Kisumu

October 18, 2007

Amy Clark’s birthday is tomorrow. Isn’t that funny how some dates simply stay with you, no matter the years and the distance? October 19th is Amy Clark’s birthday, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget that fact. The fact that Amy’s birthday is close means that Tania and Mama K both have birthdays very soon. And the fact that we are beginning the second half of October absolutely blows my mind. Time changes here; it shifts and moves and tricks the senses. Anyway, I need to find some birthday cards!

I am back in Nairobi after spending the past four days attempting to do ISP prep in Kisumu. Kisumu is the largest city in Western Kenya, located right on Lake Victoria. It is absolutely gorgeous, and Western Kenya is beautiful. We took a bus there, which should take four hours, but takes eight because of how bad the roads are (and oh my GOD are they bad, worse than Mombasa) and the countryside actually reminded me a lot of Ireland, especially when we were in the fertile Rift Valley and the White Highlands. Green, green, everything green. We also drove through the massive tea plantations in the west, which was about a solid half-hour of driving through nothing but tea, tea, tea. It was both astonishing and beautiful at the same time, but I had the bitter knowledge on my tongue that those who work those farms do not make a fair wage and that the remnants of the colonial system means that Kenyan tea growers don’t get the best price they could for their crop.

Western Kenya is, however, where I want to be. Kisumu is a small, bright city on the Lake, and our hotel had a balcony with a gorgeous view of the lake, no more than a few blocks away. I’ll have to put up some pictures of this, for this is hard to explain, but even though we saw several miles of the lake from our hotel, we actually only saw a little bit of the water. Currently, there is a massive problem with non-native water hyacinth that is growing out of control in the water. No one knows how to get rid of it, as they’ve tried before and failed. It makes it look like the lake has several miles of marshy meadow leading up to it, but that’s just the water hyacinth, which also moves around with the currents and tomorrow might be nowhere near where it was the day before. Bizarre.

Anyway, our first night in town we all went out to dinner with Donna, the American anthropologist. We ate a great place called the Green Garden, but I was barely able to pick at my food. The bus ride up had been a little rough for me, for I was ill for about the past two hours of the trip and there wasn’t a way to request a bathroom stop. Those two hours have to have been among the most uncomfortable of my life, and I was still rather nauseas and woozy during dinner. We also met four hot, HOT HOT French journalists around our age on the bus up from Nairobi. They’re traveling the world and paying for it by writing articles for French magazines and newspapers, and did I mention that they are smoking hot? Cherrie and I were in a tuk-tuk (more on tuk-tuks later) with one, who was impressed with my French. I for one was astounded that I still remember any French, even though it is currently rather muddled with Swahili. I kept on wanting to say “lakini” instead of “mais” and “ndiyo” instead of “oui.” But the Frenchies, as we began to call them, were fluent in English pretty much, so we had a lovely little chat in the tuktuk, and did I mention they were beyond hot? Good Lord.

Our first day in the city we pretty much were just lead around and taken shopping, which was neat but kind of lame. Here’s the thing: fifteen of us came to Kisumu. These past four days in our calendar is “ISP prep” time, where ideally you go to where you want to do your ISP, make contacts, set up housing, and set things up. This straight-up did not happen. Only about six of us were actually doing our ISP in Kisumu, and the rest were there just to do touristy things, being unable to go to their ISP site in advance for whatever reason. We were told before we left that we had several health contacts in Kisumu, and that we were have a veritable parade of NGOs come talk to us so we could set things up for the actual ISP time. This simply did not happen. Everyone who was supposed to come talk to us could not for various reasons, and the Kisumu coordinator as well was AWOL. This was rather frustrating, as I got no work done even though that had both been my intention and my attempt. Sam and I went out on our own on the second day (of two days) and just went to a private hospital, where it took us an hour and a half to talk to the head nurse for ten minutes, which really got us nowhere.

This was doubly frustrating as we had planned on doing some touristy-things that I didn’t get to do. A group went to Kakamhega forest, but didn’t get in because they wouldn’t honor our pupil passes and the cost was too much, and then a few others went to visit Barack Obama’s grandmother, who lives an hour out of Kisumu. Donna told us on Day 1 that we ought to avoid touristy things if we were here for prep, as we could do them when we had time when we were back here during ISP time. This sounded reasonable, so I didn’t opt to go on either adventure, and wound up doing absolutely nothing instead of going out and having fun. All of this mismanagement and disorganization has lead us to term the trip Kisumu: Clusterfuck ’07. It’s OK, as there is still plenty of time to get things set up, but the past couple days felt like a large waste of time and money.

We did have a good time the first night, however, as we all cooked dinner for each other that was very good, and had a little drinking and a lot of dancing on the balcony. I sat on the ledge overlooking the moon on Lake Victoria’s waters with a dawa in my hand and Bob Marley in the background, and everything was peaceful. I am falling dangerously fast for Kisumu for how little I have seen her.

There were a couple of bad things that did happen, though, and as not to freak you out, I have buried them in the middle of my post. First is no big deal – I lost my cell phone, because I’m an idiot and left it on the ledge and it was gone in the morning, but I have the same number and bought another cheap ($30) phone, so all is well. The second is a much larger deal, but still nothing that should worry you. Sam and Jackie went to the ATMs in the morning on Wednesday to get out cash to pay for the hotel, which wound up being twice as expensive as planned. On their way back, they got mugged. There were three men, and they weren’t armed and didn’t hurt them, but they grabbed Sam and lifted her off the ground (she’s tiny) and grabbed her purse and started to go through her pockets. At this point, Jackie, not knowing what to do, began to scream. People came out from the shops that were around and the men took off – they took after them, but didn’t catch them. All they took was money and Sam’s phone, but the girls were understandably hysterical. We had been told that Kisumu was safer than Nairobi, which is a sentiment echoed by everyone else we had talked to, but that happened. Also, apparently, three female students were mugged at machete-point three semesters ago, and the whole matter has made me slightly more wary of Kisumu. I think part of it is that there are simply very few wazungu around, so we stick out more than we do either in Nairobi or in Mombasa. I’m certainly going to be more careful when I’m back for ISP. The good news is that these kinds of muggings are only for money, and they don’t seek to hurt you. But still, it’s absolutely awful.

Oh, and don’t tell Nora. No reason to freak her out when there’s no need. I mean, chances are that I will get either mugged or have something stolen or pick-pocketed from me while I’m here. It just happens. We stick out like sore thumbs, and everyone here thinks that wazungu have money flowing out their asses. (And in a way, comparatively, we do). And when someone is hungry or desperate, they do desperate things. But please don’t worry about me. I mean, I know you all will, but don’t. Sam and Jackie did exactly the right thing by not fighting back and screaming for help, and I like to think I would have the wherewithal to know to do the same.

I still think I’ll be in Kisumu. KEMRI has an office there, so I want to call Dr. Jama and get a contact, and there’s a lot of HIV there. A full 8% of pregnant women are HIV+ in Kisumu, and they are the ones I want to study. It’s prettier than Nairobi, and in general friendlier. Honestly, I have yet to be impressed with Nairobi, which is all corruption and multi-nationals. Nairobi seems to have all of the problems of being a big city with none of the benefits, such as good public transport, museums and libraries, etc. Maybe I’ll like it more once I walk around downtown, but we’ve driven around downtown often and it doesn’t look like anything special to me. Yet.

Anyway, there is work to do! We leave for Uganda in a week, and I want to have most of my med school things done by then, as well as have formulated a question to research and made solid contacts in Kisumu.

Oh, and I might have scabies. Three girls got it in Bodo, and I definitely have something strange growing on my left arm that looks like rather scabies-like. I’ve circled every little red dot I have (12 thus far), and if I have more tomorrow morning after I sleep, I’ll be headed back to the Dr. Saio. Next time, I’m brining a dream sack with me, that silk travel sheet that bugs can’t bite you through and you can’t get scabies from. Scabies is very treatable, but it means dousing myself from head to toe in foul-smelling lotion for 8 hours, washing it off, taking oral medication, and washing everything I’ve touched since Tuesday in disinfectant. I’d rather this just be a weird rash. You know, a rash. That kind of pusses. And spreads. A little. Strange Tropical Disease Count: 2?

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