Things really fell in place in Kisumu. First of all, I got a really good vibe from the city in just 3 days, making me really pumped to spend about a month in and around Kisumu during my Independent Study Period. It’s much smaller than
Nairobi and therefore much more laid-back. If I had to make an analogy, I’d say Kisumu:
Nairobi as
Easton, PA:Philly.
Kisumu is in Western Kenya, Nyanza Province—right on Lake Victoria, which is huuuuge. The Lake has portions belonging to Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya…actually making for many problems for fishermen who find themselves arrested in the other countries for accidentally fishing across invisible and fairly arbitrary “borders” in the lake. When we (9 other students and me) got into Kisumu after our 7-hour bus ride from Nairobi through the gorgeous Rift Valley and a number of tea plantations, we were met by a local university professor who serves as SIT’s contact in the west, named Leah. I asked her which direction the Lake was from our hotel and she pointed out to a green field that looked like a tea plantation and said, “It’s right there!” I couldn’t believe it—an entire inlet of the Lake bordering Kisumu was covered entirely by green hyacinth. The locals lament the vegetation because of the problems it causes for the fishing industry and for the way it allows dangerous hippos (unfortunately we didn’t see any last weekend) to hide and get really P-O’d when boats bother them.
The people of Kisumu are primarily members of the Luo tribe, one of over 40 tribes in Kenya but one of the larger ones. Historically, the Luos and other tribes of the west have been snubbed big time. The early leaders of Kenya have been from tribes located in Central Province (home of Nairobi), and there’s lots of political favoritism because politicians want to secure the support of their own people. This has led to horrendous development in the west…tons of poverty, bad roads, malnutrition due to flooding and drought, and lacking schools. Nonetheless, Luos are great people and really friendly. They’re one of the more progressive tribes in Kenya, denouncing traditional circumcision practices that contribute to the spread of HIV and, although HIV, malaria, and TB present huge problems to the Luos because of poverty and ecological conditions, there is widespread recognition of the problems and efforts to eradicate them.
The heat in Kisumu is bananas. It’s at a much lower elevation than Nairobi, which is in the mountains, and smack-dab on the equator. At least it’s dry heat, unlike the humid coast, but the temps are above 30 C every day…not sure how that converts, but I’d say maybe 95ish? Thanks to the elevation, frequent rainfall, and Lake Victoria, mosquitoes breed like nobody’s business and malaria runs rampant.
So that leads me into my Independent Study Project. When we first got into Kisumu we had lectures on health and development from Leah and a woman named Rosemary, head of all Ministry of Health efforts in Nyanza District. I told Leah and Rosemary that I was interested in studying malaria in a village outside of Kisumu, and they told me about Nyahera—a large Luo village in the hills overlooking Kisumu and Lake Victoria. Rosemary wrote me a letter on Ministry of Health letterhead asking the Nyahera Health Clinic to take me in and support my research, and I jumped on a matatu headed up the mountains and into Nyahera.
The Nyahera clinic, operated by the MOH, is tiny but the only such institution for the entirety of Nyahera, a huge village in both land and population—a population that has neither vehicles nor money for transportation. When I walked into the clinic’s outdoor waiting area, there were countless mothers and grandmothers holding young children—coughing, crying, or with uncontrollable runny noses. I went into the office of the clinic’s chief nurse and clinical officer, feeling just slightly intimidated by the titles and the fact that I was a random mzungu, armed with my anti-malaria pills and notebook, entering a war zone of TB and malaria. I explained that I am an American student studying in Kenya this semester and that I am planning on writing a term paper (the word “research” tends to scare people around here) on malaria. I handed Esther, the chief nurse, my MOH letter and apparently that was a pretty big deal…she looked at the letter and asked, “So, you’ll start tomorrow?” I couldn’t believe how accepting the clinic was of a foreigner coming in to help. I lined up my time between April 12th and May 12th so that I can volunteer at the clinic and accompany MOH field workers in their visits to village homes to conduct surveys and research about malaria prevention, particularly usage of insecticide-treated nets (ITN’s).
Our SIT contacts in Kisumu set me up with a homestay in Nyahera, too! I’ll be living with a guy my age who lives and works in Nyahera and whose parents have moved out of the rural home and into downtown Kisumu. I guess I’ll have to learn how to cook my own Kenyan food, but I’m down with living simply for a month to really get a feel for this village and what the people face. The house is within walking distance of a little strip of rural shops and pubs, so I’ve got that goin’ for me. Several of my friends will be sharing an apartment in downtown Kisumu, and it’s only a 20-minute matatu ride from Nyahera, so I’ll be able to go into town on the weekends to hang out with them, too.
As if things needed to get any cooler, I got back to Nairobi and found out that my adopted sister, Susan, is from Nyahera originally. Once she graduated from secondary school she didn’t have the grades or money to attend a university, so she took on the responsibility of making money to support her younger brothers and sisters through their educations. She works as a “house-help” for my family here in Nairobi…cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry, but otherwise living like any other member of the family—she eats meals with us, watches TV, and gets along with Roy and Mama as if she were their sister and daughter. Lately I’ve been teaching Susan how to type and play music on my computer, and she’s really happy to learn and use a computer for the first time. She’s one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met, and the way she just accepts working for her family back in Nyahera as her personal responsibility amazes me. Although I feel terrible that Susan rarely gets to go home and see her family or village and I’m heading there to live and work for a month, it’s cool to have contacts and some sort of connection to Nyahera already. Susan’s going to send me with her family’s names and a relative home location (there aren’t any house numbers or street names in villages, so it may be a little bit of an adventure) so that I can find her family and bring them news and pictures of Susan and her Nairobi family. My Nairobi Mama’s home village is also close to Kisumu and Nyahera, and since she and her husband are planning on going “home” in late April, I’ll be able to come along and meet the rest of the Okech family.
Apparently there’s not a whole lot of English or Kiswahili in Nyahera, so I’m going to have to pick up a little bit of the mother tongue, Luo. Languages aren’t exactly my strong point, and I’m just finally beginning to feel more comfortable with Kiswahili, so we’ll see how that goes…
I have about a week and a half in Nairobi now until leaving for my educational tour of Uganda, between next Friday 3/30 and Saturday 4/7. We have some major papers and assignments due late next week which I’ve kind of been neglecting, so I’ve got a little catching up to do. It’ll be good to finally have a weekend at home here in Nairobi (after the states, Kisumu, and the coast in previous weekends), because I’ll be able to see a little bit of the city with Roy and Mama.
We’re all craving NCAA basketball right now and we set up a 100-schilling (approx. $1.20) per person pool with the brackets I brought back from the states. I picked Wisconsin to win the whole thing…whoops.
Sorry for the length of this post…if you made it all the way to the end I’m pretty impressed! I’m pretty excited about the idea of living, working, and researching in Nyahera and it was amazing how easily things fell into place last weekend!
Take care and stay in touch.
Nate/Mnate (my self-given Kiswahili name)


Photos (from top): Rift Valley, on the bus ride to Kisumu; Sign for the Nyahera Village Clinic where I'll be working; Lake Victoria, covered in hyacinth that shifts with the wind
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