End o' ISP (the research, at least)

The last three weeks went lightning fast. Too lightning fast. Now I’m back in Nairobi with T-minus 6 days until my 40-page final paper is due next Sunday (Mother’s Day shout out to Ma).

How did things in Nyahera end up, you ask?

I finished up my home to home interviews late last week, throwing down a solid 70-ish home visits in total. Once I felt like I had done enough straight-up interviews I switched to more in-depth studies of bomas (a compound featuring several small houses—usually polygamous wives and a few of the sons). In addition to asking my usual questions about malaria and water-borne diseases, I looked at factors around the boma that might contribute to the sicknesses. Things like sources of stagnant water (people often dig out trees and then leave the huge holes in the ground to fill up with rainwater), bushy areas, styles of housing and roofing (most homes were the traditional Luo style of tree poles and mud, corrugated iron roofs with mosquito-friendly space between the roofs and the walls), and bore-holes people may use for their drinking water. Now I have a whole lot of raw data and NOT a whole lot of ideas for how to interpret and analyze it. Got a week to figure it out…

Unfortunately, I left behind more than interesting research in Nyahera. 3 weeks in a village is a good way to make friends, in case anyone is struggling in that department. Although his excitement at having me as his visitor was at times a bit overwhelming (approaching uncomfortable), I’ll miss Erastus very much. He never quite got the picture that I wanted to REALLY experience what life in the village is like (i.e. do my own laundry, help with cooking, even milk the cows). On several occasions, I alterted Erastus to my intentions to wake up early and do my own laundry, only to wake up early and find that Erastus had woken up EARLIER and my laundry was already on the drying line. It was frustrating sometimes and made me feel like I was burdening him, but I’ve come to understand that everything Erastus did was out of genuine hospitality. Hospitality is a significantly bigger deal in Luo culture than anything I’ve ever experienced.

In an awesome coincidence, Nyahera turned out to be the home place of Susan, the house-girl/daughter in my Nairobi family. I spent a great few nights with her family there, meeting and speaking with her parents, brothers, and young nieces and nephews. My favorite was Toto, a tiny 3-year-old girl who, despite knowing not a word of English, laughed hysterically and loudly at everything I said. The family was busy preparing for a funeral this past weekend for a relative who had moved to Nairobi. You don’t even KNOW about Luo funerals…

As there are no public cemeteries, Luos who have passed are returned to their homes for burial. And returning does not mean a gloomy hearse driving slowly with the coffin inside. It means strapping the coffin to the top of a matatu, driving as fast as possible down major roads and village roads, filling the matatu with screaming relatives and friends, and honking the horn nonstop. It’s absolutely hysterical. Luos, I think, are big believers that the deceased person would want them to celebrate his or her passing, not stand around and cry about it. For this particular funeral, Susan’s brother Moses estimated that the family would slaughter THREE bulls to feed all of the mourners (or better yet…celebrators). I was invited, but couldn’t make it because I was planning to head back to Nairobi this weekend. Kinda kicking myself for that…it would have been a really cool experience. But regardless, it was great to meet Susan’s family and lots of fun to show her the pictures last night.

It was tough to leave behind the three families living within mine and Erastus’s compound and all the little kids I grew to love. There was grandma, who takes care of a little boy named Festus Okoth (my favorite of the wee ones). There were Ayub and Beatrice, who take care of the grounds and the shamba, and their little ones Kadogo, Isaac, and baby Lois. There were Samson and Rose and their little boys Titus and Emmanuel. And then there were hordes more children that seemingly appeared out of nowhere each day, possibly coming from miles away to chill with the mzungu. Each morning when I opened the door there would be a lineup of little kids patiently awaiting crayons and paper (sucked when I ran out of both of these), and each afternoon when I came back from research there would be a lineup of little kids not-so-patiently awaiting 10 seconds of me grabbing their arms and spinning them around violently. I get dizzy thinking about it again.

Toughest to leave behind was Becky, who became a great friend in our 3 weeks of research together. I was really nervous finding an interpreter, because I felt like the person would inevitably become tired of asking the same questions over and over and have zero fun. That was no problem with Becky—she loved talking to families just as much as I did. There was an equal amount of making fun of me in Kijaluo with the interviewees, which I couldn’t understand, and joking about them in English, which they couldn’t understand. On the long walks between homes in Nyahera I had a good time teaching Becky corrupted English (popular among young Kenyans is Sheng—corrupted Kiswahili). She is now a frequent user (abuser?) of English exclamations such as “SICK!”, “ILL!”, “PHAT!” (for older readers, these have come to mean their exact opposite, cool, when spoken with a certain enthusiasm and tone), “lame”, “weak”, and “sucks”.

The 10 days I’m spending (sans Kyle, which is weak sauce, United Airlines) in Kenya after my program ends are still relatively unplanned. Lucky for me, the world’s nicest man owns a camera shop in downtown Kisumu, and when I took my broken camera there to get it fixed, he discouraged me from trying to fix it in Kenya and is straight-up lending me his personal camera until the end of May. I could not believe this man’s generosity. He spends some time in America at a camera shop in Maryland, and as he will be there in summer ’08 and this is the stomping ground of two of the lovely ladies in my life (Abby, Katie), I promised George that I would take him to a baseball game that summer. He would accept nothing besides my word (no deposit, no payment, no nothing) for lending me his camera.

So anyway, this forces at least a day-trip back to Kisumu to return George’s camera. I think this development may also save my life, as Becky was plotting murder should I have been unable to return to Kisumu before returning to the states. So now I’ve got Bodo on the coast and Kisumu in the west as at least two of my destinations in those 10 days. It’ll be nonstop traveling, especially if I try to fit something else in there (…Zanzibar?...). We shall see.

Once I turn in my final ISP next Sunday, we head out as a group (it's gonna be strange to be with all 25 students again!) to a lake in Nakuru for a vacation-y wind-down period where we also present our research papers. That's for 5 or 6 days, then the program is over! I can't believe things have gone so fast. Most of the students in my group fly back on the 19th, but I'm here doing whatever the heck I want til the 30th.

Now that I’ve updated I don’t really have any excuses for not writing this paper. 40-pages vs. Nate, round 1…

But one more thing…Clemens for ½ season will NOT be enough for the Yanks to overcome the Sox. 20-10 baby! #1 in the ESPN power rankings. In case you forgot, I have ESPN and thus Sportscenter here in my Nairobi home.

Take care everybody.