Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Kenya

  • What the elders fed us

    Caleb WamangaKakamega, Kenya Before the rain starts, the vine creeps across the yard. Mboga ya kienyeji (traditional vegetable), the green leaf that rounded off a meal, was what we called them. It is a gift that is never announced, never wrapped, but always there when a child seems pale or a woman staggers back from…

  • African medicine

    Sheillah MaongaLondon, United Kingdom My mind was always stubbornly set against African medicine and I did not pay much heed to it even when I visited Africa for two weeks each year. It was something that had no bearing on me—until last year when I took my child to see my mother. My mother lives…