When I was last at Borana, a few days ago, I had the privelege of joining the Mobile Clinic for the morning. I was curious - how exactly does it work, who attends and where do they go to?

I'm not sure how many guests ask to go along and see the Clinic, but from what Malawi (my guide) said, not so many... and I think that's probably perfectly normal because most people are here to go on safari and see wildlife, so I'm doing it on their behalf! It should give you a tingly 'I'm supporting a good cause' person because it really does make a difference, and staying at Borana really does mean you are helping. The Borana Clinic works under the Ministry of Health (Pauline has a large ledger to fill in for every patient) and twice a year they run a vaccination and child immunisation campaign in conjunction with the MOH.

So we set off early, and after a very pleasant drive across the ranch where we saw oodles of wildlife including eland, giraffe, zebra and elephant, we arrived at the gate and drove out into the community land.

The Mobile Clinic was being held at a school today, and it just happened to be the same day that worming tablets were being issued to all the kids. But we started off by seeing some of the women who came to the clinic with their children - various problems such as skin irritations, and one little girl who has been eating soil.

Pauline, who runs the clinic, is a nurse and watching her in action was really humbling - she has such patience and such a gentle way with the children.

It also helps hugely that Pauline is from the area, so she has a profound understanding of the mindset here, and a lot of the common illnesses that occur. One of the areas that Pauline has been very successful in is the promotion of family planning. Many of the men still don't agree to it openly, so sometimes their wives wil come with a child, but Pauiine will use this as a moment to ask them how their family planning is going. This in turn has allowed her to be more proactive about spreading knowledge on HIV and AIDS.

After being in the clinic for a couple of hours, I was invited to look around the school and meet some of the pupils. This is one of the beautiful classrooms at the school:

Later, the children were called out into the school yard for play time, and the worming session. Each child is given a tasteless powdery tablet to chew, and Malawi then followed with a glass of water so that they could swallow what they had chewed!

Malawi gives the children a drink, after they take their worming tablets...