Scientific Field Work in Rural Kenya!

Hello everyone!

I have spent a lot of this month going back and forth to our rural clinic site about 3+ hours away from Kisumu. The last time I went, I traveled with my boss, Ana-Claire. We spent two days training the team and auditing their work from the past month. We have to make sure they are filling out all the forms and databases correctly for the clinical trial, as the process and regulations for human clinical trials are very strict.

The main family home

This time, instead of staying in a rented room or eco lodge, we actually stayed on AC's husband's family compound. Her husband's family is from the area, and they still have a property with 5-6 traditional homes. The homestead is located on Rusinga Island, and is a walled/fenced compound with a main driveway through the property. On either side are small, 2-3 room homes with the driveway ending at the "main" house where we stayed.

There are cows, goats, chickens, dogs and cats roaming everywhere, and there is a small orchard and garden that AC and her husband started a couple years ago. If you walk to the back of the property and up a small hill, you can see the lake and the view of the rolling hills and mountains across the shore.

The pit toilet "with decor"

There is no running water or electricity. The bathroom is a pit-toilet, but as AC tried to describe it, "It's a nice pit toilet! It's a pit-toilet with ambiance and decor!"....I'm not sure I am enough of an expert/connoisseur of pit toilets to fairly judge, but it seemed to have decent ventilation and was really clean - and it had a seat!

The night we stayed there we cooked a dinner of lentils and rice on a camping stove hooked up to a propane tank, lit the room with a kerosene lamp, and bathed in warmed up lake water. The bathing area was actually a large cylindrical water tank that had the top cut off. A door had been made, and the whole thing was on a slab of cement. You use a bucket of hot water and a bucket of cool water, and mix to your liking in a pitcher and wash up! It was really nice having an open air "shower" under the stars!

The bathing area...with cows in the background :P

While we were at the compound, we had a lot of visitors from AC's extended family. An older uncle came by to grab some dinner, a grandmother was sick and AC made a house call to try to help. People brought her chest x-rays to have her look at, and we made trips to the hospital, pharmacy and store to try to get everyone settled before we left. At the end of the stay I asked her if visits were always that dramatic and busy, and she said that this was one of the easier trips she has experienced!

I really enjoyed the stay - it was fun to see what life is like in a typical home that is totally off the grid. The house itself was fine (4 walls, a bed, mosquito nets) and the rest was just like camping :) Also, we caught wind that one of the guard dogs had just had puppies, so I got a good dose of adorable fuzzy puppies on our last day! They were all hiding in an abandoned house, and the pile of fur and whimpering was SO cute.

Baby puppies!!

The field hospital where we see our patients is a 45 minute drive from Mbita town, which is 20 minutes from AC's house. It is in a small village called Sindo, and the whole area is pretty rustic. The electricity is always in and out, and on this visit even the running water was out, which made the indoor bathroom options non-functional. Also, it had been raining, so all the mud driveways were covered in about 6 inches of water.

The mountains and scenery at the hospital are great

Flooded hospital driveway

While I was wandering the hospital grounds, I was chased by a couple of kids. The younger of the two was a little boy who spoke no English, but he chased me around trying to talk to me even though I kept responding in English. His sister was a bit older and pretty shy. I had my huge DSLR camera with me, so I took their picture and showed them the image of themselves on the back screen - they thought it was SO cool. I spent about 15 minutes showing them how to take pictures of each other, and the older girl captured the hilarious shot below of her brother basically trying to rip the camera out of her hands while I try to protect the heavy, expensive camera from his little fingers.

They chased me through the hospital

Teaching the kids how to take photos

Overall we had a really productive trip and were able to sort out a lot of the issues our rural team was having. It's difficult trying to manage a team of 4 people doing complicated things over the phone, so site visits and more week long trips are now in the works to try to support the field team a little more effectively. I don't mind, because I like going out to the middle of nowhere and the change of pace to the really small town!

Hospitals here come with livestock

AC gazing at the rainbow on our drive home

Ana-Claire returned to Kisumu with me and stayed at my apartment. We brought back a huge liquid nitrogen tank that we borrowed from another study, but it was empty and we didn't have access to the lab where it belongs, so it lived for a number of days in my living room. AC was surprised with how comfortable I was keeping huge tanks and patient specimens in my house, but honestly it's not the first time I've had to stockpile supplies at home (in Peru I had boxes of tubes and gloves under my bed!).

This is how we transport chickens? Tied
to the handlebars of a motorbike?!

Temporary living room decor addition

I really love being able to go out into the field and do something different every day here. It's hard work and really long days, and there are a ton of challenges (the road is washed out, there are no supplies when we need them, electricity/internet/cell network/water is out,  patients don't show up, etc), but I still think its a lot of fun so far!!