Another Busia Day

Today is the half way point of my trip. And I am a week behind in my blog. Oh no! At the risk of spoiling the surprise, I will jump ahead and tell you that upon returning to work here in the lab at ILRI, nothing exciting what so ever has happened to me. So now I am caught up with this week, but it's time to finish last week...

Thursday morning I found myself in a truck with Edwin and Milton. I had been warned about Milton's driving, but I'm not sure anything could have prepared me for the real live experience. Everything in his path fled. Children ran into corn fields, terror on their faces, and animals sprinting to the ends of their tethers and were violently flipped back to the reality of their confinement. Edwin was so used to it that he simply leaned his head back and slept, and I cranked down on my seat belt and listened to the blaring radio.

The topic that morning was bad husbands. Does your husband provide for you the way he should? Financially, physically, emotionally? Or does he waste his time sitting and watching TV while you cook and clean? Gender roles in Kenyan society are depressingly traditional, and I had gotten my first idea of this while sitting under a bush with Philip and Steven the day before. They had just found out that I was married, and were asking me what Andy does. I told them he was back in Ithaca working, and the familiar pang of guilt prompted me to explain that while he was supporting me now, as soon as I graduated I would take over and he could do whatever he wanted. "Ah, that makes a lot of sense" said Steven, "but that would never happen here". I then learned that even if a Kenyan woman makes tons of money, she has no obligation to spend it on her immediate family. She can save it, or support her parents, or buy clothes, and might occasionally help with food expenses, but the man is responsible for providing for his family. "If a girl has no money, you run the other way. Only rich kids and professors date girls in college. You have to pay for EVERYTHING, even her phone and phone credit if you want to talk to her." As it turned out, both of these guys had families of their own that lived at least 2 hours away. They only saw them on the weekends, and otherwise worked in Busia, making money to send their kids to school.

The first calf we visited was a year old that day. It was his final visit for the study, and as a happy birthday present we poked and prodded him even more than usual. There was also a really cute dog that looked like an overgrown corgi and happily snoozed in the dirt while 50 or so chickens scratched all around him. I asked the farmer if I could send him my dogs to be trained.

For those of you who care, I will now go into some nerdy vet related detail that would make Dr. Bowman proud. Cool things I saw included:

1. Rhipicephalus appendiculatus aka the brown ear tick: the vector for east coast fever (my disease!)
   
2. Amblyoma something or other with very ornate scutums (scuta?)
   
3. Rhipicephalus evertsi which looks just like the brown ear tick but has red legs
   
4. Thelazia eye worms!!! Remember that disgusting movie we had to watch in parasitology?
   
5. Taking ventral midline skin biopsies to test for oncocerca
6. Aspirates of totally swollen pre-scapular and sub-iliac lymph nodes (about lemon size, and this calf was not large)

I have pictures of everything but the Thelazia (although I'm sure Bowam would lend me that video), so if you want to see them come to my presentation in the fall. I also learned some interesting things about the local breed (African Zebu) and husbandry practices. They all have these huge flaps of skin around their umbilicus, which can enlarge for a number of reasons (imminent parturition, hernia, edema, snake bite). They don't seem to impart any advantage that I can think of, but apparently farmers think cows with large dewlaps (extra skin under their neck) and umbilical flaps make good mothers, so they are actually selected for. But it's hard to be a good mother when you are only allowed to suckle your calf on a restricted basis. These cows only give 0.5 -1.0 liters of milk at each milking, and are typically milked twice a day. That isn't even enough to feed a holstein dairy calf. But these calves don't get nearly that much. They are allowed to suckle briefly before milking, to stimulate milk letdown, but then the farmer takes as much as he can before the calf is allowed the dregs. I'm not sure how they live on so little, and it's no wonder they are barely the size of holstein yearlings when they are full grown.

We visited 5 calves that day, and between my impressive temperature taking skills and Milton's driving we were back by 1:45pm. I finished the day off with a breathless sprint behind Sam, Jon, and Amy. Their pace was much faster than what I am used to, but I had to keep up for fear of not being able to find my way back. At one point we were joined by a group of kids who somehow knew we would be coming and delighted in sprinting past me over and over again, while women gave me pitiful looks and told each other how glad they were not to be running.

Then we piled in the car and drove home. The driveway was blocked by a rope going across, about 2 feet off the ground. Amy was quick enough to gather there was some sort of animal on one end of it, hidden in the grass, and in response she slowly pulled the car up and drove over it. The cow, 18 inches from the car, didn't even pick her head up.

Stuck in the Mud

Eleonore Spitzer and I slept well in the same bed, despite not knowing each other at all. I later found out she was in fact a distant relative of the no longer governor of New York, although she didn't know him. We made ourselves breakfast, reaching around the rancid honey that was dripping through the wall of an old fireplace turned pantry.

When we got to the office, I was assigned to go out with Philip, James, and Steven. If you know the Gray boys well this is somewhat ironic. This was the recruitment team for the day, which meant it was our job to visit calves between 3-7 days old and see if they qualified for our study. Now, when I had offered to bring my own coveralls for this project, I had been assured that I would be provided with a pair. I suppose no untruths were told, but all the coveralls at the office were so huge that I had to put my legs in and then just tie the arms around my waste to keep the crotch above my knees.

On the way there, Philip explained that the hardest part was getting accurate information. If you doubted the farmer you were to ask his kids, and if that didn't work the neighbors were usually reliable. We arrived at the first village, picked up the assistant chief, and drove out down a dirt path to a clearing with two circular mud houses with thatched roofs. As we anticipated there was an inconsistency of information: a call had been made to the office on Wednesday morning saying a calf had been born, but the farmer insisted it was born on Thursday. After a lot of talking and waiting for the in laws to arrive, we decided it was better to just let this one go.

After strike two, we headed off to a different sub-location way way out in the middle of nowhere and finally found a calf we could recruit into our study. The recruitment process is very detailed and takes about 2 hours to complete. No matter where we were, tables and chairs were brought outside for us to sit on. We ask the farmers many questions and examine the calf and its dam, and then we pay the farmer the price of a year old calf (about $125). In this way, we own the calf, but the farmer has agreed to take care of it as he would any other calf for one year while it is in our study. Usually at the end of the study, the farmer gets to keep the calf which gives him incentive to continue caring for it.

While we examined the calf, three young women examined me. Judy (15), Claire (17) and Laurie (3) eventually worked up enough courage to talk to me. After the usual introductions, Claire explained that she did not have enough money to go to school, and would I please remember her. Then the chief came up to me and told me that she was an orphan and could not afford school, and that I should consider helping her. Of course, none of the African men with actual incomes were being asked. I remained empathetic and found out that the fees were about $250 per year for kids her age. I said I might consider it in the future, but I could not do anything at the moment. I felt bad of course, but I don't blame them for asking and they were very nice about it.

After all the poking and prodding were completed, I was allowed to witness the money exchange. We went into the hut under the pretence that someone might be watching (let me remind you we were in a field in the middle of nowhere), and counted out the money in front of the farmer and the chief. After signatures were obtained, we were given sugar cane and sent on our way. We made it about 150 feed down the road before James slipped off the path and sent the front of the car into a muddy ravine. No problem I though, this car is monstrous. But I ate my words over the next two hours as we tried in vain to un-stick the car using jacks, branches, rocks, and elbow grease. At one point they even let me drive while they pushed, but this didn't work either. As it turns out, the rear differential was completely lodged in the mud as well, and even the other car could not pull us out. We ended up regrouping to go finish the calf visits while someone else called a tractor to come rescue the car.

At the next farm, we realized we had left the sling for weighing calves in the stuck car, so we improvised with my shoulder bag and Steven's belt. Then we went back to the office and I went in search of food. Along the road I found lots of fruit and some cake, which I brought home and ended up sharing with the Turkeys. Charles was in the yard doing laundry under the papaya trees. When he got up from his stool, on of the turkeys jumped up on it and tried to tag her sister while she ran in circles around her making ridiculous noises. When they were done, the one on the stool pooped to leave her mark before hopping down. I never knew turkeys were so silly.

Arriving in Busia

On Tuesday morning my alarm finally went off at 4:40am. I had gotten up to check it at least 4 times before that. The taxi driver rang the doorbell at 4:55 as I was scarfing down yogurt so that I could take my antimalarial pill. He had been driving all night and we were his last customers of the shift. With no traffic we sped down the dark quiet roads to the hotel where the other students were waiting. They are both vet students at Edinburgh University in Scotland. Jon is 22 and from Singapore, and Eleonore is 26 and from France/Western Canada. We got to the airport in plenty of time, and after getting to the front of the only line there, we were told our flight was not yet open for check in. There were no seats, no newspapers, and not even a vending machine.

Eventually we watched the sun rise over a cup of coffee and some bananas. When we were let out onto the tarmac, it seemed like we could simply board any of the 6 or 7 planes out there. We briefly considered a quick trip to Zanzibar as we waited in line to climb up the steep steps. After all that waiting our flight to Kisumu was barely long enough to drink some juice and throw the cup away. We flew in low over the Eastern edge of Lake Victoria and were on the ground by 8am. Eleonore asked if she could swim in the lake (?!). We picked up the luggage without setting a foot inside and found our driver, Mike.

Unable to find any bathroom facilities at the airport, and feeling there were too many people to go behind a tree, Eleonore and I begged Mike to take us to a bathroom before the 2 hour ride to Busia commenced. He drove us downtown to a little restaurant, spoke to a person inside, and led us through the dining area and kitchen, into a cement courtyard outback. We took turns holding the door of the dark musty shack and exited the restaurant considerably happier. Then back through town, past hundred of people on bicycles, and onto the only road going West.

Mike had an old tape of a band called Michael Learns to Rock, or MLTR (ironically enough). I would not have known this except some of the lyrics have since been burned into my brain and I was just able to google them. If any of you are not familiar with this musical genius, please, enlighten yourselves! So, MLTR smoothly serenaded us as we wound through the countryside. Over and over again. At one point the sound became completely warped but it played on. The ride was easy enough except when the road ceased to exist for 5 foot stretches here and there and we had to slam on the brakes and either drive through the ditches or around them. We passed small houses, fields of corn and sorghum, women with barrels of water on their heads, men on bicycles, boys leading cows, the occasional truck, and a small town every 40 minutes or so. Jon and Eleonore took a nap but I was determined to stay awake and see everything. When it seemed we could take MLTR no longer, Jon saw a man with sugar cane on the back of his bike, and told Mike to pull over. The man was happy to sell a piece of his crop, so the three of them wrestled a 6 foot cane out of the bundle (under the supervision of a nearby policeman), and broke it up so it could fit in the back of the car. The next small town we came to was Busia.

We were taken to the ILRI office which is a back building among all the other local government buildings of Busia. Past the birth and death office, the guards with machine guns, and goats. We unloaded our things, met a thousand people face to face with a handshake, then loaded everything back into one of the huge range rover things and went back up the road to the house. Upon opening the gate, we were welcomed by two turkeys, a goat, and Charles the young man who cooked and took care of the house. Sam, the Kenyan vet and PhD student who lived there asked Eleonore and I if we were friends. Yes? We had just met the day before. Good, because you will be sharing a room. We soon found out that meant sharing a bed as well, but neither of us felt like staying alone at a hotel so we decided it was fine.

Sam then explained that there were 3 teams that went into the field every day. A group also stayed in the lab to process samples. Occasionally a field team was called out for clinical episodes when a cow got sick or post mortem (PM) exams. On the weekends I asked? No said Sam, cows don't have clinical episodes on Saturdays. Hah! When we got back to the office, the only thing left to do that day was a PM on a pig. I still have no idea why we had to do this, or why it took 4 vets and 4 vet students to complete, but we all piled into the car and set out to find the dead pig. There were actually 3 dead piglets and one that had been mistaken for dead already and was nearly there. The dead pig we cut open looked normal enough except for some lung worms (not normal but also probably not the cause of death) and I still have no idea what our conclusion was. We students suggested euthanizing the almost dead piglet, but the men had not brought any drugs with them and though it inhumane to do it any other way.

Then Sam took us out to lunch at a restaurant across the street from the office and we had whole fried talapia from Lake Victoria (which incidentally belongs to Egypt since it is the source of the Nile) and ugali (the traditional cornflour and water mixture). We were informed that this was a luxury since there would be no lunch on the days we were in the field. Back at the house Eleonore had a lengthy and loud conversation with the goat and Jon and I decided to go for a run. It was then I learned, repeatedly, that the Swahili word for white person is mazungu. I didn't mind when excited children called to us, but it was less endearing when men yelled it somewhat aggressively as we ran by. It was dusk when we turned off the main road on the way back home and we realized we had no idea which dirt road/driveway to turn down. We tried a few, passed many humorless faces, until a boy finally showed us a path through some back yards to the mazungu house. There was no doubt everyone knew exactly where we lived.

That night I helped Charles make fish and ugali and we all ate together at the table. Besides Sam, Amy also lives at the house. She is a young vet from the UK who is about to start her PhD in Busia. We took refreshingly cold showers under a trickle of water, said goodnight to Sam watching the news, and crawled into bed under our mosquito nets.

Jeff and Lillian

When I was in Thailand I remember thinking that no matter where I went afterward, it would always be different and never quite as real because I wouldn't have a host family. But the real lesson, I think, is that no matter where you are people are amazing. I spent Saturday night on the top bunk of a bed with a mother and her two children under me, in tiny cement hut in the village just down the road from ILRI. But let me start from the beginning.

While we were at the going away party for Sang, we spent a lot of time with Jeffrey, one of the other cooks. I learned that he was planning to move to the US with his wife in November, to join her sister. Where I asked. Bismark North Dakota. I mentioned that JJ had Fargo at his house and if he wanted to see what the landscape was like, he and the Ithaca boys could come over to watch it. He liked this idea, but instead invited us to his house. So later that evening, we met at the boys' house and got ready to walk home with Jeff.

I don't remember if I have talked about them in the past, but Will (18?) and Ben (16?) are here from Ithaca with their father and mother who is a plant scientist at Cornell on sabbatical. Will's friend Alex also came along, after he and Will graduated early from Ithaca High School. The older boys have been making themselves busy shooting movies all over Kenya, and Ben has been finishing up 10th grade at the international school in Nairobi. Ben is also one of the best young piano players I have heard since PVPA. They are all great guys and some of the more fun people at ILRI to hang out with.

While we were getting ready to go, it became evident that Jeff intended for us to spend the night. None of us were aware of or logistically prepared for this, but plans were made, numbers were given to parents, and we headed off down the road. In the dark it was not immediately obvious that we were 4 white kids in the middle of a somewhat rundown bustling market street on the outside of a large village. We made our way along the curb, around cars, and through people for about 15 minutes and then took a left off the road onto a residential path. The power had gone out so from candle light we saw homes, butcher shops, and fruit stands on either side. A smiling young woman met us on the path and we were introduced to Jeff's wife Lillian who is about my age and size. Then we took a right, ducked through a green metal gate with a door sized for 10 year olds, and found ourselves in the communal back yard of about 4 houses.

The power came back as we were shown into Jeff and Lillian's family room. It was small but comfortable, everything a different shade of blue, with plenty of seating reminiscent of dorm lounge furniture and seashells and candle sticks above the windows. There was a clock with a painting of the Eiffel Tour on in and the cloth on the circular table was red. We took our shoes off and sat down. The kitchen was no larger than a small bathroom so we were not permitted to help with the cooking for physical reasons. The DVDs I had brought could not be read by his DVD player, so instead we watched an episode of 24 from somewhere in the middle of one of the later seasons. We also enjoyed hot coffee and milk, and sandwiches made with butter and grated cheddar cheese. Jeff's twin sister (whose name I unforgivably can't remember) came over with her two children, a girl (again, the name eludes me) dressed completely in pink around 4 years, and a 4 month old boy named Stanley. She said hello, handed the baby to one of the boys, and went deeper into the house with Lillian. I took the opportunity to squeeze into the kitchen with Jeff and see what he was cooking.

I don't remember the names of the dishes, but there was a vegetable dish with peppers, carrots and tomatoes in a thick sauce, rice cooked with meat and spices, kale and spinach sauteed with onions, and a salad made from tomatoes, carrots, and avocado, simply dressed with lemon juice. Later a dish made from beans, peas, and pumpkin seeds would be remembered and retrieved from the microwave. As he cooked Jeff and I talked about the names of foods, cooking, being newlyweds, and the importance of having a well equipped kitchen. He was proud of his kitchen and I could tell he had spent a lot of money on the pots hanging above the sink. The water in the village only runs every few days, so a large covered bucket is housed next to the sink to provide washing and cooking water. The curtain in the window was white with red strawberries on it.

When it was time to eat Jeff said grace and we dug in. Ben got stuck holding the baby while we were getting food, but he didn't seem to mind. We ate and talked for a long time about Jeff and Lillian's move to North Dakota and what they could expect. We did the best we could, despite the fact that none of us had been there. We also talked about different cultures and when I asked what the significance was of the picture of flowers behind the TV being upside down, Jeff just laughed and turned it around. Evidently someone had moved it while cleaning and nobody had noticed. Then the coffee table was precariously propped up on a chair, a queen sized mattress was put on the floor for the boys, and I was told I would be sleeping in one of the bedrooms. I pretended to be disappointed at having to sleep alone, but Jeff just smiled and reassured me that I would NOT be alone. There was one bathroom with a porcelain hole in the floor, a bucket of water next to it, and toothbrushes hanging neatly on the wall. Jeff and Lillian had a bedroom but I never saw it.

Stanley, having been the most quiet and docile baby ever all evening, decided it was time to start crying, so we played with his sister while he was put to bed. She did not know any English, and was shy at first, but nothing a little peek-a-boo behind a place matt couldn't dissolve. Soon we were tickling and biting her feet and she was on the mattress shrieking with laughter. She didn't want to go to bed, but when I crying stopped we decided it was time to turn in. Lillian brought me a stool so I could climb into the upper bunk, and Jeff's sister and the kids went to bed below me. The combination of coffee, a full bladder, and dogs barking outside kept me up for a while, staring at the corrugated tin roof above my head, but eventually I got some sleep.

I woke up early to singing and shouting outside. If Jeff's sister had still been in bed, she would have seen a leg and foot searching for a way to reach the stool over the banister for a good minute or two, before squeezing between the bed and the wall to get down. But to my relief, only the kids were there, still asleep. I became painfully aware of the inflexibility of people raised in developed countries as I finally relieved my bladder and then went out into the living room. The curtains there were darker and the boys were fast asleep. I sat in a chair and watched Lillian and her sister in law go in and out of the house, preparing breakfast. The boys finally woke up, I was accused of being creepy for watching them sleep, and they bickered about snoring and bad breath.

The children's mother did her best to feed them some porridge but Stanley kept spitting it out and his sister would not eat it. In her frustration she swatted at her daughter but heard me laugh when I saw this and began laughing herself. Then the baby was passed around as we ate a huge breakfast of eggs, toast, butter, honey, tea with milk, and oranges. When it was time to go, Jeff and Lillian walked back with us and I had a chance to talk to Lillian for a while. She is currently volunteering with young mothers, teaching them first aid and basic life skills. They also make cards and jewelry out of paper beads that they sell to make money for the organization. I am hopefully going to visit with them one day soon.

At the roundabout, we were stopped by a man with a camera who told us we could not walk through unless we paid to have our picture taken. Apparently ILRI did not like the path that was forming from people walking through, so they gave this man permission to require photos of those wishing to pass. We got together, squinted into the sun, and got a receipt for 4 prints which we could pick up on Monday. Then we said goodbye and I went back to bed until 3 pm.

On another note, I am off to Busia (the countryside) tomorrow morning at 5 am. I will be there until Sunday and I expect to have limited internet access. It is supposed to be hot, beautiful, and rife with Malaria. I will tell you all about it when I get back!

Boof Babies

Looking back on last week a few snapshots come to mind.

After emailing back and forth with Laura who is departing for the Democratic Republic of Congo in a few weeks, I briefly considered visiting her while she is there. She is involved in a like-minded development project (www.workingvillages.org) so we are cooking up a scheme to save the world together. But after I realized that it would require a surprising amount of money and traveling alone in Rwanda and the not so friendly part of DR Congo by bus and plane, I decided against it.

Things continued to be hit or miss in the lab. On Friday afternoon I was feeling especially bad about my progress so far when Phil asked me to meet him in his office. I expected him to yell at me and half hoped he would, but he was actually very encouraging. He reminded me that this is how lab work goes and we had a good talk about my data so far and where to go next. Somewhere between the pep talk and his wife's homemade chocolates I began to feel better.

After work on Friday I went for a walk around ILRI with Cassandra and the liver-spotted Dalmatian, Basil. A variety of factors can make this walk slightly unpleasant: heat, trash and meat scraps on the path dropped by scavenging birds, the trash burning "facility" at the bottom of the hill giving off a not-so-homey-smelling stream of smoke, the broken microscope slides in front of the trash burning oven that fell off the cart on the way down the hill, Basil pooping or peeing on everything we pass (including cars and buildings), and the muscle necrosing hill that you invariably have to climb. But this evening I was distracted from all of this by the breathtaking scenery. The sun was setting in such a way that the light everywhere was golden. Huge billowing clouds reflected the light as small patches of indigo sky peeked through. The sloping pastures on either side of the path were vividly green and dotted with cows enjoying the cool evening. Dark birds with billowing tails that weigh them down and make them fly almost completely upright flew between the trees, and thousands of others called from every direction. Then Basil found some cows to bark at and we had to chase him away before he was gored by a feisty little heifer. I love that the cows here, even the black and white ones, have horns.

When I returned Basil home, Derek his owner invited me over to watch a movie after his kids went to sleep. The movie (some creepy murder mystery horror thriller) was one of the worst I have seen, but scared me enough to make a mental list of people I could go spend the night with if need be. But I ended up staying and chatting with Derek for a while before I left so I had time to calm down. He is from New Zealand and his wife (who was sitting exams for her MBA program in South Africa) is from Poland. They are the ones who loaned me the sleeping bag earlier. Although Derek started as a vet student, he ended up in Agricultural Economics and got his PhD from Penn State. He has traveled and lived all over the world and it was great to hear his take on ILRI, working abroad, raising a family abroad, farming in different areas of the world, the role of vets, and the politics between all the strong personalities here. We also arranged for me to house/pet sit for two weeks at the end of June while they are on vacation.

The next morning Cassandra and I caught a ride to the supermarket, did laundry, and read by the pool. On the way back to my house we were called over to join a celebration that had been set up on the lawn. It was a retirement party for a man who had worked as a chef in the ILRI kitchen for 34 years. He was not there yet so we waited with the Ithaca High School boys in the mean time. Our volleyball friend Jeffrey, a fellow colleague from the kitchen, was there grilling sausages. They were about 4 inches in diameter and made from cow intestines stuffed with spiced goat meat and tripe. I wasn't particularly sad they were not ready yet. We were also given a strip of paper with the numbers 1 2 3 printed on it and told we could use these drink tickets at the bar.

After waiting at least 2 hours for the guest of honor to arrive, a white Toyota wagon finally pulled up and approximately 9 or 10 people climbed out. They were seated at the only table under the tent and the rest of us took chairs all facing forwards in rows. The guests were welcomed, grace was said, and we got in line for the food. While we were eating our stew containing veggies and chunks of broken rib bones and meat, a series of speeches were delivered. Sang, the guest of honor, had been at ILRI since before I was born and longer than anyone else there. You might therefore imagine an older, maybe graying, man sitting with his family, but this guy could have passed for 35. Robustly dressed in the two top pieces of a tan three piece suit and a baseball cap, with huge teeth protruding from his upper jaw, he smiled and ate his food while just about everyone there got up to say something. One man said he would clone Sang if the laws allowed, others attributed his youthfulness to a vegetarian diet, and then the cake was brought out. It was white with pink flowers and in the shape of a guitar. Sang and his wife cut the cake together, fed each other large bites, and then proceeded to call up and hand feed everyone who had made a speech. I learned later that this is a Kenyan custom to show respect.

After being there for at least 3 hours, we took the dessert break as an opportunity to shake Sang's hand and head home. But not before a slurring man in a mustard yellow shirt could come over to Cassandra and I and tell us what beautiful ("boof" is actually what he said) babies we were, and smart babies, and that she was a boof baby but I was a really boof baby but she shouldn't be offended just because I was more boof she was still boof and could he have a picture with us. By the time we had caught our breath from laughing he had forgotten about the picture and was headed towards the bar.

The Swing of Things

In stark contrast to weeks 1 and 1.8, I have work coming out of my ears in the lab now. After spending hours carefully picking specific samples from a -80 degree freezer all day last Friday, trying not to burn off my finger tips, I now have a pile of cow serum samples to analyze. My plan was to look at half on Tuesday and the other half on Wednesday. I had flown through my training easily enough, so I was excited and ready to go on Tuesday morning. For those of you who are interested, I am testing for Theileria parva antibodies in serum using an ELISA. After working hard for about 3 hours on Tuesday morning, I added the substrate as the final step and waited for the color to change. Nothing. Something was wrong. And I had no idea what. There was nothing to do but try again in the afternoon. Through this process I at least figured out what I had done wrong (really stupid measurement mistake) but the new batch of conjugate antibody had not yet been titrated (not my fault) and was not strong enough, so assay #2 was also useless. Day one of my project, down the drain.

This morning I woke up ready to go again. The first assay worked in the morning and I finally had some results. But through this process I came to realize that our pipettes for measuring everything down to very exact amounts are not as reliable as one would hope. I had carefully measured 50 microliters of serum from each animal, but after only removing 20 microliters for experiments, some of my tubes were nearly empty. Also, the multipipetter had cracked, so it now required 3 hands to function. Sigh. I didn't want to make excuses for my slow progress, but this was frustrating. As I struggled with the wash/suction device, Alice came over to help me. She said "washing can be really frustrating (because the vacuum doesn't work), that's why I make Dickens do it". But to her credit she spent the next half hour fixing the machine which I really appreciated. Then, pleased with herself, she chirped "old is gold". I had her repeat that a few times and finally understood that she was saying her old experienced touch was best at fixing things. Is "old is gold" an English phrase that I just have never heard, or did she make that up?

I spent the afternoon and evening running 3 times the number of samples I usually do in order to conserve my stock samples of variable volumes (you make a batch in the morning every day, but it is only good for that day). Alice told me I was working too hard before she left. I was relieved that Dickens was there to help me analyze everything in the end, until I realized that he had been sticking around just for me, probably at Alice's request. I have to get him a present or something.

While I was working I also the opportunity to talk to Salma, the older Sudanese woman in the lab working on her PhD. Since I had just finished 'What is the What' I asked her about living in Sudan and she told me a lot about her take on the conflict there (which until recently I had known barely anything about) and how it affected her life in Northern Sudan. Her main point was that it is silly to try to explain the conflict as the result of racial differences, because Sudanese people are and have always been a diverse mixture of ethnic groups. We also talked about veterinary medicine: the luxuries of being able to give your dog dialysis (obviously unheard of where she comes from), and the similarities of practicing production medicine there and in the US (the need, the clientele, and the reward of being so useful in the lives of so many).

Between the morning and afternoon lab sessions, I gathered up my nerve and went running again with the reception gals. Things went much better this time (I even made it all the way up the hill!) which I attribute to being hydrated, somewhat acclimatized to the altitude, and the milder weather. This time I was able to notice what I was running by. Just outside ILRI is a roundabout with a park in the middle. Lots of people are always there, mostly just laying around and hanging out as trucks belch exhaust all around them. As we headed off in one of the 7 or so directions, I was briefly gagged by the smell of garbage all along the road. Just beyond that were small fields of corn and other veggies near small houses. Then through a market with chickens picking through trash, ducks drinking out of puddles, and men honking and whistling at us. I was glad I couldn't understand them. Then we went down the dirt hill to "the tree". You can identify "the tree" by the sign that hangs on it. It is an advertisement to call for help for just about any malady including impotence, boredom, low salary, relationship problems, debt, and pretty much anything else you can think of. On the way back the school kids were walking home. Tiny children in small groups, or too often by themselves. One little boy who couldn't have been older than 4 was just strolling along the highway by himself. As we ran past them they gave us high fives, and you could hear them giggling behind us as we ran on.

Now I'm back home, for another solitary evening. I don't mind the time alone so much any more since I am busy during the day. Plus, the maid does the dishes :) JJ literally has drawers full of pudding, sauce, and dip packets, so I did my best to interpret the pictures and German instructions for making vanilla pudding. Despite having to reconstitute a block of cream (nearly butter at this point) back into milk, it turned out pretty good. Now it's time to drink tea and read until I fall asleep.

Lazy Weekend

This weekend was great! I did pretty much nothing. For 3 days. I'm not sure if I have ever done that before. Ok, I did a few things, but I didn't have to.

On Saturday, I took the dog for a walk and decided to get some sun. The whiteness of my legs was alarming. After walking around the back yard and deciding there was no place in complete sun where no one could see me, I laid half on and half off the patio. The dog put her head on my feet. I read my book and made sure not to stay out too long. But I should have heeded my father's pseudoscience lesson he gave before I left. He said it is easier to get burned at higher elevations (ok) near the equator (yes) because the ozone layer is thinner there (???). Well, let me tell you, I certainly got burned. But only on the front and back. The sides are still alabaster. I have some work to do before I can be seen in a bathing suit.

Then I got ready to make dinner. Thierry was back from his trip, and since his host JJ was gone we had decided to eat dinner together. I also invited our friend Cassandra over so there was no chance of weirdness. Well good thing because apparently he was expecting a whole lot more than dinner. He got all huffy when I mentioned Cassandra coming over and said he thought we were going to be two, not three. I suppressed an urge to vomit in his old nasty french face, said "nope, actually we are going to be four if you count the dog", and had a nice time with Cassandra. We plotted our escape together after dinner. He got the message.

The next day the three of us went to the Maasai market. It was located outside in front of a shopping mall. Each of the 30 or so vendors sold pretty much the same stuff: beaded and metal jewelry, carved animals and bowls, sandals, fabric, a few knives, masks, and chess boards. And they were aggressive. They would start with "excuse me, how are you?" but if you did not answer they just raised their voice. It was impossible to just browse without someone handing you something and asking you how much you would pay for it. If you didn't answer they got pushy, if you did answer they were either outraged by what you offered or took it as a promise to buy. If they saw you for a second time they told you that you had promised to buy something and were upset if you moved on again. At first we were smiling but quickly we got snappy and moved around quickly to avoid being harassed. One young woman with a corner area didn't bother me at all and simply answered me when I asked her the price of her sandals. I liked her attitude so much I just gave her what she asked. I didn't mind spending $6 on some leather beaded sandals. I read later in my guide book that it is best to know what you want before you go to the market, and I would have to agree. So if anyone wants something from Africa you are going to have to place a personal request and be as specific as possible. I don't mind getting things but I require proof that you actually want them.

Other than that I just hung out, finished reading What is the What, started Middlesex, and browsed over the piles of yoga journals that JJ just acquired. He was so excited that his friend left them to him. I also spent a lot of time with Cassandra. She is 25, from South Africa, and almost went to vet school but instead is working on her PhD. We have a lot in common and even though she has been here for 9 moths she still has not explored Nairobi that much, so we made a lot of plans to travel within Nairobi and around Kenya together. We are going to go to Mombassa on the coast for a weekend and we are also going to go to the most famous game park in Kenya, the Maasai Mara (as long as we can afford it). Other ideas include a camel safari and various other excursions that require JJ driving us somewhere. Our plan is to barter rides for helping with his new puppy. I'm really excited that I found someone to go have fun with.

Oh and also, I have a cell phone now so if anyone needs to get a hold of me, or if they want to buy a calling card and give me a holler, the number is 256-722-599-124.