The Weekend

Ninaandika tena (I am writing again), shocking I know, and after such a short time!

This weekend was really fun, so I thought I would share. On Friday night I went with a group of people from the University of Manitoba and John’s Hopkins to see an art show for a Tanzanian art form called Tingatinga. It is gorgeous art and the show was held at this cute little restaurant close by. They had wine and champagne and appetizers set out, couches and chairs to sit in, and really cool lighting. The artwork was amazing! I really like how the tingatinga art form displays animals and probably would have bought a painting if I had brought enough money along with me (thankfully I didn’t, because they are also expensive). The most interesting part of the show was the art pieces that showed different public health HIV prevention messages. For example, there was a picture split in half where one side showed a man going into a bee-hive without any protective gear on and getting attacked by a swarm of bees, and a picture on the other side of a man climbing into bed with a woman. The caption on the photo said “You wouldn’t get honey from a bee hive without protection so why would you have sex without using a condom.” There were many others as well with similar HIV prevention messages. I thought it was really amazing that public health messages had infiltrated this form of art. After the art show we went to an Indian restaurant in this complex that has flashing lights surrounding it and giant light-up palm trees on the tops of the buildings. It was a very interesting place, but the food was amazing! I have discovered that I love Indian food and can’t wait to explore more Indian restaurants when I come back home.

Anne, Damian and I spent Saturday afternoon exploring this huge Western style mall that’s located in Nairobi close the US embassy in the very wealthy part of town. It was really fun to step into the mall and feel like you were outside of Nairobi. For those of you know what it is, the mall even has a Mango! It was a Mango outlet, so of course, I was all excited about the bargain prices. I didn’t stay very long, but that’s probably a good since that also meant I didn’t spend as much money.

On Saturday evening I went to a concert that was put on to support stopping gender violence. The main singer was Oliver Mtukudzi from Zimbabwe, who is apparently really famous. I’ve never heard of him but I guess he plays concerts all over the world, including in the states. It was a great show and he was very entertaining. I didn’t understand all the songs, since they weren’t in English, but I did buy the CD so that I can learn more of his music. I guess he’s been singing and touring since 1977, so it was also impressive just to this older man dancing around all over the stage all night. It was also amazing to watch all the Kenyans dancing, they are so good and everyone has rhythm. It was much more lively than most concerts I’ve gone to in Seattle or the NW. Before the main artist, we got to watch a few other bands play and one of the bands reminded me a lot of Jamaican music. We also heard two famous Kenyan poets recite poems about women empowerment and the life of women living in Kenya. It was great poetry, but the itinerary for the night wasn’t well organized because it had the poets following the introductory bands and people were too excited after dancing around to the first groups to really pay attention. Overall, it was probably my favorite night in Nairobi so far!


This morning I went to a great church that I really enjoyed. The service was in English and has a Kenyan leading worship and an American (I think?) pastor. It was a great community and I stayed for a picnic lunch that they had afterwards to meet and talk with different people about various church small groups that meet all throughout Nairobi. There is one group that meets fairly close to my place and has more younger people than some of the other groups, so I think I am going to try going to it this week. I also joined the gym this week and am really excited because they have a class called Afro Step! It’s on Tuesdays, and I’m planning to go to that as well this week (or at least sometime in the near future).

Well, I think that’s it from the weekend!

The bugs

Hi everyone,
So sorry, I know it has been a seriously long time since I posted anything. I think blogging is not really my strong suit but I’ll definitely try to post once a week from here on out. I had been planning to post about our trip to the coast, but then Brandon beat me to it! I think he did a great job describing everything., probably better than I could have done. However, he did forget to mention how he and Damian left Anne and me the task of killing the 20 large cockroaches in the bathroom while they went to watch a dog dig up crabs on the beach. That’s right, they left the women to take care of the nasty giant cockroaches while they went out to play. I used the only weapon available at the time (an empty beer bottle) and went for it! It was my first experience killing cockroaches and after witnessing my skills with the empty beer bottle weapon, Anne says she wouldn’t want to make me mad if there is an empty bottle close by. Apparently I was a little aggressive towards the cockroaches, but they were giant and nasty and freaked me out!

If I were naming different sections of my trip, I would label these past couple weeks the bug weeks. We had the cockroaches in our bathroom at Tiwi, bed bugs in our beds at the resort in Diani, found a giant centipede creature the size of a hand crawling around, and exterminated the 70 large ants that had made a home in our bathroom sink in Nairobi. Although they seem less harmful than other bugs, I think that ants have become my least favorite bug and the ant extermination process in our bathroom was pretty funny. I’d been finding these ants around every night since I arrived; just about 2 or 3 in the bathroom sink area each night. Then, last weekend, I went into the bathroom around 2am and found about 10 of them crawling on the sink. The winged ones had even come out, which I hadn’t seen before. They have super strong bug killer here in the stores (probably with some illegal chemicals banned in the US) and we had previously bought some to try to take care of the ants but hadn’t really used it yet. I had also been trying to figure out where they were hiding out. That night I saw them crawl into this little hole on the bottom of the sink and decided to spray into the hole. Immediately following the ants started pouring out and I was madly spraying the bug spray at them while they were starting to cover the bathroom floor. We finished the extermination around 3am and the floor was covered in at least 70 dead ants. But, the good news is I haven’t seen another ant in the bathroom since! In general, I feel that I’ve definitely had my share of bug experiences for the moment and am ready for a break!

As far as life in Kenya is concerned, I think I have finally started to settle into a routine here. I spend Mondays in the lab working on various aspects of different projects right now and will soon start generating some DNA that will be used for part of my dissertation. I spend Tuesdays and Fridays working on data analysis and will also start using that time to develop my dissertation proposal. I spend Wednesdays working on another project related to pediatric HIV medication adherence and Thursdays in the pediatric HIV clinic. I really enjoy my time in the clinic, although I’m not always sure how helpful I am. It definitely gives me a new perspective on the research process and the logistical aspects that go into international research.

I am also in the process of learning Kiswahili and have tutoring sessions twice a week. So far the sessions have been going really well and I feel that I am learning a lot. I’m hoping to become fluent by the time that I leave, although sooner rather than later would be nice. All of the women in the clinic speak Kiswahili, so the more I know, the more I am able to communicate with them and the toddlers. The clinic staff is having a great time helping me learn the language too, and they think it is really funny telling me sentences and then trying to get me to pronounce them correctly. I have learned that I am much better at learning other languages when I can see how the words are spelled and am not a very auditory learner. I can hear the word many times but it won’t stick in my head until I see it written down.

It was so great to have Brandon here for the past couple weeks and it was really hard for me to say good-bye to him on Monday when he left! It really makes me wish he had been able to come for the entire time, but I know that that wasn’t necessarily the right decision for him (or us in the long run). But, I am really going to miss him and I can’t believe that he doesn’t come back until December. That seems like such a long time away from now. Thankfully, Kiea will be here soon to visit, so I have something else to look forward to that can help keep my mind off missing Brandon.

Anyway, not much exciting going on here this week, but hopefully I’ll have more exciting stories to tell after the weekend.
Kwaheri for now!

Brandon's Post

Jambo!

My trip to Kenya has been amazing thus far. The flights went well and I had no issues with lost baggage or delays. I brought a box from UW with supplies for the hospital marked "Dr. Brandon Sofie" so I expected a few questions, but nothing came up. Kristin met me at the airport in a taxi and we headed back to her apartment in Nairobi. Her place is nice and comfortable, with all necessary appliances, dishes, furniture and has a small deck that looks out on a courtyard filled with trees, flowers, and plants. She has two roommates, a married couple, named Anne and Damian who will be staying here through the end of her stay. We have spent a lot of time with them exploring Nairobi. We have gone out to local restaurants to try the food and went into town to check out the Sunday market where you can buy hand crafted wood carvings, bowls, baskets, etc. after bargaining quite a bit to reduce the cost. They like to say "I give you good price, Kenyan price" but you still have to undercut that amount to make it reasonable. Kristin and I checked out the national museum where they have the skulls of early humans that were discovered in northern Kenya. We also have gone to the local market and the Nakumatt( African wal-mart) to pick up our groceries, water, beer, and other supplies for the week. We have a consistent driver that we trust named Peter who picked me up from the airport and takes us to the store or to areas that are too far to walk to. The Fairview Hotel is down the street where we can get lunch and sit in the courtyard, but we have cooked most of our meals since I arrived. This has ranged from eggs and toast in the morning to chili or phad thai for dinner.

During last week I walked with Kristin to work a few times and visited the office at the hospital where she works. The streets are filled with people, cars, matatus (buses/vans) crammed full of passengers, motorcycles, men pulling carts, etc. Every road you look down has many people. It has been very dry here so the sidewalks, mostly dirt with rocks, are very dusty and your shoes are usually covered by the time you reach your destination. There is a strong smell of exhaust and diesel fumes as you walk down busy roads, as well as the smell of burning garbage, waste, and BO. They could definitely use some rain to clean the streets a bit. It’s not uncomfortable to walk, but it is a completely foreign environment. The people are generally very nice to talk to and will greet you when spoken to, but I have definitely been called a few things during my time here. Overall, I like this city and could get used to living here, but I welcomed an opportunity to get out of town and see the coast.

All four of us packed our things and boarded a plane last Thursday night for Mombasa, which is on an island on the eastern coast of Kenya. Kristin was very nervous for the flight because it was a small prop plane with about 30 seats and we flew with 540 Airlines “Kenya’s low cost airline” Overall, the flight was fine and we had no issues getting into town. We stayed at the Castle Royal Hotel on one of the main roads of Mombasa. They had a small live band and we sat outside at the restaurant in at the front of the hotel and listened to Kenyan covers of Bruce Springsteen and other American artists. The next morning we took a taxi to the Sand Island Beach Cottages on Tiwi beach. We stopped at the store on the way and stocked up on food, beer and water for our stay. The drive to Tiwi was very interesting with a ferry ride and a constant view of roadside shops filled with everything from fruits to crafts, houses, goats crossing the road in front of our speeding car, cows, children playing soccer, and matatus passing into oncoming traffic as they honked and flashed their lights. We finally reached the entrance to the cottages and took a long dirt road past many small brick houses with thatched roofs, coconut trees. We finally arrived at the cottages and were greeted by an amazing view of the Indian Ocean. The cottages sit at the top of a small slope that looks over a grassy area with palm trees with the beach just steps away. The resort got its name from the “sand island” that appears in front of the beach when the tide is out.We waded out to the island shortly after arriving and sat in the shallow water warmed by the hot sand and drank Tusker beer. We bought fish from the local fisherman and cooked it with the vegetables and rice we picked up on the way. We had adventures with catching crab on the beach and Kristin killing cockroaches in the bathroom on the first night that kept us entertained. There is a large reef that runs along the coast just east of the beach which provides an amazing place for snorkeling. On the second day one of the local fishermen took us to a small pool shaped like Africa where we saw many kinds of tropical fish, and to another location where we swam into caves where the water was cool and there were bats hanging over head. In this pool we found tons of lion fish, parrot fish, and sea urchins. We cooked fresh local prawns for our second dinner and relaxed on the front patio with cold beers.

The following day we had a tough time leaving the cottages, but looked forward to the Papilon resort in Diani. This was a bit of a change being an all inclusive hotel, but we wanted to see a few different areas during our trip.
We mostly relaxed by the pool and enjoyed the sun, with a few trips over to the poolside buffet to grab some food. The resort was inhabited by a large family of Vervet monkeys who would run past you to steal food, cups of beer, or anything small left unattended on a lawnchair. This was entertaining, but they could be annoying at times. I played a game of water polo against team Africa (the staff called the animation team) as a member of the European team, because I was the only American, which was fun and a good workout.

We spend the night watching African dancers and listening to clubbing music which coaxed no one to dance. Then came time for bed where we encountered bed bugs, and two infested rooms later finally got a place to “sleep”. Other than the bug incident we had a great time at the resort. We reluctantly caught a taxi back to the airport in Mombasa and flew back to Nairobi last night. This week we will head out to another local restaurant to celebrate my birthday, and possibly travel out of the city for a camping trip next weekend before I head back to Seattle.

Rainy Season Almost

Another week has gone by and time is really flying! I have so much to talk about but not enough space or time, so I’m just going to ramble about what comes to mind.

I can’t believe I have already been here for almost a month (and that Brandon will arrive next week)! I am really excited to have him come and experience what I have been experiencing.

This week my roommates Anne and Damian arrived and it was great to have some companions to head out and explore the city with. We are all living temporarily in the other apartment I mentioned last week until ours is done being fixed up. But, I am very hopeful that our place will be all ready for us to move into by the end of the next weekend.

Last weekend we did the Nairobi tourist activities of visiting the elephant orphanage and Giraffe center just outside of Nairobi. The elephants were so cute, and they came right up to you and let you pet them. There was also this adorable little baby rhino that came out to say hello to everyone. You can tell it is a total tourist attraction because it was the largest congregation of white people I’ve seen since I arrived. At the giraffe center they give you food so you can feed the giraffe’s, and the center guides told us that if you put it in your mouth, you get a nice kiss from the giraffe. So, of course, I had to try it (see picture above)! I discovered that giraffe tongues are huge and really rough! It was definitely something that everyone who’s coming to visit me this year can look forward to experiencing.

During our weekend outing we had lunch at this really cute restaurant in Karen where we got American style pizza, yum! It was amazing! They also had these cute little fire places and little coal buckets next to the tables to keep you warm. Yes, for those of you wondering, fires and coals are very necessary. It has actually been fairly cold here most of the time since I arrived. It’s been in the 60’s during the days and I’m not sure what temperature at night. The little thermometer on my alarm clock says that our house has been 67 or colder, and there is no heater. Of course I only brought a blanket and no comforter or anything to sleep with, so I’ve been decking out in my fleece pants, fleece socks, and sweatshirts. Not exactly what I thought I’d be having to wear when I was thinking about living in Africa.

It’s almost time for the small rainy season here, and today we got our first real rain. It reminds me of Seattle with the dark gray clouds and sprinkles happening throughout the day with no sun breaks, just your basic gray dreary day. The only difference is that the rain makes the sidewalks (which are really just dirt paths) muddy and definitely has the potential to make walking to work every day an adventure J I am debating buying a pair of these giant rubber boots from the store when the rains really kick in. I tried them on yesterday and I look really stylish in them, yeah right!

Yesterday was a holiday for Kenya so we had the day off. It was national census day, where they were coming around to everyone’s house to count people and get census data for their 10 year evaluation (last census was in 1999). The census was Monday night and all day yesterday, so there was a no movement order out for the city and many closed shops and businesses. I was really looking forward to participating but no one showed up to talk with us L Oh well, at least I can say I lived here when they gathered the data!

I am now eating my delicious lunch of chipatis and samosas from a local restaurant by the clinic I am working from today. It was less than 100 shillings, basically $1, for the entire meal. If you eat traditional Kenyan food or at local restaurants, food here is very cheap. But if you head out to the fancier tourist locations, food is much more expensive and fairly comparable to the US. Our power was out yesterday afternoon so we headed over to the hotel next door to eat lunch and one of the girls I was with got charged $9 for a plate of French fries!

Well, that’s if for now, I’ll try to be better about updating this more often in the future.

Underwear Everywhere

Well, today I had my first experience with having my house cleaned and laundry done by someone I hired and while the place looks great, my underwear is hanging up for everyone in the entire complex to see! I had purposely separated my underwear from the rest of my clothes because I didn't want it to be hanging in the middle of the apartment complex where I've seen everyone's clothes hanging and I really felt much more comfortable washing it myself. I had put it in a separate tiny little laundry pail that I hid this morning and took out and left the other basket of my clothes in the living room with the cleaning supplies. Well, apparently I didn't hide my underwear well enough and I arrived home and every pair of my underwear is nicely displayed on the clothesline for all to see :) And, it's only my underwear (I have no idea where the rest of my clothes are, at least they would have helped hide the underwear). I guess I'm going to have to get more creative about where I hide my underwear next week!!

Another Week gone by

I have now successfully made it through another week in Kenya! I just finished making banana bread, which actually, surprisingly, turned out similar to what it looks/tastes like when I make it in the states. I'm also working on making homemade applesauce and basically, just turning into a regular Martha Stewart :) The reason for all this baking/cooking is that I've moved into another apartment for the next week which has an electric stove. I know everyone loves gas stoves, which is what my regular apartment has in it, but I am not a fan. And, I have no idea how to light the oven, haha!

So, I had to move into another apartment in my complex yesterday for two different reasons. First, there has been a huge ordeal going on with outstanding electric bills upon my arrival. Although the account numbers are now all figured out and the outstanding balances paid (this was a huge hassle to figure out), this did not happen before the electric company came and shut off our hot water heater. So, while we do still have lights in my apartment, we don't have hot water. It sounds like its going to be another ordeal to try to get the company to come back and turn the water back on, but we'll see how it goes. I have been showering without hot water for the past two days, so I was really happy this morning to have a hot shower again!

Secondly, the apartment I moved into was a disaster upon my arrival. There were no working outlets or lights in the living room (that is now fixed) and it looked like the bathroom hadn't been cleaned in ages. Picture white bathroom mats on the floor that are solid black with dirt/mold, paint peeling away from the walls with a nice layer of mold had built up underneath, and black floors instead of the normal yellow color they should have been. Throughout the apartment in general, instead of white walls, mine were a nice shade of brown and the floor had lost all of its finish and was covered by a nice layer of dirt that when scrubbed (by me on my hands and knees) just sunk right back into the wood and stayed nice and dirty. I know it sounds like I'm being picky, given that I am living in Africa, but when you saw what the other apartments in the complex are like and realize that yours is also supposed to look like that, you'd understand.

So, to get everything all straightened up, the apartment maintance man is working on fixing up the apartment with a crew this upcoming week and they are washing everything and painting and refinishing the floors. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to have someone else pay, so for now it's my expense, but I'm hoping to figure that out too. Even if it stays my expense, it's so worth it to have the place cleaned up! I am so so so excited to have this work done but can't stay there while they are doing it. So, this is the other reason I've moved apartments. The one I'm in now is actually much nicer than ours! But, I'm tired of not being able to settle in and unpack. I'm really looking forward to being able to finally be able to settle in to my apartment (and one that doesn't look like it's just been through a tornado and monsoon all rolled into one).

I went to work every day last week and, as usual when you start a new job, things are a little slow going at first. I'm working on figuring out which days I am working with who and where, but I think it'll still be a few weeks until everything gets ironed out. In general, I will be spending one day a week working in a pediatric HIV clinic, one day working on data analysis for the pediatric HIV project, another day working in an immunology/molecular biology lab, another day writing my proposal, and a final day working on an existing analysis project looking at immune responses in HIV positive women. Overall, a very busy schedule! But, they all feel like very worthwhile projects to be working on and even from my short time here so far, I know that this year will definitely be an eye-opening experience.

I've also spent some time this week meeting the other people living in my apartment complex. While the UW used to have a lot of people renting and living in these apartments, they have all moved away and it is now mostly students and employees of the University of Manatoba. I met 4 of them this week and it was really great to start meeting the neighbors.

Well, I need to go finish my applesauce! I'll write more later if I think of anything exciting I forgot to include.

Back to Work

Disclaimer: You are going to have to ingore all the spelling errors that are in these blogs. For those of you who don't know, I'm a horrible speller, and this blog site doesn't have spell check! Oh how I miss spellcheck. Anyway, try to ignore (and feel free to laugh) at all the funny spelling mishaps.

It's Monday and time to head back to work for the week. I'm sad to say goodbye to the weekend, it was really fun. I went out to dinner, drinks, and dancing with some of the other people in my apartment complex (Martina Morris and Steve Goodreau, professors at the University of Washington for those of you who are in the HIV field) on Friday. We tried every appetizer on the menu and had some of the most amazing white wine Sangria I've ever tasted! It even had fresh strawberries and rasperries in it! The restaurant turned into a dancing spot soon after we arrived and was playing music from the 60s, 70s and 80s. They played some great songs, including Men in Black, a personal favorite of mine from the days when I had a huge crush on Will Smith, haha!

On Saturday I went to this amazing jewlery store and to Michael Chung's house (another UW professor) for a BBQ with the some of the UW crew. The food at Michael's was great, smoked ribs, teriyaki chicken, corn on the cob, and some amazing salads. Micheal had even made homemade chocolate ice cream, delicious! After dinner everyone played games on the wii. If you don't have it yet, I highly recommend getting wii resort. We also played some crazy game where you had to throw giant cows by swinging the wii over your head like a lasso, pretty hilarious. Before the night was over there were also some dance dance revolution moves and rock band renditions that were quite amusing.

Yesterday we went to the Massai Market and did some shopping. I tried my hand at doing some bargaining for prices, but I'm not very good. Thankfully, the people in the group I went with were much better than me and were able to teach me some tricks :) If you are coming to visit, hopefully by the time you get here I'll be good at it and be able to get you some good prices!

After many phone calls with the airlines, my bag arrived on Saturday and was delivered to my apartment for me. Nothing was missing, except for the butane lighter I had packed to light our gas stove (which was confiscated by TSA because lighters are not allowed, oops!).

The apartment was a mess when I arrived, so disgusting, and many things were broken. I've been working with the maintenance guy to get things fixed and have been cleaning all weekend (well, when I wasn't out playing). It's coming along, but there is still a long way to go! I'm heading to the Nakumat (wallmart/target type store in Africa) to get some much needed supplies for the apartment tonight.

I think that's it for now and I should get back to work :)