Leah’s Travel Page

Hi all,

I arrived back in Nairobi two days ago after our 16 days of relative isolation throughout southern Kenya. It was a totally FANTASTIC time…but nonetheless, it’s good to be back in a place where you can buy laundry detergent and chocolate bars again. (Side note: the chocolate you buy in Kenya is not as sweet as the stuff back home, because it has some quality that makes it less likely to melt…however, when you’re in the middle of 40-degree weather, no chocolate has a prayer.)

The one thing that I was sad I missed was the Olympics…we were literally out of touch the ENTIRE time. The one time I was able to buy a newspaper was the day after the first Men’s hockey games…which Canada won, so naturally I had visions of gold in my head for the entire remainder of the time! Ahem…not so much. But I’m soooo excited that we did so well in everything else, in terms of medal counts and everything (especially the Newfoundland men’s curling gold…awesome!). Wish I could have been watching! But anyways, enough about the Olympics. Most people we ran into had no idea what hockey is, let alone snow-boarding, let ALONE…bobsled?? Try explaining THAT one to someone in broken Swahili!

So I guess the last time I updated was just before we left Mbita. Our next destination was the Maasai Mara Nature Reserve, which is in the Kenyan extension of the Serengeti plains. We were tenting in a campground adjacent to the park, and at night could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing (creepiest sound ever, by the way). We did several game drives during our 4 days there…The first day we went into the park, and saw hardly any animals, just some ungulates and zebra and hyenas (which, jaded as we are, are now old news…we wanted some lions!). Apparently, because of the massive drought that’s going on here, the wildlife migration patterns are all messed up. There are also lots of Maasai cattle herders that have had to move their livestock into the park to graze (illegally) because there is simply no grass anywhere in the country. So the next few times we took Maasai guides with us, and they new where the wildlife was outside the reserve…Within about 15 minutes, we found two female lions and 8 cubs, chilling out in the evening sun…The cubs were adorable, and started nursing and pouncing on each other, it was amazing. Then the next morning we went out and saw about four more prides all chowing down on some wildebeest breakfast. We also saw tons more giraffe and elephants and other animals… the Maasai guides even took us off the trucks to get down really close to hippos in a river (they warned us that if we saw air bubbles really close to us, to throw a rock at it so the hippos wouldn’t come up too close!). We also got to visit our first of many Maasai villages, numerous clinics and primary schools.

After the Mara, we headed to Lake Naivasha, which is one of the big Rift Valley lakes. Being the big geology nerd that I am, it was so amazing to spend the next few weeks travelling through the Rift Valley, with all its crazy escarpments and extinct volcanoes and geologic formations. At Naivasha, our campsite was right on the Lake, so we had to watch out at night that hippos didn’t come up on shore, and then we’d wake up in the morning with GIANT marabou storks looking into our tents. Naivasha is a huge horticultural area, so we visited some of the massive flower farms in the area…if you buy a dozen roses anywhere in Europe, odds are they come from Naivasha. At this site, it was actually pretty cold…we’d wake up in the morning and could see our breath. But that didn’t last too long as soon as we moved on south of Nairobi.

Once we left Naivasha, we headed to another ICIPE camp at Nguruman, which is just east of Magadi. We stopped in Magadi on the way, because they are a huge salt-production centre (and since I think salt is just about the most interesting thing ever, I was pretty excited to tour it…although maybe I was the only one!). The area around Magadi is INSANELY hot…I’ve never been in such a barren, boiling wasteland in all my life. The word “hell” was uttered by many a student while we were there. Then we moved on to Nguruman, which was marginally less hot and WAY off the beaten track. Not to much wildlife here…except a few scorpions (no one got bitten though) and the giant ant infestation that I woke up to one morning in my tent (I went on a massive DEET massacre and showed them who was boss). We also got to visit a Maasai primary boarding school (which is important, because many Maasai children have to be absent from school when their parents move with the cattle, so a boarding school is a great asset). They put on an amazing cultural show for them, and then they creamed us at a game of soccer (5-1 for them). While we were in Nguruman, we also got to visit a bunch of local farms, where we got to see their irrigation practices in action – they used the water at the top of the Nguruman escarpment, and then divert it with furrows to individual farms. Each farmer can use the water one day a week, and they manually go through and divert the water through their crops by creating little mud dams at each plot…Okay, so maybe that’s not the best description ever, but it was pretty cool for me to see since I think irrigation is just about as interesting as salt production!
Okay, well I have more to write about Nguruman and after, but there’s a huge lineup of people waiting, so I’ll complete my update later whenever I can get on. Generally, it’s been amazing. The only ailments I’ve had are that my gluten allergy has re-emerged after a 3-year hiatus, and I had this weird growth on my face which we thought might be an insect burrowing into my cheek (which we all kind of wanted it to be, so then it would sprout wings and fly out of my face), but it turned out to just be a giant festering bite. Other than that, I’m all good.

Make sure to keep me posted on events now that the NHL is back on, and of course any other non-European sport updates!

The sun sets so fast here. You can notice that the sunset is imminent, and by the time you’ve rummaged around in your bag to get your camera, it has already sunk below the crest of the hill. That’s the equator for you.

An African town at night is completely different from during the day… it’s like another world entirely. That’s one thing I’ve missed out on by travelling with a relatively organised group as I have been. In the evenings, we go back to our research station and socialize only with ourselves.

Yesterday a small group of us visited an HIV/AIDS orphanage, on Rusinga Island, just outside of Mbita. We’re currently located in Suba District, one of the poorest in the country. In 2000, the infant mortality rate was 606 out of every 1000 children under the age of one, which is truly astronomical (in the past five years, it’s gone down to 147 per 1000 through aggressive malaria awareness campaigns). This is also the district with the highest AIDS prevalence: 42%. And Rusinga Island is the highest of any community, with a prevalence of over 50% (with a population of only about 200,000 to start with). So the orphanage was something to behold. There were I think over 250 children there, several of whom were HIV+ and all of whom had lost their parents to AIDS. It was sad to see. The women running the facility made small handicrafts to sell and support the facility. I bought a really beautiful tie-dyed fabric – it cost 500 shillings, which is less than 10 dollars, and you know that will go a long way in that community.

None of us wanted to leave, so it was dark as we were driving into Mbita. It was so different than it was during the day. Everyone was gathered into those storefronts that had electricity, watching the Africa Cup on tiny television sets, braiding each other’s hair, socializing with friends. People set up fires outside, which they’d sit around, cooking and talking. It was a very surreal experience. There was an air of calm and serenity, but with a bustle of life and activity below the surface. Like a summer night camping with friends, in a way. I guess that since the sun always goes down so early, you use the evenings as a time to be with family and friends. Hopefully I’ll get to experience more of that once I leave the big group.

Today’s the first day of our next class…it’s kind of weird that I already have three credits behind me. In a few days, I’ll be leaving for the Maasai Mara for 16 days, and I’ll probably be out of touch again for a while. That should be incredible…My prof is apparently something like the world’s leading expert on the Maasai, so he’s got lots of connections there. We even get the chance to do a homestay in a rural Maasai village for a few nights. It should be amazing.

I feel like there are insects everywhere today. EVERYWHERE. I can’t get away…they must have sent out an all-points-bulletin that I was in town or something.

I had my first major incident involving a very massive spider this evening. It cornered me in the bathroom, and I was forced to huddle in the bathtub wimpering (okay, screaming hysterically) for 10 minutes as it stood scowling at me from beside the door, blocking my escape route. Then some of my friends were making some sort of musical instrument out of a gourd-like thing, when a massive cockroach crawled out onto the table and made a run at me (not as big as the ones I showered with, but at least those ones didn’t behave like rabid beasts). Then, my dad called on my cell phone, and as I went outside to get better connection, I was bombarded by literally thousands of lake flies (more on those later). And of course in my haste to get away from the swarm, I walked into a bush full of spiders. Then, once the conversation was over, and I was walking back through the main ICIPE building, another giant cockroach made to attack me in the hall. And all the way to the library with the internet, I was chased by a hundred thousand more lake flies, and several mosquitos, which by now have no doubt given me malaria (hey, the malaria prophylaxis pills I take everyday are only 97% effective…dun dun dun). Seriously, I think it must be the insect new year celebration or something.

About these lake flies. They are everywhere. They come in off Lake Victoria promptly at sunset at 7pm, and absolutely cover anything even remotely illuminated (and don’t forget, we mzungus have lighter skin than most). Screen doors are layered with these little flying insects (which are smaller than mosquitos but thankfully not small enough to fit through the mesh). Last night, I saw a wall that I thought was mostly dark paint with a white pattern on it, until I realized that in fact it was a beige wall plastered with thousands upon thousands of lake flies. They’re basically harmless, though…that is, not if you enjoy the feeling of bugs crawling into your nose and sticking to your skin and hair…soooo disgusting.

While we’re on the subject of flies, there is one insect that is noticeably lacking from the landscape now that we’ve left the jungle, and which I do NOT miss at all. This is the mango fly. The entire time we were at Kibale, every time you did laundry it became a huge ordeal because of the evil mango fly. While your clothes are unceremoniously hanging to dry in the tropical sun, the mango fly swoops down and lays its eggs in your soggy clothing. Then, when you put on your clothes the next day, the body heat awakens the larvae, which burrow into your skin and germinate. These look just like mosquito bites, except with two black dots which are actually breathing holes for the larvae that is now growing under your flesh. The remedy is to put nail polish over any suspected mango fly larvae to suffocate it, at which point it will then emerge to the surface for air so you can pluck it out of your arm, leg, bum…wherever it has chosen to afflict you. So all of this means that on laundry day you not only have to dry all your clothes under mosquito nets, but then you must iron every single article of clothing carefully to kill any eggs (which are so minuscule that you wouldn’t even notice them). It was SUCH a hassle. I was fortunate to not become a mago fly victim, but two people in our group were not so lucky.

So I don’t miss the mango flies (they only live in the jungle, so I can wash my clothes in peace). But I honestly wish the rest of the insect kingdom would leave me alone. These lake flies keep pummelling the computer screen.

I made it through the border in record time, didn’t even have to pay any bribes. That’s got to be a good thing.

We’re staying at another ICIPE station in Mbita, Kenya. My bedroom looks out onto the beach and Lake Victoria, and at night I can leave just my screen door open and hear the waves rolling up against the shore at night… So amazing, I wish I could go swimming, but then I’d get schistosomiasis, which would really suck, to say the least, because it’s about the grossest parasite ever. A group of 10 of us got to go on a boat ride in Jinja where we went down the Nile and into Lake Victoria, and we got splashed by water a lot and we kept on joking that we were on the schisto ride. Seriously, the odds of us getting schisto (aka bilharzia) from that is virtually none, so don’t you all freak out now. Anyways, it was worth it, getting to boat down the Nile. We didn’t get to see too much of Jinja, except enough to see what we thought were giant swarms of birds that turned out to be giant bats (they were even there at 10 am!). Kind of cool. Kind of creepy.

Today we went to another hospital, here in Mbita. It was in much better shape than the one in Fort Portal. I mean, it wasn’t perfect, but it was much less chaotic, and at least here patients’ families didn’t have to supply all their own food, bedsheets and mattresses (yes, that was how it was in F.P.). We also got to talk to some traditional healers, which was kind of a neat experience.

Oh, and I also wanted to make a comment about elections in Africa. It’s the national elections in Uganda on February 23rd, so it was totally amazing to be there and see all kinds of campaign posters for President Museveni and others. Just to put it in context, Kenya had a referendum on their constitution last year, and since many people are illiterate, they had ‘banana’ for yes and ‘orange’ for no. In Uganda, it’s a similar thing, but with hand gestures. As we were driving through towns in our big mzungu truck, people passing by kept giving us the thumbs up or a peace sign. At first, we kept randomly returning the hand signals and people laughed, until we realized that thumbs up is the symbol for Museveni and the peace sign (two fingers) is his main opponent (FDC party). There’s also a flat palm, for Milton Obote’s wife who’s running in the north (aka bad), and a clenched fist, for the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Party, very VERY bad). I just think it’s such a fascinating way of practising democracy so that all people can be involved…even if it is at the expense of the dignity of a bus-load of travelling mzungu.

My program is starting a website with some photos and journal entries submitted by students (I’m one of two students doing most of the entries). You might be interested if you haven’t had the chance to see any pictures yet (I’m still trying, I promise!!).

Here’s the address: http://www.geog.mcgill.ca/courses/africa/safari2006/

There is one photo of me that’s currently up there, the one titled ‘Learning about stream inverts’. I’m partially obscured by the guy standing up in the black t-shirt, wearing blue pants and staring into my camera…Okay, so I’ll try to get better ones of me sent in. But just for the information, that photo was taken on our first day at Kibale on our first walk into the jungle. About twenty minutes before that image, me and 3 other people were attacked by army ants (yes, they crawl up your pants and stay there, and yes, they ARE carnivorous). About 10 minutes after that picture, my nose started randomly gushing blood (probably caused by the altitude…who knows). But other than the four dozen chunks taken out of my flesh by man-eating insects and the bloody nose, I made it out of the forest unscathed!

I’m in Jinja, Uganda right now. My hotel room overlooks the spot where Lake Victoria turns into the Nile River. It’s sunset and fishermen are canoeing out in their boats to drop their nets for the evening… It’s pretty spectacular!

I’ve just spent the last two and a bit weeks in Uganda, and we leave tomorrow for Mbita, Kenya (which is also on Lake Victoria). That’s good because a) I’ll have solid email for 5 days, b) my cell phone will start working again, and c) well, Kenya’s pretty darn cool. But I’m also kind of sad to be leaving because Uganda has been absolutely beautiful and amazing. I only have time to mention everything briefly now, but I’ll add more later.

We spent the first 10 days at Kibale National Park in the west of the country, near Fort Portal (for anyone interested in looking on a map). We stayed at a really remote field station in the North of the park, where you could look out your bedroom window and see troops of 50 red colubus monkeys soaring through the trees, and where the banana bread and avocado salad is made with fresh produce from down the road! (I’ve never eaten so many bananas in my life…potassium overdose is imminent). We also had several incidents involving baboons breaking into people’s rooms to steal food…they are major pests and crop-raiders, not nice at all! For my human geography class, we got to spend most days in the tiny village of Kanyawara, adjacent to the park, and got to know a bunch of the villagers quite well (I even speak a bunch of Batoro, the local language). The poverty is pretty extreme but it’s subtle and below the surface in a way I didn’t expect, so when you’re confronted with it it hits you pretty hard. There are kids everywhere because it’s during the two-month holiday, and they are so great! When we’d drive out to sites in the back of the pick-up truck, they’d be running after us for ages, shouting “Goodbye, friends!” I think the best part has definitely been all the people we’ve gotten to know.

My class also had the chance to visit many hospitals and health clinics, which was a pretty shocking experience. I’ll talk more about it later, but the most vivid memory is at a public, government-funded hospital in Fort Portal. They have 2000 in-patients, even more out-patients, and only 9 doctors in the entire facility. Walking into the labour ward, the rickety metal beds were packed so close you couldn’t walk between them, there were mothers and newborn infants sleeping on mattresses on the floor all over, hallways were so packed with foam mattresses there were only a few inches to walk by, and IVs were hanging from door handles. The entire ward had probably about 80 people in it with one nurse, whose resources were so limited she didn’t even have a blood pressure cuff! (We were able to buy her two later…it was extraordinary when we returned to give them to her and within 5 seconds she was using them on patients…they cost about 10 dollars each). The whole place had a huge impact on our group (there are 12 students in that class), the conditions were sooo much worse than I imagined, and I thought I’d imagined the worst!

I’ve hardly been sick since I’ve gotten here (one day of major throwing up but that’s about it…some people are sick with fevers, and frankly as long as I don’t have diarrhea, I’m okay).

After leaving Kibale, we drove down and spent a night at Queen Elizabeth NP, where we went on a boat ride on the Kazinga Channel and got REALLY close up to elephants, hippos, water buffalo…uh, warthogs. It was my first experience in a fully outdoor shower and with only three walls, and I got to share this special experience with two cockroaches the size of mice!! There was also a warthog (officially the ugliest animal on earth) and her baby in the sink area, so no one could go in…well, one girl tried and got charged and run over, so we all stayed far far away! There was also a brief moment when we thought three members of our group got eaten by lions after foolishly walking around at night, but it turned out they were just sitting around talking somewhere… You can never be too careful with massive predatorial mammals on the loose under cover of darkness! (that’s my new motto)

Then we went to Lake Nabugabo, a freshwater lake off western Lake Victoria, which is amazing because it has no schistosomiasis (a REALLY gross parasite), so you can go swimming!!!! It was amazing! The pest of choice there was the vervet monkey, which would swoop down from the rafters and steal the bread right from your hand as you’re bringing it to your mouth (all with their baby clinging to their back!). We also had some of the best fish and chips I’ve ever had (mmm…Nile perch), although I might just have thought that because I was sick of having rice, matoke (banana mash), beans and meat every day for the last two weeks!

After two days there, we drove a very long LONG drive to Jinja, through Kampala. Seriously, every single road in this country is under construction! When we arrived at the Sunset Hotel overlooking the Nile, we were all in paradise…although my standards have dropped substantially: 2 stars, there’s a whole in the ground somewhere that you can go to the bathroom in (my aim is now impeccable); 3 stars, there are walls around it; 4 stars, still a pit toilet, but has a seat (preferably don’t have to go outdoors)… 5 stars, flush toilet!!! Bonus points for having toilet paper, enough of this BYOTP already!

Well, it’s almost supper, our big Uganda send-off, plus we just had final exams (for one course) today, and it’s one guy in the groups birthday, so we’re having a big fiesta later! I’ll write more once we get to Mbita tomorrow (if we ever do…12 hours drive including my first African land border crossing and a ferry ride…gulp)

Hope Pittsburgh wins the Superbowl (that’s my one bit of foreign news!) and that the Canucks and Habs are lighting it up!

Yesterday afternoon at the University of Nairobi was actually pretty interesting…not tedious as I had thought. The drive there was a bit harrowing, though. I have never seen so many cars going in so many directions at once at a single intersection…and apparently rush hour in downtown Nairobi is at 12:30 in the afternoon (at least, I HOPE that was rush hour). I mean, I think the streets are two lane, but there are usually at least four different cars side-by-side at any one time, and much of the time they’re at bizarre diagonal angles. And of course, there are almost no traffic lights in the city (in the whole country, for that matter). There are only these massive roundabouts (many of which are triangular), which have no concept of right of way, so it’s pretty much vehicular darwinism…whoever is biggest can push their way though and the rest all have to fend for themselves in a cacophany of horns and shouting drivers. It’s amusing for us because we can just sit in our massive truck and plough through, but actually having to drive here would be absolutely terrifying. And then of course, when there are traffic lights, they are essentially just suggestions. Actually, no…not so much suggestions as distractions. Now imagine all this, plus the added novelty of people running up to your windows trying to sell you things whenever traffic slows…newspapers, fruit, hats, sunglasses. It’s quite the spectacle. So when one of our profs pointed out that the University of Nairobi campus was coming up right here on the left, we actually arrived on the university grounds more than 15 minutes later.

When we all finally touched terra firma with our lives intact, we were escorted by a bunch of Geography students and faculty into a hall where we were lectured on the Rift Valley Lake system…me being a big geography nerd, I was frantically taking notes and thought it was so cool, even though I think most of the rest of the group was falling asleep in the hot room. I mean, they were talking about irrigation!!! and salt production from the lakes!!!…Yes, yes, I could learn about that stuff aaaaalllll day. The biology students among us though, mmm not so much. Afterwards we got tours around the campus by the Kenyan students, and it was cool to be able to talk to them about being students in Kenya versus Canada and that sort of thing. One guy told me that the biggest rumour about Canada is that, by the age of 21, everyone has moved out of their home and is financially independent…What???!!! Random. Also, he said, “I heard that in Canada, it’s so cold that you have to adjust the temperature inside your houses”. Uhh, yeah…that’s the least of it! I was pretty amused by it, but I’m sure I must have asked him some equally stupid questions without knowing it. Actually, all of the students came across as really intelligent. Apparently the University of Nairobi is the elite university in the country. In general, it was just a good experience to talk to other students from Kenya who were our age.

The only weird thing about the university was that, despite the fact that it was this gorgeous, modern campus, the bathrooms had no toilet paper or paper towel…This is an interesting phenomenon that had not occurred to me before I arrived. Essentially you will not find a single public toilet that has any paper, just because of the cost to supply it. I don’t really get how it works, though…Does every single Kenyan carry around a stash of TP on their person at all times in case the need strikes? I guess that’s what I’m going to have to start doing. I’ll go out to the store later and stock up for the rainforest.

Then anyways, last night we had a bit of a party back at ICIPE. We’ve actually been kept really busy so we haven’t gotten a whole lot of time to hang out at night. At about 11pm it came to our attention that one of the girls on the trip is essentially the reigning Canadian champion of skipping. Not skipping as in sailing, but skipping as in jump rope. She started showing us her routine that she has to practice for the world championships in June. I’m telling you, it was extraordinary! You would never have though that skipping could be so intense. It was like extreme-skipping. They should seriously put it in the X-Games. If anyone ever has the chance to watch pro-skippers, DO IT. You will NOT be disappointed.

Today has been low-key. We’re basically just packing up everything we need to bring to Uganda and getting ahead on some of our schoolwork (yes, we actually have to do work). Most people also did laundry today, but of course just as it was hanging out to dry, the sky burst open the most torrential downfall. What are the odds, Kenya is in the middle of a massive drought, and yet 15 minutes of intense rain – the first in weeks – comes on laundry day. Aargh. Just as long as it’s dry by tonight, we’ll be okay.

So tomorrow morning we have to get up at 4:30 am for our 7 am flight to Entebbe, followed by a 5 1/2 hour truck ride to the Kibale Rainforest. We’re staying at the Makerere University Biological research station. Apparently that means I’ll be AWOL for the next little while. I’ll update you all as soon as I can with stories about my encounters with primates, but it could hypothetically be as much as three weeks. Keep your fingers crossed that somehow I’ll magically manage to avoid all spiders for that entire period of time~

I only have a few minutes to write before the battery dies on this laptop, but I’ll try.

I just got back from a mall that some of us went to to change money, buy medicine, etc. It was quite the experience, especially when contrasted with our trip to Kibera two days ago. It is located in the part of town with all the embassies (we passed the Canadian one…huge swimming pool and tennis courts and Canadian flags…I’m definitely going to go there later!), and all the huge residences where, we were told, “the Americans live”. The mall itself was absolutely palacial. The layout was like a spanish villa, and there were boutique stores (Bata shoes, anyone?) and mini-golf courses and even a water park. Everything was clean and shiny and clearly catering to wealthy tourists. Nearby there were a bunch of massive homes, with signs up saying no photos allowed. I felt kind of disgusted with myself that I was there, but hey, I really needed to change my money to Kenyan schillings! Up until this morning, I had only seen two white people who weren’t with either our group or the UN. But this was like a Mzungu mall…Most of the patrons were German or Japanese (and yes, Asian people are considered mzungu as well…it’s kind of an all-encompassing term). There weren’t too many from our group who went out this morning, but those of us who did got out of there as fast as we could…I think it was a little too soon since visiting Kibera to marvel at all the luxuries available to us.

Then we got the chance to go to the Maasai market. We didn’t stay long there either because we had to get back for lunch, but it was great to see the way a market works, even if this one was pretty touristy. The vendors would come up to you and introduce themselves and be all friendly and then ask you to come over to look at their items. It was hard to figure out what to do…If someone is being nice and saying hi, I don’t want to be a jerk and ignore them and be the snooty white person, but I obviously know that they’re not there to be my friend. Also, I learned pretty quickly not to point at anything as you’re walking by, because the person will REALLY try to sell it to you, if they know you’re interested in the least. I feel as though I need to master a bit more swahili before I feel totally comfortable in markets. I didn’t buy anything, because I know I’ll be able to get better prices outside the tourist areas, but some other people did. One guy with us was walking out of the market just as we were walking in…it was really funny, because it was like he was a broken man. “They kept hassling me, I couldn’t get away!” The pressure to buy from them is intense, they really know what they’re doing! Most people with me felt as though they had been more or less ripped off, but I guess just chalked it up to experience…I personally feel as though I’m getting the exact same experience while watching them waste their money! Some people feel guilty starting the bargaining really low, since it’s not actually that much from our Western standard, but I believe that it’s inappropriate to overinflate the price of these things. It’s hard to know where to draw the line.

While I was at the mall, I was also scouting the prices on cell phones. The deals you can get are really good compared to what we’re used to. For about $60 CAD you can get a phone that can accept free incoming calls and text messages. I didn’t get one there because it was the first place I looked, but I might the next time I’m in a big city, probably Kampala in a few weeks. That way I’d actually be able to talk to people from home…emails are only so exciting.

We’re off to the University of Nairobi this afternoon. Not sure what we’ll be doing there…probably sit there listening to people talk to us, which seems like a popular theme of this week. Not that I’m complaining (well, maybe it can be a bit tedious…), but it’ll be nice to get to the rainforest and get to do jungle walks ever day! (Or at least that’s what I imagine it will be like in my mind!)

Yikes! Just got a low battery warning!

Yesterday we stayed on the ICIPE site all day, which I predicted might be outrageously dull, but actually turned out to be a really interesting demonstration of all the ways people are using insect research. In one centre their studying malaria and mosquitos. In another, they’re doing research on locust pheromones, because locusts are generally solitary but then something triggers pheromones which causes them to communicate and then swarm…if scientists can understand how to release similar pheromones, then they can control the swarming and subsequent crop devastation. On site, there is also bee keeping for honey and bee venom, silkworm production to make silk to sell to the global market, etc. And a lot of this knowledge can be transmitted to small communities so that they can create sustainable income-generation projects.

After that, we got into groups for our major research project for the semester. We’ve gotten into groups of about 7 and will work in conjunction with scientists/social scientists throughout the next few months and present our findings at the end. For example, my group will focus on rural urban migration. From the rural side, we will interview people in the communities we travel to about their livelihoods, what drives them to migrate to the cities, the kinds of infrastructure in the rural areas, what makes it possible for them to stay in rural areas and the challenges that poses, etc. From the urban side, we can look at the informal sector and how that absorbs the inflow of migrants, or even look at places like Kibera, where most of the people living there have come to the city from their rural homes for better economic opportunities. For that, we’ll be in touch with some of the people from UN-HABITAT again. It should be a great incentive to really communicate with some of the people we meet over the next few months. Some of the other groups will cover subjects like malaria diagnosis and treatment, vector control used by farmers, and some other public health issues.

Other than that, the day was pretty relaxing. I’ve been kind of sick since I got here, Wednesday I had a fever of 101…only I would be sick the first week in Kenya! But yesterday and today I’ve felt better and my fever is gone, so all that remains is congestion and a really gross cough that I’m sure means no one will want to be my friend. Just kidding, who wouldn’t want to be MY friend?

We’re going into Nairobi today, so it’ll be nice to get off the compound. We’re going to the big Maasai market that’s here every Friday. I’m sure it’ll be ridiculously touristy, a bit unnecessary since we’ll actually be LIVING in a Maasai village in a few weeks, but I’m looking forward to it as it will be my first exposure to African market haggling.

We’re leaving ICIPE Sunday morning for Uganda, and then I’ll be completely out of touch for about 2 weeks. We’re staying at a really remote field research station in Kibale Rainforest National Park…apparently they don’t even have a phone, only a satellite one for emergency purposes. So if there’s anything any of you need to tell me, let me know in the next two days! i’m also going to try to upload some of my pictures tonight, so you can all get some giraffe inspiration.

Yesterday morning, we got up early and headed over to the UN compound. Security was pretty tight (especially because it’s right across from the US Embassy where security is REALLY tight)…we had to go through the same sort of security as you do at the airport, and then you’re not allowed to take pictures on the whole site. Once we got through the many layers of gates, though, the UN in Nairobi is soooo much nicer than the one in New York. It’s basically like a big park, with tons of grass and trees…you’re hardly even aware that there are buildings around.

We walked up a pathway lined by all of the UN country flags to the main UNEP (UN Environment Program) building. The reason we were there was to talk to people from UN-HABITAT about slums and informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa, and more specifically in Kenya. We got to sit in one of the conference rooms that comes to mind immediately when you think of the UN – all the desks facing each other in a square, with little microphones and ear-pieces (which we got to wear!) at each spot. It was all very cool.

In trtue UN fashion, it was a bunch of Swedes who were in charge, and they spent the whole morning telling us about informal housing settlements around the world. 1 billion people in the world live in slums with inadequate water, sanitation, health care access, representation, etc etc. Later on, they switched the focus to Nairobi, where the 2nd largest slum in Africa is located, called Kibera (there are other informal housing settlements in Nairobi too, but none as big as this one). Kibera is located in the south of the city next to the trtarin tracks, and in an area probably no bigger than Stanley Park, there are about 1-1.25 million people living.

In the afternoon, we got the chance to visit Kibera with UN-HABITAT, to just a small corner of the slum known as Soweto East (there are 12 ‘villages’ in Kibera). A lot of us were a little apprehensive, not that we’d be in danger, but more that the people living there would be offended by a big group of rich mzungu (“white people”) were coming to gawk at the slum-dwellers. It was, in fact, quite the contrary. Everyone in Soweto East was incredibly welcoming and friendly and really excited to have us there. After a brief introduction at the HABITAT office (basically just a small, one-room house with a table and chairs), we divided up into small groups of 5 and were toured around Soweto East by members of their elected council. It’s hard to describe, really, because in a lot of ways, the slum was exactly what I expected to see… There were rivers of garbage everywhere with flies all over it, tiny one-storey shacks made of mud and tin and sticks, pigs and dogs running in amongst the trash, no roads, just narrow paths that you could sometimes barely fit two people through, no open spaces to play or socialize or have a market so people were just standing around the entrance to their houses. But all that not withstanding, there was an incredible sense of community and openness. Everyone seemed to know each other, the people came up to us and asked us questions about where we were from…we all felt perfectly safe the entire time. Some of the women were more reserved, but the children in particular seemed so excited that we had come. We went into one of the primary schools and all the kids came running out of their classrooms in their uniforms, shouting “Mzungu!!!” and “How are you? How are you? How are you?” (I think that’s the first phrase most of them learn how to say. All the kids clambored to get their photos taken (“Picha? Picha?”)… I didn’t bring my camera because I felt it a bit inappropriate, and some of the adult did seem apprehensive when others took their cameras out, but the kids loved it, especially when people with digital cameras could show them the pictures on the screen. Also, everyone wanted to shake our hands…the children would run up to us and just hold them out, saying “How are you” over and over again.

Another surprise was the number of small businesses people had set up in Kibera. There were pharmacies, shops selling shoes and scrap metal and Fanta and vegatables. We went into the local bar where they were distilling their local alcohol (which I did NOT try). Many people also invited us into their homes, often a family of four would be sleeping in a tiny bed made of sticks in a room no bigger than a closet. But they were happy to show us what their situation was like, in the hopes that we wouldn’t forget them.

I think a lot of that paints a bit of a rosy picture, and we all had a great experience. At times, it was hard to remember that one out of every four children we met was an orphan, and that diseases such as typhoid, cholera and AIDS are rampant there. There was a hospital not far away, but many could not afford to go, and those that saved would often not be able to afford medication. A lot of the time, the condition were disgusting… streams where people got there water from were full of trash and human waste. It’s not an easy existence. HABITAT is working on upgrading housing, but sometimes this is hard because then rents go up and the poorest people are forced out of their homes. In the next year, they hope to set up a recycling program, because most of the garbage was plastic.

I could write about it forever, but it could never fully describe the visit itself. It was definitely eye-opening. It was definitely tragic. But at the same time, it was definitely hopeful.