Toddler Travel Diaries

At Illongulu,.working

2011-05-07T16:03:00.001-04:00

In case you've found extra luggage

2011-05-07T16:02:00.001-04:00

I suppose they get less business than "lost luggage"

On the plane from Dar, happy to be going home

2011-05-07T16:01:00.001-04:00

Exploring Cassanova Spot

2011-05-07T16:00:00.001-04:00

At the cassanova spot in cape coast

2011-05-07T15:57:00.001-04:00

We were waiting for mommy to be done at the internet cafe

Claire <3s Alvero

2011-05-07T15:51:00.001-04:00

We are sharing a treat

2011-05-07T15:42:00.001-04:00

Claire meets a kitten in cape coast

2011-05-07T15:39:00.001-04:00

Best exit row.seat EVER!!!!

2011-04-29T21:57:00.001-04:00

I'm on a boat!

2011-04-21T12:31:00.001-04:00

So, I'm on a boat, it's awesome!!! I've slept 30 minutes in the last 36 hours.. but it's all okay. This hotel is not expensive, has a Tennenyaki resturaunt and I was nice to the lady at the front desk and she bumped me up from a regular room to the boat suite for no extra cost! I'll post some pics, but I'm writing this from my own private boat deck looking out on lake victoria. I was out here working while the sun set, and I wish I was here for more than one night... maybe on the way back :) I'm in Mwanza, the second largest city in Tanzania, and tomrrow it's an 8 hour drive to Tabora. So it's time for my meeting (several hour conference call with NYC) and then I'm going to finally get my shower and a non-airport/airplane meal!

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In case the last upload didn't have the pic

2011-04-21T04:16:00.001-04:00

I have arrived in Dar es Salaam!

2011-04-21T04:14:00.001-04:00

She's been wearing my glasses lately

2011-04-18T08:52:00.001-04:00

Outside Baths and Rice Crispy treats... again...

2011-04-18T08:47:00.001-04:00

Okay, so As per my previous post, I will be attempting to rewrite my funny poignent post from before, though this time I am sure it will be a bit shorter.... so, I have obviosly not adhered to my goal of posting something every day in April. This is due to a couple of things, but mostly the massive influx of work brough on by organizing and hosting the ChildCount+ Developers' meetup here in Kumasi, 6 software developers from all over Africa were here to talk about the current status and the future of the project I manage and to train the new guys (myself included) on how to work with CC+ better. It was super helpful, but also meant many many 12 hour (or more) days... :p It was totally worth it though, those guys were great and it was really good to spend some time getting to know them better. They were here from April 9th to the 16th and I am left with a stack of reciepts about a foot tall to send in to NYC for reimbursement. One night we all gathered at my our house for dinner and we played a little Kinect on the xbox (Thanks Dad!) and so that is some of the pictures attached. as you can see, a good time was had by all.

So, everyone took off on Saturday, but Sunday brought a huge rain storm and fequesnt lights out, so not really much of a blog updating day. :) On saturday we were visited by my old friend Kofi who is a woodcarver and made these awesome stools for Claire. She loves to sit on them and we have also discovered that they make a perfect booster seat for her. so you can see them in a few of the pics of claire munching on the spoon. See this link for more info about the cultural significance of stools to the Ashanti (we live in the ashanti region) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_people#The_Golden_Stool

So, as I mentioned we had a whole lot of rain yesterday, this meant that it was time for something Claire and I do called outside bath. Basically she and I go out to play in the rain while she's in her undies and I'm in shorts. It feels nice to have the cooling rain and Claire really likes it too. So we went out and played on the swings, looked for ripe mangos in the tree (she calls them mang-ees) and generally hung out in the rain for a while. It was a lot of fun.

We then driewd off and went inside to make some very yummy rice crispy treats, but we had one issue, no marshmallows... they just don't exist in Kumasi. So we had to come up with an alternitive, which turned out to be even yummier than the original ones. The Recipe follows.

1 C Honey (or Brown rice syrup or Agave or corn syrup)

1 C Brown Sugar (or any other kind of sugar you have)

1 C Cashew Butter (or any kind of nut butter, but we had cashew butter around)

(optional 3 T Butter and 1 t salt, 1T vanilla)

7 C Rice Crispy Cereal

So, you boil the honey and sugar together (and butter if you added it) over med low heat until the sugar dissolves (my honey was a bit thin so I boiled it for about 3 or 4 minutes) then you add the vanilla and salt and cashew butter anb turn off the heat (remove the pan from heat if you use electric burners) and then mix in the cereal. We also added chopped cashews and dark chocolate. It's really really good, but also really sweet. So, yep there you have it. Claire was wandering around licking the spoon for about 2 minutes. It was super cute. and they stayed together really well (which is not surprising since basically carmel replaced the mashmallows). Okay, well that's all for now. I have a TON of work to do. I'm off to Tanzania this week for about 10 days to work on ChildCount+ out there, then it's back to Ghana! Please feel free to comment on the blog link itself as well as facebook as we do read the comments (of which there are none, so I suppose we read the theroretical comments?)...

Casey

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Just wrote a whole long post

2011-04-18T08:05:00.001-04:00

Then as the media was uploading, I forgot about it and rebooted my computer and lost the whole thing :( I'll rewrite it later... I HATE it when that happens....

Claire may think that black people are made of chocolate

2011-04-17T12:43:00.001-04:00

So, Claire has started biting Sandra, this is not a welcome development. Today we may have made a discovery of why... She has also been a fiend for chocolate, coca-cola and Elmo, which may not suprising to all the parents out there. She has been asking for "lala" which is her word for chocolate, and has tended to be asking for "lala" just before biting Sandra. Today when Akose came in the kitchen Claire pointed at her and said "Lala"... therefore, Claire may think that all black people are chocolate flavored. Therefore the new name of the house is "Chocolate City" I'll keep you all informed... in the meantime please see this link for more info on chocolate people.

Developers meeting

2011-04-16T05:34:00.001-04:00

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Some pictures from the meeting I've been hosting all week

Claire likes the paint program on my phone

2011-04-16T05:28:00.001-04:00

Pics from yesterday

2011-04-08T06:51:00.001-04:00

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I've been running around like crazy! Looks like i'm going to tanzania in 2 weeks!

Yes, I got into Claire's little boat...

2011-04-06T08:51:00.001-04:00

Yes it was freaking ridiculous... She liked it though

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Went to the field today

2011-04-06T08:49:00.001-04:00

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Learning about community health workers... Informative!

Sharing is caring...

2011-04-05T12:52:00.001-04:00

And this made me laugh...

http://xkcd.com/879/

Oh, and I'm keeping my signature on here, it has Ghana phone numbers and a US voicemail I can check from here (go Google Voice! Thanks for the suggestion Anne!)
----------------------------------------------------------------
Casey Iiams-Hauser

eHealth Solutions Coordinator

The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Millennium Village Project
cbi2103@columbia.edu
Skype ID: Caseynth
US Voicemail: +1-360-818-4000

Ghana Mobile: +233-24-783-8356
ChildCount+ (http://www.childcount.org)

Dear Web People

2011-04-05T12:42:00.001-04:00

hello dear blog readers, friends, family and assorted hangers-on (I don't know why you are reading this if you are indeed a hanger-on, but I will take it as a compliment. Ummmmm, let's see, updates?

We had an awesome weekend, Claire got her first scrapped knee at the pool though :( there was a pic up for a bit. She had a ton of fun swimming though and doesn't seem to mind the scrape much. Katie has her new helper who is so awesome with claire we have her a 33% raise after the 2nd day (huzzah for living wages! There is now one person closer to the MDG for those that are counting (you are very welcome Jeff))... Ummm, We have DSL, it's awesome! And my computer is now in the NYC office and fixed, just waiting to be shipped back to me. I've super stoked about it. It was a great computer before all the breaking happened, and so now I have a 6 week old computer back from the shop all ready to go and awesome.

Hmmm, what else. I have been a huge nerd and have very much enjoyed playing Dragon Age after Claire goes to bed. Yes, it's super nerdy, but it's also way fun. I have lots of video games for playing and not enough time to do the playing in. Katie has been super into New Super Mario Bros on the Nintendo DS, She's got to the final castle and unlocked a lot of the game, but I think we are a bit stuck on the last castle. Anyhow, yep, super mario = awesome, and now we have a helper so there is hope on beating the last castle. Ummmm, let's see, what else... I'm super busy at work, we are having a meetup things where all the programmers are coming from all around Africa, I'm really looking forward to that, it should be a lot of fun!

Okay, I need to get back to work, but for all of you who are care package oriented (and if you are not, we can make you an orientation powerpoint and manual) you can feel free to send via FedEX or DHL to the following address:

Casey Iiams-Hauser and assorted Family

Care of:

Participatory Development Associates

KNUST Junction

On top of Juliponia pharmacy

Kumasi, Ghana

Yes, that's right, no addresses in Ghana, my address has an "on top of" on it. Scratch that one off the bucket list...

Okay, going now!

Bye!!!

P.S. I'll try and post more pics later

Untitled

2011-04-04T07:32:00.001-04:00

Okay this was for ysterday... I thought I'd uploaded it... doesn't count as missing or today's though :) I'm sure this is one of those things where I will think it's way cuter than you guys will, but I like it. Just shows how much Claire is learning to talk!

Talking!.wmv Watch on Posterous

Going to try something new...

2011-04-01T07:40:00.001-04:00

Hello everyone!

So I know that I haven't written in a while, but it's for for lack of things I want to tell you, it's more that I'm running around like a crazy person and haven't commited to actually writing down my thoughts. So, I'm going to try a little experiment, I want to try and write at least a sentence and take at least one photo a day for the month of April. This will be a challange, but I'm up to the task.

Sooo, let's see.. things to share... Yanis (my colleauge and friend) came to work on his Tropical Labs Inititive and taught me a new TLA (Three letter acronym)... some of you (including myself) are known to use "TIA" meaning "This Is Africa"... proper useage is for when the 16 page menu for the resuraunt gets cut back to chicken with either plain or jollof rice because that's all they actually have: "Well, TIA, I'll take the jolof rice" or a crazy naked person is wandering around the taxi you are in while the hopelessly lost taxi driver tries to figure out where the place is which he assured you he knew how to get to... That sort of thing... There's another one which has now replaced TIA for me, the Yanis-Introduced "AWA" or "Africa Wins Again" the proper way to think about it is that: In the battle between you and Africa.... Africa wins Again....

Let's see, lots more stuff, but it's hard to remember now. I just got my first paycheck finally! So now I am offically on payroll, which is good because I now have a mountain of debt... I just wish my back pay were coming with the paycheck, oh well patience. They also assured me that my travel advance was going to be coming within the next couple of days. This really take a lot of pressure off me! It's very very nice to not need to worry about it.

So, Claire is talking more and more and I've made a short video of us looking at animal stickers and she's learning the names which I'll share soon.

I'm sure it's one of those things that's way cuter to me... but still, she liked watching it like 7 times in a row. So that's coming up. She is talking so much now, and one of the things she started saying was "tattoo" and then she's point to all the tattoos on me. It's pretty damn cute! Ummm, let's see other than that, Nela the GSK volunteer is coming over for dinner tonight, she is leaving this weekend which will be sad. She was at the Bonsaaso cluster for like 3 months. Also, I gave a talk about Developing mobile application at the Ghana India Kofi Anan Center for Excellence in IT's iWeek. It was cool and I got to meet a lot of young programmers and the head of ICT for the Ghana Health Service. I also got to hang out with David who runs the motech project in the North. We made plans to go up there together and see what we can learn from each other's projects.

Okay, back to work for me, I leave you with pictures of Claire making it rain when we were budgeting! (and an oddly named energy drink for the fairly conservitive Ghana)

See the full gallery on Posterous

Those of you who I haven't chatted with in the last couple of weeks, email me or find me on gchat/skype!!!

Love,

Casey

Claire gets a bucket bath!

2011-03-19T05:29:00.001-04:00

And I keep posting to the wrong site :p

Went for a walk to find a 3g signal

2011-03-17T12:45:00.001-04:00

So I could skype in for the health team summit. Hmmm, right near the water tap though, this place I've found is kind of noisy... Oh well, I brought headphones. I snapped a pic or two along the way

Katie and Claire have arrived!

2011-03-12T11:40:00.001-05:00

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And some fun pics from last night, more later, we are in the airport waiting on our flight to kumasi....

Yanis' pretty pretty princess bed

2011-03-08T11:38:00.001-05:00

De Pat Palace is all ready for a sleepover!

Africa Pics

2011-03-08T10:53:00.001-05:00

----------------------------------------------------------------
Casey Iiams-Hauser
cbi2103@columbia.edu
Skype ID Caseynth
US Mobile +1-206-473-7544
ChildCount+ (http://www.childcount.org)
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Millennium Village Project
Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs

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Back in Bonsaaso

2011-03-08T09:31:00.001-05:00

Well, here I am back in Ghana! I've landed safr and sounds and enjoyed my sweet suite in Nairobi for the very short time I got to enjoy it. So, let's see, I've been traveling with Yanis and Nella two collegues who are working on the Tropical Labs Initiative which I am going to be helping to develop a SMS based labs component for. But you can read about that later on Childcount.org later, I guess I need to chat about the other stuff that's been going on. So, I stayed in Kumasi for a couple of nights which was fun, went out to a great Indian place called Moti Mahal, and strangely enough, every single person I've ever met who has traveled in Kumasi have all independently mentioned this place as great and said that they wanted to go there. It's really good. Patty, Beth and I went there during the first round of Ghana visit and then again with Yanis and Nela. Also went to the Max Something hotel for Lebanese which was awesome too. Now I'm back in the field and attending a conference call on internet which is way to spotty to hear everything, and working on drawing out the specs for the software. We are staying in De Pat Palace tonight which has a hell of a reputation among my coworkers and sets a new low bar for customer service. But with the addition of Yanis, it's really funny (those who know him will know what I mean, he has a super dry sense of humor), I'll be posting a pic of his gorgeous bedspread which made me make My Little Ponies and Barbie's Malibu Dream Hotel jokes the whole way to the office. Funny, the place has crap for service and the cook may or may not be working tonight, but the rooms are pretty big and nice (but who knows how clean). So, everything is going well, I took a look at a house today which was super nice, but damn did they want too much cash for it, so I'm thinking of a slightly clever approach :) Anyway, pics to follow!

Mix up in Accra

2011-03-05T09:42:00.001-05:00

Well I've landed in Accra, and had a great flight from Nairobi where I sat next to the former head of UNDP for all of Africa, we had a very nice chat. Well, when I landed in Accra, and tried to check in fire my flight to Kumasi, they told me I was supposed to fly in the morning, and the next treetop flights are full, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someone doesn't show, but I might need to shift to the bus our try and go tomorrow (though I don't have money left for a hotel) on the plus side the hiring process is nearly complete, I start on monday as long as they don't need me to come back to NYC for paper work.

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Untitled

2011-03-04T06:29:00.001-05:00

We have decided to try a new format as the old one wasn't exactly great with poor internet connections. So, welcome to the new blog! I'm back in Kisumu , Kenya for one more day, off to Nairobi this evening, tomorrow Accra and then Kumasi. Whew, I'm going to be "knackared" I'm not sure how you spell that, but my new buddy Big Claire (not to be confused with the baby) has been introducing me to all kinds of fun English Slang. I might get Twatted tonight, aaaaaand, I think I forget the rest. Anyhow, Welcome to the new blog! Oh, and we've set it up to autopost onto the old blogger site. toddlertraveldiaries.posterous.com is the new one!

Link to the other blog I just wrote on!

2010-08-17T01:44:00.001-04:00

Hello friends and some people whom I have never met. I wrote a post for the official ChildCount+ Blog and it's now up. It's a more detailed explanation of what I have been up to here, so go and check it out!

http://www.childcount.org/2010/08/17/using-childcount-to-strengthen-maternal-and-childhood-health/

Ok, so I'm back

2010-08-14T16:28:00.003-04:00

So that was my first attempt at Creme Bruleé, it turned out okay, but I think I needed to account for the extra moisture from the passion fruit. Oh well, next time. It was still yummy but the consistency wasn't right.

OK where did we leave off? Oh yeah, we were going to be evac'ed to Nairobi, that went well, more like a vacation, yeah, in case of questions, see Katie's post. Big shout out to my Dad who donated $200 to help the orphans in Masago! That is going to help the feeding programs so much and help keep kids healthy!

Lets see, I keep thinking of things in my day and thinking "Awesome! I'm totally going to write that in the blog!" and then when I actually get home, I have completely forgotten it. So pretend i told you all about awesome things! yay!

Yeah, I'm still tired.

So, the past week or two has been really good for the project. The software is finished and has been moved onto the main server, which means we are up and running there. Komolo and I have trained the first three health centers, and starting Monday we will be taking trips around to see how the ID card distribution is going and if the health staff has any questions about the program as it stands.

I have also been feeling really good about all of the accolades that have been coming my way. I feel really good about the project and have really appreciated all the nice things that people have said about it and me. Of course I haven't done it alone, without Yanis I wouldn't have even had the chance to work on this or the funding that made it all possible, without ChildCount and Matt we would have had to start from scratch which would have made things about 18 billion times harder, Moses, Dickson and Kevin were the ones who actually did the programming, and Komolo and Francis among others have been key during my visits to the field. Andy and Ben made me fight for only those parts of the system that really needed to be there and helped to make the system as streamlined as possible. The CHWs and MVP project in general are the reason we can implement and I wouldn't have wanted to have to try and do all the amazing strengthening of the systems that they have done over the last few years before I started on this project. So yeah, I know most of you have no idea who these people are, but they rock! I have never enjoyed such hard work as I have enjoyed these past few months, if any of you guys are reading, thank you so much!

On that note, we have been talking to people who think that this system would be perfect for a district or nation wide strengthening of PMTCT services, so this is really exciting, as well as talking to the Kenyan Department of health people and UNICEF Kenya, we have also had meetings with UNICEF Uganda about this program. It's exciting to see the work you have done getting people to think about what they could accomplish in their own backyards with the same systems. It's all open source, and the more people using it, the more mothers getting good antenatal care and the more kids born without HIV, so that is awesome. I'm working on a post for the childcount blog and a Powerpoint that really goes through the system and shows how it works, I'll post a link to the CC blog and to the Powerpoint when I'm done with them (which had best be tomorrow!) So, Monday it's looking like I'm going to try and get my phone (or better yet, borrow one on the correct network) to be a fake CHW phone on the test network and make an appointment for my test patient. Make sure that it is all working to plan and meet with the lab here which does dried blood spot testing for early infant diagnosis of HIV and I hope the lab in Yala. I'mgoing to sit down with the coordinator and say "sorry to be a pain in the ass, but I'm going to need to commandeer one of your cars for my last week, I have too much to do and too little time to do it in and I have to be going between meetings in Kisumu and meetings in Yala the next few days. If that doesn't work, than monday in Kisumu, Tuesday in Yala, then Wed, thurs and Fri, we are training 2 Health Centers a day (which sounded good at the time of the planning meeting but now has more than a passing resemblance to logistics hell). We have 10,000 ID cards being printed (I hope soon) and booklets which need to go out to the health centers and I need to talk to the OpenMRS guys to see if the data entry folk can put in the forms in Sauri. Anyway, yeah, it's gonna be busy! Also, my contract should finally come next week, we have a Claire's 1st birthday/going away party on Wed and Claire's actual first birthday on Thurs.! Yeah, were gonna need a little more caffine over here... Okay, we are off tomorrow to hike in the rainforest, somehow between everything else, I took a night off and build them a simple website. So, yay for free rainforest! Enjoy the pics, I may not label them... We'll see. I wish I had Goonies to give the orphans, though I totally hooked them up with Winnie the Pooh and The original Star Wars Trilogy as well as The Princess and the Frog... They are good kiddos,I hope this small thing can help distract them from the difficulties they have already begun to face and feel like a normal kid for a bit.

So, I'll try to write more, but as you can see I'm a bit scattered and have a lot on my plate!

Ok ok ok, I'll finally post a blog!

2010-08-14T14:52:00.002-04:00

Hello blog people. This is Casey. I have not disappeared because of a time traveler accidentally screwing up the space time continuum ala Marty McFly, yes, that was a Back to the Future reference. A few weeks ago, our Japanese housemates and I were talking about movies from the 80s, Kaniko and I agreed that the Goonies was awesome and then we moved onto the Never Ending Story and Karate Kid (Which only Yoshi had seen) We had to use google quite a bit to find movie posters as things are called something different depending on what country/language you see them in. I saw "Dreamcatcher" a few years back in Burkina Faso, and that movie sucked even then and in French. In case you missed it, it had Morgan Freeman in it and monsters that came out of your butt. I'm not even sure why I'm writing about movies, I think I might be tired. Anyway, it's time to faire le bruleé sur mon creme bruleé so I'll be back and actually talk about something current. I apologize to those who just read this post. That's my bad....

In case you were wondering about the module

2010-08-10T13:11:00.002-04:00

So, the software I am working on designing is an addon to Childcount+ I've embedded the overview here in case you wanted to know how text messages are used for health in Africa. I'm making a new bit to add to this slideshow... I'm trying to get caught up on work, (Claire isn't helping with this, but she's a really cute distraction) I'll write a real post later...

ChildCount+ Overview from Matt Berg on Vimeo.

Referendum week

2010-08-10T07:32:00.002-04:00

Lynn voted!!! You can tell because she has been marked with a type of ink that won't come off for about a month. This is to prevent people from voting more than once.

I’m writing to you with a baby head under one arm and a baby leg on top of the other arm. Claire likes to take her breakfast while I blog. So, we’re back in Kisumu, and I’m back to the land of the living! Last week, we were in Nairobi on a forced holiday, of which I spent most of my time in the guest house room with a nasty strep throat. On the 3rd day, I finally took antibiotics and by that evening, felt like I was finally winning. While in Nairobi, we visited the Village Market (read: rich people mall) on several occasions, and it made me appreciate Kisumu prices, as it was ridiculously expensive and non-negotiably priced. I did get a nice haircut though, and ate some amazing Indian food. Oh, and we ate at The Carnivore, which is exactly what you would expect it to be: lots of meat roasted over a big, indoor pit. It was an admittedly tourist activity, but it was worth the experience and it was Kevin’s last meal in Kenya before flying back to France, so we made it into an event.

We flew back on Saturday, and I was so happy to be back in Kisumu! I’m realizing that we have just 2 weeks left here, and it’s a little hard to imagine life back in NY. It’s looking most likely that we will be headed back to NY for Casey to finish his degree this Fall, then Ghana probably in January. It is all up in the air right now, of course, but I will keep you all posted!

Clinical trial update: I have heard back from 2 of the 3 doctors involved with the Iquilai pilot in Kenya a few years ago, and they have offered to supply the remedy for the trial, which is great! Now, I am looking for funding for the rest of the trial, so if any of you know of any small grants for individual research out there, please let me know.

It’s the final push for Casey’s project, and he is working very long days to get it all finished. I am so proud of him, and I will let him tell you the most recent good news on his next post.

Claire turns 1 in 9 days!! We are going to celebrate on the 17th with all of the SIPA-ites, our Kenyan friends, and hopefully our Japanese friends who are now both in Mbita doing research. Claire will definitely get some of her cake, as she has had wheat flour, dairy, sugar, eggs, and pretty much every potential allergen (except nuts/nut butters and honey), and seems to be doing quite well with it all (fingers crossed!). We made a decision to just let her have what we are having, and you will see by the pictures I posted that she is enjoying trying foods very much!

Pictures from Referendum week

2010-08-10T07:13:00.002-04:00

Contemplating...what exactly?

This is us evacuating.

Me gnawing on a sheep bone--my Grama would have been proud!

Oooh, who knew ice cream could be so hot?

Awww, sharing is nice.

Election time and getting evaced to Nairobi!

2010-08-01T16:40:00.000-04:00

Blog:
Well, there is quite a lot to update all of you on. So, I assume that you would like to know how things went at Masogo, so, last weekend, that was the destination. Leaving, all we knew was that there was a CBO (which stands for community based organization for those not familiar with development-speak) which was caring for 1,800 HIV+ children. That was all that we knew, and boy were we not prepared for the reception that we got when we arrived. Francis said when we arrived in Masongo, “see those ladies? That is where we get out” and so we did, and they were chanting and dancing, and then they put sparkling garlands around our necks, took our hands and began dancing down the street. Meanwhile, Claire is asleep in her carseat, oblivious to the commotion going on around her as she led the parade down the street in the back of the car. I know that you are likely wondering about that word that I just used: parade. Yes, it was a parade, 60 widows all dressed in black, and We, the visitors, singing and dancing our way through the town, There is a video, if Katie will allow it, I’ll post. After some time we found Komolo, Mary and Charity from the MVP and they joined us. After about 2 kilometers (and I’m not kidding) we arrived at the office, and the widows came inside, and the children and other assorted hangers-on departed. We were introduced to the caregivers for the children and signed the guest book. After that, we were running a bit behind, so we left the caregivers in Komolo’s hands for training and headed off to the nursery school.
I call it a nursery school, but it was a tin building with a dirt floor, James, the head of the CBO said that they had quite a few problems with the place, that the floor was no good and gets infested with bugs. So, we sat under a tent, some really cute kids performed some songs and dances for us, and then Katie gave her speech to the kids. After that, we moved on to another school, a few kilometers down the road. This one was a nursery school, and we sat down to a very nice tea and then moved on to a classroom filled with little itty bitty chairs. There we greeted some parents, and by this point, Katie and I had decided to trade off on the speech, so I gave it this time, modified slightly for adults. When we arrived at this place, a little boy saw Claire and said that she was a doll! It was very funny, we was very confused when she was walking around like a real baby.
After this we headed back to the area of the office, thinking all the time that when we put sunscreen on Claire we should have really applied some ourselves as well. So, we headed back, and after a short stop came to another school. It’s really amazing all the things that we take for granted in the US, even things like permanent structures for our schools, this one had a few buildings with mud walls and on where they were working on finding materials for a roof. So, another speech and we were back off down the road to come back to the first place. We arrived and I delivered the last speech, utilizing President Obama’s “Yes we can!” rally, it was really cool seeing all those widows chanting that, affirming their good work and their power to make changes in their lives.
Okay, so now it’s about 4 days after I began this post and Katie had already filled you in on the other details.
Skipping ahead, I know there were some things I wanted to share, so please everyone just pretend that I shared some amusing anecdotes here, and pretend as though you are all caught up. Short version, we have some new cards printed up with all the ChildCount+ Ids for all the households and have printed up the first 400 CC+ Ids on stickers with barcodes for easy integration into the OpenMRS system! Yay! Ummm, let’s see, met a student from the MPH program at the Mailman school of Public Health at Columbia who is working on a program that I worked on an earlier version of, those hers is much better. They are re-training traditional birth attendants to be doulas and having retired midwives be available for births which can’t make it to the hospitals in time, or which happen after the health centers are closed. I’m working with her to make sure that our programs work well together as a bit was overlapping before, Looks like everything is working together really well now though. I bought a whole bunch of pirated DVDs, just in case we are stuck inside for a while, the president and prime minister were here on Saturday and some other stuff happened, but now I can’t so much remember what it was.
So, it was suggested a while back that we evac to Nairobi for the upcoming elections on Tuesday. We decided not to, because we felt very safe here and it’s looking pretty mellow. No one seems to be expecting violence. But, MVP has decided that it would be better if we were in Nairobi, so it’s now mandatory that we go. So tomorrow morning we are going. Don’t be worried, I’m sure it will all be fine. We’re hoping to be back to Kisumu before Friday. Check out http://uchaguzi.co.ke/ to keep up on everything that is happening here. Take care! Our Kenya mobile phone number is +254-71-315-8513 if you want to get a hold of us, and we should have internet access. Okay, that’s all for now, it’s late and we need to get up early and pack in the morning. Love you all!
Casey!
PS the neighbors are having a hell of a party, it sounds like so much fun! I want to go!

Long overdue post from Katie!

2010-07-30T02:08:00.003-04:00

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…

Visit to Masongo!

2010-07-27T02:03:00.006-04:00

Where an awesome CBO is taking care of 1,800+ HIV+ kids!

I became an MP today!

2010-07-22T12:50:00.002-04:00

So, today was an interesting day, and it was the last of the all day trainings which I've been going to and which have been keeping me out for more than 11 hours for the past few days,though today I got back a bit earlier today... So, a few things... One, never try to swap the Lamborghini of cell phones with the Toyota Carolla of cell phones with your CHWs, it doesn't matter if you have good and rational reasons, and it may be better in all practical ways, but yeah, don't try to swap them... I've seen 3 days of revolts... The first day they were yelling at the dude and the next 2 days not one person agreed to swap the phones.

Unfortunately, today i didn't get to make my request when I wanted to and kept being put off by the lady leading the talk and I got to talk to them when they were nice and pissed off... Yay :( Oh well. I also learned that the CHWs have a nickname for me. They call me The M.P., which stands for member of parliament, if you didn't know. I was told that it was because I'm a big guy, and that MPs are usually big guys. So, yep... I'm an MP...

And I found out that I don't get to have the maternal and childhood health booklets that I was going to have the CHWs hand out. Oh well, we'll just have to let them know to just give the women the stickers then, or maybe make cards to have the IDs written on them? I don't know... though I think that the stickers are still the best idea.

Okay, well Lost is on and it's really odd but I guess it's explaining the origins of Jacob and the other dude...

Okay, pics from the training soon and I'll write more later!

Goodnight!

Photos from the forest

2010-07-22T11:13:00.010-04:00

i really hope that these upload, I've had the hardest time with that lately.

The Photos, Pt. 1

2010-07-21T12:41:00.003-04:00

Taking Claire swimming!

She made some new friends there

Friends!

This one is pretty self explanitory

Just before heading into the forest

Gotta love that new post smell.... mmmmmm....posty

2010-07-21T09:46:00.003-04:00

Hello Blog,

well now I’m skipping forward to last weekend, because I’m lagging on this whole blog thing, and I have given up on filing the blanks before that point. So last weekend we were going to head to the Kakamega Forest on Saturday morning, we were to leave at 7am sharp, this was confirmed by Francis. We got up and ready and waited, and waited and waited, the guy was supposed to be washing the car when I called at 7:30, at 8 he still wasn’t around, and so on and so on. At 9:00 I finally called Francis and told him that it was getting too late and that all the animals are hiding by noontime, he and the driver finally made it at around 10:30, apparently the driver have loaned out his car to someone who was supposed to bring it back the night before, but didn’t bring it until the morning. I told him that it was too late, he tried to talk us into going anyway, but I told him he could come back the next morning at 7 if he wanted and we could go then. So he decided he would do that and went on his way.

We decided to take Claire swimming, and to take a Kiboko boat tour. Kiboko is kiSwahili for Hippo. So we went off to Kiboko Bay Resort and took Claire swimming. She loved it and she made some nice new friends. Her new friends had floaties too, so they all floated around together, Claire even shared hers with two other kids when she got out of the pool. We decided not to go on the Kiboko tour as the hippos are best to watch in the morning time, and Katie had slipped and was feeling sore.
So, the next day we indeed headed off to the Kakamega Forest. It was great, we paid a modest entrance fee and found a guide and enlisted him on our 3 hour walk. He turned out to be very knowledgeable and gave us a lot of great info about the medicinal properties of plants, which is exactly what Katie wanted. We recorded quite a few of his talks and will post them soon. I found out though that I have a memory card which is too small, back when I got it, this 2 GB card seemed huge, but on the walk I used it up less than halfway through the trip, which was no good and I even had to delete one of the talks about the medicinal plants. We found a black and white Columbus monkey, I got a great shot of him. So, I will get a bigger one at Nakumatt if the price is reasonable. So on the way back, the guide asked me if I knew anyone who knew how to make a website. And so I offer to make one for them in exchange for some free guided tours of the forest in the future. It seemed like the best deal for all, of course I’m very busy so that’s that hard part, but I told them it would just be a simple simple site.

When I got home I was the recipient of some amazing news! UNAIDS had offered me funding to help start a PMTCT program in Ghana in late September! I did a happy dance of joy and then was a bit overwhelmed by what this all means, so I won’t be coming back to the US after Kenya, I’ll be taking a leave of absence and going straight from Nairobi to Accra and then up to the Barong Afo region, (Which I know I misspelled) to start on the next project! Yay for awesome opportunity, sad that I will be missing my friends and family who were going to visit this fall and I might totally miss my J-termers before I come back to SIPA! So Yay and awesome and such for that, though I think the leave of absence has some consequences for financial aid and for the housing. But we will see. If I can keep my place I will just sublet it out to James who was here in Kisumu but is moving with his family to NYC. My friend Beth will be coming to Ghana to work on a two year contract and she agreed to bring me some stuff from my place that I want here. Okay so it’s the external drive with all my movies, the projector and my xbox, yes, I’m a nerd okay?
On the job side of things, exciting things are happening! We are getting a programmer to help with the programming side of things next Monday, his name is Kevin and he will be a big help. Plus he’s staying at the same guest house as me so I can bug him about the software non-stop! On Monday I had a meeting with Andy Kanter and Ben Nemser who are high up in the childcount/mHealth/eHealth bit of things in New York and we made some significant changes to the system. We eliminated a few forms and steps and came out with a much more streamlined version of things. Now the CHWs will not have any additional forms to carry, and the total number of new forms is down to 3. We are still collecting a lot of good data though. I will be working with the Yala Sub-District Hospital to try and get them to begin inputting CD4 results into the system as well and there is the long shot of getting the folks at the CDC lab that process the DBS tests to do input them as well. The conference call ended at 7pm and even that was only because they were going to lock me inside the building if I didn’t come out right then.

I worked late into the night on Monday to try and get the new forms ready for the meeting with the health facilitators on Tuesday. I knew I would have time at the place itself, but that my only access to a printer would be in the morning before we left for Yala. I got it all done and printed and headed off to the training where I would meet the health facilitators later. So, I arrived and while waiting for the training to be over, I realized what they were training on. They were to go around to all the households in their catchment area and do a household health survey. Somehow I was lucky enough to have the one sample pack of stickers that we were getting as part of my program and took about 10 minutes to ask the CHWs that when they were going around to please record the health IDs of the mother, father and all kids under 5 on stickers complete with the name for identifying, and to stick them to the inside front cover of the maternal health booklet. This was the plan from the start, I’m just happy I was there so we could piggyback on this instead of making them go to all the households a second time. Now we just need the stickers, though Dickson is supposed to be on that one, and to procure some maternal and childhood health booklets in case the woman hasn’t gone to her 1st antenatal visit yet to receive one, which Komolo is on. So, wow, we are moving forward, work has begun! And I spoke to 2 health facilitators yesterday and one today (who are the ones in charge of the CHWs at each health center) and they are totally on board too! So, things are going really well, I did another training today and the last one will be tomorrow. Oh, one funny thing, I didn’t have internet in the field and after busting my ass to get the forms changed, when I got back to the office I had an email with more changes! D’oh! But oh well, I’m going to do those either tonight or tomorrow. So, that’s about it for now.

Oh, next weekend we will be staying out in a village and giving a talk to 1,800 HIV+ kids… that will be interesting! OK, till tomorrow or so!
P.S. if you haven’t already, click follow or I will be forced to keep bugging you (You too Mom!) because we love to have followers!

OK, pics up when I get home because they refuse to upload now...

A boardroom, a bong, and a bathroom with a view

2010-07-17T01:09:00.002-04:00

Owino's political message--YES on the new constitution.

Casey and Claire at work. He has the whole boardroom to himself!

Traditional Luo water pipe as seen at the Kisumu Museum.

First wife, bitches, uhh! (uh, maybe not?)

A potty with a view onto our private patio.

More Photos!

2010-07-14T07:47:00.002-04:00

YES WE CAN! (have some tea)

Claire and her new dolly, Mama Sarah

I think that this one is fairly self-explanatory

Claire giving Mama Sarah her gift (I'd actually already given it to her, but Claire wanted to help her open it... :)

The Family, complete with Francis and Mama Sarah

Quick Break from report writing to tell stories :)

2010-07-14T06:49:00.004-04:00

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" :)

Claire's First Froyo!

2010-07-12T14:09:00.001-04:00

Crazy storm at the MVP field offices

2010-07-12T10:10:00.002-04:00

Next up in the media posts, Claire's first frozen yogurt, she loved it!

Some fun photos! Post to come tonight!

2010-07-11T10:08:00.002-04:00

Claire meets a monkey

Claire at the swimming pool

Walking with Francis and his family

Claire's new bed from the market

Claire sleeping through The Mona Lisa

Off to Vist Obama's Grandma!

2010-07-10T02:11:00.002-04:00

Well, today we are heading off to pay a visit to President Obama's grandmother! It's very exciting, as exuberance over Obama's victory lead to Claire being around. We are going to bring her a little gift of a set of teacups or plates. We'll take photos and post them once we're back. I know I keep saying that we'll post photos, but this time we really will. I wish Claire's little dresses were done so she could wear one to the visit, but that's okay. Next time. Claire is sitting on the couch with Yoshi, it's very cute.

Okay, that's about it for this morning. See you all soon!

Trainings and site visits and island property

2010-07-09T07:04:00.001-04:00

So, I have some cute pics of Claire at the pool that I'll upload as well as some from site visits.

Yesterday I attended an all day training, which was interesting as I plan to do some trainings myself so I thought I'd check one out and see how things went. They went alright, I think the person presenting had people's attention for most of the time, and that at least some of what she said reached the intended audience. For me though, most of the training were about things that I already knew about, so it wasn't especially useful.

Okay, it's been several days since I started this post, and so I think it's about time I should finish.

The other day I had a great meeting with Yanis and Matt Berg, we have figured out the program for the programming and what will happen for the next bit. It's looking like I will be joined by a programmer from New York who will help Moses and Dickson with the coding and the software should be finished by the second at the latest. I realized however that we don't really need the software to move forward. We can move forward just using the paper forms and most of the people won't need any sort of action for 1 month after the form is filled out. this is great, and the next step for me (other than to continue working on my reports) is to meet with the heath facilitators who are in charge of the different health centers. then we can go over the different forms and get feedback on them.

So, let's see, Kaniko has left for the field this morning, but she is coming back for the weekend. Then she will be out of here for good, which is very sad as we have had a lot of fun hanging out with her these past few weeks. However, this means we are going to head upstairs and get to be in the big room with the balcony and such, this is good. But overall the sad wins, so now we are a little sad. Tonight though we will go to our weekly outing for dinner at Simba Club, so that should be fun.

Claire has discovered how to climb stairs, pictures soon. She also has her first birthday coming up and we're going to throw her a party! And all of us went off to the tailor last weekend and got measured for clothes. Katie got her first dress today and Claire has i think 6 in the works in different sizes. Katie took a photo of hers which I'm sure will be up soon and we'll have pics of Claire as soon as her dresses are done.

Other than that, we are really excited about heading off to Lamu and have decided that we are going to start saving for a down payment on a house there, this is very exciting stuff. The houses there are significantly cheaper than the US, it is a beautiful tropical paradise and we can move there when we retire and people will want to come and visit us there(making this the opposite of Arizona). The goal is to put the down the down payment in about 2 years.

check out awesome Lamu Houses here...

http://www.lamuislandproperty.com/

Okay, time for a guacamole break....

Now, with flavor crystals!

2010-07-08T12:40:00.007-04:00

This one’s for you, Chuck! (Lynne, Claire, and the color orange!)

Mellow day today, with the small exception of having a book thrown at me while riding in the tuk tuk. The projectile turned out to be Kenya’s proposed new constitution, and was being given out as part of a voter education intitiative. I left it for Washington to read, as he can actually vote, and it would just be a souvenir for me. Back to mellow, Claire and I went to Michie’s house for a playdate with Shohei. They have a very nice home here in Kisumu, with a big yard and even a swing set. There was a huge shade tree that provided nearly the entire yard with shade. It was adorable watching the two kids play—they are both pretty little for real interactive play, but they were aware of each other. Shohei was so sad we were leaving that he cried when we left, so I think we will have to do it again very soon. In the course of conversation I asked Michie where she was from in Japan. She whispered “Kamamoto.” In my totally American way, I loudly repeated “Kamamoto?” The gasps from her Kenyan helpers were audible. Evidently, it means something incredibly crass in Kiswahili—the translation I gathered was “vagina in heat.”

Today the voice of my friend Tiffany came to mind. When we were in Seattle in May I had mentioned that I had a hard time making connections with friends knowing we would be leaving soon. As a person who had moved around a lot herself, she understood, and told me that you just gotta dive in and get to know people and not worry about the rest. I’m taking that advice, and it feels great!

I’m so surprised by how much I enjoy living in a house with other people, as it was the one thing I was pissed about when we first got here. I love having meals with people, letting others entertain Claire and watch out for her, and just generally being in regular contact with people. Any nudge of depression that I was feeling in New York seems to be gone, and Casey and I have had next to no fights, so Africa seems to be agreeing with us quite nicely.

Tomorrow I’m going to try on my dresses that Lynne’s friend has made this week for me, and I’m quite excited! I may girl it up and buy some shoes to go with one of the dresses to wear out to Simba Club tomorrow night. For 500 shillings (equivalent to $6.25), you get a full buffet dinner with Indian, Chinese and Kenyan food along with some amazing fresh fruit (OMG I fricking love passion fruit!) and ice cream. Tonight though, we have prepared a Mexican feast of char-grilled chicken (kuku choma), chapatti (lovingly made by Janet, and serving as our tortilla substitute), Casey’s “love potion” guacamole, and freshly made pico de gallo.

Did I mention that we are going to take a trip to Lamu at the end of our time in Kenya? Lamu is an amazing place on the North coast of Kenya. It is a chain of islands that are foot and donkey traffic only—no motorized vehicles allowed! It is influenced by many cultures (Arabic, Swahili, Portuguese…the list goes on), that have blended it into a magical place where the infrastructure has remained relatively unchanged for the last 1200 years. The people are conservation-minded and have taken many steps to maintain the local ecosystem and support the local economy. I nearly forgot to mention that the other way people get around is by dhow—specialized sailboats made to carry fruit, spices and other things for trade. We will take one from the airport in Lamu to where we are staying in Shela. Ooh, I can’t wait—arriving by sea will be awesome!!

Okay, Claire is awake now and I need to go help Casey in the kitchen. Kwaheri, tuanane! (Goodbye, see you later!)

Happy Independance Day!!!!!

2010-07-06T02:39:00.003-04:00

At long last, the NEW post has been released!!!!

2010-07-01T15:29:00.003-04:00

Going for a walk with Francis' and Komolo to go look at the dams

I <3 This NGO, I want a t-shirt sooooo badly

Ooh, it's both exciting and shiny!!! And it has that new post smell..which is sort of gross...

So lets see, I think the last post was last week, so I'll try and remember things which you will all like and think are awesome. Last Sunday we rolled out to my friend Francis' place where his mom cooked us an awesome dinner, my other friend Samuel Komolo joined us too, they are both my colleagues at the Millennium Village Project and have helped me out a bunch. So we were headed to the place where he lives, which is a slum, on the way to the super-huge mall called MegaCity! It doesn't have the exclamation point, but I feel it adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the place, besides it's called MegaCity, it feels like it SHOULD have an exclamation point. Oh yeah, so the place we were going by on the way was called something in Ki-Swahili which I don't remember, but it translates literally into English as "Hide Your Ass", which I think is awesome. I guess the origin was that some Mzungu originally named the place Pinocchio, but then it was converted and that's what they came up with. I love that I get to look at the Hide your Ass Community Center every time I go to MegaCity!. So, we got to his place and he took us around to look at the dams which work to protect much of the land from flooding in the rainy season. Apparently the swampland it has created is home to many Hippos (Kiboko in Ki-Swahili), they come out at night and menace the people and destroy crops and such, and if you meet a Hippo they are very good at charging straight forward but can't corner for crap, so you should run in not a straight line. So we had an awesome dinner and then headed for home.

Monday I headed back out to the field, and did some more interviews. The more I do the better I feel about them and the less I feel like I forget to ask. So far I have visited 7 of the 9 health facilities here and I hope to finish up the last 2 tomorrow. Not too much to report from the visits, though I have some photos I will post.

On Tuesday I had a great meeting with James at MVP, we went over the current plans for the program and he had some really great input. Sometimes it's really nice when you are so close to a project to get a little outside perspective. So we ended up expanding the program quite a bit and ditched the automated schedules for manual ones to begin with and then we can look at the data later to see if there are patterns. This gives the software much more flexibility.

We are also going to have the CHWs go out and do a registration drive and put the Mothers' health IDs for Childcount on a sticker inside the front cover of the maternal health booklet as I had realized on Monday that the patients donot know their health ID at the moment which is a huge problem given that I am using that as the primary piece of ID for the system. We solved that though and tonight I went through and made the three new forms that will be needed for the health centers. There is also a new CD4count machine coming to the subdistrict hospital soon and we figured out a way to manually capture that information until a more automated solution can be put into place. Oh and Katie was a TA in the phlebotomy lab in med school and Komolo asked her to help do some trainings for doing blood draws.

Today katie and Claire went to the field with me,which was awesome and at the second health center the driver was waiting and asked us to be fast so as I did my interview I sent Francis out to take photos of whatever he thought would be interesting for my report. I am a bit shy with taking photos, especially at the health centers, Francis is not, and I think I got much more good stuff by sending him out with the camera. I also think that people are less shy when it's a Kenyan taking the photos. Anyway, I though about it, and sent him home with the camera, and asked him to just take photos of whatever he thought was interesting that night. I'm pretty stoked to get the results and I think i might repeat the experiment with him and also with other people i trust over the course of my time here. I'll post someof the shots soon.

Okay, well tomorrow I am meeting with the programmers and we will set out the specific course of action to be taken beginning Monday, and then it's off to the field to finish up with the health centers.

Oh, and I can't believe I forgot this, Yanis who has led the effort to get this program set up presented a few slides I made last weekend of the work i am doing here at the UNAIDS HQ in Geneva. I am pretty stoked about that and I guess they must have liked it as he said there was good news! I am keeping my fingers crossed that this means we will be continuing this project after I graduate in December. Okay folks, It's late and i have a meeting in the morning as well as a ton of writing for my report I have been putting off to go and visit the Impala sanctuary with Claire (I shook hands with a baboon! I really need to talk about that when I have the pics uploaded) so I'm going to go and leave you to the rest of whatever you were supposed to be doing. Oh and I totally missed the planning meeting yesterday in Yala, butno one told me it was happening!!!! Crap, I need to makeit to thenext one so my project is assigned time, we are still hoping to go live with the alpha in about 2 weeks. Okay, I'm really going now.

No

Really

I'm going to go

Stop reading

I might be really tired and a little loopy

Are you still reading?

s'en allez!

Goodnight

Whew! A lot has happened this week!

2010-07-01T15:22:00.003-04:00

The past couple of days, I have gotten to visit two different families and it has been great! Sunday, all 3 of us met up with Francis, Casey's workmate at MVP, and Samuel (also at MVP), to have dinner at Francis’s mom’s house. When we arrived by tuk tuk down a very bumpy dirt road, we entered a compound on foot and went into his grandma’s home. She did not speak English, and we know only a few words in Kiswahili (and practically none in Luo!), but that didn’t really matter. Years ago, Francis’s grandpa bought the land at a great price, and his family is set up nicely today. After the introductions, we went for a walk to the dams nearby, where kibokos (hippos) live. It was a little crazy to think we might come across one or more of these gigantic beasts, but we never saw more than just where one had stomped the grass down not too long before we arrived. It was a pretty place for a walk, flat, with lots of repetitions of the same types of vegetation (I wish I had a field guide!). I think I identified some sort of Achillea, and I definitely saw water hyacinth, which is an incredibly invasive species from South America that has caused huge problems for the fishing and shipping industries of Lake Victoria. I saw some plants that had yellow, honeysuckle-like flowers, and when you broke the stem there was milky latex. The fruits (non-edible), were like 2 oversized green cherries and evidently, kids use the dried out seeds to play jacks. Francis’s sisters were eager to tell me what they knew about the plants, and even more eager to hold Claire and play with her.
On our walk, I fielded many questions from Samuel about the United States and much more; he and Francis both made me feel at home and at ease by their outgoingness and interest in learning about us. As it turns out, Samuel is going to be training other health workers on phlebotomy, and asked if I would like to come and help teach! I’m looking forward to it, and although it has been a few years since I TA’ed stab lab, it will be good.
Once back, Francis’s guardian (his mother and father have both passed), had laid out quite a supper for us! There was chapatti, white rice (grown in Kenya), and fried rice, meat stew, lentils, bananas with peas, and passion fruit drink. It was delicious.
Monday, Lynne invited me to her sister’s home to meet her mom and brothers and sisters that were in town.

Lynne's sister's home and the next door neighbor. The houses are super tiny and there was no kitchen to speak of, but Lynne managed to make some amazing food despite this! There wasn't even a counter to chop the veg on.

It was a fun day of hanging out and once again, eating delicious food. Lynne prepared fish in a stew with ugali (maize dish used to scoop up the other foods), coleslaw and rice. Claire totally dug the ugali and stew!

Casey calls this picture "Claire in Africa." It was taken outside of Lynne's sister's home in Kisumu.

Tuesday—pretty boring. Laundry, washing and just chilling out at home.
Wednesday Casey, Claire, Lynne and I went to the Impala park that is across the street from our house. It was way more than I expected it to be, and at around $15 US per person, I would hope it was! They have lions, a leopard, impala, bushbok, African rhinos, guinea fowl, various monkeys, baboons, cheetahs, and zebras. The impala, some of the monkeys and the zebra were free roaming. We came at feeding time, which I thought was going to be cool, but turned out to be kinda boring. Lynne repeatedly mentioned how greedy the animals were to eat so much meat, and asked the man-with-meat-wheelbarrow if they ever cut any off to take home? He said no, they would get sacked if they did. Funny thing, Casey asked one of the caretakers at the park if there were too many impala, what they did with them? (As in, did they eat them?). The answer was the same. Casey also thought the guinea fowl looked fat (and tasty, perhaps?). I think both Lynne and Casey were seeing dinner at the impala park!
Today, Thursday, Claire and I went with Casey into the field. Whew, it was a long day, and I can see why Casey is tired at the end of his days. We traveled in a packed truck for around an hour out to Yala where the field office is, over pothole-ridden roads. We met up with Francis and Samuel there and hung out until we had transport to go to the health centers. Packing into yet another vehicle, we went out on bumpy, albeit in beautiful countryside, roads to the health centers. I’m glad I got to see Casey in action—the nurses seem excited about his project and how it will help close some gaps that were problematic for keeping mothers coming in to visits and on track with their meds amongst other features that will be built into the software, hopefully in the near future. When we finally got home (maybe I’m a bit tired tonight!), Kana and Yoshi cooked us Japanese curry, which was lovely, and we sat down for a family dinner with those two and Janet. I’m really enjoying our “family” here, and see a trip to Japan in the future! Janet wants to bring us to her home area as well, which sounds awesome. I think she lives amongst artists that do a lot of pottery, specifically making the little stoves that burn efficiently and don’t put smoke into the house.
Only in Africa----------------------->

Ok, that was a really long post. I’m exhausted, and going to curl up next to the already sleeping Claire. Good night!

oh, me

2010-06-25T10:32:00.002-04:00

Swimming was really fun yesterday, and I think we will go again this weekend and probably take some video of Claire. I got a floatie seat for her at the Nakumatt, as she was trying very hard to swim by herself yesterday, totally unaware of the danger she faced. I just got a text from Casey that he is on his way home; evidently there was a freak storm that knocked trees down and transport was running late. I'm looking forward to this weekend!

Ok, so today, Lynne and I went to Mega City for some groceries. We decided to just grab a tuk tuk instead of calling our usual drivers (Owino and Washington). (Small back story: yesterday, our usual driver, Owino, was far away but said he was coming. We decided to take other transport, though I felt bad about it, we didn't want to wait an hour.) Well, when we arrived, both drivers were there as well. One of the guys waved and came over to shake hands. I started saying "sorry about yesterday, we were waiting so long..." when over walked Owino to shake hands. Awk. Ward. I mistook Washington for Owino, and I felt like a total ass, not to mention that we had "cheated" on our usual drivers with a new one. I think Claire is sucking out my brain cells with the milk today! I think Casey would have been mortified at my faux pas if he was there. Oh, me. Anyway, I don't think it was really a big deal, but it was surely awkward, and Lynne and I laughed about it for a good several minutes.

Not much more to report, except that Lynne, Claire and I had a dance party in our room, which was very fun. I find it hard to get exercise these days, but dancing around is always good for that. Also, I looked into joining the gym, and it may be reasonable for Casey and I to do so and even have personal trainers to work us out. Having Lynne available actually makes going to the gym and even out on dates (!!) real possibilities.

We're starting at the begining...

2010-06-25T05:27:00.002-04:00

Hello everybody,

so I have gained back most of my strength, my appetite is still not quite up to normal, and these long days exhaust me a bit, but I'm getting around and am able to work which is nice.

so, the first day in the field was yesterday, and I started with the biggest facility that will be part of our pilot, the Yala Sub-District Hospital. I started off the day with a Community Health Worker (CHW) focus group where I went over the proposed software with them and got their feedback, I was able to add some specific time things in the software outline, like to send the reminder for the appointment to the CHW 3 days before the appointment itself is due, as well as to wait two days after the appointment date to see if the mother has shown up before sending another request to the CHW and that after that they should be transferred onto a list for the Ministry of Health HIV tracers to go follow up five days (three days for the reminder to get to the mother and for to her to prepare to go to the clinic and two days of potential showing up time) after that. The other big thing that came out of this was something that I had as sort of an afterthought feature but the CHWs seemed like they were very interested in. That would be the part where they could receive a request from someone in a household to have an HIV counselor to come to the house and help them disclose their HIV status to their partner, and the CHW could text in the persons info and it would generate a weekly report for the HIV counselors at the MOH site of people to go and follow up with. They thought that this would be very helpful. The more that I go and talk to people, the more I realize that this module is less about a reminding schedule (though that is still the cornerstone) and more about helping the MOH and CHW coordinate their activities for the improving of services for patients.

So the head of the HIV unit and the head nurse in charge of Maternal and Child Health at Yala both were very interested and enthusiastic about the project and said they would be willing to take on the extra workload, and in fact they were emphatic that they be included in the original 3 clinics selected for the Alpha phase of this project. So, needless to say, the day went very well indeed.

I also met some other people from SIPA who were here at the MVP field office, I was a bit surprised because I didn't know of them before this, but they were nice to talk to as I had quite some time to wait between arriving in the morning and when we would be going to Yala. And again, after Yala and lunch, I went back to the field offices and had about 2 or 3 hours to kill before the transport back to Kisumu. And of course, I had decided not to bring my laptop to work with me that day to keep my bag light, but regretted it when I was sitting here with work I could be doing, but no means to do it.

I got home around 6:30 and Katie, Claire and I decided to head to Mega City to go to Mon Ami for dinner. It was nice and we ate and hung out for a while and then headed back home around 10. I was suprised by how tired I was, by the time we got ready for bed and I laid down with Katie and Claire, I fell asleep almost immediately. It was crazy, I normally have a bit of a hard time falling asleep, but not then.

Today, it was off the the field again, with the goal of going to Sauri and Marenyo health centers. So of course, like all other days, I got to the office way too early, which was fine as I just hung out and chatted with people and got to catch up with Dickson and James, who are the programmer and head of Health respectively.

We left for Sauri and when I arrived, I found a very helpful in-charge and they of course wanted in on the alpha run as well, which works out well because they share quite a few patients with the Yala sub-Dist. Hospital. When meeting with the Maternal and Child Health Nurse (MCH), I found out that they have all the HIV+ pregnant women come in the same day once a month. This was something that we hadn't taken into account and so I'm very glad for talking to people first, as it's an easy fix, but not one I would have seen on my own. I got the information from them on their PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS) and antenatal procedures, as well as their organizational structure and their TB system and joined the car to Marenyo. When we arrived it seems as though the in-charge had a commitment and had left his MCH nurse in charge off all patients, I couldn't take up her time with questions and delay care for all the patients lined up so I decided it would be best to just come back there on Monday. Even with the Malaria delay and this one, i think that I will finish the initial field research portion well ahead of schedule, which is nice. So, I arrived back to the field HQ to find it pretty well deserted, and I've commandeered a desk and am writing up this and my notes for the day and waiting for the car to Kisumu which I think arrives at 4 on Fridays.

That's about it for today, tonight we are headed to Simba Club for their famous friday night buffet, Kaniko and Yoshi from the guest house and Francis from MVP are joining us and then tomorrow we have many competing offers from people wanting to hang out, and then it's off to the bar to watch Ghana vs US on a big screen for World Cup, I've been very conflicted, but i have to keep supporting my team, and besides, it's the first African World Cup so we need an African team in the finals, so Go Black Stars! But in a way this game is the best case for me as I'll be happy even if my team loses. Sunday i think that the plan is for us to go to the market to buy a charcoal grill and some cloth and then it's off to Kiboko Bay Resort to go swimming!!! Okay, that's it for now, time to get back to work!

goin' swimmin'

2010-06-24T02:28:00.002-04:00

Today, Casey went to Sauri, the Millennium Village where he will be doing his work this summer. Claire and I are going to go swimming with Lynn at the Kiboko Bay Resort--so exciting! Kiboko is Kiswhahili for hippopotamus, and near the resort is Hippo Point, where you can take a boat 15 minutes out to see pods?/families? of hippos. I've made a list of things we want to do while in Kisumu, and that is definitely on it. There is also an impala sanctuary right across the street that is on the list as well. I think Claire will enjoy seeing the animals.

Claire is currently enthralled by an empty toilet tissue roll; I don't know why we even buy her toys! Yesterday, we got her a baby keyboard that plays kid songs, but I think Lynn and Janet are more into it than Claire, though she does like to dance to the songs.

The other day, Casey, Claire and I went to a restaurant in town called Green Gardens, where we met a Kisumu local from the Sikh community who invited us to be his guests at the Simba Club on Friday night. I think Kanako and Yoshi will come with us--it's sure to be a fun time!

It's pretty cool to be in Africa while the World Cup is going on--and USA won last night! I think Casey will feel conflicted, as USA and Ghana are up against each other on the 26th. We will have to find a big screen to watch the game on :)

Yesterday, Lynn and I had a ladies day and got pedicures. They were 500 shillings, which is about $6. Evidently, a full body massage can be had for 1000 shillings for one hour!! We will definitely be making that happen soon.

Time to feed Claire again...I really wish she would eat some food, but she is really not very interested. Let's hope that changes soon, as mtoto (baby) is wearing this mama out!

Malaria is over!

2010-06-23T09:26:00.002-04:00

Hello everybody,

Well, I have recovered. I'm at like 90% full power now after spending the last few days doing varying degrees of nothing. Today was the most nothing I have done and I pretty much just ate breakfast and lunch. I have also been getting together all the stuff that I'll need to be gathering tomorrow when i head out to the field. I know I keep saying that, but this time I'm 100% sure it's going to happen. I really appreciate Katie taking such good care of me and all the love Claire gave me while I was sick, it really helped me feel better. Well that's about it for today, nothing really new to report, but tomorrow should be really cool, i'll try to post as soon as I'm home.

oh, malaria...

2010-06-21T05:31:00.002-04:00

The last 24 hours have been much easier for me than for Casey, and I'm hoping that the malarone will kick in and drive the malaria out very quickly so he will feel better. Claire finally went down for a nap after much dinking around, and I have had a little time to myself, which is very nice. However, as there is much to do and it is difficult to do with Claire getting into everything, I will make this a short post. We made chili last night--it turned out very nice, and we made some cornbread from a recipe out of my head that turned out quite tasty. I'm not used to being the one to direct traffic in the kitchen (usually a Casey role), but as he was feverish and generally feeling craptastic, I happily did what was needed.

Needless to say, Casey's first Father's Day wasn't exactly celebratory, but we will have to make up for it when he is feeling better.

Yesterday, I ventured to the Mega City for some groceries, and I admit to being a little scared. I'm still learning so much about the culture and the area, and who I should trust/not trust. So far, so good, and I even negotiated for my tuk-tuk rides :)

Ok, off to do some wash and fix lunch--let's hope Claire stays asleep just a bit longer!

Meetings- Check! Field here I come!

2010-06-18T08:45:00.005-04:00

So Thursday, 6/17, I went into the MVP offices here in Kisumu, I really wish I had my camera as the tuk tuk driver was wearing a really really inaapropriate t-shirt that I doubt he even knew the meaning of, it said "My safe word is DONKEY PUNCH"... I don't really know what to say other than wow. Anyhow, I arrived and sat down with MVP's programming team of Dixon and Moses. We ran through what I wanted to do and then we worked through the proposed system, they had some really good insights on aspects of the program and were pretty stoked on the whole thing. They pointed out a way around one of the things that was worrying me the most, what happens if the pregnant woman isn't already registered in Childcount? i was worried about having the medical center staff needing to go back through and register women who weren't already in the system, this had the added difficulty of needing to assign the appropriate CHW to the mothers record as well. Dixon and Moses pointed out that there is a CHW in each medical center already, so we can have them register any mother who is not already in the system before they see the doctor for their appointment. Problem solved.

And after a very nice tea break courtesy of Katie we're back.

They also said that they would have time to work on the coding themselves. This was fantastic news as before we had thought that they were too busy to do it. They had said that they would rather do it themselves since I was here and we could communicate more easily. So, we are set on the programming side, and the draft plan for the software is looking doable for the programmers.

After I got home, we relaxed a bit and then we prepared Saag Paneer with the local kales, it turned out nice and we all ate well. Our hosts, Janet and Lynn both enjoyed it as well, I was worried as it was pretty different than the food they are used to, but so far all the cooking has gone over well. The night before i made Guacamole and tonight We are making roasted chicken, tomorrow Thai curry and Sunday Chili and cornbread. Yum! I'm having fun cooking while I am around earlier in the evening.

Today I went in to the offices to meet with Dr. James Wariero who is the head of health here and Dr Shemsanga who is going to be the head of Health in Tanzenia, I went over the whole plan, and after talking about the preliminary research that I wanted to do, James went over the roadblocks they had come up against when trying to come up with a program in the past. As I listened I got excited because I thought that our program addressed many of those. I pitched our sketched out plan and James was satisfied and is looking forward to the program going forward.It looks like on Monday I'm on target for the beginning of fieldwork! Okay, that's all for now, I'm watching the US losing in the World Cup and Claire hurt herself :(

more tomorrow!

Settling into Kisumu

2010-06-18T08:39:00.001-04:00

6.17.2010
It’s been a couple of days since I wrote a blog, mostly because we have been getting adjusted in Kisumu. My initial reaction to arriving at our guest house (for about 30 minutes) was disappointment. I had it in mind that we would have more privacy and not be in such a shared situation. Then, after some processing I realized that this is actually the best possible place for our family. Our housemates are very nice—2 of them are researchers from Japan who have been here since April and will be staying through until December. There is another woman who lives in the apartment out back though I can’t recall her name as we just met last night, and there are two caretakers, Janet in the daytime and Lynn at night.
6.18.2010
We have been cooking dinners together as a “family,” and it has been really nice! It turns out to be a very nice thing to have community—we are quite happy. I’ve made a couple of trips to the shopping center called Mega City, and it does live up to its name. It makes Super Wal-Mart look like a 7-11. There is pretty much everything one might need, though the quality and selection is still better in the States for the most part. I’m happy we have it so close by though, and it is proving to be very inexpensive to live here, and would be more so if things were within reasonable walking distance. I think Kisumu proper is about a 15 minute walk, but the Mega City is 2-3K away, and with Claire and groceries it would be a tough walk.
We have hired Lynn to be my helper, which has been great! She is going to help me 4 days a week with anything I might need, and I am so grateful. When we go to the Jubilee market (gigantic farmer’s market), they see a mzunga (white woman), and the price automatically goes up. So, Lynn is helping me negotiate this, and hopefully by the time we leave I will be able to negotiate as well.
I did laundry by hand for the first time yesterday alongside of Lynn, and I have a new appreciation for what goes into this task. I no longer will call a piece of clothes dirty unless it truly is!
On Sunday, Lynn and I will go to the Sunday market and buy some cloth for Casey, Claire and I to have some clothes made. Casey starts his first full day of work on Monday, although he has had meetings this week in both Nairobi and Kisumu.
I think it is time for tea, so I am going to go fix us some—bye for now!

Nairobi--the end of our visit

2010-06-16T11:35:00.000-04:00

6.14.2010
Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the inappropriately named “Village Market” to shop and find internet access. It was less of a village market and more of a rich people mall complete with food court and even an Apple resaler. We had lunch and walked around, only buying some mangoes, passion fruit and some fresh juices to bring back to our guest house. I was able to talk to my mom through Skype on my phone through the wireless internet (how cool is that?!), and it made me really appreciate the easy internet access I am accustomed to in NY. Strangely, however, I also appreciate the lack of constant internet access. It feels nice to be unplugged. Things move at a more leisurely pace, and there is much time for reading and contemplating.
We got our baggage as well, and I was able to wash my hair and take most of a shower before the electricity went out in the whole compound. It came back on after an hour or so in time for dinner.
Ohhhh, I must speak of last night’s dinner. We asked Newton what was his favorite Kenyan dish, and if he could prepare it for us, which he seemed delighted to do. There were several dishes that all came together nicely: a maize/bean dish that you use to scoop up the sliced tomatoes with local hot peppers (yum!) and onions, grilled steak marinated with garlic and ginger, and quite literally the tastiest greens I have ever eaten. He sliced the greens (which were from the arrowroot plant) incredibly thinly and they were flavored quite nicely. There were also two kinds of arrowroot roots that he had boiled. One was purple-ish and the other was white. Claire LOVED the arrowroot, and as I had her in the ergo while we were eating, she helped herself from my plate, covering both of us in arrowroot bits. She is imitating us more and more each day (kind of scary!), and decided to feed me some of the arrowroot she was enjoying. It was adorable.
Claire’s food diary: pineapple, watermelon, arrowroot root.
While we were having coffee after our meal (which I am restricting myself from as it is giving me insomnia), James, one of the owners and husband to Elsbet, came in and we invited him to have dinner with us. It was disheartening to hear that often, Westerners were afraid to eat even the basic rice/potato dishes and terrified of the Kenyan food when they visited. Food is so intimately involved in most every culture, to not experience the food is to miss out on a whole lot.
Our stay in Nairobi is coming to an end, and we fly out to Kisumu tomorrow (Tuesday). We will be staying in a fully furnished place with wifi and satellite tv, which Casey negotiated for an excellent rate. I’m looking forward to it, though I will miss the attention and care that we have received while staying here.

Tuk Tuk in Paradise

2010-06-16T11:09:00.004-04:00

6/14/10

Today I met with some folks who are going to be partners on the project, Lydia from UNAIDS and Richard from Millennium village project, I went through the basics of how the project will unfold over the next few months, they had some good insights on how to make the project run more smoothly and I’m looking forward to getting their input moving forward. I’ll have two more meetings with folks tomorrow, the person in charge of the CHWs and Maurice who will be my main point of contact here. So tomorrow, I hope we’ll figure out where exactly we’re heading after we get into Kisumu tomorrow. That would be good, as of now, we would just have to show up and hope for the best.

I was reading The End of Poverty by Paul Pollak which is all about his work in poverty alleviation over the years and he was talking about some pretty basic things that are the basis for his work, and they apply well here too. Some are obvious, like “Go where the problem is”, I certainly agree with this, if you haven’t seen it, how can you solve it? The second is to find the people who are affected by the problem, and listen to what they have to say, they have the benefit of experience and make sure that you are actually listening. This is the basis of what I’ll be doing the first few weeks here. I’m making a list of what I would like to do and am going to be having meetings on Thursday and Friday and will be putting together a work plan based on the info that I get. Then on Monday the goal is to begin the field work.
6/15
Hmmm, looking back it wasn’t all that exciting. I had meetings all day until it was time to go to the airport. We went to the airport and flew to Kisumu, I love flights out of small airports where things are mellow, and we flew with a ton of water and got through security within a few minutes. We flew into the smallest airport I have ever seen, I have had apartments bigger than the Kisumu airport, but it also has more character than most I have ever seen.

Josephine at Millennium Development Goals set up a ride from the airport for us and found us a wonderful guest house. Lynn and Linda are taking wonderful care of us here, and we have internet now if anyone would like to Skype.
6/16/10
Lynn took us around town today and I finally got to go to a market here! We took a tuk tuk to the Jubilee market. A tuk tuk is a motorcycle type thing, it has three wheels and is a taxi which can fit three people. It is awesome and Claire loves it too.

So at the Jubilee market we went to buy produce and it was amazing, we bought a TON! Avocado salad tonight! And then I’m making Saag Paneer out of local greens. We also found Claire a woven bassinet there. After that we went to Nakumatt which is maybe the biggest store I have ever been in. We were really glad that we got the woven bassinet rather than a crib though as they started at $200, though they were very nice. We got even more groceries and will be feasting for our time here I think, oh and we got Claire a potty too. Okay, well Katie has been watching Claire as I have been writing so I should go let her have a break. Oh and our housemates are 2 Japanese researchers, everyone loves Claire and it’s been nice to start to have a little community. Okay, more tomorrow!

Getting here is half the fun

2010-06-13T07:18:00.002-04:00

Blog.
6/13/10
Well, we have arrived in Kenya, as the matching t-shirts of the missionaries on the plane said “48 hours, no shower” which was sort of true, I don’t think that baby wipes and clean clothes in the airport in France really count. The trip was pretty straightforward, though it took on the odd character that we flew through 2 nights, and I just can’t sleep on planes, so that made the days a bit more interesting. When we arrived in Paris, we decided that with no sleep and only a few hours to see Paris, that our best option was to check out the Louvre and then head back to the airport, which we accomplished. The Louvre was really cool, not just for the amazing collection of art, but for the amazing museum itself, I wish I knew more about it, but if you are interested I’m sure Wikipedia can tell you stuff. Claire tried a bunch of new foods, I think that Katie wrote all about it, but she really like the raspberry gelato. Our flight to Kenya was equally non-mentionable, though we were treated to K’naan and Shakira’s World Cup songs on a loop. Katie told me that between that and the in the 80s temperature inside the plane that it felt as though she was being tortured. It was fun in the airport though to hear all the cheering going on in the airport.
We arrived in the airport and got through passport control eventually. Someone ought to tell people that you can just get visas in advance, there were maybe 30 people spread out between every line (except Kenyan & East African citizens where we got to be since we had visas) who were all lined up with paperwork and cash. The whole transfer of baggage between Air France and Kenyan Airways hadn’t happened and our bags were still in Paris, but they are supposed to be coming today.
We arrived at Ridgeville Garden Guest House on and are very happy with it; the people are super friendly and helpful. There is a you man named Newton who is the one who pretty much takes care of everything here, he cooks, makes sure all is well with us, overall a great place. Very recommended for people looking for a reasonably priced place to stay in Nairobi, I only wish that they had internet here, but they have only been in business for 6 months, so maybe when they have a steady stream of visitors, they will install it. That and a lack of overhead fans, which seems strange to me as they also don’t have air conditioning. This isn’t a problem right now of course as it is cool and perfectly comfortable right now, but might not be so good if Nairobi gets hot.
Other than that, we are headed out to the Mzungu mall to find Katie a skirt and are going to the internet café soon after so I can e-mail my work contacts to give them the new cell phone numbers. Katie’s is up and running now and I will have mine going as soon as the bag with the phone in it gets delivered. I asked Newton what his favorite Kenyan dish is, and then asked if he could make that for us for dinner. So I’m pretty stoked about that. Okay, well that’s about it for now, it’s been a Oh, I think that is the cab now. Bye people!

From Katie!

2010-06-13T07:14:00.000-04:00

6.12.2010
After 2 days, we have arrived in Kenya. I just woke up from a blissful sleep in our guest room in Nairobi, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Our trip was smooth, with the only hiccup being that our luggage was left in Paris and should be arriving tomorrow. Thankfully, we had packed an extra change of clothes, extra diapers (mostly because Claire has been doing so awesome at pottying in the toilet/sink on this trip that we’ve hardly used the diapers!!), and our necessaries.
Our first flight from NYC to Paris was great, as they sat us in a bulkhead and there was this cool “floating” bassinet that attached to the wall for Claire to sleep/play in. It is nice to be able to put her down when she sleeps, or contain her when she gets extra squirrely. Paris was beautiful! We decided to leave the airport after finding a place to stow our carry-ons and getting train tickets. We decided to visit the Louvre, which proved to be a good choice, as the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees were there as well, along with some decidedly tourist-focused restaurants (but we didn’t give a crap as we were just hungry!). The museum was awesome—we saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and much more, including some of the biggest tapestries and paintings I have EVER seen! After grabbing some gelato (Claire had her first taste and loved it, of course!), and a couple of souvenirs, we headed back on the crowded metro train to the airport. Casey told me that it is incredibly rude to look people in the eye on the metro, but Claire being the outgoing child she is made it very hard, as she kept wanting to touch and interact with people!
I was so grateful for Casey and his French speaking and superior navigating-of-a-foreign-place abilities. Oh, and side note, I ate some of the most delicious blue cheese that I have ever had, along with some super yummy salamis and baguette at lunch.
So, back in the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Once we were at our gate, we took turns taking sponge baths and changing into our spare clothes. When I came back from my “bath,” Claire was crawling around and snuggling up with some Kenyans who were taking naps on the floor. Casey was with her, of course, and the people were super nice (they had been traveling back from Chile doing some sort of munitions negotiations that I didn’t quite understand). I am learning that Claire is a very outgoing and joyful child who makes friends very easily! She definitely reminds me of her dad (can you say Casey Jr.?)!!
We boarded the flight, which was literally 85 degrees inside the cabin, and squeezed into our seats. It was a bit touch and go for a minute, with the never-ending loop of K’Naan’s “Waving Flag” and the Shakira “This is Africa” songs (in honor of the World Cup), along with the sauna-like conditions made more hot by the fact that Claire was sleeping in the Ergo carrier strapped onto me. The air conditioning eventually came on once we were moving and my panic level moved out of the orange range with the assistance of Casey distracting me and some non-focused awareness (thank you childbirth education class!).
Once we arrived and got through customs, we got some cash and a taxi to our guest house, with a side trip into the heart of Nairobi to buy an African cell phone and a sim card for Casey’s phone. I watched all sorts of Nairobi flavor go by my window as I waited for Casey, and it reminded me a lot of Zimbabwe…something about the smells, the diesel and woodfire and people, and the coolness of the air (it was actually about 60 degrees when we arrived). We finally arrived at our lodging, which is a Christian bed-and-breakfast/retreat center that was recommended by the UNICEF-Kenya folks. This place is great! Newton, the fresh-faced (20 yrs and 3 months old) young man who got us settled, has been taking great care of us, and it is truly a relief to be in a place that feels homey and personal. Since we arrived so early, we were treated to a breakfast cooked by none other than Newton in his chef shirt. The spread included ghetto mochas (as Casey called them—basically, powdered drinking chocolate, powdered coffee, and hot milk/water), eggs, ham and bread, fruit, corn flakes, and these Kenyan pastries made from bean flour (I forget the name). It was “ultra-brunch.” To make our dining experience complete, Newton put on the CD player, which happened to be an American contemporary praise CD. It was a unique moment for us all, and I was surprised to learn that Casey knew the words to some of the songs!
That brings us up to date. I’m sitting in the huge bed (2 singles pushed together to make a King), while Claire and Casey slumber peacefully next to me.
6.13.2010
Kenya Day 2: I think we are on local time now, though last night was a bit rough for me. I woke up several times with huge adrenaline rushes, likely due to my body readjusting hormonally. Claire is also teething, and was nursing much of the night, her little head all sweaty and warm. She is taking her morning nap right now, and in an hour we are headed to a mall with Isaac, the booking agent for this property (Ridgeville Gardens Guest House).
Remember the ghetto mochas I spoke about before? I thought they tasted a little funny, but I didn’t think too much of it. As it turns out, the drinking chocolate had strawberry flavoring—that explained it for sure. Tonight, Newton is going to make us Kenyan food—we are very excited! I believe we are going to have a change in soundtrack as well , as Newton said he would bring over an African music CD to play. Interestingly, he has never heard “Waving Flag” (though we obviously heard it more than we ever thought we wanted to on our Kenya Airways trip), so we are going to have a little musical exchange.
As for our adventurous daughter, Claire has tried many new foods on this trip, and seems to be handling them just fine, no reactions. She has tried oranges, strawberry jam (to disguise her malaria medicine), papaya, baguette, and raspberry and mango gelatos. She still only has 1 itty bitty tooth, but I’m pretty sure another one will erupt soon. I’m continually impressed by her potty communication on this trip. We’ve used only a handful of diapers, and she seems to be holding her potties until we can get her to a place to go. It’s still mostly intuitive on the signaling, but she does let us know in other ways as well, like squeezing her legs together when in the carrier, popping off while breastfeeding, grunting (before a poop), and being generally restless and twisting out of our arms.
I’m hoping to find a longer skirt before we head to Kisumu, and since our luggage ought to be here soon, I won’t feel too sad about losing one of Claire’s new pink skull-and-crossbones shoes, as there is another pair of shoes in our baggage. Honestly, I’m most excited to get to wash my hair, which is so oily that it barely stays in a ponytail. Those of you who know me know that I have a fairly high tolerance for unwashed hair, but this is testing even my limits! Vanity aside, I am glad to be in a little enclave of peacefulness while we start to adjust.
The two Swahili words I know now are “Jambo,” which is a general greeting used all day, and “Asante,” which means thank you. I’m planning to study the Swahili lessons Zak sent me (thank you brother!!), but I am trying to absorb things that I hear and read a little at a time as well. English is the official language, but Swahili is the national language. I’m not quite sure what the difference is, but it seems like speaking in Swahili as much as is possible is a very good thing to try and do to bridge the cultural gaps.

4 days to go!

2010-06-06T16:49:00.003-04:00

It's hard to believe that we leave in 4 short days, but I actually feel semi-ready. Claire and I have gotten 5 out of 6 of our vaccinations, and my yellow fever is set up for Wednesday. We've been working steadily to prepare our place for the subletter, order necessaries from Amazon, shop for other things, and get all of our visas/vaccinations/general paperwork finished. It's a bit amazing that we've managed all of this, but we are a good team, which bodes well for our upcoming adventures.

Thursday night we will fly from JFK in NY to Paris, which should be a fun 12 hour layover :) then off to Nairobi. We should touch down in Nairobi on Saturday morning, then at some point in the next couple of days, make our way to Kisumu where we will be spending the next nearly 3 months. Near Kisumu is one of the Millennium Villages, which is why we will be stationed there. From the travel guides I've read, there is a rain forest slightly north of us (I believe the last remaining one in Eastern Africa), and we will be right on the shores of Lake Victoria, which is surrounded by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Everyone I have talked with says that Kisumu is very hot and a highly malarial region, but we will be taking many precautions to avoid malaria, and will just have to manage the heat (I'm hoping for at least a fan in our place!).

I don't know what sort of internet availability we will have, but we will have African cell phones and can always call for next to nothing via skype (pending internet access, of course), and emails are always a great way to keep in touch. This trip will be much different from my first time in Africa in 2002, but I'm definitely looking forward to the adventure, making some new friends, and being immersed in a totally different culture for a few months.