Running into a booster in the wrong right arm

Running into a booster in the wrong right arm

It is exactly one week since this happened.  I have tried to avoid telling the story so that I avoid having egg on my face, but the story is just too compelling to let go, so here goes…

Last week on such a Wednesday I knew that I would be getting a corona booster vaccination shot.  This had been made optional to the staff though it has been ‘highly recommended’ provided one had met the boosting conditions.  These conditions were few – basically the last full vaccination shot must have been 6-months prior.  My last one was in July, so I was qualified.  Being a vaccination day, there was no discrimination on whether one was getting a first, second or booster.  It is only the booster that had that stringent 6-month caveat.

Coincidentally, and for purposes of raking in the numbers, we also had a blood/serological camp, where anyone could volunteer to provide blood sample for purposes of testing their antibody response to corona.  Such tests would then confirm prior exposure to the virus and even details as to the effectiveness of the vaccine on the body, including whether the activeness of the vaccine (N-protein levels) was waning over time.

The first twist to this combined camp was that those already vaccinated on that day could not undergo the serology.  That meant that serology had to come first before the vaccination.  I saw a red light just there on how these two camps that were set at the same location would be managed.  Some were coming for one of the two camps, while other staff were coming for both.  The vaccination was a morning only affair, while the blood thing was full day.  The serology involves being taken through a ten-minute questionnaire session, while the vaccination was just a walk-in-walk-out setting.  This combined camp was going to challenge the very core of logistics, patience and perseverance.

I had to do careful calculations to ensure that I attended both.  I needed the blood works since I had travelled to Western Kenya in December and my exposure level to the population in the travels and while there was a bit higher than I would usually encounter.  I could have been exposed to the virus in that sojourn, though I had not felt the effects at all at any point in time.  The closest that I got to feeling ‘virused’ was when I got a chocking cough for about five minutes around January 10, a week after I had come back to the city.  This episode was quickly forgotten and there has never been any other feeling to make be believe I have or have had corona.  But you never know, the double dose of Asta-Zeneca has maybe been my saving grace!  I needed the bloodwork, I told you! The results of previous such works had confirmed no exposure since I took the first such test in July.

I was also a volunteer at the vaccination camp even as I sought this serology thing.  That meant that I had to first deal with the bloodwork then be free to assist in pre-registration of those coming for the vaccinations, then update their records thereafter.  I knew that this day would be different and even easier to manage.  Afterall, I was confident that the online pre-registration of those being vaccinated would make the process seamless.  However, that is not what happened…..

I stayed for over 30-minutes at the serology tent, where they were asking me for the fifth time in monthly intervals the selfsame questions that they had asked before.  Why can’t they develop an online form where I can answer these questions for myself?  Do they trust the interviewer more than the interviewee?

“Have you travelled out of Nairobi for the last one month?”

“Yes”

“Where to?”

I answered

“For how long?”

I answered.

“How many people on average did you interact with?”

For crying out loud!  When will private life become private?

Anyway, l eventually got through and donated my blood for science.  It was just about nine-thirty.  The queue to the serology tent was already long.  The three tents housing those coming for vaccination were also full.  I also had to get myself in the vaccination booth first, if I was to eventually take a seat and do the vaccinee registrations that was soon going to hit us, judging by the number of those seated and waiting.

I got into the vaccination booth and found the nurse and the data person taking tea.  They were gearing up to start.  We are used to having two nurses during such events.  Today there was only one.  I know that the vaccination throughput is usually fast when the process starts, but having only one nurse for this already big population was an overkill.

“I want to the first person getting the shot so that I can move on with registration work,” I told the lady and gent at the tea table.  Those were faces that I had met in the past vaccination camps.  We had some level of familiarity.

“Let me finish the tea, then we can start,” the lady responded, “I just have to mix the vaccines first.”

New info!  The mixing.  Or whatever that meant.  In another five minutes the mix was done, after I had indicated that I was a double AZ vaccinee, to which I she told me that Pfizer Biontech was the boost that I was to get as recommended by the GOK MOH.

I sat next to the vaccination kits on the table spaced at the middle of the booth.  I could see the tea table at the extreme end of the tent.  On my left was the exit position of this square booth.  I had already removed my coat as I knew the procedure as it has become.  I unrolled the sleeve and looked aside as I momentarily felt a prick on the upper arm, then a pressing of a cotton swab on the same place.  The swab was immediately removed and thrown into a medical bin, together with the ‘sharps’ of the syringe and associated items.

“Done, we are now ready to start, you may call them in,” she gestured me out.

I put back my coat and got my laptop from the side table in that booth and walked out.  I left the queue management to another volunteer as I quickly went to one of the four big tents to setup my computer station.  I knew that very soon we would be having an influx of those already vaccinated and in need of an update on the computer system.

I logged into the system and was ready to get the ball rolling.  Obeying the principles of separation of duties, I asked one of my three colleagues to update my vaccination record on her system, promising to return the favour when her time came.

“Your ID number?”

I told her on the next desk

“The vaccination taken?”

“Pfizer”

“Let me see, there are three listed, which one was it?”

I remember being careful to confirm the vaccine batch number when I finished my shot.  The batch would usually be the same for the whole camp setup of the day.

“The middle one on the list, the one starting with N”

“Oh, I see,” she responded, “How about body temperature?”

I remembered that figure from the blood tent, where you also get your vitals taken.

“Done!”

I knew that very soon I would be the one asking people these questions, and it did not take long, since I was soon registering the first, and second and third… and tenth, and eleventh… and thirtieth, and thirty-first… and sixtieth vaccinee on the system.  They were just so many coming for post-registration.  The pre-registration done that we had already filled in two days prior having turned out to be a non-starter hoax!  What a waste of our computing resources and time!  It remained a busy day until at some point I was updating the CEO himself on the system having taking his booster.

We took a lunch break and wrapped up with the last ten or so after the lunch break, upon which time the nurses, who were now two, and the data person from the MOH closed camp and left.  The serology camp continued in the afternoon though our data entry team had already left the ghost tents in the middle of the field.  We had taken one step towards slaying corona, despite the worldwide numbers* being 384M and 5.7M deaths, with Kenyan numbers being 321,671 and 5,593 respectively.

*source: worldometers

I woke up the next day with a pain on my right top arm, just near the shoulder.  I could feel the unmistakable sensation of a needle prick on that right arm.

“Oh emm geee!,” I woke up shouting to myself.  I had been vaccinated on the wrong hand!

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2022

Of being a doctor and the mathematics that did not add up – the Lakeside story

Of being a doctor and the mathematics that did not add up – the Lakeside story

I was ready for anything on this Wednesday as I prepared to travel to Kisumu.  My travel time had already been changed, I had already sent MPESA to a wrong number and my accommodation bookings had already been cancelled… twice.  The flight on a Bombardier dash 8 Q400 branded Jambojet left Nairobi’s JKIA at 1857hrs, instead of 1745hrs.  It took exactly 40-minutes to touchdown at Kisumu International.  It was already dark.  

The COVID19 port health declaration forms that we had been compelled to fill-in on the MOH portal while still at Nairobi, and had even got a QR code to show at the port of arrival, had come to naught.  No one asked for this QR code nor was there the usual COVID19 hype that had accompanied such a previous arrival.  No temperature checks, no hand sanitization, no MOH declarations and even no masks on most people.  Corona was no longer an issue.  The very corona that had now infected 253,082,160 people and led to the death of 5,114,568 on planet earth, with our Kenyan numbers being 254,297 and 5,316 respectively.

I got out of the terminal building and checked the Bolt taxi hailing app on my phone to confirm the cost of travel to Mamboleo area where I was going.  The fare was 420 on regular and 480 on comfort variants of the cabs.  I had a waiting time of 10 and 2 minutes respectively.  I however thought of getting a better deal from the already parked taxis at the outside parking lot that were already beckoning the travelers to take them up.  

One person approached me and offered to take me, “Chukua taxi twende.”

“Kama ni kama bei ya Bolt, basi ni sawa,” I told him.

“Kwani Bolt ni ngapi yawa?”

“Four-eighty.”

“Ai! Iyo awesi yawa!  Si wewe nalipa tu twelf-handred naenda na wewe msuri mpaka Mamboleo,” he responded.

“Bolt ni four-eighty na unataka nilipe twelve-hundred?”

I saw him beckon another person next behind him, “Bi ilos gi ja Narobi ni.  Tinge gi eight-hundred udhi”

The new person took over the negotiations, “Wachana ni hiyo twelf-handred.  Wewe lete tu one-thao tuende Mamboleo.”

“Four-eighty, au niende na Bolt!”

“Yawa jo Narobi gi!,” he turned back to talk to his colleague momentarily, then back to me, “Sawa, toa mia saba, tumalize hi mambo, si we najua hata gate ya airport sisi nalipa so moja!”

“Sawa, six-hundred, na utasimama kwa supermarket ninunue kitu.”

“Eh, yawa, po! Twende!,” he led me to a white taxi cab.

It was almost eight as we left the airport.  The driver just waved at the gateman as we exited and was not charged a dime.  We would then get onto Kakamega road where he pointed to a supermarket and stopped the car at the roadside.  He allowed me to alight, cross the road and get to that former Kondele Ukwala/Choppies supermarket to pick some items.  I had taken the risk of trusting the car and driver with my valuable left luggage as I went to the supermarket.  I relied on the expected honesty of the lakeside people and Gor Mahia their ancestor.  It worked, since I found the vehicle waiting for me with all my luggage intact, some ten minutes later.  This is not a gamble I would have taken in the city.  

We left Kondele and kept going on the Kakamega road.  It was not long before we hit a dead end after the railway crossing.  The road under construction had been blocked on the side that we had attempted to use.  I was about four-hundred metres from where I should have alighted.  I agreed to take a walk while the taxi driver navigated his way back.  I did not ask, nor get partial refund for this incomplete journey.  If anything, I took the drivers telephone number for a pickup on Sunday when I travel back to the city.

I got to the residence at about eight-thirty.  The gate was locked, and the gateman was nowhere to be seen.  His phone went unanswered.  I had to call the house owner to report that I was unable to get in.  It took about another ten minutes of waiting before Wasike came by.  I thanked him once again for having agreed to send me back the MPESA that I had erroneously sent to him the previous day.  He was soon struggling himself to open his own gate.

“Sasa nani alifunga gate and kuenda na kifunguo?,” he asked me.

I had no answer.

He soon ran out in his gumboots to the darkness of the retreating road and disappeared in the background.  I did not know where he had gone or what he was planning to do, nor did he tell me anything before he left.  I remained stuck outside the imposing gate, with the apartment block visible just a few metres inside the compound.  I would wait another fifteen minutes before I heard the gumboots running on the ground emerging from the darkness to join me at the well-lit gate.

“Tungoje tu, mtu atakuja fungulia sisi,” he updated me.

Finally, he shouted at someone on one of the upper houses on one of the apartment blocks to come down and open.  I finally got into the house tired and ready to take a shower and sleep.  I had bought some bread and milk already.  I had forgotten to get some sugar or beverage.  The tea intended for dinner was now seeming quite unlikely, until I found some tea bags and sugar left at the kitchen.  That is not all that I found in the kitchen.  Those scary giant roaches had multiplied since the last time I was here in June.  I counted over five big ones running on the floor in different directions when the kitchen light illuminated the room.  I thought nothing of them and continued with my life.

It was the very next day, Thursday, November 11 when we started the two-day capacity building workshop on processing data of the African languages of Swahili, Luhya and Dholuo.  A continuation of what had brought me here in June.  We were holding the meeting at the same Kisumu hotel.  The sessions went well and uninterrupted.  Last June was different, since our seminar came to a forced halt a day later when the Kenyan government had imposed an immediately cessation of movement in Western Kenyan and halted all gatherings with immediate.  That was then.  We were not even back to a 24-hour economy.  

We continued with our workshop, some plenary, some group works.  The group works would eventually lead to group discussions.

“Daktari, as I was saying, our Swahili data needs to be broken down into text spans for the machine to process,” George address me, in the group of four.

We were discussing how to process Swahili text to a format that would make it ready for machine learning tasks.

“Thank you, George, but I had told you before that I am not yet Daktari.  I am still working towards that.  Just call me WB,” I corrected him.  

I was just being academically correct.  I did not want that envious lot to see me pretending to have joined their club when I was not yet in it.

“Sawa WB, sorry for that,” he resumed, “So as I was telling you, Daktari, this formatting is what we need for machine learning!”

I accepted the situation and lived with it.

We would eventually take an evening break just after the evening tea.  Their serving of boiled bananas was quite something.  I had to get a second helping of this.

“Nikubalie niendelee,” I added some more to my plate, as I updated the catering staff, who was now clearing the used-up utensils and clearing the tables.

“Sawa,” he said jovially, “juzi kuna mtu alisema ati mtu inatakiwa akule mpaka achoke!”

“Mpaka ashibe au mpaka achoke?,” I reconfirmed.

“Mpaka achoke!”

My stay at the apartment would be uneventful, with roaches, mosquitoes, small black dot-sized insects running all over the kitchen and the unsightly paintworks that was peeling off especially in the washroom and kitchen.  I would however still stay here in future if the booking frustrations I went through is anything to go by.  The internet speed and the quiet ambiance compensates for any shortcomings of this one-bedroom apartment.  

Anyway, it was soon a Sunday, and I was already set to travel back to the city.  My newfound taxi man of last time had already dropped me at the Kisumu airport.  The check in process was quite fast, since I was seated at the departure lounge hardly ten minutes since getting to the port.  The airline kept the departure time, though the cost of travelling on a Sunday was almost double that of my inbound travel last time.  And we blame matatus for hiking fares when it rains!?

WWB, the Coach, Kisumu, Kenya, Nov. 14, 2021

Running out of Mombasa with a drink

Running out of Mombasa with a drink

There are two reasons why I was taking this train on this Tuesday.  The first was that I was short of project funds.  I was now on the last one-thousand shillings, that could only afford a train ride.  The alternative would have been a flight back to the capital, but I would have to top up the 4,100 difference from my own pocket with no possibility of refund.  This did not seem possible at the moment.  The second reason was that I needed to experience a train ride after an over three-year hiatus.  I wanted to confirm if the train was still the same good old train.

One contributor to my broke status was that I had underestimated the Mombasa experience.  My plan A was to adhere strictly to my schedule and be out of there as per my schedule.  However, I was now being forced to run back to the city after I had already exhausted a two-day extension from the initial plan, and even that extension had not resolved my pending work.  I was just realizing that Mombasa hakuna haraka.  A task that I would have done upto late night back in Nairobi was being split into a three-day thing in this city.

“Sasa tumalizie hapo.  Leo imetosha.  Rudi kesho tafadhali,” were the many breaks that I encountered on my road to the research data that I was collecting, yet I was just getting started.

So, I left my residence at noon on this Tuesday, August 10 ready to get out of Mombasa.  I had just booked my seat on the train using the online platform.  I had initially intended to just buy a ticket at the station, but I had observed how the free seats were progressively getting fewer by the minute on the online system and I had started to worry that I would not get a ticket at the station.  Missing that ticket would have meant digging deeper into my pockets to facilitate an extra night stay or be spend more for a flight out of here.  I was not chancing on these options.  I was already on a shoestring as it was.  That is why I had booked my seat online just before I left the residence.

The taxi that I got through the hailing app was at my door hardly five minutes after I had confirmed.  The app showed a cost of 890.00 from Bamburi to the Miritini train station.  Apart from the traffic jam at ‘lights’, caused by the matatus that were obstructing the road by stopping in the middle of the road, with impunity, the rest of the travel was quite fast.  I loaned the taxi driver one-hundred shillings to pay for the parking at the train station.  He had said that he did not have any cash, since all his money was on MPESA.

“App yasema kwamba yatakiwa nilipe eight-ninety, kwa hivyo nitakulipa seven-ninety tu, sivyo?,” I asked him when we got to the parking and I was getting ready to alight from my backseat seating position.

“Hapana, lipa tu hiyo eight-ninety yote.”

“Lakini nililipa ile mia moja tayari?  Pale kwa gate sababu ya parking?”

“Hapana, hiyo ya parking ni kando.  App huwa haina pahali pa kuongeza parking.  Abiria ndio hulipa parking”

I did not have to make a scene over one-hundred shillings and therefore I paid the full amount by MPESA.  I asked him to confirm receipt which he did.  He was just in time to tell me that not so long ago he had dropped someone at the very same station.  The passenger had paid by MPESA and then had reversed the payment after that passenger had passed through the train station security.

“Sasa ulifanyaje?,” I asked him.

“Ah, mimi, uende na pesa zangu?  Nilifukuza huyu jamaa mbio.  Nilipita hapo kwa security mbio.  Niliwambia ninafukuza jamaa ambaye ameniibia pesa wakanikubalia nipite.  Nilipata jamaa tuu hapo mbele.  Aka anza kuniambia ati ilikuwa tu error ya simu.  He!, ali lipa hiyo pesa yangu mbio!”

I was still smiling over this story even as I went to the security check area, where you lay your luggage on the long luggage stand, and the security personnel then let two dogs sniff through the luggage.  After that check, the luggage goes through scanning and you are then allowed through to the ticket check area before getting to the terminal waiting area.  

The process is usually that simple and I expected it to be that simple, until I was now passing through the luggage scan with my bottle of water at hand.

“Hebu songa huku,” I heard a voice beckon in my direction, just as I was about to pick my two bags from the scanner.

“Oh, mimi?”

“Ndio, wewe,” the security person said now coming towards me and joining me in a second.

“Hi nini umebeba?”

I was not even thinking.  I was completely taken aback.  I just had with me a bottle of water.  This was a transparent plastic soda bottle of one-litre capacity.  I had just filled it with the remnant of club soda and bottled water that had remained in my fridge as I checked out.  I did not want to discard those remnants which had cost me money.  I had already sipped a few mouthfuls on my way here while in that taxi.  I was not thinking anything about it.  And it meant nothing to me.

“Hi ni maji and soda,” I said and made to start picking my bags.

“Hapana, hebu angalie ile sign,” he pointed to some A4 size white sign that was affixed at the walls of the luggage check area.  It was a bit unclear from my location about twenty metres from that sign.  I could see the top line, “No alcohol allowed”, but I could not see the fine print thereafter.

“Lakini hii ni soda na maji, hata angalia,” I handed the litre bottle.  He took it and shook it.  It released the fizzy effect of a typical soda.

“Yes, nilijua!  Hii ni pombe.  Hakuna soda utoa povu!”

Is this guy even for real?  Isn’t soda the very thing that is supposed to fizz?  That is how you know that a soda is a soda for crying out loud!

“Hii ni soda, hata ukitaka kujaribu, fungua ujaribu.”

“Hapana, hii ni pombe, hakuna soda utoa povu.  Unafikiri sisi ni wajinga!”

We were getting into a singing game now.  I was just about being agitated.

“Sasa lazima urudi kwa parking, ukunywe pombe yote alafu ndio urudi,” he told me.

“No way, hii ni soda, na siwezi rudi, kama siwezi kuenda nayo, basi baki nayo.  Siwezi rudi.”

“Sisi tuwezi baki nayo, lazima urudi kwa parking.”

“Sirudi, baki nayo basi!”

I was just about to leave it with them when they told me that the only way out was that I should throw it away myself in the bin.  I was thinking about this last move later on at the terminal as I waited for the boarding time.  Was this action a way of getting them out of a potential legal situation?  I was wondering what would happen in case a passenger like me instituted harassment and false accusation charges.  They would just say that it was the passenger who threw away their own drink!  However, that contemplation of taking it legal still stayed with me some time.  We should have proved our cases before a judge and the soda should have been subjected to chemical analysis.  I believe that citizens deserve a hearing and they need to be treated innocent until proven otherwise.

I was still just shaking my head over the happenings of the last few minutes, while seated at the terminal building, when the waiters at the restaurants on that first floor location approached my seat.

“Tunauza chakula, menu ndio hi,” the lady handed the menu, which I declined.

She was not giving up, and continued, “Lakini hata soda tunauna.  Hata ukitaka pombe, Tusker, Gin zote ziko.  Nikuletee gani?”

What is going on here?  I have just been denied my soda in the guise that no alcohol was allowed.  Now I was being offered hard drinks hardly five minutes later on?  What a contradiction!

It did not take long before the we boarded and the 3pm express train left the platform.  I was seated on the 3-facing-3 section of the train isle.  The train was surely full.  I could not see any vacant seat on this 106-seater coach no. 4.  We were three wagons from the engine, with the cafeteria and the two first-class coaches being just in front of our own.  Six other economy class coaches followed ours.  I was seated on the isle side, next to two other gentlemen.  

Opposite my seating position were three guys in their mid-thirties.  The first thing that they did when the train started to make its way out of the station was to get out their tumblers and pour themselves three stiff drinks from the bottle labelled ‘Gilbeys’.  I heard about how they had bought just one, instead of two at the station, and that it had set them back only eighteen reds.  Their loud mouths as the drinks took them over and the boredom overtook them, enabled me to hear all their secrets, including their bedroom habits – thanks to that Gily!  They proceeded to buy more drinks on offer in the course of the travel.  What a drinking train we were having on this day!

While I spent those five hours on the express train just seated, standing occasionally, taking washroom breaks, or even taking a nap, those three fellows seated opposite spent that time being high and playing cards.  I have never known that a card game can take that long.  They played and played until we finally got to Athi River just before eight, when they played ‘the last game’.  How they had survived those hard seats without getting sore still remains a mystery.  Maybe Gily works after all?  Nonetheless, next time I am paying triple and enjoying a ride in the first class.

The train finally got to Nairobi at about 8.02pm and slammed on the brakes.  The scheduled arrival time was 8.08pm.  We started travelling at about 5km per hour, with even people walking outside the train on the platform walking faster than the train.  The train was buying time to get to a stop at the scheduled time.  However, despite stepping on the brakes and trying to slow it down to the limit, the train ‘refused’ to be tamed any further and it was forced to stop at 8.06pm, with no more platform space available, hence it just had to stop.  Why was the driver hitting those 110km/h speeds only to here early to now force us to encounter the slow down to a walking pace towards the platform?

We disembarked from the express in time to be beckoned to the train to city centre on the metre gauge rail system.  I had already made arrangements for private taxi and hence skipped the offer for the train to the city centre.  I had also had a last minute disappointment the last time such an offer was made in similar circumstances.  On that last time, I had actually even got into the city train and settled in, only to be informed by the train crew that the train service had been cancelled and it was not going to the city after all.  It was a disappointing experience that meant starting to make plan B when that was not on the cards.  That experience had made me skeptical about this Syokimau to city centre train, but maybe next time I would still try it out and see if lightning can strike twice, however, not today.

I reached the parking yard in time to see an SMS reminder on my phone, ‘This is day 8 since you arrived in Kenya.  You have not reported on your symptoms.  Kindly do so via Jitenge MOH Kenya App or by dialing *299# MOH’

WWB, the Coach, Nairobi, Kenya, Aug. 21, 2021