Back in the Field

What’s this? I am working!

Girl, what dates you talking about? July 24-25^th, 2012

Initially, I was worried whether or not I would be able to make the number of required work hours needed to fulfill my practicum. Yeah… that concern no longer exists. With 12 hours days, I’ll be just fine. I was told that I would have an intense schedule for the rest of my time but damn! I am tired. A good tired, but tired nonetheless. However, I am quite ecstatic to actually be working.
 
Tuesday
 
Tuesday was a particularly long day because a lot of it was spent on the road. We made four stops at several different health centers to make various supply deliveries all over Kisii and Gucha South District before we actually proceeded to our true destination of interest.

T'was a rather bumpy ride through the hills.

 We finally settled at the Etago Sub-District Hospital to participate and observe the TB/HIV psychosocial support group. My org supports the formation of these support groups throughout the areas of Nyanza they serve. Without going into too much boring detail, their purpose is to encourage people to a) talk openly about their health status in a stigma free environment b) take their medications regularly and on time and c) provide them with hope and self worth. We went there to facilitate a wrap up session, and privately talk to members of the group that were identified to not be taking their medication on schedule to encourage them to come up with a strategy to improve their adherence to their treatment regime. 

Member of psychosocial support group talking about his experience disclosing this HIV status to his church members.

Wednesday

Yesterday, we went to the city of Kisumu (about a 2 hour drive from Kisii).

The mountains you see along the way between Kisii and Kisumu are breathtaking. Sadly, I have yet to be able to take a photo that appropriately captures that beauty.

Currently, two 5-day trainings are taking place for health professionals that represent dozens of health facilities from the Kisii area. Most of the health professionals are nurses, but some are nutritionists and public health officers. The first training was about how to properly consult patients regarding nutrition and their positive HIV status. The other training is about ways to integrate TB and HIV care effectively. 

The Nutrition and HIV group

My job was two write up evaluations regarding how well the trainings were going, what could be improved, and log comments from participants on behalf of the Monitoring & Evaluation officer. It was a good experience… though my accent throws people off and my Kiswahili is still a work in progress. Therefore, there were a few communication hiccups, but nothing insurmountable.

I’m not sure what the rest of the week entails but I need to be getting better sleep for these long days. Thank goodness is not culturally unacceptable to take a nap when there is a downtime on the job.

P.S.
On the ride throughout Gucha South, one of my colleagues made the mistake about complaining about how Kenyan women supposedly just “lay there” during coitus. Needless to say, dude was ragged on for two hours. Everyone in the van (about 6 of us) promptly turned to him and informed him that his issue was not with Kenyan women but his clear lack of knowledge regarding the art of seduction. He tried to recover by trying to act all cool and nonchalantly proposition me for “lessons”. I promptly turned him down with a “You’re too old, you’re too broke, and I only work with students at the top of their class. Clearly, you’re in need of remedial courses.” It made a long car ride rather short. J

Long Time No Blog

Girl, what dates you talking about? The past week, July 15^th-23^rd 

So if you were not working, what the heck were you doing? 

Well, at first, I worked on the stuff I needed to write up to conduct my research. However, considering that I had finished all the preliminary stuff needed to get my research going weeks ago, sans translation into Kiswahili and/or Gusii, I literally had nothing else to do. Hell, I even finished creating the focus group facilitator training manual just for kicks. The only thing left to do was complete my literature review but I was hesitant to continue until I actually knew whether or not I would still proceed with my research protocol. 

To busy myself, I just decided to continue to explore Nairobi. I decided to do a mini restaurant tour because Nairobi has a ton of great restaurants with extremely talented chefs. My last Nairobi residence made this easy because it was near a bustling shopping mall (called The Junction) that had several really nice restaurants plus this location was right on a busy bus/matatu line, so it was quite easy to move about. Unfortunately, because I am flaky about carrying my camera about, I haven’t any pictures of the amazing presentation on some of the plates I have eaten.  I will hopefully be going back to Nairobi this weekend to enjoy my last weekend in Kenya, so I will try to remember to take a few pics.

My favorite place to eat thus far in Nairobi. Awesome sushi bar!

 When I wasn’t busy stuffing my face, I did the nightlife thing as well as hung out with some of the people that have become family during my time in Kenya (most notably, members of the Mwangi clan). Now that I am back in Kisii, it’s back to waking up early and doing a normal work day in the office or the field. 

So, since the research no longer feasible due to time constraints, what’s the plan for the rest of the time there?

The team and I both agree that the remainder of my time is best spent in the field to provide assistance whenever possible, with the potential report being written here and there.  Hell, just riding along is pretty educational but hopefully I get some substantial tasks. We’ll see how that all plays out from here on out! THANK GOODNESS my thesis/faculty advisor told me to not put all my eggs in one basket when it came to choosing a thesis. I'd likely be scrambling right now.

P.S.

Folks in the western world have a tendency to act as though that gays and lesbians in Africa are cowering in fear and hiding in the shadows. Wrong. I’ve met so many in your face, out and proud Kenyan lesbians who are just happily living their lives the best they can. And no, they aren’t all young and “experimenting” either. I met a committed couple of 15 years that were both in their 40s.While it’s generally met with ambivalence (with less tolerance seen with older and hyper religious folk), Nairobi is a heck of a lot less hostile on this front than a good chunk of the American populace. Well, at least with lesbians, anyway. Conventional definitions of masculinity usually provide a landscape for a far more constricting social straight-jacket on the whole sexuality front. But seeing as I haven’t met any out-of-the-closet Kenyan men, I can’t really comment on that front.

Next: Oh shit… I’m working?

It's July... why am I still in Nairobi?

Girl, what dates you talking about? The past 2 weeks. 

So... my "practicum" has yet to actually get started off the ground and I'm still in Nairobi? Yes. 

Apparently, this is not an uncommon narrative with summer practicums. A lot of my colleagues are sitting around waiting for one bureaucratic process or another, be it international IRB approval, Emory IRB, organization-specific tedium, etc etc.


Why am I in Nairobi when I'm supposed to be in western Kenya?

After we had been in Kisii for just under a week, we were instructed to come back to Nairobi to complete some paperwork. Upon arrival in Nairobi, I am told that I actually didn't need to come back to Nairobi because my work could have been done remotely. Hmm...

This conversation happened two weeks ago. Why wasn't I sent back after that was cleared up? We also need identification that reflects our association with the organization, that way if we are stopped and asked "Hey you foreign nationals, what are you doing here?", we have something to present. This ID was only supposed to take 4 weeks to process. I sent in my materials the first or second week of May. Today is July 2nd and there is still no sign of it. I have been put up in a Nairobi hotel for the entire duration of my wait. While I am thankful that this was of no expense to me, it's still a pity that so much time and money is being wasted on nothing.

So What Now?

My flight itinerary currently has me leaving the first week of August. I have two choices: 1) Extend my stay so that I have some hope of executing my research or 2) Rework my stay into a succinct work assignment so that I am able to complete the number of work hours required of the practicum. I am heavily leaning towards option 2. Given how unpredictable things have been in regards to timelines, my shelling out additional money to stay for a few more weeks is no guarantee that I will have enough time to complete my imagined research protocol. While I was excited to take my first stab at independent research, it will not be my last opportunity. So, it's just better for me to make the most of the summer in a way that will not have me pulling my hair out  or draining my wallet. My thesis is NOT dependent on my summer (I always have a plan B), so why give myself grey hair over it?

I am excited about the prospect of heading back to Kisii this week. I'm getting a bit bored and stir crazy in Nairobi. The Nairobi office is simply a support office, so there is no "field" to go observe like there is in Kisii. Moreover, I've been to just about every bar in this town, so there's nothing else to see, haha! Really though, I came to here to work... it would be nice to be finally doing some of that. I could be a bum at home for a heck of a lot less money while having better internet access at my disposal.

Plus, I miss my "pets":

There are about 10 fowl of various types that run around the Kisii Guest House premises.

On the negative, I am not particularly excited about going back to the organization's guest house in Kisii. It just doesn't afford me the sort of privacy that I prefer. There, you live with your coworkers, and thus you see them all day, everyday. Thankfully, I find most of them pleasant, so it should not be torture. One the occasions I need a little "me time", I'm torrentting a storm while I have decent-ish internet in Nairobi. I'll be watching Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire, True Blood, and some anime to pass my time when I feel like being solitary. (If you have TV recommendations, comment or FB inbox me some... thanks!) I will likely make weekend trips back to Nairobi to see folks of interest since Kisii is supposed to be fairly dull on the weekends.

Up Next: Hopefully I'll be back in Kisii soon and actually have an entry dedicated to my time there!

P.S.:

There was one major benefit of being in Nairobi all this time. I got to Family Health Options Kenya headquarters, one of the largest and oldest providers of sexual and reproductive health services in the country and an International Planned Parenthood affiliate. I was in talks with them when I was looking for a backup practicum, but they still invited me in when I told them I was staying with my current org. They stated they would love to receive me in January for a monitoring and evaluation project related to behavior change communication in Kisumu, Kenya. They even introduced me to the Advocacy and Behavior Change Communication teams. If I could get the logistics sorted out, that would be an awesome winter project that is more in line with my interests. Only the months will tell whether or not this will work out but it's something to look forward to in the winter.