Who is My Neighbour?

B, our part time cook, has had a very bad few months by anyone’s standards. His wife got typhoid. His part-time jobshare let him go. His house burnt down with all his belongings in it. And now, after the joyful birth of his third grandchild a week ago, the babe is failing to thrive. Has lost weight dramatically. Has lost sucking reflex. Is crying all the time.
Yesterday the dad took the newborn babe to the local district hospital, in Mbale.

‘We can’t treat him here, he needs to go, several hours away, to Kisumu.’

Stressed phonecalls to B, in Nairobi, 8 hours away. B is the only member of the extended family in employment. One wife, 2 adult sons (and their wives and three children), and three daughters in high school, all depending on B’s part time wage in a land without social security.

Last night B’s son was in howling distress on the phone. To check into Kisumu hospital you need to provide a deposit. No one was clear how much. At least 10,000 KSh, £90, B reckoned. No one had that money. Was it worth Dad and stricken babe, in extremis, boarding the overnight bus to travel several hours, without it? So B spelled it all out to me, and hotfoot via the bank, we loaned him the money.

Today, palefaced, B updated the situation. The babe is now on an incubator, with a drip. But the total deposit had been 27,000 KSh, - some £250. Back I go to the bank.

This morning, L, our housekeeper, filled in more of the gaps. Mbale hospital, the district hospital from which they were sent, is in a poor position. Has, for confused reasons - ?failure to pay bills – no water at all, ever. Families of patients must arrive with their own water in tow. And yes, you must first pay a deposit to access treatment in a hospital. You pay your money, receive a receipt, and show the receipt before any test or interaction.

I truly wish the babe and family well. I realize they have no one else with money in their circles. I trust B, our cook, I value his integrity, I want to help out. I can’t walk by on the other side when, without medical knowledge, it seems that a life is at stake.

I know it’s ignoble, but I’ve also totted up how much extra we’ve contributed to our part time employee in the last few months. 3 saucepans, a set of crockery, a duvet, sheets and some towels, a lilo and pump, four sets of clothes, some shoes, and the proceeds of a cash whip-round at the time of the fire. 1000 bob to help towards the doctor’s fees for his wife. 15,000 KSh, £130, towards the term’s fees at high school for the three daughters, after the fire, when it became clear that without extra contribution, at least one of them would have to stay out of school. And now loans of 24,000 Ksh, £230, to help out the grandson, - and a sense that this might just be the beginning. We pay generous wages for what B does and contribute too towards his transport costs each month. But we watch his distress at the claims and the real demands on him, to which without external help he will not be able to rise.

Trying to get the second installment of cash from the cash-point on a Friday afternoon, it all fell apart, as slick transactions often do here. The cash machine spat out the receipt, saying it had issued 20,000 KSh, but gave me not a bean. No handy notice on the machine ‘in case of malfunction please phone..’ Blank-faced security guards. No branch of the bank in the mall. In the end I walked to the nearest branch, tried to lodge a report. Got waved from pillar (the reception) to post (the customer service point) via the priority business counter. No one would take a report. ‘You need to contact your (foreign) bank to sort this out’ though this had been their bank’s ATM, and we have a local account with their branch too. I was hot, I was bothered, I was flustered, and I was trying to get the cash to Kisumu, fast, to help the babe. And in the end I just saw red.

‘This cash is not for myself, nor for my child, nor my employee’s child. It’s to help a sick child in Kisumu hospital, who is nothing to do with me. It’s a charitable donation because I’ve been asked and am stepping up. This isn’t my country. This actually isn’t anything to do with me. And you, who are paid by this bank to sort out problems, this bank which is my bank too, are all refusing to even take a report so one day, this problem, of your ATM’s making, might be sorted out by someone else. I can’t say how angry that makes me.’

B says, heavily, ‘God will manage all. It’s in his hands.’ I respect his acceptance. But I see it more as about what we do, what we are willing to take on, help out with, live up to, with whom we are willing to identify. Yet today I feel sulky, resentful, overburdened, overstretched, a mulish Jonah under the fig tree turning her face from what she’s being asked to do. Who me? Not me Lord. We're surrounded by need all around. Today, I feel we’ve done enough, for now. This is one of our employees, I care for him, but the others are requesting support too, though at lesser levels, - and the wider community. What is realistic? Where can I draw appropriate limits, when today the need is so clear, but I feel overstretched? What would I ask for from my kindly boss in the UK? Maybe a fiver if my purse had been stolen, to help me buy lunch and to pay back next morning.

But chatting to a school mum friend whom I really respect today, she told me what they have done this week. How a friend in another country, a supplier to their business, but no one to whom they have clear responsibility, had let slip how he had cancer, tumors on major organs. How her husband had phoned the consultant to understand the situation. Had requested a costing of treatment here, and the alternatives. And had stepped in, to fund and arrange chemotherapy, flights and hotel for the friend and his wife in India. Had stepped up to sort out the visas. And made nothing of it. As she said,

‘The cancer is far gone. Most likely this won’t help much. But it matters to my husband that he does what he can for a friend. That he gives it his best shot.’

And that’s really it. B didn’t hesitate when I said we’d give the money as a loan, not a present, though he did gulp and it’s a massive amount for him to pay back. He wants to give his grandson his best shot. It matters to make possible what we can in relationships. It matters to raise the bar. This feeling of feeling overstretched, this is the Kenyan experience. This is to walk in B’s shoes, as he juggles part payments of school fees with trips back home with gradually furnishing his rebuilt house in Kangemi, sole wageearner in the family.

And, as I write, an email pops up on screen. A UK friend has read my facebook status, is offering to pay the check-in charges. And this truly is about being a good neighbour, - going out of her way for a babe and a family she knows not at all - but creating those links of love which make the sun emerge from behind clouds in a sometimes bleak world.