Hippo tours!! :)

Nile perch and greens

A few weeks ago one of my friends called me on a random Sunday and asked if I wanted to go out to a spot on the lakeshore for a fish lunch and boat ride with some friends.  There were 10 of us, and we had a huge lunch of Nile perch and tilapia that were fresh from the lake, cooked or fried right next to us, and smothered in greens. Here they serve everything ugali (oo-gall-ee). Ugali is made of maize flour, and it has the consistency of a wet, sticky, dense cornbread and tastes like absolutely nothing.     The whole meal was eaten with our fingers: you take a hunk of ugali, roll it into a ball, then dig into the whole steaming fish covered in greens and eat it all together with your hands.

Beer and fish :)

That white mountain is ugali!

It was an awesome meal! Heavy carbs, salty greens, tasty fish, and a cold beer all made for a nice brunch by the lake. After that we negotiated a boat ride, but I didn’t know we were planning on going to see hippos and I didn’t bring my camera!!  Total rookie mistake! But we had a lovely hour-long boat ride and saw a few hippos hiding under water but coming up to breathe, a lot of birds, and a fair amount of crazy storm clouds coming across the lake. The water was calm for our 30 minute trip away from our starting point, but when we turned around to come home, the wind picked up pretty noticeably, and for the last 15 minutes we were all hugging our bags, bundled in raincoats, and fighting some whipping waves in our wooden motor canoe! At the end most of us were a bit soggy with lakewater (ew), but it was really nice to be out on the lake, and I love a good storm!

The crew :)

The storm!

I was excited when one of my neighbors stopped by and invited me to go on another hippo boat ride - this one was planned for sunrise, which is when the hippos are still active from their nocturnal foraging :) I was glad to have another excuse to go, but this time I was ready to bring my big camera! We woke up super early and 3 of my neighbors and I climbed onto motorbike taxis and headed to the launching point, appropriately named Hippo Point.

Rainbow over the Yacht Club

Our trusty vessel

It was a gorgeous sunrise, and from the boat launch I could hear the hippos grunting! We didn't have to go very far to find them....they were about 100 yards away from us just standing in the shallow water! The first scene we arrived to was a male "taking care of" his harem of ladies. He must have been feeling pretty spunky, because we observed the splashing and other activities associated with his morning duties for quite some time...being the biologist that I am, I found it pretty interesting and entertaining (it's like watching the Discovery Channel IN PERSON!!), but the ladies I was with thought it was a bit icky.

Male hippo taking care of his ladies at sunrise

After a while, he must have begun to tire, and everyone went their separate ways. We saw some baby hippos with their moms and lots of hippos just hanging out in the shallow water staring at us. A few times when we ventured a bit too close for their liking they opened their mouths in a HUGE yawn of a warning: apparently opening their mouth and showing their teeth is a sign to back off! It was pretty effective - their tusks are scary! And if you didn't know it already, hippos kill more people in Africa every year than lions or other predators, so their warnings aren't to be taken too lightly!

Apparently this is a "back off" warning

I was mesmerized by the hippos, I think they are an adorable kind of ugly, and they were just floating around, blowing water into the air as they surfaced, and splashing around with each other. The ladies eventually convinced me to peel myself away from them, and we motored around the shore of the lake learning about the birds and taking in the scenery for a while. When we turned around to make our way back to our launch point, I asked if we could swing back by the hippos.

Time for a teeth cleaning?

I was really glad we did, because when we got back there were two hippos gently snuggling in the sunshine! One hippo had rested his giant head on the back of another hippo and vice versa! I thought it was too cute...hippos cuddling after a frisky morning :)

Overall, in under an hour we saw countless birds and about 10 hippos, all for the bargain price of about $5 a person. I had a great time, and am still amazed that Lake Victoria is about a half mile from my doorstep and contains all these crazy creatures!

The rest of my hippo pictures are here: https://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/9936

Hippos cuddling :)

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!!

Apartment upgrade!! Balconies and a real kitchen!

Bedrooms!

Well, I loved my last apartment....but one of my neighbors on the second floor was moving out, so I spontaneously decided to upgrade!! I am now in a slightly bigger, but still 2-bedroom apartment on the other end of our 6-unit building :)

Now I have a double bed and a queen bed, a kitchen with a TON of counter space, two balconies (one of which overlooks Lake Victoria and my pool :) and generally a bit more room!

Bathroom

I love the new place! Breakfasts and sunset watching on the balcony are amazing, the breeze blowing through the open doors makes the heat a lot more tolerable, and being on the second floor makes me generally feel safer.

I have a lot more room for visitors now, so who's coming??

Kitchen/dining area

The bigger kitchen :)

Kitchen and living room

The living room

My view!! :)

The balcony

My little herb garden!

Halloween and other silliness :)

Halloween weekend was a fun few days! On Saturday afternoon, a bunch of mzungus from a couple hours away all came to Kisumu to challenge our crew to an ultimate frisbee game! I have never played in an actual game before, but I had been going to a couple practices here when I had time, and it seemed like a good time.

Ultimate frisbee

We had a good 30+ people that all met up near down town on the main soccer field in a huge park. We picked teams loosely based on home vs. away challenger, but there were a few less away kids, so I played on their team. I watched the first few plays and decided to jump in withot any real knowledge of the game, but the basic premise is like soccer, where you pass the frisbee and try to make a goal, but the goal area is like a football endzone.

I had no idea how difficult the game was, and was not expecting so much sprinting! The problem was, I was trying to defend against Kenyans most of the time, and I am just not in great enough shape to chase down and beat most of them :P But either way it was a lot of fun, and I even scored a few points!!

Oreo milkshake

After the game, a few of us went out for dinner, and I had the most amazing milkshake, which I was told is quite a rarity. I chose and Oreo one, and it was fantastic and just what I needed after all that running in the heat!

After frisbee, milkshakes and pizza (could there be a more American way to spend a Saturday in sub-Saharan Africa?!) we all went our separate ways to prepare for the Halloween Party! One of the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) had organized a party at a local hotel by their pool deck. Since I had been busy at work all week, I didn't come up with the most elaborate costume...but I decided to be the Greek god(dess) of wine :) A bedsheet, a few safety pins, some jewelry, and a 3 liter box of red wine, and I was dressed and ready!

People really had some pretty cool costumes considering there isn't a Target/Wal-Mart/Mall/Internet to buy any real Halloween supplies! One of my friends went as Bacchus, there were punk rockers, a pirate, a Chaquita banana lady, 4 realistic Ghostbusters, 3 guys who went as Shark-nado which was pretty hilarious, and a lot of African themed costumes (Masai warriors, taxi drivers, local market women with greens and babies, etc). It was a lot of fun, the DJ was pretty good, and it was a nice night to be outside. There was a costume contest, and I believe Shark-nado took home the grand prize

Eventually, a few rowdy individuals decided the pool was just too tempting, and several people jumped in fully clothed. That started a pretty dangerous trend, because once a few had gone in, they decided everyone should go in, and people started getting thrown in left and right. Knowing it was inevitable, I had the foresight to hide my phone/clutch behind the bar, and when my turn came I was prepared...I tried to put up a fight, but eventually I was picked up by my arms and legs and tossed in by some friends.

Sharknado

The retaliation was nuts, and almost everyone went int he pool, prepared or not. A LOT of people lost phones and keys to the water! After swimming around in the warm pool under the stars for a while, getting out and sitting in the cold wasn't too appealing. Most people headed home after their dunkings, and I was no exception. I rode home with my landlord and neighbors who were all at the party, and we got quick showers and went out dancing. Before I knew it, it was 6am and we left as the sun was coming up! My landlord knew of a place to get food, so we stopped at a roadside shack and had chapati (flat bread) and eggs. It was fun to watch the sunrise on the side of the road

It was a fun weekend, but I was wiped out on Sunday - I spent most of the day sleeping, and the afternoon recovering by a pool with some friends drinking Coke and eating greasy fries (totally helps!).

Lots more pictures here: https://kristynspictures.shutterfly.com/9853

Housewarming week!

This was a really busy week for me. My boss wanted to launch our other two studies, so I spent the first half of the week running around trying to coordinate people and help them handle trying to run 3 separate studies at one time! Mostly my days are filled with sorting out e-mails, gathering supplies, helping organize patient files and data, and going to meetings. Sometimes it's interrupted with fun stuff - I did get to attend a surprise birthday party for the Director of the Clinic we work with :)

My team at a surprise party!

Just for the record, I'll tell you a little bit about our 3 projects:

1) "SToP Crypto" (Strategies to Prevent Cryptococcal Infections): this study is a clinical trial for HIV patients with early cryptococcal infections. Cryptococcus is a fungus that usually only infects people with suppressed immune systems. In HIV patients, cryptococcus can lead to serious brain infections, and we are working on comparing the standard treatment (fluconazole) to a combination of fluconazole and flucytozine.

2) SToP Crypto Environmental Sub-Study: this project involves patients from the clinical trial. If patients have cryptococcus growing in them, we ask for them to allow us to go to their homes and take samples. I'm really excited for this one, because it means I get to go out to rural villages and homestead and go into people homes and take samples of their dust, foliage, and other things around their house to see if we can get more information about where the fungus may be coming from in their environment.

Locks don't matter much to crowbars

3) THINK2 (The HIV Neurology In Kenya Study 2): this is a cool project looking at people with HIV associated cognitive defects and how they affect their social and economic welfare. My team will recruit 200 patients and perform neurological and psychological exams on them and then follow them for 2 years to assess if HIV infection is affecting their brains. We will be interested in seeing if we can observe socio-economic impacts from the HIV associated dementia and impairment many patients encounter.

Ana-Claire was supposed to arrive on Thursday to watch the team do a walk through of the procedures for the THINK2 study, but when I arrived to the office on Thursday morning I discovered that our office had been robbed. The thieves pried the locks off our outside doors and took all the cups and plates from out little kitchen. It appeared that they even had time to find all our file cabinet keys, unlock all the cabinets and rummage through them. 

The eggplant had a nose :P

Luckily, they were interrupted at this point (it's still unclear if the security guard caught the burglars or if it was just the neighbors who started shouting), but all of our computers, electronics and valuable items were still there!!!

We were REALLY lucky, but AC was a little shaken, so we moved ALL our expensive or difficult-to-attain scientific supplies to the main hospital to be kept under more locks-and-keys. It tool us most of the day on Thursday to get everything sorted out and moved, and to hire a new security company.

The rest of the week was just busy preparation for the launch next week, but I had planned some fun weekend activities! I invited about 50 people over to my house on Saturday afternoon for a Pool Party/BBQ/Housewarming party! I ran around throughout the week collecting food and supplies, but by Saturday had made burgers, hot dogs, 2 chickens, veggie kebabs, pasta salad, potatoes, and a peanut butter-banana-chocolate cake :) Oh and a lot of sangria :P

It turned out to be a great day, and a TON of people showed up and brought a bunch of great food! We lounged in the pool, ate a lot, played frisbee and water polo, and generally had a great day. The rain held off until almost dark, and when it finally moved in we hung out on the porch of my landlords house until it passed. 

Eventually, people packed up and went home, but we all agreed to meet up at the rooftop bar named The Duke of Breeze. A fun day merged into a fun evening, and I was out until the wee hours handing out with a pretty big crowd of mzungus.

I love my apartment complex, and it was great to do some entertaining. I haven't had a real chance to have people over since I lived in San Diego, so I was long overdue! :) All-things-considered, it was still a pretty productive week, and my housewarming actually marks one whole month of being here!! Time is flying by!

Housewarming Party by the Pool!

Fun observations about life in Kenya

Extended stays in a foreign land always come with some fun and sometimes not-so-fun peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, and interesting experiences. I like to write these down because they make me smile when I read them at the end of trips (once I'm accustomed to the things I first found odd or funny) and years after. Here are some for Kenya so far:

1) Having children shout at you when you walk by. This I find almost always adorable and endearing. Kids most often just stare at me with wide-eyed wonder like I am fluorescent purple or with the mesmerized expression of someone who is hypnotized by a flickering television. Once they realize I am a walking, breathing white person, they usually snap right into character and shout "Muzungu! Mzungu! Hi!!!! HOW ARE YOU?" Mzungu (pronounced mah-zoon-goo) means white person, and it is exactly the same from every child. It's like they take elementary school classes....maybe there is a Yelling At White Ladies On The Street 101.

When they are staring, I usually smile and wave to be friendly. When they shout, I answer "I'm doing great, how are you?!?" which about 90% of them are not prepared to answer, and they usually just giggle and hide their faces. A few brave ones will say "Fine" or actually run right up to me after that and keep repeating "Mzungu!" or "Buy me a soda" or "I'm hungry" or just touch my arms or try to shake my hand. Overall, I find it pretty cute, but I refuse to buy sodas or give out food because I would quickly have a pack of children following me where ever I go. But it has inspired me to look into volunteering while I'm here.

(The not-so-cute version of this is having grown men shout "mzungu" at you every 30 seconds on a busy road or in the market. Or walking up to you and trying to grab your hand before you realize what's happening....but I'm trying to just pretend it's like being a movie star which almost makes it less annoying/creepy)

Also, a lot of people randomly shout "BARACK OBABMA!" at me. I need to devise a clever reaction to this - any ideas?

2) Greeting everyone in the room, shaking their hand, but not introducing yourself. I find this one odd. Kenyans will walk in, shake your hand (while keeping their left hand gripped in their right elbow, like they have to support their right arm), say hello, but not say their name. I always respond with "Hi!! I'm Kristyn!!"....and am met with silence and a blank stare. I now just ask names....but I need to ask my team what the deal is with that.

3) British English. There are some interesting hold overs from the colonial days that have stuck around in the language here. Problems get "sorted." Supplies and meeting times get "organised" not purchased or made. You "liase" with people, you don't chat or meet. One of the questions we ask our patients: "Do you have any problems toileting on your own?".....is toilet a verb?? There are other quirks I'm not sure are British, like "Can you pick me at 8am?" - you do not say "Pick me up"....just "Pick me." Or instead of "She didn't answer her telephone" you say "She's not picking."

4) The biggest vehicle has the right of way. Driving or riding on any form of transportation here is NOT for the faint of heart. On any given road there are bicycle taxis (boda bodas), motorcycle taxis (piki pikis), motorcycles-with-a-backseat/carriage taxis (tuk tuks), mini buses/passenger vans (matatus), and private vehicles on every road. There are also chickens, goats and cows roaming free EVERYWHERE (see #5). They drive on the left here, and passing is an art form....basically if you want to pass, you just drive in the right lane with your blinker on while flashing your headlights. If a smaller vehicle is coming at you, they usually get all the way to their side of the road and yield for you to pass. On very narrow roads, the biggest truck has the right of way and you have to maneuver to the shoulder if there are any bits where only one vehicle can pass at a time. It's pretty harrowing.

My favorite tuk-tuk (left) and people riding boda-bodas (right)

Also, there are potholes the size of hippos just about everywhere, which make highway driving at night extremely inadvisable. And lots of random, perfectly camouflaged speed bumps....those are brutal.

5) Free range livestock...everywhere. I was sitting in my clinic in Suba, when a cow literally stuck it's nose in my office window. Since there is obviously no air conditioning anywhere, windows are always open unless there is a rainstorm....and there are cows, goats and chickens that just wander the grassy areas in between the hospital buildings. 

I don't understand how people know who's chickens are who's, how they find their wandering goats and cows at the end of the day, and what's to keep my from scooping up the adorable baby chicks and bringing them home with me. But overall I think it adds to the charm.

Wandering cows (left). The chickens that crow outside my office window daily (right).

6) Grown ups using the kiddie carts at the grocery store. When I've gone to the bigger grocery stores here I noticed that there are 2-3 different sized shopping carts. There are the normal, adult sized carts and small, child sized carts. For some reason, Kenyans seem to choose the small carts. They push these tiny things around and have to stoop over to reach the handle to direct the carts. I don't get it.

Why use the small carts???

That's all I've come up with so far, but I'm sure there will be many, many other funny things I discover over the next year!

My awesome Grandma

On Monday, I got some bad news. My grandma passed away rather unexpectedly. I had just visited her the weekend before I left the country and was pretty shocked and saddened by the news. Things like this are never easy....but being this far away and feeling so helpless and rather disconnected from my support network and my family is a extra tough. She was a fantastic woman with a huge heart, and was always incredibly supportive. The night before I left her house, my boss had emailed me about the terror attacks in Nairobi: she asked if I wanted to postpone my trip or rethink my plans. I sat on my grandma's porch and watched the rain with her and finally got up the courage to ask her opinion (not wanting to hear the sensible "You won't be safe, stay in America.").  She looked at me and said with total honestly, "It's where you want to go, and it's where you're supposed to be next. Don't let crazy people scare you from doing something good." I was very pleasantly surprised and felt so happy to know how excited she was for me and how proud she was that I was taking a risk to do something I thought might make a difference.

Now not only two weeks later, she's gone. I feel really lucky that I got to know her, because not everyone gets to spend this many years with their grandparents around. And in the last year she was just so encouraging - through some rough patches with guys, getting through my PhD, and moving to Africa, she always had a wise and kind word, sent me the most adorable e-mails, and every year sang Happy Birthday to my voicemail. I was lost all day on Monday trying to figure out how to cope from here. I sat in my office crying after I heard, and my Kenyan team looked so scared and kept bringing me tissues and food, but I didn't know how to respond. I left around lunch time and came home to my empty apartment to try to call my family, but at noon-time here its 5am on the East Coast....so I waited around, looked at plane ticket options to go home, and paced.

Eventually, I spoke to my family, cried with my sister, called a couple good friends to vent, and tried to think happy thoughts. By the end of the day, and not knowing what else to do to deal, I wandered around my compound. I had bought some vegetable seeds a few days earlier....my grandma always kept a lot of plants around, so to occupy myself I cut apart some empty plastic Coke bottles and found a shovel. It started to rain, but I walked around the walls of my complex until I found some decent soil, shoveled it into a shopping bag, and sat in my kitchen and planted a little garden on my windowsill.

It's not logistically or financially feasible for me to go home to be with my family for the memorial, but after this week of thinking it all over, I'm just so glad that I got to see her so much in the last couple years and that I knew she was proud of me. She was a really fantastic grandma, and I'll miss her.