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