Quick Break from report writing to tell stories :)

Claire With Mama Sarah Obama




At the house, near her garden



Claire thinks she is Kenyan, these kids don't look so convinced, even though she is hanging out with them



Soda and Chapati Break in the Village, the Chapatis Were Sooooooo Good!




Widows Group Which Was Meeting in the Village, I gave the nice ladies a donation when they came up to me, but some guy who said he was the chairperson of the village tried to make me come and give a speech. I told him I didn't know what to say to them, as I am not a widow, and I have no business giving a speech just because I was a Muzungu, he wouldn't take no for an answer and so we just decided to go to the house. Francis and the guy didn't get along very well, the guy was kind of being a dick about it.




Hello there followers and those that are not followers but merely skulking around in the internet ether...

So here I am in the Kisumu offices, working again on my report. I have decided to do an initial short report in time for Yanis to give it to folks who are wondering how we arrived at the conclusions that we have before he leaves Accra if he wants, so I've been working on a problem analysis and then I'll just move on to the findings from interviews and then on to the process maps (this first report will only contain one generic one) for the As-Is and To Be processes. It seems as though the software is coming along well with Dickson making some good progress. We are going to meet tomorrow to go over what's been done and make sure that I haven't forgotten to tell him about anything, and I met with Maurice who is the head of eHealth for eastern and southern Africa and he thought the program looked good. I need to talk to Komolo and set a meeting with Dickson, Myself and the health coordinators to go over the new forms and get their feedback, but maybe we can make that for this week or early next week, then roll the forms out in the field next week.

Okay, enough about the project, I'm sure that you want to hear about us meeting President Obama's Grandma!

So last Saturday Francis came with the car that he arraigned for us and picked us up at the house. We proceeded out to Kogelo and stopped in the village for some soda and chapati before heading out to Mama Sarah Obama's house. When we arrived in the village, it was great because even the tea room said "Yes we can" underneath and we saw signs for "Senator Obama Primary School" and "Senator Obama High School". Oh, I forgot to mention it, but we wanted to give Mama Sarah a gift so I went to the Nakumatt and picked out a nice set of tea cups for her.

So we arrived at the place and waited a bit for Mama Sarah, she is 87 and has been feeling pretty tired of late, so they don't allow too many visitors these days, but we were lucky and she agreed to see us. While we waited we saw the graves of President Obama's father and grandfather, they are in the background of the photo of Francis and Claire which I will have to post next. So we met her, she was super cool and nice, and Francis translated for us all. She said Claire's name should have been Michelle (or at least her middle name) as she was conceived on the night of the election. So we talked for a bit and then presented our gifts and headed on our way. It's funny, now I wish I had asked a bit more about President Obama when he was younger, that would have been interesting... oops :) But on the way out, someone had a table set up with some stuff for sale on it and I spotted a doll. So we got Claire her first Dolly, whose name is Mama Sarah. I'll post some pics of that too. Anyway, we headed back home and then Katie purchased President Obama's book "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance" which she has since finished and I hope to start soon. You know, of all the things that are amazing for travelers, the Kindle might be the best. It can receive books purchased from amazon (and even buy them right from the kindle) even here in Kenya. It's so hard to find the books you want sometimes, and this makes it easy. There isn't even an extra charge for delivery here. Anyway, just a bit of a positive rant for Kindle.

After we got back, Francis, Yoshi and I headed out for boys night out... but I need to get back to my report. So, stay tuned next time for "The prostitute scratched on the 8 ball" or "The tale of the Octopus" :)