Long overdue post from Katie!

It has been far too long since you’ve heard from me, so I will hit the high points of the last couple of weeks.

Two weekends ago we visited Kakamega Forest, which was awesome! I learned (and then forgot) a lot about the plant medicine of the forest. I want to compile some sort of “Medicinal Plants of Africa” encyclopedia; details to follow on that project. I think we will hike in the forest again before leaving Kisumu, and I will bring a notebook along to scribble some pearls about the plants and their medicinal properties. We also have a gigantic memory card for the camera now, so we will be better prepared in general.

I really want to talk about last weekend, as I keep thinking about it. We were invited to Masango (may not be the exactly right name, but it is close), and we were to give inspirational speeches to 1800+ HIV+ kids and their parents, teachers, and caregivers. The day started off with us arriving at the town, greeted by a group of ladies who were singing, dancing, and welcoming us to the town. I hate being the center of attention, but “when in Africa,” right? Sooooo, we pranced and sang our way through town with gigantic, shiny leis around our necks.

We were definitely getting the VIP treatment all day. We visited several groups, the first of which was a primary school of mostly AIDS-orphaned children. A group of the kids put on a dancing/singing performance to welcome us, then, after a prayer from the pastor (who, by the way, seemed like a really awesome guy), I gave the first speech. You could hear the crickets chirping. I heard some muttering behind me, and then realized we needed to start over with a translator—the second start was much better! I told the crowd the story of William Kamkwamba, the young man from Malawi who taught himself physics and built a windmill for his village, and encouraged them to take care of themselves with good nutrition and staying on their medicines, and to keep dreaming and to never give up. Well, this was all good, and Casey and I traded off giving this general talk to 4 different groups that day.

As the day was winding down, we came back to the site of speech #1, and some folks were asked to come up and speak to us. One woman, an older mama caring for AIDS orphans, said something that cut right to my heart. She said “I heard you talk about how these kids can live a long, healthy life with HIV if they take their medicine and get appropriate nutrition. Many of these children don’t have enough to eat. Please help us.” Wow. I knew I wasn’t speaking to HIV+ kids in the States, but not having enough to eat is a real serious problem. I told her I would take her words to heart, and now I am formulating some ideas for things I can do for those kids. I am in contact with Jan Scholten, creator of Iquilai (a homeopathic remedy based on a combination of potentised minerals), and am working on a proposal for a trial that would incorporate a sustainable nutrition supplement and Iquilai. After talking for hours in bed last night, Casey, an expert at creating programs in developing countries (so nice to be sleeping with an expert!!), I have some solid ideas of where to start. Here are the basics of what we came up with: 4 arms (Iquilai alone, Iquilai+Plumpynut, Plumpynut alone, and a control group), 60 participants in each, with the interviews, interventions and follow-up carried out by a group of CHWs that I would train. I’m clarifying this vision and working on securing funding that would pay for the trial and, most importantly, funding for the intervention that showed the most improvement in quality of life and CD4 counts.

Whew! Keep those kids in your thoughts/prayers. One other serious need that the nursery school director had was for seeds for their garden. Ever since the sugar cane industry fell on its face, it has been even harder for these people. They live on a flood plain that is dry part of the year and flooded the rest of the time. Rice is grown in paddies nearby, but it’s hard to grow food crops outside of sugar cane for reasons that are beyond my agricultural understanding. Thoughts, anyone? We are definitely putting our thinking caps on!

Let’s see, this week has flown by. Claire and I had a nice visit with our Japanese friends and I think we will be having playdates weekly. A programmer, Kevin, flew in Monday from France to help Casey get his software going, and he is staying in our guest house. We are all getting along very well and enjoying hanging out and eating delicious food.

Yesterday, Claire, Lyn and I visited this organization called “Babies in Crisis,” that we saw while out walking. It is a home for abandoned babies, and as sad as the concept of that is, the work these folks do is truly amazing. The compound is a sprawling facility, kept very clean and orderly, with a very mellow energy all around. We visited during nap time, but saw kids from very tiny babies to developmentally delayed kids up to around age 8. We were told several times that the children were up for adoption, and I’m afraid to bring Casey, as he keeps talking about picking a sister out for Claire! Despite Casey being on the baby train, I think we will go on Saturday morning so we can be around to help with feeding time. There are 5 babies to one caretaker, so the babies have to wait their turn to be fed.

Ok, so the last thing is that we are coming up on a referendum on August 4th. I am not nervous about violence, but I hear mixed predictions. As it is, we are likely to be staying here and have begun stocking up on some essentials in the unlikely event that we have to hole up for a few days. We’re not going all Y2K on it, but it’s not a bad idea to have a back-up plan. It’s hard to believe that our time in Kisumu is coming to an end, Claire is almost 1 years old (!), and we will find out, hopefully today, if we are for sure going to be in Ghana for the next leg of our African adventure. This post was monstrous, so congrats on reading the whole thing! Until next time…