Faith doesn't know how to complete the task her husband gave her that morning.

He handed her 400 Kenyan shillings, the equivalent of about 3.40 euros.

This will provide her with lunch and dinner.

Faith has four children.

And a man who only likes certain vegetables.

Unfortunately it is the expensive one.

So she won't be able to cook what he wants with the 400 shillings.

The charcoal alone that she needs for this costs about 100 shillings.

And that means: When her husband comes home from work in the butcher's shop in the evening, there are beatings.

Theresa White

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Faith's son Brian sits on the bed and smiles.

He is 20 years old, suffers from autism and epilepsy.

"He is severely mentally handicapped," states Norbert Kohl after seeing the young man for a few minutes.

Kohl, a pediatrician from Bad Vilbel, is in Nairobi for the German Doctors.

He actually works there in the “Baraka” health center in the Mathare slum.

On this day, however, he looks at the work of another ambulance.

It's called Fanaka, raised by local workers because of the great need during the pandemic and only recently manned by German doctors who work there for a few weeks free of charge.

Patients in remote slums

Fanaka, "happiness" in Swahili, is located in Athi River, an industrial suburb of the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Similar to the one there, another outpatient clinic is to be set up in Nairobi with the help of FAZ readers: in the Korogocho slum.

For this purpose, donations will be collected this year with the “FAZ readers help” campaign.

In Fanaka, the German Doctors care for around 20,000 people from eight small, very remote slums.

And they go on home visits, like Faith, who, like all patients, is only referred to by her first name in this text.

She lives in Slota.

There is a multi-storey house on a dusty wasteland.

There is a bit of rubbish around, the street is pretty tidy, there are stalls with plastic baskets, belts and other knick-knacks, and a few meters away a few cows are sticking their noses into a container full of rubbish.

Brian's situation has greatly improved in the two years he has been cared for in Fanaka.

He received medication and physical therapy.

Since then he has been walking more safely, even climbing the stairs to the top floor of the house alone, in which he lives in two rooms with his parents and siblings.

One day rest

As "Clinical Officer", Gaudenica Salano is a kind of hybrid between nurse and doctor and the boss of Fanaka.

She is pleased with Brian's progress.

He could even start an apprenticeship, they said at his special school.

But the training location would be 100 kilometers away.

The mother Faith does not dare to send him there alone.

He cannot swallow his pills on his own, she crumbles them every morning and mixes them in a drink.

Many women are on their own

Salano listens to the needs.

The ambulance manager is a thoroughly positive woman.

She encourages her patients and always has a smile on her face, even when there is little reason to.

When she leaves, she gives Faith a tip for the cooking problem: "Buy the expensive vegetables today and keep them for tomorrow when you get new money." What a logic - because then there will be hits today.

But tomorrow Faith will manage with the meager budget and maybe have a day off.

It's a pragmatic tip.

It still breaks your heart.

Like many patients in Fanaka, Faith received another consultation when she came to the clinic about Brian's seizures.

Since then, the mother of four children has had a spiral and is not having any more children.

The women receive advice on this at the “Family Health Center” in Fanaka.

Actually, the patients there are somehow the opposite of family: women who do not want to become pregnant come into the barren room.

Or not anymore.

But because the site on which the German Doctors have set up their clinic in Athi River is rented out by a Catholic priest, "Family Health Center" is written above the door.

It can be a great relief for women when they no longer become pregnant.

Most already have a few children.

And they have to get through it.

Catherine has eight.

They barely fit in the shack in the Njoguini slum where they all live together.

You can only squeeze through the door one at a time by opening and closing it again and again, the room is so crowded.