 A monsoon in my backyard Luo word of the week: fundi. A fundi is the Luo word for tailor. This week, my coworker Fredah introduced me to her fundi. Her fundi has a reputation of making beautiful African dresses, with great details and finish work. Click "read more" to hear about Kenya monsoons and mosquitoes. It was interesting, during the conversation, Beatrice, the tailor, called Fredah “my wife.” Fredah was quick to explain what Beatrice meant. In Luo culture, when a woman marries into her husband’s family, she is considered the wife of the entire family. Beatrice is Fredah’s husband’s older sister (her sister-in-law.) In Luo culture, Fredah belongs to Beatrice, and is Beatrice’s family's "wife", and not what I assumed, literally Beatrice's wife. I’m having a “tester” summer dress made by Beatrice this week. If it goes well, I’m going to introduce her to my friends and get a couple of other pieces made. I was hoping to pick it up today, but there is a powerful storm outside. I am really looking forward to seeing how it comes out and hope I can make it to the shop tomorrow! I love the rain in Kenya. It is passionate and is driven to meet its purpose. No one can prevent Kenyan rain from watering the sugar cane fields and nourishing the popo and mango trees, from wetting down the dust covered roads until they are slippery and black with moisture. No one can stop the rain from filling the ponds and streams, running into rivers and pushing its way into Lake Victoria, where it can play with the tilapia. After a few false starts, the big rain season has begun in Kisumu. Africa does not have Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall, but instead breaks up its seasons into dry season (approximately June-October), short rains (approximately October-December), very dry and hot season (approximately December – March), and long rains (approximately March-June). Farmers and construction workers plan their work season around the rainy seasons. In the long rain season, Kisumu will rain cats and dogs for a couple of hours, accompanied by earth-shaking lightning and thunder storms over Lake Victoria. It is fantastic! I love watching and hearing the rain here- it is so dramatic. The long rain season can have a significant impact on life in Kenya. The poor live in either mud and stick shacks with a thatch or metal sheet roof, with mud floors, close to water sources. It is common for the river to swell beyond its typical dry weather boundaries and wipe out homes and roads in its path. Many families are left stranded and homeless during rainy season. The second major impact rainy season has in Kisumu is through mosquitoes. With all of the standing water left over from the rain, the mosquito population flourishes and increases the spread of malaria. There is an interesting fact about malaria in Kisumu: Most people have had malaria multiple times in their life, but show no symptoms to the infection. Because of its location on Lake Victoria, Kisumu has one of the highest rates of malaria in Africa. (The continent of Africa has one of the highest rates of malaria in the world.) Many infants die due to malaria infection. What is interesting, is that if you survive to the age of 5, it is very unlikely you will ever show symptoms of a malaria infection again, let alone die of malaria. Although a staggering number of people in Kisumu are currently infected with the disease, people from the area have developed an immunity to the disease. I have been told this is both nature and nurture: they are biologically predispositioned to be immune, and have also grown up in a malaria zone where they have developed the antibodies to fight the infection. I on the other hand, with my lily-white girlish skin, am a target. Rumor has it, that mosquitos prefer women to men. The change in weather patterns has changed malaria habitats, and the locations of where mosquitoes flourish, and hence, has changed the locations malaria flourishes. I have friends that work at the Center for Disease Control who have been studying these changes. This past week has been spent sitting with my computer, working away on OGRA’s Strategic Plan Evaluation and MIIS homework. The Strategic Plan Evaluation has become a monster of a process. I had hoped to complete it in 4 weeks, but because of conflicting schedules, it took 6. It is now a 100+ page Word document, and a 60 slide PowerPoint. Thankfully, the documents were approved by my supervisor, and we can now move onto Phase II of the project. Next week, I will begin the process of putting together a retreat for OGRA Foundation to develop the Strategic Plan for 2013-2018. I’ll be pulling out all of my Module 2 DPMI+ notes on developing workshops and conferences to put the retreat together. I keep pushing for the retreat to be held in Indonesia, or at the very least Mombasa, but no one is buying it. I have also been spending a lot of time on homework this past week, to ensure that I turn in professional quality deliverables into my professor. It’s been over a year since I’ve taken the 3-week DPMI module, and so I have been spending a lot of time research and investigating the background to completing my different projects. I hope to start going out to the field again next week. My goal is to visit OGRA's secondary and tertiary schools, the Provincial General Hospital and the Nyalenda Clinic. I'll post pictures, if I can pull it off! |  They finally decided to fill the pool! a.k.a. Mosquito Pond  Raining cats and dogs outside my living room  Bouganvilla, soaking up the water after a long, hot, dry season  A homestead next to an OGRA supported clinic  Random goats at a Level 2 OGRA supported clinic  Another random goat at an OGRA supported clinic |
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