Stopover in Ugenya

I am back in SVH-Ugenya (aka Obama Land) for a few days and it has been really nice. I am working on status reports for a few projects here and thanks to the meticulous records kept by Calvin the SOTENI coordinator, the work is pleasantly efficient...such organization has made me especially cheerful these last few days, as I had forgotten how much I enjoyed being amongst kindred Type-A personalities...it's been so long!

Today we spent the afternoon in the town center of Ugunja with SOTENI-sponsored Celestine (age 16) and her older brother Alfa (age 20). It was a market day so we also spent a lot of time wandering around so I could marvel at the piles of dried tilapia, mounds of millet and sesame, and pork haunches set out by vendors on dozens of wooden stalls. I got to chat with both Celestine and her brother quite a bit and I found myself having a familiarly confusing frustration with how the gender/racial dynamics played out in our group over the course of the afternoon.

I had anticipated the misogyny of Kenyan men when I came here in February and have had plenty of experiences to confirm this preconceived notion, although the situation is actually far more complicated than I could have imagined. A more unexpected frustration has been with Kenyan women; I often find myself annoyed with them for not asserting themselves more and allowing men to behave condescendingly. Today for example, I would often ask Celestine a question only to have Alfa or Calvin answer on her behalf. I would persist with follow-up questions, looking Celestine square in the eye so as to eliminate any confusion about who I was speaking to, and again Alfa or Calvin would interject on her behalf. My initial annoyance with the men would be quickly transferred to Celestine - Why didn't she just speak up?! Or when the two of us were walking and she would persist in walking behind me, even if we had to squeeze through small spaces and it would have been easier for her to take the lead for a minute. I found myself becoming exasperated that this bright girl, earning exceptional marks in her biology and chemistry classes could be so meek in the presence of men or a white person.

But this is the crux of the problem with gender inequality (as I see it) in Kenya, and perhaps everywhere; it is so easy to blame the woman when in fact it is the men who need to take the most drastic steps to achieve equality between the genders. Certainly women have a crucial role to play, but it is completely unfair to place the burden of change on their shoulders when they are powerless and disenfranchised in the most basic situations of everyday life (i.e. answering a question which is directed at them in their own words). It is not enough for girls to become educated if they come home to husbands and fathers who sit on their butts while their women scurry around, bringing them food, clean clothes, and whatever else they want.

I do see empowered women everywhere in Kenya and I do not mean to diminish the work of brilliant feminists in this country - the brave women who speak out against FGM, the handful of female MP's who fight tirelessly for women on issues like rape and domestic violence, and all the bright and bold girls I've met in schools and churches throughout my internship. But the avenues available to them are limited and narrow and often require them to compromise in ways that American women don't have to. Furthermore, the reality of how people treat me by virtue of my skin color and assumed wealth (in spite of my gender) confirms that women in the developing world are truly at the bottom of the totem pole, which is incredibly frightening when you stop to think about what that means.

I enjoyed the moments when Celestine and I walked separate from the men and had the opportunity to really chat. Though soft-spoken, she is articulate and charming, and like many Kenyan women, would probably say even more if she thought people were interested in listening.

Safari! A few highlights...

For those of you who know my mom and I, most of these will come as no surprise. Here are some of the best parts of our 5 days on safari in Kenya:

• Our guides, Boniface and Jimmy. Both indulged my endless stream of questions (“Why is that impala all by himself?” “Why do zebras have stripes?”) as well as our constant need for restrooms and shopping opportunities. Very gracious, very knowledgeable, AND they found us a leopard!

Boniface, Cindy, me, Jimmy with our sweet ride.

• #4, our tent. Sekenani Tent Camp consists of 15 platform tents furnished in a modest Colonial style, complete with a private veranda and a bathtub – which had hot water ALL THE TIME. We relished the evening hours between our game drives and dinner, enjoying gin and tonics (in honor of the British of course) and hot baths each night.

Mom's bed.

My bed.

• A literal run in with a matriarch elephant. It was morning of our full day game drive and we came upon a herd consisting of 3-4 females and about 4-5 young. We inched up the road to improve photo opportunities and the mama took a few warning steps towards us…Jimmy slowly backed away and we continued to snap. A few minutes later she began walking briskly up the road toward our vehicle and the message was clear – we needed to move. Jimmy took the hint and we drove away, but not without being completely humbled but the largest female on earth!

This picture does not do her justice...notice the little adolescent in the background making his way toward the rest of the group... "Junior, go stand with your auntie while I deal with these pesky mzungus!"

• Our first hot air balloon ride! We rose at 4:30 am in order to fly calm skies. The balloon held 16 people, and I think I heard him say we went about 7,000 feet up. There’s nothing like drifting through the clouds as the morning sunlight comes pouring over the hills of the Mara.

Mom and me in our balloon basket.
She is the cutest!
Sunrise over the Mara.

• Lions, after breakfast. The morning of our balloon ride we spotted a pride of lions from the air. Personally, I saw a blob of yellow and pretended to be interested while the Europeans with binoculars oohed and aahed. But then our pilot drove us over to the spot after landing. We got within feet of nearly a dozen lions resting lazily not far from the ravaged carcass of an eland, the lion’s breakfast. They would be continuing their feast after some napping, but when we saw them their bellies were round and the males lounged apart from the females and babies, clearly the fullest in the group. It’s no secret that lions are magnificent animals, but seeing them so close, completely nonchalant and cuddling with their young after such a savage kill was truly amazing.

"We just devoured an eland so now we're tired. Next question?"
The rest of the family.

• R&R at the Fairview. We loved the last few days of our trip together, spent lounging by the pool, reading and swimming, and (of course) eating quite a bit of delicious food. This is a lovely hotel, built in the 1930’s (during the Colonial Era) with lush gardens full of every variety of palm, immense bougainvillea, nandi flame, and pomegranate trees. When we finally departed a couple days ago we were both happily sunburned, well-fed, and rested.

Oh yes.
Lunchtime.

I got to spend about 2 weeks with my mom which made me very happy. We saw many sides of Kenya and I feel renewed after getting some quality family time. Now, back to work ☺

Mom in Mbakalo

Cindy’s time with me in SVH-Mbakalo went way beyond eating ugali and answering a chorus of “How are YOU?”s every time we left the house. She did these things, and she did them well, but I think her experience working with the SOTENI Dispensary staff on various projects, and sharing in a bit of Luhya culture far exceeded anyone’s expectations, including my own.

Naturally, everyone was thrilled to meet her and all of my friends in Mbakalo gave my mom a warm Kenyan welcome from the beginning. She had come with a large duffle bag full of donations including sanitation supplies for the dispensary and stationary for the staff. Simon and Mttaki received these donations very graciously, and were also grateful when after spending hours organizing patient cards with Victor and me, Mom offered to fund another box to keep them neat and orderly.

Mom, getting blood work done by Isaac (she needs to get her blood sugar a bit lower...)

Cindy also had the opportunity to be a part of Mama Anne’s household, which has become my own home, and see what my life has been like for the last few weeks. We enjoyed watching Anne form the many chapos amidst smoke in the kitchen hut, and then savored each bite while recounting the stories of the day at dinner with Anne and her husband. My mom loved Anne’s wit and irreverence, and was impressed by her life’s accomplishments. We also took a fabulous pikipiki ride from the Mbakalo slums to the mansion of the former MP and saw shambas, mud huts, skinny cows, and squealing children along the way. One of the best parts of having my mom with me in Mbakalo was probably taking our bucket showers by full moonlight under the jacaranda tree in the backyard, and sleeping cozily under my mosquito net, always by 9:30 pm.

Cindy on the pikipiki!

Cindy and Kelly while on the pikipiki

I think the highlight for both of us, however, was the magical game of football that erupted on the front lawn of the dispensary one afternoon before we left.

My good friend and former SOTENI intern Mike had asked me to follow up on a SOTENI football team, an idea Victor had had back when Mike was still in Mbakalo. When I went to Nairobi to get Cindy, Randie supplied me with uniforms and a pump so that when we got back to Mbakalo we were able to present Victor with the accoutrements of the team. Finally, when the patient cards were complete and only a few hours remained of our final afternoon at the dispensary, we decided we needed a break from work and patient cards, and it was time to play football.

Mom & Victor, getting things started.

As Cindy and Victor warmed up (in uniform) outside, I rounded up the rest of the crew and pretty soon, nearly a dozen people were pouring out of the building, donning the blue and black jerseys. We had our Chairman Mttaki (retired, with adult children, but superb with headers), Jane cook-cleaner-and-sanitation-expert of the dispensary (extremely shy but also a tenacious and fearless goalkeeper, who knew!), Simon, Isaac, Dennis, Catherine, Paul, Victor, Mom, and me. We divided into two teams and spent the next glorious hour dodging trees and shrubbery, occasionally trash-talking, laughing, and eventually ending in a rain-soaked draw; 4-4.

Mttaki getting us into teams.

My team! Dennis, Jane, Mttaki, Me, Issac, and referee Japheth.

Mom's Team. Catherine, Mom, Paul, Japheth, Simon, Victor.

The footballers, sisi sote pamoja.

Anyone who has played sports while abroad knows there is nothing like it to bring people together, to reduce them to the most simple and happy versions of themselves, and to create bonds which are rare and enduring. That afternoon, we were all completely content. We were breathless, sore, and muddy and I cannot think of a better way for my mom to experience the warmth and optimism of Kenya.

Isaac, Japheth, Simon & Mttaki during the farewell speeches.
A good tree bears good fruit...

Mom, me, Dennis at Mom's farewell party

Mbakalo

I came home this evening to find my host mother, Mama Anne in the outdoor kitchen (a traditional round Kenyan mud hut with thatched roof) cooking chapattis. Lately she’s been finding any excuse to use my headlamp, so when she told me there was no gas to be purchased in Webuwye (the closest town of any kind) and she would be cooking the whole meal outside over a fire, I rushed to grab it. Seeing my little round Anne with the headlamp secured around her headscarf, squinting into the smoke over a pan of sizzling chapos was positively heart-warming.

Anne with her granddaughter Lavinda, 7 mos.

I am in SVH-Mbakalo and loving it.

Besides no gas in Webuwye, there has been no rain when it should have been raining all month, so the fields lay plowed but not planted, and there are hardly vegetables or fruits to be had. A strong reminder that living as a Kenyan, I am no longer immune to the difficulties of climate change and global food shortages, as I have been living in the USA. But even this fact is a welcome challenge among the many of living in the rural interior of Kenya.

Everyday I walk about ½ mile to the Dispensary, a very successful example of SOTENI’s work. I feel unbelievably fortunate to spend the entire day among people I like. There is a collective sense of commitment amongst the staff, some of whom are making far below what they are worth in order to support this facility.

ABD Henry Mwami with the daughter of one of his clients - her name is Violet.

Simon is the SOTENI coordinator, an over-worked but optimistic pastor who is trying to learn to ride a motorbike, an endless source of entertainment for the rest of us; Wycliffe Mttaki is chair of the Local Management Committee, and has the most charming and musical accent I’ve ever heard, courtesy of four years spent earning his degree in the UK; Victor is the Dispensary Accounts Clerk, a 29-year-old single father, completely committed to SOTENI’s work and very articulate and friendly; Henry the night watchmen and one of six ABDs (AIDS Barefoot Doctors), a good-natured and eternally positive man who also believes in the life-changing impact SOTENI has had on this community here; Isaac is the laboratory technologist (yes, this is actually his title), one of over 30 children, and is extremely intelligent, actually one of the top scorers on the national exam for his field; Japheth is the Nurse in Charge, and also happens to be trained in dentistry, which is a first for the dispensary and very exciting; Jane is the doer of all things – making tea, cleaning the facilities, doing the laundry, and though limited in her English abilities, she is ready with smiles and blessings whenever there is a need.

Me & Victor with one of my favorite babies in Mbakalo - Japheth.

Everything is Poa :-)

There are Luo Men and then there is THE Luo Man...

This is what I have learned over the last couple of days, culminating with my pilgrimage to the home of Mama Sarah Obama, or “Granny”.

The whole crew with Granny! (Edward, me, Opondo, Calvin, Randie, The Lady Herself, & Bill)

I spent a few days in SVH-Ugenya, which is in Luoland in the western province of Kenya. I was repeatedly frustrated by my meetings with the notoriously chauvinistic and big-headed Luo men; reminding them each time introductions were made that I existed, hearing my ideas acknowledged only when a man repeated them, listening to discussions on the merits of polygamy and wife inheritance…at one point Randie and I had to distribute the refreshments at a meeting because it didn’t occur to any of the men to get up and take a soda, and god forbid a meeting start without the beverages distributed. I bit my tongue on many occasions. One man in particular, Chris Opondo who sits on the SOTENI Kenya board eventually won me over with his charm and we were able to have a good natured discussion on the pros and cons of dowries, but it took about 3 days for me to be able to laugh at his controversial jokes (“Edward, if I were you I would try very hard to win Kelly’s heart – she would be free!”).

Meeting the adopted grandmother of President Obama, however, reminded me that some Luo men are more than tolerable and in fact the USA is lucky to have one as president! During the controversy of the 2007 Kenyan presidential elections, as Barack Obama was beginning his USA presidential campaign, Kenyans would joke “I wonder who will have a Luo president first, the USA or Kenya?”. We should consider ourselves lucky that we beat out Kenya in that regard!

Edward (SOTENI Kenya Programme Manager), me, and Calvin (SVH-Ugenya Coordinator) in front of Granny's house

When we arrived to the Obama compound in Kogelo, it was evident that the family’s fame was generating some new income. A huge gate guarded the compound and a series of police tents were set up for security just inside the entrance. Evidence of construction and new latrines (in expectation of busloads of tourists) were to be seen everywhere. We were shown the graves of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr, and Hussein Onyanga Obama by Sadiq, the half-brother of the President. After a brief wait, Granny came out, looking like a very typical Kenyan woman (old t-shirt, long skirt, and headscarf) and chatted with us. Opondo translated the Kiluo to English while the giddy Americans asked questions (“How has life changed since the election?” “Does the President like ugali?”). She is a strong, healthy woman (87 years old!) who was gracious and jovial with her guests. And she indulged us many rounds of photos, which was generous of her, considering the compound receives an estimated 600 visitors every day.

Me and Granny

Opondo with Granny

It’s clear that her home has become a tourist attraction but I am still very happy to have gone!

The token pikipiki (motorbike) shot - I found out later that this guy was the most reckless driver in our group. Sweet.

Just another day in Kuria

Today started and ended with a bang.

This morning I left to travel to Mabera for my final day of orphan recruitment. It was a typical situation; my friend Robi and I crammed into the back seat of a Nissan station wagon (the favored public transport vehicle for Kuria’s unpaved, windy and pothole-ridden roads) along with two other people, while two passengers shared the front seat, and the driver shared his own seat with his 7th passenger, whose lap he reached across to shift gears.

About one kilometer outside Kehancha, a huge truck came barreling around a blind curve, and to avoid a sideswipe, our driver veered off into a ditch with a violent crash, leaving us tipped dangerously up on one side. I encouraged Robi to get out of the car ASAP. Fortunately, the car was easily pushed out of the ditch and back onto the road, with one flat tire and my punctuality in Mabera being the main casualties.


After the tire was changed we arrived in Mabera where I spent my final day cruising the Kurian countryside on motorbike (aka piki piki in these parts) to visit with 3 more children. This trip concludes orphan recruitment in Kuria and I will now sort through many pages of notes, numerous photos and attempt to select 12 children for recommendation to SOTENI. Twelve is a woefully small number and my hope is that I will be able to recruit additional donors to sponsor more of the children I’ve met, all of whom would be overjoyed with some extra help.



It was a long day and we arrived back in Kehancha for lunch after 5pm. After some ugali, skuma and danga (small fish), I went outside for my daily bucket shower. I am in a new homestay due to some petty theft at my old place, and at this house the bathing area is outside, along with the pit latrines. I love the outdoor shower because you can see over the top of the door to the sky, and today I was able to observe a terrific thunderstorm rolling in as I washed. The lighting was incredible and the sky was black in a matter of minutes.

It’s still pouring outside and I am thankful for the roof over my head. I am also grateful for the meal I will take in about an hour, and the big bowl of bananas, papayas, and pineapples grown right here on the shamba that I’ll have for dessert. If nothing else, today reminded me how lucky I am!

Home!

I wanted to share a bit more about my daily life here, especially what home looks like. I think I've mentioned that I live with a host mother, 2 host sisters and a domestic servant, with the host brother in the next housing unit over. What I haven't mentioned is that all the women live in a tiny 1-bedroom concrete home, and I occupy that bedroom by myself. The other people sleep in the living room (a bed has been brought in which Shirley sleeps on, and Pauline, Bhoke and the Maid sleep on the couches). The tiny kitchen is adjacent to the living room and can comfortably accommodate only two people working. The bathroom is the only other room in the house. There is a courtyard-type space, part of which is covered, for doing laundry and sitting outside, and also houses the chicken coup. The road leading up to our house, like most roads in Kuria District, is dirt and unnamed.

Our House (the blue gate is our entrance), which is one of several units in this building.

The courtyard, early evening with clotheslines.

My bedroom with my blue mosquito net (no window screens in Kenya).

My Work

I just realized that I haven’t said much about the actually volunteer work I am performing here. In fact I am working on two major projects.

The first project is collaboration with the SOTENI Local Management Committee of Kuria (a group of community leaders and elders) to build an orphanage for small children on land given to SOTENI by the Kenyan government. This project will include income-generating agriculture on about 10 of the 33 acres and will help sustain the project in perpetuity. Eventually, our hope is to also build a rescue center for girls fleeing the FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) ceremonies, which happen in Kuria every December. The land is bordered by the River Migori to the north, which makes it ideal for farming a variety of crops (we are talking about watermelon, maize, beans and eucalyptus) and has a great view of Masai Mara, which is an added bonus for our children.

The second project involves meeting with and vetting orphans to participate in our sponsorship program. I am using the public schools as my starting point and have been asking administrators to prepare lists of the total orphans in their schools along with their performance records. The numbers of orphans in the communities here are staggering. AIDS and other poverty-related deaths have destroyed many, many families and the children are the most vulnerable to suffer. I have been all over Kehancha and surrounding towns (yesterday we were traveling by motorbike taxi because the roads were unfit for cars) meeting with children and their guardians, which are usually relatives or an especially generous teacher. We are trying to launch the sponsorship program in Kuria with 12 children, though there are at least that many orphans in every one of Kuria’s dozens and dozens of public schools. The cost to sponsor one child is $600/year and includes private school (boarding is a matter of safety for many young girls living in risky situations), healthcare (many kids have never seen a doctor despite bouts with malaria, respiratory infections, and farming injuries), clothes and school uniforms, and food.

If you are interested in sponsoring one of SOTENI’s 12 children or another child in Kuria, please let me know!!!

The work is going well, and I have enjoyed preparing a number of reports and lists to submit to SOTENI when I return. Between organizing work plans for the orphanage and collecting data on each orphan I am keeping busy even when I am not in the field. I feel that I bring a type-A sensibility to the otherwise lax and disorganized Local Management Committee and I hope that my report will help them see their good ideas and noble intentions come to fruition. Visiting with the children is heart breaking, infuriating and humbling. I remember one visit, to the home of a 9-year-old named Grace. Her baby sisters were sitting naked in the dust, sick with the stomach flu, and Grace’s older male cousins, known to have raped a schoolgirl in town, sat on the periphery of our meeting, staring. It's impossible to have these meetings and confront reality in this way, and not want to recommend every child for sponsorship.

I could go on and on about other children's homes which have been equally tragic, or my own complex experience of white guilt and frustration but I think the most important point to make is that if you have the ability to sponsor a child, I hope you will!

Snapshots

Here are a few more photos....

Here is Pauline, my host mother teaching me to cook Chicken Stew, which by the end of the evening was known simply as Kelly's Dinner. We are using a charcoal fire but she also will use a gas stove depending on what she's doing. Kenyan women are badass as it turns out; a cabbage leave or piece of paper might serve as a potholder.

Bhoke (20), Chacha (22?), and Shirley (7 months) at a primary school football match we went to the the other night. Being surrounded by dozens of small children meant that Chacha occasionally had to grab a stick and swat at all their little behinds so that we could have a few inches of personal space.

Sunset is beautiful here because of the rapidly-changing evening weather. Here are two children at the football match. You can sort of see the volleyball net in the background, which it turns out is very popular among girls here.

More on Life in Kehancha

I have now been in Kehancha for over one week and I have a few small observations to report...

- The main market area is jammed with people offering services that are seemingly out of reach for the average resident...dry cleaners, electronics repairman, and an excess of taxi drivers for the tiny village all seem useless given the extreme poverty. Vendors offer mounds of rubber sandals, trousers screen-printed with President Obama's portrait, and rows of machetes in stalls along the road, but rarely do you actually see any transactions.


- The MP (member of parliament) seems to own most of the town. In addition to his extensive banana grove, rows and rows of cassava, sweet potato and kale, he also owns the only real hotel in town. I learned this when I came to the hotel (named Pre-Mara, because it is right before the land of Masai Mara. Very logical.) for a meeting and saw dozens of cattle and sheep grazing in the courtyard. I asked one of my colleagues Who owned all the livestock? and he replied the owner of the hotel, who also happened to be the MP. It's an interesting microcosm of the Kenyan bureaucracy.

- By now I am used to the children (and sometimes adults) calling Mzungu! after me as I walk by...this means white person, and some in some translations person not to be trusted. Yesterday I saw a woman nudge the toddler at her feet and point to me so he wouldn't miss the mzungu passing by. Later, sitting outside our house, I had three children rubbing my skin (no, it's not painted on) and stroking my hair while I read. Bhoke explained that while they might have seen someone like me in the past, never had they been so close to touch.


- As I am identifying orphans in Kehancha for our sponsorship program, a theme is emerging. Among the educated and prominent leaders of the community, it is not uncommon to take in one or two, and at times six or eight orphaned children and care for them as your own. I've asked many teachers for information about orphans in their classes and many will recall a specific child whom they have lived with and cared for in this way. It's amazing to me that while government resources fail to provide a safety net, private individuals (who are by no means wealthy) pick up the slack.

- Finally, a word about Mr. Bush. I have met one person, a doctor with a private clinic, who is unfailingly loyal to Bush. He cites the billions of dollars the Bush administration funneled to Africa for things like mosquito nets and antiretroviral drugs as the reason for his support. Indeed, this is a reality and it has very tangible effects here; some of the poorest orphans I've spoken with sleep under nets and at least some Kenyans are taking advantage of the free ARVS, provided they can afford transportation to the clinics which supply them. You can't deny that these resources are useful, though it makes you wonder why all the money is for reactionary measures, and Kenyan sex ed still strongly emphasizes abstinence as the main method of preventing HIV.

Getting Oriented in Kehancha

(This is gonna be a long one…)

Today was my first day in Kuria and it was amazing. I arrived yesterday to the town of Kehancha which is sort of the municipal center of the District of Kuria, the USA equivalent of a county or township (and actually, “district” here also refers to the area represented by one member of parliament). It took me about 12 hours of taxi, plane, matatu (large van fitted with 12-18 seats), and Nissan station wagon crammed with 8 people, bouncing over rocky dirt roads to actually get here. I was introduced to my host family which consists of Pauline (mother), Bhoke (daughter, age 20), Wingira (son, age 15), and Shirley (daughter, age 6 months). Two doctors from Cincinnati, Mara and Laurie, have been volunteering for the last month through SOTENI and it has been nice to have them around to ease the transition into my life here.

I love Kuria. It is very rural, which I welcome after the hectic pace of Nairobi. It is very dusty but rains about once a day and is lush and green, with gentle rolling hills. We’ve been eating delicious meals including things like skuma (a leafy green in the kale family), mixed beans, rice, ugali (a thick and sticky mash made of maize), eggs cooked with tomatoes and other vegetables, and chipati (delicious flaky flatbread, kind of like Indian naan). We’ve also been enjoying watching little Shirley have her bath twice daily which consists of filling a plastic bucket with a few inches of water, throwing in a bar of soap, and plopping her in it to splash around till she’s fresh and clean. Witnessing this is positively heart-warming, and all the more precious because it takes place on the floor of the hallway so you have the pleasure of stepping over it on your way outside, or to the living room, etc. The non-babies of the family are also wonderful people, warm and sweet and spoiling us completely.


For me, today was life-changing. I went with the doctors to the hospital, walking through fields of tobacco and skuma, cassava and sweet potatoes, past cement structures housing the court, the police station and the Department of Children. The hospital is also cement, painted white and navy blue, and consists of about 10 small structures with sporadic electricity. We ran into a friend of the doctors’ named Nyamohonga who is a Clinical Officer, which is similar to a physician’s assistant. He informed us that he was about to perform an HIV test and invited us to observe, as the doctors had not yet had the opportunity to do so.

It was amazing.

The woman who came in first was probably in her 20’s and had been tested three times before, the last time in July of 2008. Evidently she is now in a relationship so she wanted to be retested, and also indicated that she worked in a guesthouse and felt this exposed her to HIV. Nyamohonga didn’t say specifically, but I took this to mean she was either prayed upon by men staying there or she was required to provide sexual services as part of her employment. She didn’t speak English but watching Nyamohonga with her was incredible; I have never seen a doctor create such a rapport with his patient; from his calm and deliberate way of speaking, to the constant eye contact, he handled the consult beautifully and appeared to care for her in the truest sense of the word. The testing consisted of three separate instant tests in case two of them showed disparate results and a tiebreaker was needed. A few drops of blood were taken and mixed with different chemicals and then after 7-15 minutes a single line appeared on all three, indicating the woman was negative. This was a great relief to me, although probably did not faze any of the doctors in the room.



After this, he asked an HIV-positive woman to come in so we could see the tests performed with a positive outcome. In both cases I was amazed at the bravery of the young women, first to come to the hospital at all, then to share intimate details of their lives with a man who was a stranger to them, and finally to do all this in the presence of three mazungas (white people). The entire situation was very moving, and clarified for me the complexity of the healthcare system, and specifically the AIDS crisis in Africa. As much as Americans are part of the social, economic, and political structure that has wreaked havoc in this part of the world, and created the ideal conditions for disease and poverty, I think we find a certain satisfaction in pitying these people. I have heard many recite, almost with pride, the desperation they have witnessed in the non-industrialized world, and describe in self-congratulatory tones what they have done to rescue those less fortunate than them. Yet, what happened today demonstrated that the reality is far from being that simple. In fact, Kenyan doctors were caring for their patients with respect and compassion, long before any Americans came to help, and they will continue long after we grow bored with this mission and move on to a new cause. The fact that they are doing this in Kenya with fewer resources than we have ever been asked to, should not shock us so much as remind us that access to healthcare is a fundamental right of all people, and the desire to deliver it is part of being a good doctor in any part of the world.

At the same time, goodwill, and strong doctors can only do so much if they have primitive equipment to work with. Mara has been telling me about some deliveries she and Laurie have participated in and in both cases, they were appalled by the lack of basic equipment. In the first instance, the newborn child did not survive and Mara explained to me with some basic manual suction devices (i.e. the type you buy at CVS to suck snot out of babies’ noses) the child could have been saved. Another time, a child was delivered via C-Section and had no pulse. Evidently the doctors in the room were admitting defeat when Laurie initiated CPR and actually saved the child’s life. There seemed to be a sense that in so many cases, the doctors do not have the right expertise (for example the nurse attending the C-Section had probably never seen one before) and without equipment there is nothing to be done when things go bad.

I am hoping to attend a home birth along with a midwife who lives here in Kehancha and I am told those are the best births available here, barring complications.

Kwaheri for now….

They drive on the left but you wouldn't know...

Salama.
Here I am in Nairobi, Kenya's bustling, somewhat chaotic capital city. I have spent the last 2 days familiarizing myself with the various projects I will be working on, and coordinating with SOTENI Kenya Program Director Edward Wanyoni on things like budget, travel arrangements, and my itinerary for the next three months. There are very few white faces to be seen and the traffic resembles rush-hour Manhattan without as much respect for traffic lights. Walking to the office this morning I noticed small piles of trash burning on the side of the path that winds through the University of Nairobi campus towards the city center. As an American well-versed in the Inconvenient Truths of global warming I was initially concerned with this method of waste management, but realized that paradoxically this was a sensible strategy of litter clean-up. Such is the dilemma of limited resources.

Tomorrow I will fly to the city of Kisumu and from there travel to my first SOTENI Village of Hope, Kuria which is in the western part of the country near Lake Victoria. I will be in Kuria for about one month, working closely with Mathias, the coordinator there to develop a work plan for a community center to be built on land owned by SOTENI. I look forward to getting out of the city and meeting my host family who are rumored to be extremely warm and generous when feeding their guests!

First Stop: Cincinnati, OH

The journey begins! Today I arrived in Cincinnati, where headquarters of SOTENI International is located. I was greeted by the director/volunteer coordinator/development guru/doer of everything that needs doing Randie Marsh who is hosting me in her home before I leave for Kenya. We will be spending the next few days bringing me up to speed on the work of volunteers who just finished their internships so I can pick up where they left off. I'll also be learning more about my itinerary, projects and responsibilities.

Before I actually leave, I wanted to share with all of my donors that I am STILL receiving contributions. My numbers aren't exact, but I believe I have exceeded $7,000 in donations at this point. This is a fantastic sum of money both in terms of supporting my work, and in terms of supporting SOTENI's other initiatives. For example, because my internship is well-funded, I will be able to take shuttle flights to at least one of our villages rather than waste an entire day traveling from Nairobi by road. This means more time on the ground working with people rather than sitting in a truck. Another example: this evening I learned that about $300 can completely finance a bathroom for a rural Kenyan household, which is very important from a sanitation perspective.

Your dollars are and will continue to be put to good use in Kenya. I am so grateful for your support.