ISP Happenings

Sorry for the lack of updates, not a whole lotta internet in the village. Things are great (especially research-wise) and interesting (both research and my living situation).

The living situation…I’m staying in Kiboswa, a tiny market community just down the “main road” running through the area from central Nyahera. Kiboswa is pretty classic Kenya. Commerce and, well, basically life, revolves around the two days per week considered “market days”, where hundreds of old women bring their produce or crafts and sit in the hot sun all day to make a few schillings. There are some rowdy rural pubs, a couple of Coke kiosks, and a few salons (I think my hair is reaching cornrow length now…uh oh…) also. It’s a fun little place.

I’m staying with my host brother named Erastus Otieno. He’s 22, lives solo in the compound where he grew up (the rest of the family has moved to downtown Kisumu recently), and teaches at a nearby primary school. Living solo, I think, has made Erastus a wee bit excited to be hosting me, his first American friend. Although it’s great to be appreciated and have somebody excited to host me, sometimes the excitement gets a little bit out of control. We have some strange photo shoots, per Era’s request, attempts to hold hands on the way to the market or the matatu stop is not an uncommon event, and there are some near-tears conversations when I explain that I’m leaving for a little bit (like last weekend, or tonight…I’m downtown staying with some friends). When I first arrived, Era showed me to the room we’d be sharing…a little nook with a less-than-twin-sized bed that we’d be sharing. I kinda put my foot down on that one and bought my own mattress for less than $10 at the market. Not a whole lot of independence is tolerated…Era won’t allow me to get my own rain water for a bath, won’t let me boil my own drinking water, and won’t let me do my own laundry. A nice guy, for sure, but I wish there was a little more space and understanding that I’m a capable dude…

Otherwise, though, the homestay is the straight-up rural experience I was looking for in this ISP. We live on a little plot of land with Granny Otieno, a solid 80-years-of-age and permanently bent into a right angle from years of hard work cultivating crops. She’s great, highly amused when I pull out a little Kiswahili greeting and always looking cute in her white robe and the hat she wears for her church. Also with us on our plot are Beatrice and Ayub, parents of 6-year-old Kadogo (“small”), who is absolutely tiny for her age, 2-year-old Isaac (petrified of me), and a baby whose name I don’t know. Kodogo usually comes and joins me when I’m reading in the mornings, and I set her up with some crayons and paper to draw. I bathe with and drink rainwater, collected with intricate gutter contraptions leading into huge pails. So far, no diseases, and it tastes pretty darn fresh.

For some reason Erastus wakes up at about 5:30 am, blasts the battery-powered radio, and stays in bed…I have no idea why. I struggle to sleep a little longer through the never-ending cycle of Justin Timberlake, Akon, and Beyonce, and usually get out of bed by about 6:30. I go for a short jog, looking out over a beautiful sunrise and Lake Kisumu, then return for a breakfast of bread and butter and dissolvable coffee in a hot milk/water mix. Milk comes from the cows kept on our land. Erastus leaves for school around 7:15 (usually a pretty emotional goodbye, just for a day), and I stick around and read for a while. I take a bath with rainwater in our cement bath compartment, then I head for Nyahera Hospital.

So far, the Hospital has not been a major contributor to my research. The Hospital staff is very hospitable, and I often find myself riding the matatu with many of them in the morning. They’ve set me up with my own little “office”, a family-planning room right next to the main consultation room, and I (sometimes) get to interview mothers of young children of babies suffering from malaria. Overall, though, the Hospital is not very busy (I guess that’s a good thing, or maybe bad, if people don’t have access), and I interview maybe 2-3 mothers per morning there. It’s been a good chance to catch up on some reading, though. I’ve been lacking in that department over the last few years/my entire life (love you, Mom). I’ve asked if there’s any way I can volunteer and do a little work to help out around the hospital, but so far that’s been unfruitful. Soon, I hope to interview the lead nurses/doctors there, which should be a pretty valuable contribution to the ol’ project.

Afternoons in Nyahera are awesome for research. I meet up with Becky, Erastus’s sister and a English-ly fluent 19-year-old who lives in Kisumu town. Becky and I trek through back roads of Nyahera surrounding the Hospital (the village is pretty huge), stopping at homes which strike us as welcoming to ask some questions. My interviews center on malaria and now water-borne diseases, which I found are a major problem in Nyahera shortly after entering my homestay here. Families are awesome, usually welcoming me into their homes excitedly and with open arms, and it’s great to sit down and talk with such a great range of Luo personalities each day. Sometimes we’re offered food (some ugali, sardines, and green vegetables) or some chai, and my interviews usually last for about a half hour with Becky’s trusty translations. I’ve got a good amount of interesting data already, through approximately 30 interviews conducted at both the Hospital and in the field…

Malaria occurs atleast 1/month among young children in the families here
About 50% of families use insecticide-treated mosquito nets for their young children
Many people don’t understand the cause of malaria, mosquitoes, and simply attribute the constant sickness their children confront to “cold temperatures”—cold here, mind you, starts at maybe 80 degrees Fahrenheit
A woman living in rural Kenya referred to the “dot com generation”. There’s no internet within miles of her home.
The Hospital should be distributing nets for free, but instead charges 50 Kenyan Schillings (maybe 80 cents), or the equivalent of maybe 4 days of food for families here
People would welcome sprays of insecticide on their interior walls and roofs, but they have seen no such efforts by the government or NGO’s
Drinking water usually comes from the river, rainwater, or a communal tap (treated with chlorine or untreated), and because families usually can’t afford WaterGuard chlorine treatment or extra firewood to boil water, kids are plagued by diarrhea (whether it’s cholera, typhoid, or dysentery doesn’t seem to matter)

Just some unofficial trends I’ve observed so far, don’t quote me until I finish with the final paper. But it’s obviously quite cool that family after family welcomes me into their home to ask them questions about the sicknesses plaguing their children with nothing, except a desire to come back here someday and address these same diseases with a more complete understanding of public health, to offer as a remedy.

Families are so funny. I once interviewed 3 mothers (maybe of the same husband) and a grandmother, and when I asked about the age of the well from which they receive their drinking water, all 3 young mothers turned to the elder grandmother. After she responded that the well was constructed in the 1940’s, I said through Becky that I was surprised she answered the question, because she looked the youngest out of all 4 women. That was a big hit with the ladies. I’ve started taking pictures of the families I interview, which I will print and return to them before I leave this area, and they love it. One grandmother took 20-minutes picking out a beautiful pink Easter dress for her 2-year-old granddaughter. It’s rainy season here, so Becky and I frequently find ourselves caught in 30-minute torrential downpours, and each time we are welcomed into a home to keep dry, occupying the time with discussions of Kenyan politics, American politics (lots of Obama hype here among the Luos), and differences between American and Kenyan life. It’s usually tough to talk to one another over the PANG PANG PANG of huge raindrops on the corrugated metal roofs of the homes.

After our interviews each day, I try to construct rough freehand maps of the areas in which Becky and I have done interviews, and I take pictures and attempt to map out major sources of stagnant water and drinking water. Pretty unofficial.

Overall, my stay in Kiboswa and the research I’m working on are very enjoyable. I’m learning tons, meeting great new people, and facing cool new opportunities each day.

I'm going to try and post some pictures next, we'll see how that goes.