Visit from Swiss TV Station

ak. Yesterday evening, Rhein-Valley Hospital founder Stephan Holderegger arrived in Nairobi with a two-man television crew from TV Swiss South-East. The crew is in Kenya to film a six-part miniture documentary series of the hospital and its director, Ruth Schaefer. Marco Nuessli and Marc Hosig from the Swiss station made their first trip to the hospital today and were very impressed with what they saw. An appropriate day for a first viewing, it was Thursday Neonatal Day, which provides a hectic atmosphere throughout the day. Once the number of patients had reduced in the late afternoon, we enjoyed a soccer game against the IDP children and then Marco had his hair braided.

A central laundry place should come soon

rs. Early in the morning I met this woman washing her clothes in front of her tent. It came to my mind that it is high time to organize a central laundry place. I am happy that the people in the tents become orderly more and more. The toilets are clean and also the general ground. Now we will put some big flood light to bring more security for everybody. Cooking also gets organized. The IDP's slowly start to use big pans to cook collectively which makes more sense anyway. Some ideas take a long time to be accepted but finally they see themselves what is good for them. In one point Mr. Maina Muhia is right: the women are easier to handle in the tent camp than men. But I don't fear them and also try bring them to some kind of discipline and order. Tomorrow we will have 10 more women and their children joining our camp. We already made the plan to organize it properly. Some camps are getting closed by the Government so there is a concentration to those still in function.

Yesterday I saw in a TV report how deplorable the situation still is in various parts of the country. There was a story of a young mother and her children that was escorted by the military to her original home place and all she found was one clay wall and nothing behind. She started to weep and was helped to set up a tent. She has no money and no clothes. How can she make a living? One of the many open questions here in Kenya. Tomorrow we will get a visit from Bern (Switzerand). It's always good if people come and make themselves a picture from the situation and our work.

Swiss TV reports on the Rhein-Valley Hospital

The French speaking Swiss TV station tsr included a report on the Rhein-Valley Hospital in yesterday's programme "Le Journal". They recently visited the facilities (see our earlier posts) and interviewed the founder, Swiss Stephan Holderegger (picture).

Grand Coalition Government: New hope?

sh. Today at 5 pm the Kenyan TV station KTN broadcasted a live report on a new Cabinet with President Kibaki, Prime Minister Odinga and Vice President Kolonzo. Now they have to proove that they will bring back the standard of the country to its previous level. Sudden results cannot be expected over night, but the first steps in the right direction are done. Let's hope that God will protect them and guide our country.

It was also a day of preparation for us at the Rhein-Valley Hospital. Tomorrow we will have to feed 3500 refugees with corn, beans, milk powder, porridge and some baby food. At the same time we will have to do more regsitration work for the UN and the Red Cross. Each family living in of our tents will be listed. Our Swiss guest Alex Paur helped to load our Landrover. Then he insisted to visit a Governent Hospital but after 5 minutes they have seen enough. The circumstances were not so inspiring. Alex will probably stay for another 2 days to witness our big food distrubution.

Making the children happy

Yesterday we met quite a lot of children collecting wood for their cooking fires back home at the camps. To some of them we offered T-Shirts and caps and also a Frutapura package. With little things you can make them happy! We also went to Nairobi to welcome Gaby Schädler from the Swiss TV (Rundschau) and Swiss dulcimer musician Nicolas Senn together with his mother. Today we have a full program - more news tonight.