet and I offered to fetch our car and drive him up to the hospital and so we set off back down the hill to our home.

On arriving back with the car we found one man brushing Geoffrey down to get all the dust off him and together we all helped him up. Everyone who had stopped to help exchanged names, shook hands and thanked each other. Two others then passed to us two thirds of the cost of the drug Geoffrey needed. On the short (yet slow and bumpy) journey to the hospital Geoffrey told us how he had been repeatedly praying Psalm 23 on his way down the hill. He promptly recited the whole of it for us. We drove into the hospital and up to the delivery bay. We passed over the funds for the drug and the extra £5.50 so that he could get the nail injury x-rayed. Geoffrey then asked us to pray for him which we were pleased to do. He then set off into the hospital with a very stiff walk.

Maybe we should have left a phone number with him. I’m not sure. It’d be so easy for him to be dependant on us and over the years we’ve grown a thick skin about not overly helping those that we do not know well.

So to conclude: In light of the past few days in Kenya with a twin bombing in Nairobi on Friday it is wonderful to once again see what makes Kenyans such wonderful people. Everyone was so helpful. Class and skin colour went out the window and we just looked at each other as people who needed help and support. It’s the body of Christ at work in a fuller way than many sermons would encapsulate.

And who’s the hero of all this? Well, we’re thankful to God for orchestrating the positive chain of events and out of all of us there on that street, the man with epilepsy (and mild diabetes) is the hero as he has to rely on God to provide for his needs in a way far beyond what any of the rest of us have needed. I sincerely hope and pray that God will help Geoffrey to be able to meet the needs he has and I pray that God will continue to faithfully provide other encounters that will help Geoffrey in getting the medications that he needs.