Leaving Busia

Ok time to finish up Busia. Better late than never, right?

Saturday was taken up by another training. Ephy, who has never handled animals before, was training us, the veterinarians and animal health assistants, how to handle animals. Oh good, a perfectly great way to spend the weekend. Ephy speaks in a series of suspended questions that she answers herself: "Mothers always protect their? Young!". And everything she says, no matter what the subject of the sentence, is followed by a resounding "isn't it?!". So just imagine hours of statements like this: "Then you are able to do your? Sampling! Isn't it?! Then the animals can be? Used! Isn't it?!". That is how the day went.

I did learn some alarming things about the hospital system and doctors. Apparently there is a large shortage of doctors, not helped by the fact that the government supports sending them abroad. So many of the doctors staffing public hospitals are fresh out of school/residence (6 years TOTAL including undergrad) and nobody trusts them. They are my little brother's age. Additionally, they are so overworked and short staffed that no matter what your complaint is you invariably just get a prescription to treat either malaria or typhoid. One of the ILRI employees took her young daughter in the other day because she was having trouble breathing, and they told her to first treat her for malaria for 3 weeks and then they would check out her lungs. She insisted on seeing another doctor and finally got someone to listen to her child's lungs and they ended up changing the diagnosis to pneumonia.

That evening Eleonore and I decided to walk home along the main road. It is about 5 km and normally takes 45 minutes. We passed many women selling fruits, vegetables, and grains. Others were braiding hair under trees. School children followed us as close as they dared and ran away laughing when we smiled at them. Goats, cows, and chickens roamed free everywhere, picking through piles of garbage, and we wondered how people knew who they belonged to. A group of about 8 children came running up to us, led by a tiny little girl barely old enough to walk who stopped short in front of me to shake my hand. The older children followed suit or added their personal variations on the greeting: a hard slap on the hand or a passionate kiss on the palm. At one point I was startled by a man who ran down an embankment and stopped just short of hitting me from behind. I turned around to face him, my heart racing, and realized that he was completely drunk. But he understood my startled look and apologized until I reassured him that I was ok and walked on.

We were about 15 minutes from home when the huge storm head that had been accumulating ripped open on us. Within 30 seconds the bustling roadside was empty and the rain was coming down in torrents. We found ourselves under the roof of a weigh station shack, and were invited in to wait out the rain. There was no power and it was too loud to talk, so we sat in the dark wooden room with 4 or 5 other people for about half an hour. There was a dusty Obama calendar on the wall and through the window we could see fuel trucks arriving after a 36 hour journey from Mombassa. It was getting dark so when the downpour finally showed signs of fatigue, we made a run for it. Most people were still huddled under the eves of buildings, and a soggy looking rooster glowered at us from under a vegetable stand as we passed by. A small group of children ran ahead down the middle of the road chasing each other and laughing. We arrived home completely soaked and mud spattered, just happy we had made it before dark. I didn't bother to shower that day. I just toweled off and changed my clothes.

The next morning we woke up at 4:40 and drove to Kisumu. Jon, Eleonore, and I tried to sleep in the back, despite the bumps and lurches and lack of space. We spent the morning at a very large outdoor market and filled the car up with perishable items just as the sun was gearing up to cook it all. I found some nice fabric without Obama's face on it, and a clay pot with a water buffalo head that seems like a foolish purchase in retrospect. Then we headed down to the shore of Lake Victoria for a lunch of talapia and ugali.

Sitting outside, just feet from the muddy water, we washed our hands in warm water poured into plastic bowls and watched matatu drivers washing their vans. A continuous line of men walked by trying to sell us everything from soapstone candle sticks, to bracelets, to CDs, to fishing nets. Some just leaned on a post 3 feet from our table and stared. Amy engaged a boatman she knew in a discussion about how much a trip to one of the National park islands would be, and I stifled my annoyance when she told him that $100 was too much to split between 3 people for 4 hours of boating, fuel, and a guided tour for the entire day. How much did she think was a fair price to pay!? I know it is a slippery slope between being fair and being ripped off, but it bothered me that her only concern was the latter.

After lunch we drove to the rich side of town and read by a hotel pool until it started raining. Then we drove the car to hippo point to wait out the weather. If you watched closely you could see one hippo face surface from the lake every 5 minutes or so to breathe. We chatted and laughed and watched the traditional fishing boats with huge white sails until it was time for me to catch my plane. I told them to drop me at the outer gate so they could avoid paying the fee for driving through. I didn't want to leave Busia. It actually felt like Africa there.

Descending into Nairobi at night shows you how truly undeveloped most of Africa is. Beyond the main city itself, there are no lights. I found my driver, and as he went to get the car I realized how much different I felt compared to the first time I had arrived in Nairobi. It felt familiar, I was relaxed, and I felt like I knew how to interact with people. I was in the back of the car, trying to stay awake, when we got waved over by two policemen. One came over and spoke with my driver for about 10 minutes in Swahili. I had no idea what was going on and was not sure if I should make a stink or just stay quiet. I did not make a stink. Eventually the cop came to the back window across from me and held something red toward my face. I panicked for a moment not knowing what it was until he turned it on and I saw it was a flashlight. He looked surprised, asked me how I was, and then went back to the driver. We were waved on 2 minutes later.

The driver explained that the cop had shamelessly asked him for money. He also wanted us to buy him tea since he had just been rained on. When the driver said he had no money, the cop threatened to take him to the police station. Apparently he got nervous when he saw me and let us go. Probably my huge biceps.