Life in rural Kenya

Africa » Kenya » Nyanza Province » Kisumu
July 30th 2008

Published: July 30th 2008

So this is our time to catch up on some blog posts!
We are now back in Kenya in the bigger towns, so our lack of a functional internet service is behind us!
I truly cannot believe that we are almost done with our sumer long journey!!!
It has been incredible!
To fill you all in about our life the last little while, it must start with our adventure crossing yet another boarder (joining Uganda and Kenya) on foot!!
I am not sure if we mentioned this in one of first blogs, but prior to leaving on our trip Katie had a 'nightmare' about having to cross the boarder on foot, unlike what occurs in Canada where we have our cars etc. So every time we have to cross a boarder we laugh because even if we are on a bus we must get off the bus and cross via foot to get our passports and visas checked!
So our crossing in Busia Uganda to Busia Kenya involved about a 4 km HIKE in like 40 degree weather and extreme dust, plus the weight of our ever growing bags.
Half way between the boarders I gave in and paid a boda boda driver (a bicycle) to walk my stuff across because the weight was too much and I was too hot and for .50 cents how could you complain!
And did the mention the DUST! BAHHHH! it was sooo bad! my once white shirt now is brown with other 2 parts being white where the straps of my pack were located!
So after our boarder crossing and matatu rides we arrived in Ugunja! Which was definitely the smallest village/town that we have stayed in so far!
The main 'town' area consists of one intersection that doesnt even have lights and a couple dirt roads that a normally lined with vendors selling fruit or what have you!
The organization we worked with was called UCRC (Ugunja Community Resource Centre) and it is pretty much the hub of all activity in town! The CEO Aggrey does all this amazing work but unlike any CEO I know in Canada he doesnt have a salary and thus is a 'voluntary CEO'.
The organization has so many projects I don't even know where to start but the ones we worked on were a bike project where we taught adult women to ride bikes; worked on developing a 5 year strategic plan for a local secondary girls school; made teaching aids for a primary school and finally worked at the clinic located deeper in the village not in town.
My personal favorites were the bike project and the clinic. One thing we have learned in our travels and that there is little respect for women and they hold little power. So the Bike program is a great program to empower the women in the villages. Before this program many women never learned to ride bikes because that was solely for men but now they are learning. It is great as well because when or if their husbands die for some reason and leave behind a bike, they are able to use the bike to not only collect their water from local bore holes but also carry items into the market for selling etc!
Teaching a grown woman though is challenging!!! HAHA They weigh about 100lbs more that most children and have a much higher centre of gravity and thus have NO BALANCE!!!
But the reward once the woman has peddled on her own for even 2 seconds is a great accomplishment!!!
Then working the clinic was great!!! Katie was able to spend most of her time in the pharmacy which I think was great practice for her! even though most of the time she might now have been learning more detailed information about certain drugs etc like you would in school, she pretty much was given the responsibility of running the entire place!!!
The first day there, I spent it with a male nurse who was the head medical person responsible at the clinics Voluntary Testing Centre (for HIV/AIDS). Although he was a nurse, he pretty much just had all the responsibilities of a doctor back home. After the patients were tested for HIV he would do an entire physical exam and fill out about 5 different forms (for statistical and tracking purposes) and then write prescriptions for whatever their required. Also when the main clinic was busy he also took some of those patients to help ease the load and wait. During my time with him he pretty much made me do all the work and watched to just make sure I didn't kill someone hahaha.
Its surprising how similar all my veterinary medicine skills work for humans!
I was doing full physicals and writing prescriptions (which Katie loved since she could actually read my hand writing haha) and writing referrals to other hospitals!!!!!
Its crazy that you dont even necessarily need to have a true medical degree for a given species to practice medicine here!

In addition to the great projects we worked on we had a great cultural experience in Ugunja!
Throughout our trip we have been pretty lucky and have not been really 'roughing it', I.e. we had water , toilets etc. But we definitely got a wake up call in the village!
We were showed out house for the next 10 days and it was literally a MUD HUT! the walls were mud and the roof was a grass thatch roof that had about a 1 ft gap between the roof and the walls!
There was no running water, therefore we had to walk to the local bore hole and pump our water to fill the 20L jerry can. There was no electricity so we had to use candles and kerosene. All of this may not sound that great but it actually wasn't that bag!! It was like a little adventure!
The worst part about the entire time there was that they lacked TOILETS! and thus had to use Pit-latrines all the time. And lucky for us, our compounds pits were NASTY and were filled with such bugs that you couldn't open your mouth without fear of swallowing one (as Katie did one night!! )
Every night we went to Aggrey's compound just down the road and helped cook supper which was prepared over an open fire in the pitch black since the sun goes down so early in Africa. The compound had 17 people in it, most of which were children between 15-20 so it was great to talk with them and hear their opinions of life in Africa and what they thought about North America etc.
So after our 10 days in Ugunja and about 50 L of ugali later we got on our bus back to Niarobi area and we are honestly so happy to be back at the place we now call 'home'!
We finally got back to Mary's house last night (the one who runs Living Positive) and it was like the biggest family reunion!!! We are heading on our Safari this weekend so we are super excited for that and can't wait to share pictures with you all!
We are sorry we havent been able to load them, but the internet has just been so horrible it has been impossible!!!!
Hope all is well and we love you all!
See you in a week or so!!!

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