So, since I was unable to put anything up here while I was in Kenya, I thought people might like to see the highlights. I have plenty more, but these are the best.
Mbakalo
Ugenya
Kuria
Mituntu
Nairobi
Kibera Slums
Lang'ata Giraffe Center
Mombasa
Kakamega Rainforest
Maasai Mara
Enjoy!
-Pat
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Mituntu
So, finally, Mituntu. This village of hope reaches the Tigania West district, which is close to Meru town and in the shadow of
For the week, we stayed with Barnabas, Ann, and Kendy (not sure how to spell this. it took me a while to figure out that Barnabas was not saying Kelly or Katie.) Barnabas is a principal at a small school up in the hills surrounding Ngundune (or more likely another village/town since it was a small distance away). Ann is a deputy principal at another school and also owns her own cake business (supposedly the best in the Meru area [I believe this considering someone paid her to come to
One of the mornings (7/8), we visited Barnabas’s school and gave a talk to his students about the three methods of learning (auditory, visual, kinesthetic) and combining them to do well with studies and figuring out how you learn best (exams were coming up in a couple weeks). We then took questions about the
The first week we were there, Barnabas was in the process of studying for exams (he is attempting to get his Master’s degree). Upon return, we discovered that he passed with a B average. For his last term, he was attempting to come up with topics for a dissertation. His best at the time was to investigate the roles of women on the growth and development in the Tigania West area. His thought was that because women took a more active role in society, creating women’s groups, caring for families, and running businesses, they must have the largest impact on growth. It was a fairly interesting topic. The second week we were there, Barnabas was busy being trained as a supervisor for the census (a huge deal in
Another one of the mornings (7/10), we went with Barnabas’s friend,
He then showed us around the area, taking us to some of his land (which he was willing to donate if someone would be able to build a center for people with HIV in the area. I was a bit upset by this offer after he took us past some of his land where he is building rooms to rent to people, but upon further reflection [and explanation that land is expensive], I realized that it was a very generous offer given the circumstances. I felt like he should be doing things for his community himself, if he wanted change to occur, but if he has grown up in a culture where NGO’s consistently offer to help communities if they give a certain portion, he is making a very legitimate offer and show of concern for the people in his village.) and introducing us to some of the villagers. We then had eggs, tea, and an entire chicken (well, I had an entire chicken offered, Marla didn’t eat non-kosher meat, and I knew I would have lunch in a couple hours. Otherwise, I would have been up for the challenge. [In all seriousness, it was a very kind and respectful gesture to serve us a chicken because it meant sacrificing a source of food or income.]).
After tea, we went to talk to the school
When we visited one the provincial schools, the school matron (i.e. the school mom), Faith, is also one of the members of the LMC. She invited us for lunch a couple of the days. It was the first time I had ever had passion fruit (I’d describe it as a more tangy orange. It was good.), and because of this, she sent us home with a big bag of thirty or so fruits (which we also gave to Ann and Barnabas. This was turned into juice for dinner that night.)
Beyond these experiences, there is not much else to say. We were pretty confined to the schools in Mituntu and didn’t see much else. The second week we were there, we were only around for a few days (the schools all booked us on the first two, and Marla’s parents were coming the next day to Nairobi for a trip to Mbakalo and the Maasai Mara.) so didn’t do much, but here's a few more pictures.
-Pat
Thursday, September 24, 2009
More Links
I have finally gotten settled in to my apartment in San Diego and it has been a busy orientation week for my program. I will hopefully have a chance to write up the last few pieces I have been wanting to do soon. For now, a couple more links from Steph on our adventures.
Kakamega Rainforest
Maasai Maara
-Pat
And yes, Steph, I was going to use your posts without asking. You are using my pictures after all.
Kakamega Rainforest
Maasai Maara
-Pat
And yes, Steph, I was going to use your posts without asking. You are using my pictures after all.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Links
I have since returned to the US, and I am about to head out to San Diego for the start of grad school. I haven't had much time to write with the quick turn around, but I will put up a few more posts about the last bit of my experience when i get a chance. For the time being, here are some links to stuff Steph has posted that we did together (she even puts up pictures... woah...).
Hillary
Mombasa
Giraffe Center
Hillary
Mombasa
Giraffe Center
Monday, August 17, 2009
Kuria
It has been a long while since I have written about my travels due to a combination of no power, no computer, and well, being busy. I have been in Nairobi since Wednesday evening (7/29), and I was just in Mombasa taking a break with Steph from Friday (8/7) to Tuesday (8/11). (I might have a post for that soon or [more likely] a link to what she writes.) I also got a chance to see Hillary Clinton at University of Nairobi as she stopped in her tour of Africa for the AGOA Conference. It was strange to see roads shut down, soldiers posted around the city, and her hotel (the Intercontinental) isolated with cars being inspected and people being redirected. (Steph will do a much better job explaining what Hillary had to say and how it relates, so I will save myself and link that when it is up). Anyway, Kuria…
We left Ugenya bright and early (i.e. 9 or so) and made our way uneventfully to Kisumu (which sits on Lake Victoria) to meet up with Mathias (the Kuria Coordinator). While we were waiting, we hopped in a tuk tuk (a three-wheeled vehicle known mainly in that area and on the coast) and went to the main sports ground for lunch and to watch a football tournament that happened to be going on. After a couple hours of waiting, Mathias finally arrived and we headed to catch a matatu heading to Migori.
Along the way, we saw the remains of an accident (I was wrong about that one [In fact, a couple days ago, I was in a matatu in Nairobi that hit/got hit by someone. It’s difficult to say who was to blame considering the way they drive.]). Our matatu stopped and everyone (with the exception of Marla, me, and another woman) got out to join the on-looking crowd. When everyone piled back in, Mathias explained that it had been a head-on collision (which wasn’t hard to believe considering the matatu was resting in a ditch) likely from trying to pass.
We arrived in Migori in the early evening and were introduced slowly to the matatu system of Kuria. Mathias (knowing we would be back late) had someone ready to pick us up to take us on the hour drive into Kehancha. We assumed this meant it was a private car, but while we were filling the tank with fuel (or fooel as they pronounced it [understandably, since the vowels do not change sound in Swahili]), two more people joined. We continued along our way and soon picked up one more. Much to our surprise, this was not the last pick-up. Just before we left Migori, another person climbed in to join the driver (making the total eight). Finally, with a packed car, we made our way through the night over the bumpy dirt road.
When we arrived in Kehancha, our car quickly emptied, and the driver (it turns out it is Mathias’s brother-in-law) took us to Mathias’s brother’s house where Marla would be staying (originally, it was supposed to be both of us, but Mathias didn’t realize that Pat and Marla were a guy and a girl [not two girls], and we would have been sharing a room). We met his brother’s wife, Florence, and their daughter (about five), Fiona, and had dinner. Then, I was taken to where I was staying, the Pre-Mara Hotel. Along the way, we pulled into the gas station next door (so Mathias could be taken home), but it was closed (we were told this by a man standing with a bow and several arrows [all carved from wood with rather sharp looking metal tips]), so Mathias stayed with me for the night.
Unfortunately for me, my week at the Pre-Mara was not a good one. This first night, my mosquito net was too small, and mosquitoes got under the net. Not wanting to wake Mathias, I covered myself with my sheet, but it was still a bad night of sleep filled with loud buzzing throughout. The rest of the week involved a lack of running water in my room, more mosquitoes (which was as big an issue because I slept in the bed with the bigger mosquito net, but there were many, and they were loud.), and while I was trying to eat one night, a drunk guy (with an apparent mental disability as well) dropping a maggot on my arm while he was pushing his phone in my face because it played music (this was one of the nights where I became frustrated [close to nearly exploding] with all the differences [between here and home] and could not laugh or try to understand the situation).
Thankfully, the manager and the staff were very accommodating and very friendly throughout the week (and they also weren’t happy about the guy getting in and bugging me). They always found a room in the morning that had hot running water (in one case, the manager’s offered his room) and took care of me for dinner. (One of the nights, I had to search for Vincent [the second in command] to get my key for my room, and he happened to be talking to another mzungu guest [this was actually somewhat surprising] when I found him. I walked up, and got introduced to the woman [who was sporting a fresh black eye from ???]. Apparently, she was under the impression that I had requested to talk to her [I think Vincent thought we would want to meet because we were both mzungu. Not an entirely unfair assertion.] because she asked “So, do you want to talk to me outside or what?” “No, I just want the key to my room.” [I never did actually talk to her, but it was amusing, nonetheless. From what I gathered during breakfast the next morning as she was talking to a number of people, she was doing some research in each province of Kenya talking to teachers about their schools. It sounded like she was British.])
Concerning the research, the week also proved to be a little frustrating. On Monday (6/29 [a while ago…]), we made calls to set up three hour blocks of time with four of the six schools Mathias originally contacted. One of the six schools never received a letter, and the other we decided we wouldn’t have enough material for all five. (This was our first mistake. We could have easily made photocopies later in the week, but we weren’t thinking.) We then went to the local Hekima (not sure why it wasn’t Kehancha because it was just down the road) VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) Center to talk to their workers about the prevalence of HIV and the community’s reaction to their services (prevalence is low [about 3.7% {the national average is something like 6.3%}] and reactions are mixed [usually the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS is enough to keep people away and makes them not want to know their status]. We had an interesting discussion with Mathias and his brother, Joseph, about this the second week (7/17-7/21) we came. Their thoughts concerning the matter were that prevalence rates were low in Kehancha because of their cultural customs [they used to chase women out of town if they became pregnant before marriage], but HIV is more rampant in Africa because of poverty [having relationships allows people to be provided for]. They talked about how HIV reached Kenya [it was highest on the boarders between some of their neighboring countries because of rape during war. Then, it worked its way across Kenyan boarders through Tanzania and Uganda] and why rates were higher in different places [one area of Kuria on the opposite side of Migori also boasts the highest prevalence rate in the world {something like 25 or 30%, if I remember correctly}]. It’s higher along the roads because many of the migratory workers [like truckers] stop in different areas [such as Isebania, which is very close to the Tanzanian border and a main trucking route. We passed through here many times to go to a couple of the schools. It’s about a forty-five minute ride from Kehancha.] long enough to make friends [as they put it]. It is higher in the Ugenya area and around Lake Victoria because of the practices associated with the fish markets. Women, when they want to start buying from a fisherman, need to be “baptized” [i.e. have sex with him] before he will sell to her. Sometimes simply being safe isn’t an option, and sometimes [it seems] they have no alternative if they want food or clothing or shelter.)
After our visit to the VCT Center, we headed to the District Hospital (a collection of unconnected buildings, latrines, and a covered, open-air waiting room [essentially, take out the hallways, levels, and toilets of a hospital back home]) and talked with the head of the TB (tuberculosis) division. TB and HIV go hand in hand many times, each making a person more susceptible to the other. Often, when a person is found with one, a test is done for the other (the instances when this does not happen is a result of someone’s unwillingness to be diagnosed, and it is unethical and illegal to do the tests without someone’s consent.) The doctor (I forget his name) told us about how they handle compliance issues for medications (starting and stopping treatment for HIV and TB is dangerous because it gives the virus and the bacteria opportunity to develop drug resistance through mutation and selection. [Both diseases are treated with multiple drugs at once. For HIV, this is three forms of antiretrovirals that block different components of the replication cycle. Because of the way the virus replicates, errors occur 1 in every 10,000 times, changing the viral RNA/DNA that determines the different viral components. This means the virus has a 1 in 10,000 chance in become resistant to one of the antiretrovirals, if the RNA/DNA of that component that particular ARV targets mutates. By targeting three different areas of the virus replication cycle, this chance is reduced to 1 in 1,000,000,000,000. The ARV kills all the replicating virus, but the viral DNA can become integrated into the human DNA before replication is blocked, and when ARV treatment is stopped, the latent DNA can reactivate, offering more opportunity to mutate and become resistant. For TB, depending on the strain, the bacteria have different resistant to the various antibiotics used. If only one antibiotic is used, the TB strain resistant to that antibiotic is selected for. Using multiple antibiotics prevents selection and ensures all strains are killed. There are instances of multiple drug-resistant {MDR} strains, but the doctor related that he had no cases. Because of the way the antibiotics work, starting and stopping treatment before it is completed does not allow your body to clear the entire infection and the more resistant strains can grow and take over the body. This can lead to cases of MDR TB. Anyway, enough science for now.]) His program does not start medication until the person is sufficiently educated about the disease, the consequences of not taking medication, the side effects of the medications (both can be toxic and require good nutrition [a problem] to avoid these effects), and other issues. He visits all of his patients to ensure that compliance is being achieved, and it sounded like his program has a pretty good success rate.
After this, we went to get lunch then proceeded to the school that received the letter, but we wouldn’t be able to use for the research and gave only the talk to the whole school and some of the teachers. The principle came in halfway through, and when he gave his closing remarks to thank us, emphasized the important message to his students that he got from the talk, “Don’t trust your partner.” Oops…
The next day (6/30), we spent the morning visiting the school we would visit the next day to inform them of our needs and about what we would be doing. The week happened to coincide with the annual headmaster’s convention in Mombasa, so the people left in charge didn’t always have the authority to do what we needed. With this school, we were stuck with two of the teachers (unsure of what they should do it seemed), and they continually changed what we agreed upon. (The students were a fun group to talk with, but we were unable to return the next time around because it would interrupt their exams.) We then went back to Kehancha, and after lunch, headed to our first school. Here, we met quite some resistance from the nun in charge. We explained that we would need three hours for the two evaluations and talk. She explained that the students only had two hours between exams. We said we could spilt it up. She said the students were leaving the next day, and we could fit it all into two hours. We said sorry we can’t, and we won’t be able to do the program if we don’t do all the evaluations. She said really it’s ok, you can do it with two hours. No matter how well we thought we explained, she wouldn’t budge. We ended up just giving the talk (this one was without the assistance of a chalkboard).
The next day (7/1), because we didn’t need to be at the school until later, we used the morning hours to visit the LMC Chairman, Maasai Maroa. We had a brief chat with him, and touched upon some of the historical events he witnessed while he was studying at Kent State (he was on campus during the shootings) and working in the US and some that we had witnessed in our generation (9/11, Obama elected, etc.). At various points throughout the day, we met the rest of the LMC and various other people that Mathias knew (everyone it seemed). Later in the day, we set up times for the next day’s school visit and ran into some issues. This school has sent its form 2’s home to collect school fees (this is a common practice and something we ran into later with other schools), which left about half the students from both streams left for the next day. Because we had already lost two schools, we agreed to allow this even though it could lead to further difficulties down the road. When we got to the scheduled school, they pushed back the timing on us unexpectedly (when we came back for the third follow-up, they dropped us completely because they didn’t want the students distracted during exams), causing us to be stranded when we got back to Isebania (since Kehancha is so isolated and matatus usually don’t travel there from Migori or Isebania [Interestingly, all of the shop signs spelled it Isibania, but the official signs and maps have the previous spellings] after dark). While we were waiting for someone to come from Kehancha, it began to rain (sometimes the roads become impassable when wet [being dirt and all]). Fortunately, it did not last too long, and our ride managed to make it to get us with little problem. On the way back (it may have been the next day because we had to do this again), we nearly crashed into someone herding their cattle down the road.
The next school turned out to be something of a disaster. Because it was a mix of the two streams, they put us in the laboratory (which happened to be filled with wasp’s nests [though, this didn’t turn out to be an issue.]). However, only half the students had chairs (and when they went to ask, they couldn’t retrieve any from their classroom), and they were generally disruptive (students were walking in and out, continually making fun of our accents [amusing, usually, but tiresome after ten minutes], and collectively not caring) throughout the entire thing (with other schools, this lasted for the explanation of the evaluation and maybe the initial part of the talk. Here, it crossed the line into disrespectful.). When it came time to do the second evaluation, there was a large protest because they had already done one and it was getting late. Nearly, three-quarters of the students left. It was bad enough that we considered dropping the school for the rest of study (given the number of circumstances we had to deal with), but upon return decided not to (fortunately, things went much better the second time around).
The last school was just across the district border in Kuria East (all the others [and where we were staying] had been in Kuria West). Along the way, we saw the remains of a burned car (I may have failed to mention at any point previously that it was known [about a week before we went] that Kuria was in the middle of tribal fighting, but the main focus was centered politically around the two tribes of Kuria East and around cattle rustling between Kuria East tribes and the Maasai. I was never entirely clear, but the political fighting was about where to put the town hall [or something like that] but there were disputes between the two parties [and thus, tribes] in the area. We were safe because [being white] we were clearly not involved in anything [we were told Mathias was safe because they could recognize he was not from a Kuria East tribe]. We were also told that the cattle rustling was only in the East, but on our last day, we saw a party of men armed with bows and arrows and other weapons returning down the road with cattle that had been stolen the night before [we happened to be in Kuria West at the time…]. That would [most likely] explain the man with the bow and arrow I saw on the first night.) The burned car and the cattle party were the only evidence we saw of the issues, and I never felt that I was in danger (the general warmth of everyone we met was similar to Mbakalo). Anyway, the school was very enthusiastic about being involved and was very good, overall. On our way back to Kehancha the second time around, we shared a matatu with the principle (or headmaster [I am never sure which school calls them which], the deputy principle (see above), and the guidance and counseling teacher. We had a fairly interesting discussion about HIV/AIDS, covering the differences between Africa and the US (the conversation started with that general topic) and dispelling myths they may have heard (and/or possibly believe [I was never sure on this part]. I would like to believe that the questions were more out of general curiosity, and these were things they simply heard and wanted to know the facts about, but it really was difficult to say. The list covered a range from where/how the virus originated [one myth is that it is man-made] to why it is more prevalent in Africa [one myth is that Africans have different blood types, so the virus affects them at a much higher rate]). Whether or not it was simple curiosity, the overall vibe (throughout the entire process) was that they showed concern for their students (before we left the school, the principle gave a letter to Marla raising concerns about the female students access to information and resources for feminine care and explained what they had done so far [building separate latrines, new dorms, etc.]), and when we arrived in Kehancha after our discussion, they all wanted us to return and address FGM [or female circumcision, depending on your point of view, but nonetheless, a topic that has come up on several occasions]. We had to decline not knowing much about the issue [nor having time]. I was asked my opinion on the topic during the discussion. What I said was that while I do not agree with the practice because it is harmful to the woman, it is something that needs to be respected because it is such an important part of the culture [this is when a girl becomes a woman and is a very big deal for the community and the individual]. FGM is illegal in Kenya, and as a result, in order to perform the ritual, it is often done underground [often in unsafe conditions], raising the risk of the woman contracting HIV [this is how FGM was connected to our conversation]. You might be asking why a girl would agree to do this if it is dangerous. It may be easier to place blame simply on a lack of education or family members/men forcing the girls to be cut, but because the practice is so ingrained into the culture and what is represents is a monumental part of a woman’s life, would you want to be considered a child your entire life, never be respected by your community, never marry? I agree with it being illegal but not without education and replacing the practice with an alternative ceremony [one that I have heard is cutting the girl on the leg to represent the act] that respects the step in the girl’s life and the culture. Should a woman be looked down upon because she willingly agrees with the ceremony? Should a culture be disregarded or changed because it is different than yours? I think first, it’s important to understand why something is done before you can agree or disagree with what or how it is done [this goes for understanding another culture as much as it goes for understanding your own. Why do you believe what you believe? Why do you do what you do?].)
On the first week’s Friday (7/3), before our last visit to the above school, we had lunch at Mathias’s house. He showed us his shamba (filled with cassava, some bee hives, maize, avocado, etc.) and told us about all of the planning that goes into harvesting his crops (when to harvest, who to hire, how many to hire, etc.) so that he can make a decent profit. We met his daughter, Robi, who is about to start her pre-university (form 5 and 6) in Tanzania so she can become a lawyer. The efforts Mathias has taken to ensure that his children (I want to say six, but it might only be four) can be educated is something to be admired. (I won’t necessarily discuss the details, but he knows how to work the system.) For lunch, we were treated to a course of brown ugali (made with millet and cassava instead of maize creating a much doughier experience), eggs and tomato, and a fruit salad. Along the way back in to town, a woman tried to give me her baby (mostly as a joke, but also with serious intentions behind it [i.e. we would be able to provide for it much easier]). Being a bit confused and taken aback, I smiled a shook its hand, and she proceeded to hand it to Marla. When we returned the baby, Mathias informed us of what the woman said. Because I didn’t take the baby, she had informed me, “I will give it to your wife who will have many more some day.”
Throughout our entire stay, we have had the pleasure of children shouting “Mzungu” and running up to shake our hands. Kuria has been my overall favorite. Kids would do double takes, some would stop completely in their tracks, others would smile and come right up to play with us. One incident was while we were waiting in Tanzania a couple of small girls in their school uniforms (I don’t know if that had actually been from school or not because it was still early) decided we were curious enough to venture up closer. They first spotted us outside the shop where we were buying cloth and would peak around some of the hanging sheets and smile. Later, they spotted us again as we moved down the road a bit. Eventually, they overcame their shyness (though, not enough to talk despite all my efforts to practice a little Swahili) and came up to us. One girl planted herself against Marla while the other explored the strange hair that happened to be growing on my arms, legs, face, and head. At one point, she would play with the hair on my head, slowly drop her hand to gently brush me on the tip of the nose, and laugh. I regret that I didn’t think to get a picture of them. My overall favorite from the trip, however, was while we were walking in Kehancha. We passed a group of children playing in front of some stores, initially oblivious to our passing. A boy turns and spots us. Every fiber of his body explodes with excitement and lifts him off the ground, his knees come up, his waist bends, his arms (bent at the elbow) shake in front of him, fists clenched as he shouts “Mzungu!” at the top of his lungs to alert his friends. I think it’s the most excited I’ve seen anyone ever.
Both times we left Kuria, we had to leave very early (i.e. 5:30) to catch the bus leaving Migori for Nairobi. The first time through, I hopped off in Narok because Steph happened to be passing through as well, returning from a meeting in the Mara near Talek. We will actually be returning that way next week after visiting the Kakamega Forest Reserve just north of Kisumu. I will continue to try to write and catch up over the course of the next week, so expect more soon (about Mituntu, the Maasai and Somali Markets, the Kibera slums, etc.).
-Pat
We left Ugenya bright and early (i.e. 9 or so) and made our way uneventfully to Kisumu (which sits on Lake Victoria) to meet up with Mathias (the Kuria Coordinator). While we were waiting, we hopped in a tuk tuk (a three-wheeled vehicle known mainly in that area and on the coast) and went to the main sports ground for lunch and to watch a football tournament that happened to be going on. After a couple hours of waiting, Mathias finally arrived and we headed to catch a matatu heading to Migori.
Along the way, we saw the remains of an accident (I was wrong about that one [In fact, a couple days ago, I was in a matatu in Nairobi that hit/got hit by someone. It’s difficult to say who was to blame considering the way they drive.]). Our matatu stopped and everyone (with the exception of Marla, me, and another woman) got out to join the on-looking crowd. When everyone piled back in, Mathias explained that it had been a head-on collision (which wasn’t hard to believe considering the matatu was resting in a ditch) likely from trying to pass.
We arrived in Migori in the early evening and were introduced slowly to the matatu system of Kuria. Mathias (knowing we would be back late) had someone ready to pick us up to take us on the hour drive into Kehancha. We assumed this meant it was a private car, but while we were filling the tank with fuel (or fooel as they pronounced it [understandably, since the vowels do not change sound in Swahili]), two more people joined. We continued along our way and soon picked up one more. Much to our surprise, this was not the last pick-up. Just before we left Migori, another person climbed in to join the driver (making the total eight). Finally, with a packed car, we made our way through the night over the bumpy dirt road.
When we arrived in Kehancha, our car quickly emptied, and the driver (it turns out it is Mathias’s brother-in-law) took us to Mathias’s brother’s house where Marla would be staying (originally, it was supposed to be both of us, but Mathias didn’t realize that Pat and Marla were a guy and a girl [not two girls], and we would have been sharing a room). We met his brother’s wife, Florence, and their daughter (about five), Fiona, and had dinner. Then, I was taken to where I was staying, the Pre-Mara Hotel. Along the way, we pulled into the gas station next door (so Mathias could be taken home), but it was closed (we were told this by a man standing with a bow and several arrows [all carved from wood with rather sharp looking metal tips]), so Mathias stayed with me for the night.
Unfortunately for me, my week at the Pre-Mara was not a good one. This first night, my mosquito net was too small, and mosquitoes got under the net. Not wanting to wake Mathias, I covered myself with my sheet, but it was still a bad night of sleep filled with loud buzzing throughout. The rest of the week involved a lack of running water in my room, more mosquitoes (which was as big an issue because I slept in the bed with the bigger mosquito net, but there were many, and they were loud.), and while I was trying to eat one night, a drunk guy (with an apparent mental disability as well) dropping a maggot on my arm while he was pushing his phone in my face because it played music (this was one of the nights where I became frustrated [close to nearly exploding] with all the differences [between here and home] and could not laugh or try to understand the situation).
Thankfully, the manager and the staff were very accommodating and very friendly throughout the week (and they also weren’t happy about the guy getting in and bugging me). They always found a room in the morning that had hot running water (in one case, the manager’s offered his room) and took care of me for dinner. (One of the nights, I had to search for Vincent [the second in command] to get my key for my room, and he happened to be talking to another mzungu guest [this was actually somewhat surprising] when I found him. I walked up, and got introduced to the woman [who was sporting a fresh black eye from ???]. Apparently, she was under the impression that I had requested to talk to her [I think Vincent thought we would want to meet because we were both mzungu. Not an entirely unfair assertion.] because she asked “So, do you want to talk to me outside or what?” “No, I just want the key to my room.” [I never did actually talk to her, but it was amusing, nonetheless. From what I gathered during breakfast the next morning as she was talking to a number of people, she was doing some research in each province of Kenya talking to teachers about their schools. It sounded like she was British.])
Concerning the research, the week also proved to be a little frustrating. On Monday (6/29 [a while ago…]), we made calls to set up three hour blocks of time with four of the six schools Mathias originally contacted. One of the six schools never received a letter, and the other we decided we wouldn’t have enough material for all five. (This was our first mistake. We could have easily made photocopies later in the week, but we weren’t thinking.) We then went to the local Hekima (not sure why it wasn’t Kehancha because it was just down the road) VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) Center to talk to their workers about the prevalence of HIV and the community’s reaction to their services (prevalence is low [about 3.7% {the national average is something like 6.3%}] and reactions are mixed [usually the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS is enough to keep people away and makes them not want to know their status]. We had an interesting discussion with Mathias and his brother, Joseph, about this the second week (7/17-7/21) we came. Their thoughts concerning the matter were that prevalence rates were low in Kehancha because of their cultural customs [they used to chase women out of town if they became pregnant before marriage], but HIV is more rampant in Africa because of poverty [having relationships allows people to be provided for]. They talked about how HIV reached Kenya [it was highest on the boarders between some of their neighboring countries because of rape during war. Then, it worked its way across Kenyan boarders through Tanzania and Uganda] and why rates were higher in different places [one area of Kuria on the opposite side of Migori also boasts the highest prevalence rate in the world {something like 25 or 30%, if I remember correctly}]. It’s higher along the roads because many of the migratory workers [like truckers] stop in different areas [such as Isebania, which is very close to the Tanzanian border and a main trucking route. We passed through here many times to go to a couple of the schools. It’s about a forty-five minute ride from Kehancha.] long enough to make friends [as they put it]. It is higher in the Ugenya area and around Lake Victoria because of the practices associated with the fish markets. Women, when they want to start buying from a fisherman, need to be “baptized” [i.e. have sex with him] before he will sell to her. Sometimes simply being safe isn’t an option, and sometimes [it seems] they have no alternative if they want food or clothing or shelter.)
After our visit to the VCT Center, we headed to the District Hospital (a collection of unconnected buildings, latrines, and a covered, open-air waiting room [essentially, take out the hallways, levels, and toilets of a hospital back home]) and talked with the head of the TB (tuberculosis) division. TB and HIV go hand in hand many times, each making a person more susceptible to the other. Often, when a person is found with one, a test is done for the other (the instances when this does not happen is a result of someone’s unwillingness to be diagnosed, and it is unethical and illegal to do the tests without someone’s consent.) The doctor (I forget his name) told us about how they handle compliance issues for medications (starting and stopping treatment for HIV and TB is dangerous because it gives the virus and the bacteria opportunity to develop drug resistance through mutation and selection. [Both diseases are treated with multiple drugs at once. For HIV, this is three forms of antiretrovirals that block different components of the replication cycle. Because of the way the virus replicates, errors occur 1 in every 10,000 times, changing the viral RNA/DNA that determines the different viral components. This means the virus has a 1 in 10,000 chance in become resistant to one of the antiretrovirals, if the RNA/DNA of that component that particular ARV targets mutates. By targeting three different areas of the virus replication cycle, this chance is reduced to 1 in 1,000,000,000,000. The ARV kills all the replicating virus, but the viral DNA can become integrated into the human DNA before replication is blocked, and when ARV treatment is stopped, the latent DNA can reactivate, offering more opportunity to mutate and become resistant. For TB, depending on the strain, the bacteria have different resistant to the various antibiotics used. If only one antibiotic is used, the TB strain resistant to that antibiotic is selected for. Using multiple antibiotics prevents selection and ensures all strains are killed. There are instances of multiple drug-resistant {MDR} strains, but the doctor related that he had no cases. Because of the way the antibiotics work, starting and stopping treatment before it is completed does not allow your body to clear the entire infection and the more resistant strains can grow and take over the body. This can lead to cases of MDR TB. Anyway, enough science for now.]) His program does not start medication until the person is sufficiently educated about the disease, the consequences of not taking medication, the side effects of the medications (both can be toxic and require good nutrition [a problem] to avoid these effects), and other issues. He visits all of his patients to ensure that compliance is being achieved, and it sounded like his program has a pretty good success rate.
After this, we went to get lunch then proceeded to the school that received the letter, but we wouldn’t be able to use for the research and gave only the talk to the whole school and some of the teachers. The principle came in halfway through, and when he gave his closing remarks to thank us, emphasized the important message to his students that he got from the talk, “Don’t trust your partner.” Oops…
The next day (6/30), we spent the morning visiting the school we would visit the next day to inform them of our needs and about what we would be doing. The week happened to coincide with the annual headmaster’s convention in Mombasa, so the people left in charge didn’t always have the authority to do what we needed. With this school, we were stuck with two of the teachers (unsure of what they should do it seemed), and they continually changed what we agreed upon. (The students were a fun group to talk with, but we were unable to return the next time around because it would interrupt their exams.) We then went back to Kehancha, and after lunch, headed to our first school. Here, we met quite some resistance from the nun in charge. We explained that we would need three hours for the two evaluations and talk. She explained that the students only had two hours between exams. We said we could spilt it up. She said the students were leaving the next day, and we could fit it all into two hours. We said sorry we can’t, and we won’t be able to do the program if we don’t do all the evaluations. She said really it’s ok, you can do it with two hours. No matter how well we thought we explained, she wouldn’t budge. We ended up just giving the talk (this one was without the assistance of a chalkboard).
The next day (7/1), because we didn’t need to be at the school until later, we used the morning hours to visit the LMC Chairman, Maasai Maroa. We had a brief chat with him, and touched upon some of the historical events he witnessed while he was studying at Kent State (he was on campus during the shootings) and working in the US and some that we had witnessed in our generation (9/11, Obama elected, etc.). At various points throughout the day, we met the rest of the LMC and various other people that Mathias knew (everyone it seemed). Later in the day, we set up times for the next day’s school visit and ran into some issues. This school has sent its form 2’s home to collect school fees (this is a common practice and something we ran into later with other schools), which left about half the students from both streams left for the next day. Because we had already lost two schools, we agreed to allow this even though it could lead to further difficulties down the road. When we got to the scheduled school, they pushed back the timing on us unexpectedly (when we came back for the third follow-up, they dropped us completely because they didn’t want the students distracted during exams), causing us to be stranded when we got back to Isebania (since Kehancha is so isolated and matatus usually don’t travel there from Migori or Isebania [Interestingly, all of the shop signs spelled it Isibania, but the official signs and maps have the previous spellings] after dark). While we were waiting for someone to come from Kehancha, it began to rain (sometimes the roads become impassable when wet [being dirt and all]). Fortunately, it did not last too long, and our ride managed to make it to get us with little problem. On the way back (it may have been the next day because we had to do this again), we nearly crashed into someone herding their cattle down the road.
The next school turned out to be something of a disaster. Because it was a mix of the two streams, they put us in the laboratory (which happened to be filled with wasp’s nests [though, this didn’t turn out to be an issue.]). However, only half the students had chairs (and when they went to ask, they couldn’t retrieve any from their classroom), and they were generally disruptive (students were walking in and out, continually making fun of our accents [amusing, usually, but tiresome after ten minutes], and collectively not caring) throughout the entire thing (with other schools, this lasted for the explanation of the evaluation and maybe the initial part of the talk. Here, it crossed the line into disrespectful.). When it came time to do the second evaluation, there was a large protest because they had already done one and it was getting late. Nearly, three-quarters of the students left. It was bad enough that we considered dropping the school for the rest of study (given the number of circumstances we had to deal with), but upon return decided not to (fortunately, things went much better the second time around).
The last school was just across the district border in Kuria East (all the others [and where we were staying] had been in Kuria West). Along the way, we saw the remains of a burned car (I may have failed to mention at any point previously that it was known [about a week before we went] that Kuria was in the middle of tribal fighting, but the main focus was centered politically around the two tribes of Kuria East and around cattle rustling between Kuria East tribes and the Maasai. I was never entirely clear, but the political fighting was about where to put the town hall [or something like that] but there were disputes between the two parties [and thus, tribes] in the area. We were safe because [being white] we were clearly not involved in anything [we were told Mathias was safe because they could recognize he was not from a Kuria East tribe]. We were also told that the cattle rustling was only in the East, but on our last day, we saw a party of men armed with bows and arrows and other weapons returning down the road with cattle that had been stolen the night before [we happened to be in Kuria West at the time…]. That would [most likely] explain the man with the bow and arrow I saw on the first night.) The burned car and the cattle party were the only evidence we saw of the issues, and I never felt that I was in danger (the general warmth of everyone we met was similar to Mbakalo). Anyway, the school was very enthusiastic about being involved and was very good, overall. On our way back to Kehancha the second time around, we shared a matatu with the principle (or headmaster [I am never sure which school calls them which], the deputy principle (see above), and the guidance and counseling teacher. We had a fairly interesting discussion about HIV/AIDS, covering the differences between Africa and the US (the conversation started with that general topic) and dispelling myths they may have heard (and/or possibly believe [I was never sure on this part]. I would like to believe that the questions were more out of general curiosity, and these were things they simply heard and wanted to know the facts about, but it really was difficult to say. The list covered a range from where/how the virus originated [one myth is that it is man-made] to why it is more prevalent in Africa [one myth is that Africans have different blood types, so the virus affects them at a much higher rate]). Whether or not it was simple curiosity, the overall vibe (throughout the entire process) was that they showed concern for their students (before we left the school, the principle gave a letter to Marla raising concerns about the female students access to information and resources for feminine care and explained what they had done so far [building separate latrines, new dorms, etc.]), and when we arrived in Kehancha after our discussion, they all wanted us to return and address FGM [or female circumcision, depending on your point of view, but nonetheless, a topic that has come up on several occasions]. We had to decline not knowing much about the issue [nor having time]. I was asked my opinion on the topic during the discussion. What I said was that while I do not agree with the practice because it is harmful to the woman, it is something that needs to be respected because it is such an important part of the culture [this is when a girl becomes a woman and is a very big deal for the community and the individual]. FGM is illegal in Kenya, and as a result, in order to perform the ritual, it is often done underground [often in unsafe conditions], raising the risk of the woman contracting HIV [this is how FGM was connected to our conversation]. You might be asking why a girl would agree to do this if it is dangerous. It may be easier to place blame simply on a lack of education or family members/men forcing the girls to be cut, but because the practice is so ingrained into the culture and what is represents is a monumental part of a woman’s life, would you want to be considered a child your entire life, never be respected by your community, never marry? I agree with it being illegal but not without education and replacing the practice with an alternative ceremony [one that I have heard is cutting the girl on the leg to represent the act] that respects the step in the girl’s life and the culture. Should a woman be looked down upon because she willingly agrees with the ceremony? Should a culture be disregarded or changed because it is different than yours? I think first, it’s important to understand why something is done before you can agree or disagree with what or how it is done [this goes for understanding another culture as much as it goes for understanding your own. Why do you believe what you believe? Why do you do what you do?].)
On the first week’s Friday (7/3), before our last visit to the above school, we had lunch at Mathias’s house. He showed us his shamba (filled with cassava, some bee hives, maize, avocado, etc.) and told us about all of the planning that goes into harvesting his crops (when to harvest, who to hire, how many to hire, etc.) so that he can make a decent profit. We met his daughter, Robi, who is about to start her pre-university (form 5 and 6) in Tanzania so she can become a lawyer. The efforts Mathias has taken to ensure that his children (I want to say six, but it might only be four) can be educated is something to be admired. (I won’t necessarily discuss the details, but he knows how to work the system.) For lunch, we were treated to a course of brown ugali (made with millet and cassava instead of maize creating a much doughier experience), eggs and tomato, and a fruit salad. Along the way back in to town, a woman tried to give me her baby (mostly as a joke, but also with serious intentions behind it [i.e. we would be able to provide for it much easier]). Being a bit confused and taken aback, I smiled a shook its hand, and she proceeded to hand it to Marla. When we returned the baby, Mathias informed us of what the woman said. Because I didn’t take the baby, she had informed me, “I will give it to your wife who will have many more some day.”
Throughout our entire stay, we have had the pleasure of children shouting “Mzungu” and running up to shake our hands. Kuria has been my overall favorite. Kids would do double takes, some would stop completely in their tracks, others would smile and come right up to play with us. One incident was while we were waiting in Tanzania a couple of small girls in their school uniforms (I don’t know if that had actually been from school or not because it was still early) decided we were curious enough to venture up closer. They first spotted us outside the shop where we were buying cloth and would peak around some of the hanging sheets and smile. Later, they spotted us again as we moved down the road a bit. Eventually, they overcame their shyness (though, not enough to talk despite all my efforts to practice a little Swahili) and came up to us. One girl planted herself against Marla while the other explored the strange hair that happened to be growing on my arms, legs, face, and head. At one point, she would play with the hair on my head, slowly drop her hand to gently brush me on the tip of the nose, and laugh. I regret that I didn’t think to get a picture of them. My overall favorite from the trip, however, was while we were walking in Kehancha. We passed a group of children playing in front of some stores, initially oblivious to our passing. A boy turns and spots us. Every fiber of his body explodes with excitement and lifts him off the ground, his knees come up, his waist bends, his arms (bent at the elbow) shake in front of him, fists clenched as he shouts “Mzungu!” at the top of his lungs to alert his friends. I think it’s the most excited I’ve seen anyone ever.
Both times we left Kuria, we had to leave very early (i.e. 5:30) to catch the bus leaving Migori for Nairobi. The first time through, I hopped off in Narok because Steph happened to be passing through as well, returning from a meeting in the Mara near Talek. We will actually be returning that way next week after visiting the Kakamega Forest Reserve just north of Kisumu. I will continue to try to write and catch up over the course of the next week, so expect more soon (about Mituntu, the Maasai and Somali Markets, the Kibera slums, etc.).
-Pat
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Matatus- The World Turned 90 Degrees
Simply put, I don’t fit. Usually I get stuck somewhere (inevitably) where my knees are in my chin or my head is ducked so I can avoid hitting the ceiling on the bumpy roads. Matatus (the ones I have ridden at least) are anywhere from seven to fourteen passenger (this is usually advertised mockingly on the sides of the matatu. I say mockingly because, in the rural areas, this number can reach over twenty [we have been in one with twenty-five {three were hanging out the side door}]) vans with an appearance resembling something close to an old VW hippie van (that’s the best I can come up with for now. A picture will come later). Each matatu looks completely different. Usually, they have some sort of sticker of a celebrity (we have seen Obama), a US sports team (I have seen the Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago White Sox), or some phrase. Some are painted wildly (the ones I have not ridden [which are much larger] are usually the ones like this and have themes, usually with rappers [Tupac seems to be the most popular] bursting out the side [a fairly nice paint job is required]). In Kuria, the matatus are station wagons. Supposedly, they are only four passenger vehicles, but they won’t leave without eight. This requires that two people share the driver’s seat. However, we have been in one that has had fourteen. (Five were in the front, five were in the back, and four more were in the trunk. [One in front was a child, but still…])
People hop on and off wherever they need. Occasionally, there is a main stage where you can find a number of them, but then you have to deal with the touts (I may have called them tauds earlier?) who fight over you (sometimes pulling you [never forcefully, more or less suggestively]) to get you on their vehicle (they are paid a commission per passenger they find). The conductor sits in back and hangs his head out the window or (when the matatu is packed [which it usually is]) standing on the ledge with the door open to look for more passengers. The driver’s job is to drive wildly (usually swerving back and forth to avoid potholes and find the least bumpy path. In Nairobi, it isn’t so much swerving as it is forcing, usually to avoid traffic [there is never not a jam] and find the lane moving fastest [on occasion, this requires use of the sidewalk].). The conductor and driver communicate with a variety of taps and signals (usually hitting the roof with a coin twice) to know when to stop (or sometimes, in Nairobi, when they can switch lanes).
In almost every matatu, the music is blaring. (In Nairobi, this can sometimes be coupled with a TV hooked up in back playing the accompanying music video [or something completely random].) Usually, it is something in Swahili that I don’t understand. Sometimes it is American. Occasionally, it is a CD. With the exception of the volume, it’s kind of nice.
My first experience with a matatu was in Mbakalo as Simon and I were travelling to visit the first set of sponsored OVC. We found ourselves passing through the foothills of Mt. Elgon. Large boulders loomed ominously over the small mud huts, each intermingling sporadically across the rolling hills. I spotted men bathing in rivers, women carrying stalks of bananas (balanced on head, both shoulders, and in both hands), and people idly lying under trees. At each stop, people come up to the windows with baskets of fruit and food, displaying their items neatly, arranging them as if bouquets. In larger towns, people come up with other merchandise (locks, socks, movies, drinks, candleholders, etc.). On our trip, Simon treated me to a bag of groundnuts.
When you find a full matatu, the process can be efficient. Depending on the time of day, it can take a while for a matatu to come (when on the side of the road) or people to fill (at the stages). I was shocked the first time I rode one in Nairobi. Not only did the matatu fill only to capacity, it left the stage without being full. Overall, it’s not the most comfortable means of transportation, and it lacks a certain independence that a car affords, but it’s a cheap means of transport, and it gets you where you need to go. It fits with the rest of what I have observed about Kenya, it works.
-Pat
People hop on and off wherever they need. Occasionally, there is a main stage where you can find a number of them, but then you have to deal with the touts (I may have called them tauds earlier?) who fight over you (sometimes pulling you [never forcefully, more or less suggestively]) to get you on their vehicle (they are paid a commission per passenger they find). The conductor sits in back and hangs his head out the window or (when the matatu is packed [which it usually is]) standing on the ledge with the door open to look for more passengers. The driver’s job is to drive wildly (usually swerving back and forth to avoid potholes and find the least bumpy path. In Nairobi, it isn’t so much swerving as it is forcing, usually to avoid traffic [there is never not a jam] and find the lane moving fastest [on occasion, this requires use of the sidewalk].). The conductor and driver communicate with a variety of taps and signals (usually hitting the roof with a coin twice) to know when to stop (or sometimes, in Nairobi, when they can switch lanes).
In almost every matatu, the music is blaring. (In Nairobi, this can sometimes be coupled with a TV hooked up in back playing the accompanying music video [or something completely random].) Usually, it is something in Swahili that I don’t understand. Sometimes it is American. Occasionally, it is a CD. With the exception of the volume, it’s kind of nice.
My first experience with a matatu was in Mbakalo as Simon and I were travelling to visit the first set of sponsored OVC. We found ourselves passing through the foothills of Mt. Elgon. Large boulders loomed ominously over the small mud huts, each intermingling sporadically across the rolling hills. I spotted men bathing in rivers, women carrying stalks of bananas (balanced on head, both shoulders, and in both hands), and people idly lying under trees. At each stop, people come up to the windows with baskets of fruit and food, displaying their items neatly, arranging them as if bouquets. In larger towns, people come up with other merchandise (locks, socks, movies, drinks, candleholders, etc.). On our trip, Simon treated me to a bag of groundnuts.
When you find a full matatu, the process can be efficient. Depending on the time of day, it can take a while for a matatu to come (when on the side of the road) or people to fill (at the stages). I was shocked the first time I rode one in Nairobi. Not only did the matatu fill only to capacity, it left the stage without being full. Overall, it’s not the most comfortable means of transportation, and it lacks a certain independence that a car affords, but it’s a cheap means of transport, and it gets you where you need to go. It fits with the rest of what I have observed about Kenya, it works.
-Pat
Monday, July 20, 2009
The thing I have been calling a road to Ugenya (and more!)
It’s been a while, I know. It’s been busy, basically. Anyway, I continue…
After grabbing some lunch at a local hotel (I haven’t been able to fully tell, but it seems that hotels here are actually simply restaurants and not actually places to stay) and saying farewell (maybe I will see you soon) to Mttaki, I grabbed a room at the Park Villa and waited for Marla and Marion to arrive. The first thing I did (after settling into my room) was shave (because I had a mirror, running water, and three weeks of growth [not very fitting for me]) and take a long, hot shower. Shortly after, I found Marla and Marion at the front gate with baggage enough for four people. Marla just finished her first year at Tufts and received a grant to conduct the research for two months. As we waited for Dr. Ngome, Marla filled me in on the States, her research, and Nairobi (and I got a chance to play around with my new camera my parents sent with her). The meeting with Dr. Ngome was very short (enough to let him grab a copy of the questionnaire we would be using so he could look through them overnight), but we set a time to meet him at his school on our way to Ugenya to go through more. We had dinner that night at the Park Villa. “Are you ready to order?” sounds a lot like “Have you already ordered?” so we spent an hour waiting for food we didn’t order and wasn’t planning on coming. After chatting for a while, we finally realized the mistake (we should have known when the waiter took the menus after we said “Yes.”) when our stomachs began telling us food would be required rather than merely welcomed graciously. I went with a beef curry and ugali (It was nice to finally have an opportunity for a bit of variety and flavor), but the waiter brought me a half portion of the ugali. He was shocked (as is almost everyone else it seems) when I said I actually enjoyed it and had been eating it every day for the past three weeks (so I could grow strong [naturally]) and quickly brought more from the kitchen.
The next morning we were planning on taking four matatus (with my sixty pound bag, large backpack, laptop, Marla’s two large fifty pound bags and backpack, and Marion’s small duffle). We caught the first one to near Ngome’s school and waited for some of his teachers to come get us. When they arrived, they made the mistake of saying it wasn’t far and wouldn’t necessarily need boda bodas for the bags. Marla’s had wheels and were manageable, but mine was a pain. (I felt bad for the one teacher who helped me because he took it from me and ended up lugging it over his shoulder to the school [despite my protests and offers to trade bags].) We finally arrived and sat down outside with Ngome. Marla explained more about what she wanted to do and Ngome went through parts of the questionnaire he thought would be misunderstood (The two changes made were defining “Siblings” and “Cool.” For some reason we chose to find a Swahili equivalent to “cool” [machachari] instead of another English word [which made sense, but as we have traveled around, some schools haven’t understood “machachari”, and we have realized it is more of a regional dialect and substituting “popular” works much better]) and removed his previous reservations about the length since the questions were simple and mostly straightforward.
After talking with Ngome, we were introduced to the entire school (I forget the name, but it was primary level) and then fielded questions. Unsurprisingly, the boys flocked to me and the girls to Marla. It took a little while for them to warm up, but eventually one of the bolder boys started asking questions. They asked about Obama, school, how much school cost (over 9 million ksh), foods I ate, my favorite football club (in Europe), celebrities I knew, my hobbies, and many other questions. (I found it difficult to hear some of the boys and to field multiple questions at once, so it was easier to continue letting the first boy ask all the questions or turn to him for translations.) When they asked about my hobby (rather than trying to explain), I pulled out a couple discs from my bag and we played with those. When they asked about food, I told them all the Kenyan foods I had so far, and I got a big cheer for knowing busuma (ugali). They then asked me to sing them a song, but not having a good one off the top of my head (or being much of a singer) challenged them to sing me one first. They wouldn’t do it either. Shortly after, a couple boys grabbed my hand (some fighting for the privilege), and we moved through the compound as they pointed out the dorms and the kitchen and the school rooms. We passed the girls singing Marla a song and finally arrived at the soccer pitch (which was being used by grazing cows at the time). I mainly stood around and let the boys play, occasionally fielding a few passes and getting a couple of head balls. It’s been a while since I had played, but it was fun.
Since we had so much luggage, Marion thought it would be best to take a taxi to Ugenya, so while we were off playing, she made sure that Bramwell (our taxi driver to Mbakalo) could come to pick us up. The ride was fairly uneventful. Passing through Bungoma, however, meant creeping through a series of giant potholes. We also passed the Mumias sugar factory. (It was strange seeing a large industrial factory in the middle of nowhere, especially after getting used to the small shops and maize fields.) The maize was replaced by sugar cane (hence the sugar factory), and on occasion, we would find ourselves following massive (probably fifteen or twenty feet high) trucks loaded with the cut cane (which was poking out the sides at random angles). We arrived at the Camunya Hotel (where we would be staying for the week. It is a pretty nice place, complete with electricity [though this is prone to short blackouts], running water, queen size beds, and a pretty nice breakfast) in Ugunja in the early evening and met Calvin. We talked about plans over dinner, and arranged to go to as many schools as possible the next day. We were also recruited as new Arsenal (an England football club that Calvin supports) fans (if only I had known this was my favorite club earlier in the day [The issue would have been, however, they would have then asked me who my favorite player was, who the top scorer is, etc. All the questions, basically, that would give me away]).
Ugunja is a two street town resembling many of the other towns around Kenya. I would liken the setting to a bustling ghost town. The buildings have an Old West feel to them (and sometimes they look as though they were built then, falling apart, decay creeping in), the things I have been calling roads are dusty (sometimes the wind whips up small dust tornados that sweep across them), but there are people and activity everywhere. Women sit at stalls selling fruit and vegetables. Men are at work, repairing cars, building metal doors. Going by the matatu stages, you are hounded and grabbed by tauds (this is how is sounds when Calvin says it). At one point, Calvin (who is 5’1”) was surrounded by six men pleading and tugging him this toward their respective vehicles. At the intersection, the boda boda and piki piki drivers set up across the street from each other, like two rival gangs competing for customers. On several occasions, we have been talking to the boda boda drivers (who were planning on charging too much anyway), when one, then two, then three piki pikis break rank and pull up next to us, revving the engines, rocking back and forth, giving us a better offer. It is certainly a much more hectic life than in Mbakalo.
There isn’t too much to describe about the talks and evaluations, but before I start that, I should describe the secondary school set up. There seems to be a fairly even mix between day schools and boarding schools and between mixed schools and single sex schools. Each school has for levels (form 1-4), each form as multiple streams (anywhere from one to three), each stream has between forty and sixty students, and the students range from age 15 to 22. We were able to get four schools (out of five who were willing [out of ten Calvin asked]) signed up for Marla’s study. The total program (one evaluation, a talk, and a second evaluation [the same questions]) takes about three hours, and for three of the schools, we were able to break this up over the course of the week (for the one school that we did not, it worked well because they had tea break and moved to join the other streams for the talk in the library, then returned to their class to complete the evaluation). Everything went fairly well. The biggest thing was our accent (which some students liked to imitate ([by plugging their noses]), but using the chalkboard and slowing down helped. We found that pointing it out usually got them to settle down, and each school was different, depending on the attitude of the students, the maturity level (they are sophomores, essentially, and we are talking about sex [kind of integral to HIV/AIDS awareness]), and the school attitude. At one school, they decided to send us off by everyone imitating our accent. They thought it was pretty funny when I then covered my mouth and talked as quietly as possible to imitate them. Some of the students also found it interesting to touch our hair, but would recoil when I went to touch theirs in return. We have also received a round of applause simply for coming back, and I have received a couple more for telling them I will be going for my PhD when I introduced myself. For the most part, it has been kind of fun.
While the study is supposed to be gathering how effective the talks are, from what I have gathered simply through observation, the students have heard it before. I have been able to add more detail to the science background (some find this more interesting than others [get that], but one of the principles requested that I add more since the students would be curious about current research), which they don’t always know, but they know how HIV spreads (blood, sex, and mother to child) and how to prevent it from spreading (abstinence, being faithful, and condoms [ABC’s]). We attempt (to some degree) to discuss the various strategies of prevention (and this is, invariably, where we get the most questions [some more serious than others, some about myths they have heard, and some that tend to be off topic]), but try to stress that getting tested and making sure they are safe is best to add to whichever method they want to choose. My biggest fear about the talks is that I will say something (which I will know all the implications and details of) that the students will pick up on and use as justification for unsafe actions (because they didn’t understand completely or I couldn’t explain completely [One example is that each time you come into contact with the virus sexually you don’t always become infected. If you say that it is at a low rate, they won’t regard it as a serious enough threat. If you say that it is at a high rate, it could be debilitating. Usually, we try to avoid mentioning a rate and simply say the risk is always there.]).
Between the talks and evaluations, there has been travel, which brought a few interesting experiences. Outside one of the schools, when we were waiting for a matatu, there were three little girls (from about three to six) who would creep around the corner of a shop (about 40 yards away) to look and wave. When I would turn to look and wave back, they would dash back out of sight (sometimes the youngest would forget for a few seconds). When we came back the second time, they recognized us again, but had warmed up to the idea of us and danced to the music for our (and more likely their) delight. It was pretty adorable. Outside another school, there was a nursery (again about forty yards from where we were sitting). A couple of the boys became aware of our presences and alerted the other kids. Soon, there was a crowd of twenty or so children waving and yelling “Bye!” We decided to go over and say hi, but since they didn’t know any other English and we didn’t know much Swahili (I haven’t really had as much free time as expected, though I have been able to pick up enough to surprise people. [In fact, in Kuria, I was able to successfully carry out two conversations. Granted, they were both six statements long, but it’s a start]), we just stared at each other and smiled. Coming back from another school, it was about to rain, so we couldn’t take piki pikis. Luckily, a guy had just passed with his truck and was returning soon. Turns out, he drove (then Senator) Obama around when he visited Kenya in 2006. I asked him his impressions of Obama, and he said he was a very down-to-earth and humble guy, and he was also very charismatic and had a certain likability about him that made him easy to relate to. I thought that was pretty cool.
When we’re not traveling, we are usually at Camunya, which is fairly isolated from the rest of Ugunja. At the bar, they have a big screen TV that is usually playing Kenyan music videos. I don’t really know how to describe them perfectly for you. The quality is low, the videos are long, and the dance moves are… dance moves, I guess. It’s entertaining, at least. (My favorite has been the Obama song. I have no idea what they are singing about, but it’s complete with Obama dancing enthusiastically with an old African woman [maybe his grandmother?]) We have also been able to catch a few football matches and caught one good game (because we won!) between Spain and the US in the semis of the Confederation Cup and one boring one between Brazil and South Africa in the other semis. We missed the finals, but reports say it was an exciting one (despite Brazil edging us out).
We also had the opportunity to visit Calvin’s home before we left. We got to see his new motorbike and new compound. It was easy to tell he was very proud of everything, despite his claims that “this is the type of home that the poor can afford.” (A semi-permanent mud based structure) We also met his mother and father, his children, his wife, and his niece. We had a simple meal of chapo and beans followed by bananas and chai. Because this is Luo land, I found it very interesting (but appropriate) that he had several posters of Prime Minister Raila (or as the posters put it “The People’s President” [For more details, look up the election violence that occurred last year. Essentially, Raila, a Luo, had the popular vote but Kibaki, a Kikuyu, stole the election, through corruption, etc., and became president. These are the two largest tribes in Kenya and usually in control of the political scene.]) This made me wonder how much the principles of the schools we visited really wanted the picture of President Kibaki hanging in their office.
The other interesting thing about Calvin was hearing about his land dispute with his cousins. I don’t remember the full details, but basically, Calvin’s grandfathers land is now being claimed and used by his cousins and so they took it to court, but because of corruption, he lost the case and is now in the process of getting things appeal (which could take two years, but he has connections to get it pushed up [maybe]). Throughout the process, written statements were removed as evidence or altered to convey a different message and overall, was time-consuming and frustrating for Calvin.
Currently, we are moving back through the three villages to do the third evaluation. This one has only taken thirty minutes and doesn’t entail much. We met up with Grace and Fillippo (two other interns) for a couple of the days since they were in Ugenya doing visits with the sponsored OVC. The highlights this time through include eating an entire fish and meeting a cute kid. Yes, I have documented how an entire fish was placed in front of me on multiple occasions, but this does not mean I ate the entire thing. When I say I ate the entire fish, I mean I ate the fillet (the easy to get to stuff), something that makes up the stomach (more grainy and tougher), the gills (crunchy!), the eyes (actually kind of good), and the tongue (softer but mostly flavorless). Calvin chastised me telling me that I had been throwing away my money and wasting fish up until then. Now, I know better, and once you get past what you’re eating, it’s quite nice. On one of the trips to a school, we were met on the path by a two year old (or so) coming from his house. He had his armed outstretched ready to greet us and was calling “Hiyo!” (His version of “How are you?”). Just before he reached me, he took a quick look at his hand (either to make sure it was clean or that it was still there for use) and gladly greeted us. Accomplishing his task, he delightedly went back to his house, and we moved on. He’s been the most outgoing, in terms of approaching us, and it was good for a smile and a laugh.
I have since moved back to Kuria, and I hope to begin describing there as well as developing some other material that goes a bit deeper (at this rate, though, I might fall five weeks behind). Since most of the school stuff is the same, I will try to keep that to a minimum. Tomorrow (6/21), we will be heading across the border to Tanzania (I will let you guess as to the legality of this action [not even sure if I should be revealing that. Oh well.]).
-Pat
After grabbing some lunch at a local hotel (I haven’t been able to fully tell, but it seems that hotels here are actually simply restaurants and not actually places to stay) and saying farewell (maybe I will see you soon) to Mttaki, I grabbed a room at the Park Villa and waited for Marla and Marion to arrive. The first thing I did (after settling into my room) was shave (because I had a mirror, running water, and three weeks of growth [not very fitting for me]) and take a long, hot shower. Shortly after, I found Marla and Marion at the front gate with baggage enough for four people. Marla just finished her first year at Tufts and received a grant to conduct the research for two months. As we waited for Dr. Ngome, Marla filled me in on the States, her research, and Nairobi (and I got a chance to play around with my new camera my parents sent with her). The meeting with Dr. Ngome was very short (enough to let him grab a copy of the questionnaire we would be using so he could look through them overnight), but we set a time to meet him at his school on our way to Ugenya to go through more. We had dinner that night at the Park Villa. “Are you ready to order?” sounds a lot like “Have you already ordered?” so we spent an hour waiting for food we didn’t order and wasn’t planning on coming. After chatting for a while, we finally realized the mistake (we should have known when the waiter took the menus after we said “Yes.”) when our stomachs began telling us food would be required rather than merely welcomed graciously. I went with a beef curry and ugali (It was nice to finally have an opportunity for a bit of variety and flavor), but the waiter brought me a half portion of the ugali. He was shocked (as is almost everyone else it seems) when I said I actually enjoyed it and had been eating it every day for the past three weeks (so I could grow strong [naturally]) and quickly brought more from the kitchen.
The next morning we were planning on taking four matatus (with my sixty pound bag, large backpack, laptop, Marla’s two large fifty pound bags and backpack, and Marion’s small duffle). We caught the first one to near Ngome’s school and waited for some of his teachers to come get us. When they arrived, they made the mistake of saying it wasn’t far and wouldn’t necessarily need boda bodas for the bags. Marla’s had wheels and were manageable, but mine was a pain. (I felt bad for the one teacher who helped me because he took it from me and ended up lugging it over his shoulder to the school [despite my protests and offers to trade bags].) We finally arrived and sat down outside with Ngome. Marla explained more about what she wanted to do and Ngome went through parts of the questionnaire he thought would be misunderstood (The two changes made were defining “Siblings” and “Cool.” For some reason we chose to find a Swahili equivalent to “cool” [machachari] instead of another English word [which made sense, but as we have traveled around, some schools haven’t understood “machachari”, and we have realized it is more of a regional dialect and substituting “popular” works much better]) and removed his previous reservations about the length since the questions were simple and mostly straightforward.
After talking with Ngome, we were introduced to the entire school (I forget the name, but it was primary level) and then fielded questions. Unsurprisingly, the boys flocked to me and the girls to Marla. It took a little while for them to warm up, but eventually one of the bolder boys started asking questions. They asked about Obama, school, how much school cost (over 9 million ksh), foods I ate, my favorite football club (in Europe), celebrities I knew, my hobbies, and many other questions. (I found it difficult to hear some of the boys and to field multiple questions at once, so it was easier to continue letting the first boy ask all the questions or turn to him for translations.) When they asked about my hobby (rather than trying to explain), I pulled out a couple discs from my bag and we played with those. When they asked about food, I told them all the Kenyan foods I had so far, and I got a big cheer for knowing busuma (ugali). They then asked me to sing them a song, but not having a good one off the top of my head (or being much of a singer) challenged them to sing me one first. They wouldn’t do it either. Shortly after, a couple boys grabbed my hand (some fighting for the privilege), and we moved through the compound as they pointed out the dorms and the kitchen and the school rooms. We passed the girls singing Marla a song and finally arrived at the soccer pitch (which was being used by grazing cows at the time). I mainly stood around and let the boys play, occasionally fielding a few passes and getting a couple of head balls. It’s been a while since I had played, but it was fun.
Since we had so much luggage, Marion thought it would be best to take a taxi to Ugenya, so while we were off playing, she made sure that Bramwell (our taxi driver to Mbakalo) could come to pick us up. The ride was fairly uneventful. Passing through Bungoma, however, meant creeping through a series of giant potholes. We also passed the Mumias sugar factory. (It was strange seeing a large industrial factory in the middle of nowhere, especially after getting used to the small shops and maize fields.) The maize was replaced by sugar cane (hence the sugar factory), and on occasion, we would find ourselves following massive (probably fifteen or twenty feet high) trucks loaded with the cut cane (which was poking out the sides at random angles). We arrived at the Camunya Hotel (where we would be staying for the week. It is a pretty nice place, complete with electricity [though this is prone to short blackouts], running water, queen size beds, and a pretty nice breakfast) in Ugunja in the early evening and met Calvin. We talked about plans over dinner, and arranged to go to as many schools as possible the next day. We were also recruited as new Arsenal (an England football club that Calvin supports) fans (if only I had known this was my favorite club earlier in the day [The issue would have been, however, they would have then asked me who my favorite player was, who the top scorer is, etc. All the questions, basically, that would give me away]).
Ugunja is a two street town resembling many of the other towns around Kenya. I would liken the setting to a bustling ghost town. The buildings have an Old West feel to them (and sometimes they look as though they were built then, falling apart, decay creeping in), the things I have been calling roads are dusty (sometimes the wind whips up small dust tornados that sweep across them), but there are people and activity everywhere. Women sit at stalls selling fruit and vegetables. Men are at work, repairing cars, building metal doors. Going by the matatu stages, you are hounded and grabbed by tauds (this is how is sounds when Calvin says it). At one point, Calvin (who is 5’1”) was surrounded by six men pleading and tugging him this toward their respective vehicles. At the intersection, the boda boda and piki piki drivers set up across the street from each other, like two rival gangs competing for customers. On several occasions, we have been talking to the boda boda drivers (who were planning on charging too much anyway), when one, then two, then three piki pikis break rank and pull up next to us, revving the engines, rocking back and forth, giving us a better offer. It is certainly a much more hectic life than in Mbakalo.
There isn’t too much to describe about the talks and evaluations, but before I start that, I should describe the secondary school set up. There seems to be a fairly even mix between day schools and boarding schools and between mixed schools and single sex schools. Each school has for levels (form 1-4), each form as multiple streams (anywhere from one to three), each stream has between forty and sixty students, and the students range from age 15 to 22. We were able to get four schools (out of five who were willing [out of ten Calvin asked]) signed up for Marla’s study. The total program (one evaluation, a talk, and a second evaluation [the same questions]) takes about three hours, and for three of the schools, we were able to break this up over the course of the week (for the one school that we did not, it worked well because they had tea break and moved to join the other streams for the talk in the library, then returned to their class to complete the evaluation). Everything went fairly well. The biggest thing was our accent (which some students liked to imitate ([by plugging their noses]), but using the chalkboard and slowing down helped. We found that pointing it out usually got them to settle down, and each school was different, depending on the attitude of the students, the maturity level (they are sophomores, essentially, and we are talking about sex [kind of integral to HIV/AIDS awareness]), and the school attitude. At one school, they decided to send us off by everyone imitating our accent. They thought it was pretty funny when I then covered my mouth and talked as quietly as possible to imitate them. Some of the students also found it interesting to touch our hair, but would recoil when I went to touch theirs in return. We have also received a round of applause simply for coming back, and I have received a couple more for telling them I will be going for my PhD when I introduced myself. For the most part, it has been kind of fun.
While the study is supposed to be gathering how effective the talks are, from what I have gathered simply through observation, the students have heard it before. I have been able to add more detail to the science background (some find this more interesting than others [get that], but one of the principles requested that I add more since the students would be curious about current research), which they don’t always know, but they know how HIV spreads (blood, sex, and mother to child) and how to prevent it from spreading (abstinence, being faithful, and condoms [ABC’s]). We attempt (to some degree) to discuss the various strategies of prevention (and this is, invariably, where we get the most questions [some more serious than others, some about myths they have heard, and some that tend to be off topic]), but try to stress that getting tested and making sure they are safe is best to add to whichever method they want to choose. My biggest fear about the talks is that I will say something (which I will know all the implications and details of) that the students will pick up on and use as justification for unsafe actions (because they didn’t understand completely or I couldn’t explain completely [One example is that each time you come into contact with the virus sexually you don’t always become infected. If you say that it is at a low rate, they won’t regard it as a serious enough threat. If you say that it is at a high rate, it could be debilitating. Usually, we try to avoid mentioning a rate and simply say the risk is always there.]).
Between the talks and evaluations, there has been travel, which brought a few interesting experiences. Outside one of the schools, when we were waiting for a matatu, there were three little girls (from about three to six) who would creep around the corner of a shop (about 40 yards away) to look and wave. When I would turn to look and wave back, they would dash back out of sight (sometimes the youngest would forget for a few seconds). When we came back the second time, they recognized us again, but had warmed up to the idea of us and danced to the music for our (and more likely their) delight. It was pretty adorable. Outside another school, there was a nursery (again about forty yards from where we were sitting). A couple of the boys became aware of our presences and alerted the other kids. Soon, there was a crowd of twenty or so children waving and yelling “Bye!” We decided to go over and say hi, but since they didn’t know any other English and we didn’t know much Swahili (I haven’t really had as much free time as expected, though I have been able to pick up enough to surprise people. [In fact, in Kuria, I was able to successfully carry out two conversations. Granted, they were both six statements long, but it’s a start]), we just stared at each other and smiled. Coming back from another school, it was about to rain, so we couldn’t take piki pikis. Luckily, a guy had just passed with his truck and was returning soon. Turns out, he drove (then Senator) Obama around when he visited Kenya in 2006. I asked him his impressions of Obama, and he said he was a very down-to-earth and humble guy, and he was also very charismatic and had a certain likability about him that made him easy to relate to. I thought that was pretty cool.
When we’re not traveling, we are usually at Camunya, which is fairly isolated from the rest of Ugunja. At the bar, they have a big screen TV that is usually playing Kenyan music videos. I don’t really know how to describe them perfectly for you. The quality is low, the videos are long, and the dance moves are… dance moves, I guess. It’s entertaining, at least. (My favorite has been the Obama song. I have no idea what they are singing about, but it’s complete with Obama dancing enthusiastically with an old African woman [maybe his grandmother?]) We have also been able to catch a few football matches and caught one good game (because we won!) between Spain and the US in the semis of the Confederation Cup and one boring one between Brazil and South Africa in the other semis. We missed the finals, but reports say it was an exciting one (despite Brazil edging us out).
We also had the opportunity to visit Calvin’s home before we left. We got to see his new motorbike and new compound. It was easy to tell he was very proud of everything, despite his claims that “this is the type of home that the poor can afford.” (A semi-permanent mud based structure) We also met his mother and father, his children, his wife, and his niece. We had a simple meal of chapo and beans followed by bananas and chai. Because this is Luo land, I found it very interesting (but appropriate) that he had several posters of Prime Minister Raila (or as the posters put it “The People’s President” [For more details, look up the election violence that occurred last year. Essentially, Raila, a Luo, had the popular vote but Kibaki, a Kikuyu, stole the election, through corruption, etc., and became president. These are the two largest tribes in Kenya and usually in control of the political scene.]) This made me wonder how much the principles of the schools we visited really wanted the picture of President Kibaki hanging in their office.
The other interesting thing about Calvin was hearing about his land dispute with his cousins. I don’t remember the full details, but basically, Calvin’s grandfathers land is now being claimed and used by his cousins and so they took it to court, but because of corruption, he lost the case and is now in the process of getting things appeal (which could take two years, but he has connections to get it pushed up [maybe]). Throughout the process, written statements were removed as evidence or altered to convey a different message and overall, was time-consuming and frustrating for Calvin.
Currently, we are moving back through the three villages to do the third evaluation. This one has only taken thirty minutes and doesn’t entail much. We met up with Grace and Fillippo (two other interns) for a couple of the days since they were in Ugenya doing visits with the sponsored OVC. The highlights this time through include eating an entire fish and meeting a cute kid. Yes, I have documented how an entire fish was placed in front of me on multiple occasions, but this does not mean I ate the entire thing. When I say I ate the entire fish, I mean I ate the fillet (the easy to get to stuff), something that makes up the stomach (more grainy and tougher), the gills (crunchy!), the eyes (actually kind of good), and the tongue (softer but mostly flavorless). Calvin chastised me telling me that I had been throwing away my money and wasting fish up until then. Now, I know better, and once you get past what you’re eating, it’s quite nice. On one of the trips to a school, we were met on the path by a two year old (or so) coming from his house. He had his armed outstretched ready to greet us and was calling “Hiyo!” (His version of “How are you?”). Just before he reached me, he took a quick look at his hand (either to make sure it was clean or that it was still there for use) and gladly greeted us. Accomplishing his task, he delightedly went back to his house, and we moved on. He’s been the most outgoing, in terms of approaching us, and it was good for a smile and a laugh.
I have since moved back to Kuria, and I hope to begin describing there as well as developing some other material that goes a bit deeper (at this rate, though, I might fall five weeks behind). Since most of the school stuff is the same, I will try to keep that to a minimum. Tomorrow (6/21), we will be heading across the border to Tanzania (I will let you guess as to the legality of this action [not even sure if I should be revealing that. Oh well.]).
-Pat
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