day one hundred and sixteen

Remember how I was given a fantastic camera for my birthday? Well for those who are new, my parents generously paid off my lay-by for a Sony a6000 with two lenses so that I could take fantastic photos of my adventures. Whilst my "adventures" have been rather ho-hum, my photography skills are getting slightly better, so here's some photos of life around my compound, including the amazing sunsets which these photos do not do justice.

Sunset over the maize fields

Light pouring out from our shop after dark

Baby duck! Unfortunately after this one hatched the mother duck refused to sit on the eggs so we only got one baby

Simba is getting so chubby! Possibly because he likes mandazi and ugali

Storm a brewin'

Rain pouring down 

Nothing really exciting, but at least nothing terrible is going on. Just a reminder if you are feeling generous then please either buy my awesome car or donate so that I can do a quick trip to Ethiopia so I won't get deported in August. Donations can be made to my paypal account (theanita1 at gmail dot com) or direct to my Australian bank account which you can email me at that above address to obtain my account number.

day one hundred and thirteen

If one hundred and thirteen days have passed then I only have two hundred and fifty two days left until I have to have all this work completed... I thought I stopped the whole stressful deadline thing after the thesis was finished?! 

As I’ve mentioned before, I am building an app which will allow the Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) to report electronically using their mobile phones, and considering the size of the MOH513 Household Register, I think they will be very glad to stop lugging that gigantic book (about 3 A4 pages wide, has about 250 pages) and just record using a basic smartphone. My brain is full of potential errors and faults and skip logic and calculations and what other indicators could be included… for example cases of fever with rash and coryza could possibly be measles or rubella, so trying to include a question that could capture such events.

Speaking of measles and rubella, did you know that they only immunise for measles here in Kenya? The MMR vaccine has only recently been introduced to the vaccination schedule. I’m learning all about this because Nicole broke out in a rash with coryza, fever, cough, red eyes… all the classic symptoms. However instead of notifying the county Public Health Officers of a suspected case, the daktari did nothing, because technically by performing a house call he was operating illegally and so did not want to get in trouble. What he should have done is refer the case to the local health centre which would have set off a chain reaction of public health action. But what’s done is done, and now I am going to be doing active case tracing this weekend to see if there are any more cases in my village. I have to admit am slightly excited but secretly hoping there’s nothing.

Am planning a trip to Addis Ababa in late August in order to be able to renew my visa, but if anyone would like to join me you’d be more than welcome. How the visa system works is that you obtain your three month tourist visa on arrival, and then after those three months you attend your local immigration office and obtain an extension for a further three months. However after those six months in order to get another visa you have to leave the East Africa region (that is Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi) for a few days, thus my quick jaunt north to Ethiopia, which is basically my only option, as the other surrounding nations (Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia) are no go zones and I am poor. Which is why I need to ask you, my lovely readers, for a HUGE favour. See, when I had budgeted for this year abroad without income, I based everything upon the sale of my car… which as of today, the 19^th of June 2015 has not sold yet. Seriously, there is nothing wrong with my car, and for only $4,999 it’s a great little buzzbox, roadworthy, Victorian registered… but that’s not what I’m writing to you about. I’m asking that if any of you out there can possibly donate to me some cash for this trip, I would be immensely grateful, and I would send you something from Addis Ababa. I am asking for $500 AUD, which breaks down as $350 for return flights Nairobi to Addis Ababa, $100 for three nights’ accommodation and $50 for an Ethiopian visa. As for spending money I came with some USD in cash, so I’ll exchange that for Ethiopian Birr on arrival. You can donate through paypal (theanita1 at gmail dot com) or email me at that address for my Australian bank account details.

Enough of the yucky stuff and back onto the fun stuff… have been making local Kenyan friends who don’t work with me at the hospital. Yes, it’s only taken about 3.5 months to achieve this immense feat but I don’t mind. You see, it’s really hard to make friends because it seems as though the guys only talk to you because they want to have sex with you and the girls are wary of you because they think you’ll steal their man. So when I met these guys out one night and they didn’t try to hit on me, I knew I was on to something good. The other day I was invited for chama which I don’t exactly understand but how they explained it’s like when you go out and buy rounds, everyone takes a turn paying. We had ugali, sukumawiki and roasted nyama whilst sitting outside under a mango tree, the sun was shining and it was perfectly chilled. I was then handed a cup of what I thought was tea however it turned out to be a local brew… yeah I spat that out straight away! Despite this, it was a great Sunday sesh, and will be hanging with the guys again this weekend.

Other than that it’s life as normal, we have electricity and water so all is well. Say hi to your Mum for me!

day one hundred and five

The Lord said “let there be light” and about a month later Kenya power agreed and fixed the electricity. And the people rejoiced, with shouts of joy and long hot showers. Finally, after a month of no television, no refrigerator, no hot showers, and for the past two weeks no lights, or power to charge your phone, Kenya Power fixed the electricity line supplying our village. Many shouts of joy were heard from the surrounding shambas (farms).

The rainy season makes for unreliable electricity but much water

I finally had myself a threesome… chocolate bar! Hahaha, not that it’s any of your business but my love live is not getting action, not that I would tell you because I know my Mum is reading this (Hi Mum, love you, yes I’m being safe, boys have germs). But back to the chocolate bar, yes it’s called threesome, probably because it contains dark, milk and white chocolate… Dark on top, white in the middle, milk on the bottom. You can eat all three layers at once which is like a party in your mouth, or you can savour each layer separately. Either way it’s delicious and I shall never buy it again because I ate the whole packet in one go (that was supposed to be my chocolate supply for the week).
 

Dangerous stuff... seriously dangerous

On Wednesday our Posho Mill opened up. “What is a posho mill?” I hear you ask? It’s machine which it grinds the maize into ugali flour. So now my African family has a milk bar (small shop) and a posho mill on the compound. The other day I was the fundi for the shop which was a great opportunity to practice my Swahili… thank goodness Cetty was there to translate! My Swahili is getting there pole pole, although I have found myself a few times this week just zoning out when people are speaking because I can’t understand it. It’s so frustrating having all these conversations go on around you and you can’t understand!

Work has been rather intense this last week; peak malaria season has been taking its toll, with several children dying, including one that died whilst having a line inserted to receive IV malaria treatment (artesunate for those wondering). There have been other elderly deaths as well. I just don’t understand how someone can leave their child being that sick for so long… I know they go to the local herbalist “daktari” to get traditional medicine first. It breaks my heart seeing these children, and I pray that what I’m doing here in my internship in some way prevent them from getting this sick.

So what am I doing here? I’ve kinda split my projects into two lots – laboratory based projects and public health based projects. I’ve told you previously about my laboratory projects, so let me tell you about my public health projects. This week I started work on my public health project [warning nerdy epidemiologist language alert] – I am working with the Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) to create an app so they can do their reports on their phones. This will improve all of the system attributes of the current reporting system (like that MAEs?), especially the accuracy, reliability and timeliness… right now we have no way to confirm that the CHVs actually went to the households to collect this data, it is collated into sub-location so we can’t have line-listed household level data, and it’s reported on paper once a month. Once we start getting this data electronic the usefulness will be immense – barazas (these community health workshops run by the village chiefs), grant writing, government policies… oh I am drooling at the all the possibilities. But first things first, I am building the app using the CommCare platform based off the MOH515 reporting tool… should be able to run it next week with the public health officers. After that I’ll be running a case-control pilot with one CHV sub-location team – there are 12 members of their team and three of them currently own android smartphones, so those three will be using the app to report whilst the other nine will be reporting traditionally, after which we will be comparing the data that has been reported electronically with the traditionally reported data, both from the same month and previously reported data. The coolest thing is that the app has geolocation capabilities so we can track the activities of the CHV on a map. I’m super excited. If this works, my supervisor has already started dreaming about the capabilities for the whole sub-county. For me, it would be a success just for the pilot to happen, as that would mean I have developed an app, communicated it with my team, trained the CHVs to use it, have them use it to report, and then have a party after it’s finished.

day one hundred and two

This last week has been rather busy and somewhat dramatic that I have not found the time to catch you up on all that has been going on. Forgive me, and allow me to tell you now.

Firstly… wow! I made it through my first one hundred days rather unscathed! Sure, I am now a beautiful patchwork of different degrees of tan, have many scars where I have scratched my mosquito bites, and have lost about seven kilos, and I keep having this recurring dream where I’m back home (at Mum and Dad’s house) and I am getting sick from all the Australian food so I have to make ugali na nyama and I’m crying because I just want to eat chicken lasagne and salad… but other than that I’m okay! Nzuri sana

Last you heard from me I was telling you that the stima has been wanning, with the current not being strong enough to power the appliances, including my shower, but enough for some of the lights to work and to charge the phones. Well since then it’s gotten worse. Now we have no electricity whatsoever – hakuna stima. No lights, no mobile phone charging, no laptop charging… nothing. To top it off we now have no running water… because we’ve got no electricity to pump it from the rainwater tanks. I’m surprised at how well we’ve adapted – I charge my phone and laptop at work in the afternoons so that they’re fully charged overnight, we’ve pulled out the old kerosene lamps, we don’t buy things that need refrigerating, and I’ve learnt that my kindle is an amazing torch. In fact the other night I had a bucket shower by kindle light… hahahaha.

Another episode of sitalipa bei ya mzungu… I was quoted 5500Ksh to fix my blackberry Q10 screen. SAY WHAT?! That’s about $80AUD… money I just don’t have (my car hasn't sold yet). Luckily I have had very generous friends offer me their phones, so I’m all good to communicate with y’all (let me know if you need my details eh?). But 5500Ksh?! You can buy a brand new Android smartphone for that much! Of course there has been the matatu conductors trying to rip me off again (who then proceeded to say, “okay Iguhu daktari for you 100 bob is sawa) and piki piki drivers taking advantage of very tired wazungus trying to get home after a night out which my retort and subsequent declaration of the price we will pay has entertained the crowd. My favourite part of sitalipa bei ya mungzu this past ten days has been my acquisition of a new work skirt which I bargained down from 350Ksh ($5AUD) to 250Ksh ($3.50AUD)… best thing is it is a Veronica Maine skirt which would have cost a LOT more than that in the stores. I also got myself a new top for going out in for 90Ksh (about $1.40) which is from Zara.

You’re probably wondering where I’m getting these awesome bargains from. Well, have you ever wondered where your clothes go once you give them to the Salvos? Sure, some of them go to the Op Shop (thrift store/charity store) but others get packaged into large hessian-like bags, then into shipping containers, sent over here, sold to fundis who then sell them at markets… well at least that’s what happens in Kenya. At that same stall I bought the Veronica Maine skirt I saw a Kookai jacket, a Portmans skirt, and a few other labels. However due to money issues I restrained and bought the one skirt. So next time you’re going through your wardrobe think of the poor mzungu volunteers in rural Kenya and donate well… hahahahaha

The dramatic part has been the loss of two of the puppies, Bella and Chui, and my Kenyan family being sick. I came home on Sunday afternoon to find a very sick Bella – vomiting, diarrhoea, wasting… I tried my best to rehydrate her but alas she passed overnight. Monday was Madaraka Day (public holiday in Kenya) which involved me taking Mamma J to the hospital due to treatment failure for malaria. At this stage the other puppies (Chui and Simba) were not doing so well either, so for the next few days we forced water, milk and food into them. By Wednesday they were both doing better, however Anita was not… I took her to see the daktari that day, but unfortunately she got worse and on Thursday night we took her to the hospital where she was admitted. However unbeknownst to me a terrible accident occurred whilst we were at the hospital… Someone ran over Chui with the piki piki. The next morning he didn’t wake up. And when I went in early to see Anita she had not responded to treatment – three days of antibiotics to treat a UTI. Despite having being tested for malaria the past two days, instinct told me to test her again, which revealed she had a serious malaria infection, which she was then treated with IV artesunate for three days. Lucky I work in the lab and was able to just test her like that, I would hate to think what could have happened. Thankfully Mamma J, Anita and the remaining puppy (Simba) are all now recovered and well, and I have been exposed to the inpatient aspect of my hospital.

RIP Bella and Chui

As for romance… yes, there are some very good looking men here in Kenya. And boy do they know how to dance *swoon*. But in this quest to become assimilated into the local culture I have learnt that a Kenyan man can dance with a woman for a few hours and then be in love with her and miss her and somehow even now have claim to her. Yet all this time they have another girlfriend or two or maybe even a wife. This is perfectly acceptable behaviour apparently, even within marriage, with people telling me several reasons including because there are many more women than men in Kenya, or the Bible says it’s okay, or that you have to try before you buy… most people at work have laughed at my disdain of this practice and said good luck at trying to find a guy who can keep it in his pants. Overall  I think this is crazy but I’m having fun getting to know some locals I’ve met, including some members of the local rugby team (mmm muscles), and it’s helping cement my Swahili, so it’s all for a good cause. Also I know my Mum would love it if I came home with a Kenyan so she could maybe one day have chocolate coloured grandchildren… to that I say keep praying Mum because apparently polygamy is perfectly fine but I ain’t sharing.

So there you go. My laptop battery is about to go flat so I leave you here… tuonane badaaye.