Mmmmmbita

Doing our "exam" for the health module with beautiful Lake Victoria in the background

We left Kisumu early in the morning and set out for Mbita Point across the bay. We had to take a ferry that reminded me exactly of the Kennebecasis Island ferry except smaller. I was scared our mammoth trucks would sink the ferry but alas we made it just fine. We’ve finished our first session of classes and we still have about a week until all of the professors for the second session are due to arrive so we have about five days in the lovely town of Mbita in which we have a Health “module” set up by the Health director for the trip, Dr. John. In Mbita we are staying at another campus of ICIPE. The campus is a 60-acre enclave of wealth complete with sturdy buildings, a delicious cafeteria, and bougainvillea-lined paved streets along the shore of Lake Victoria. The town of Mbita is not nearly so posh with many dirt roads and stores and residences made out of corrugated metal. Mbita is the capital of Suba District, Nyanza Province. This province is the poorest and most remote in Kenya. It is also where Obama’s grandfather is from. It also has the highest HIV prevalence in the country- nearly three times higher than the national average, making it a very good place to study health issues in Uganda. During these past few days, we’ve received lectures from local clinicians, and HIV support group members, and visited many places like a primary school for AIDS orphans set up by a local grandma called Little Stars Academy; the farm, also set up by grandmothers, that single-handedly provides the food for the Little Stars’ food program; a traditional doctor- these people have been cunningly co-opted by the Ministry of Health so that the two are no longer at odds; and a women’s co-op made up of grandmothers who have taken in AIDS orphans. Despite the seemingly desperate situation in this area I am genuinely uplifted by the incredible work being done by these and other people in the area.

We’re off tomorrow to the famed Maasai Mara and I couldn’t not be more excited. Cross your fingers for rain for the Suba District and also an elephant and hippo sighting in the Mara for my group!

Millennium Village Project

Top: the lovely Mieka delivering a delicious birthday cake (cooked on a campfire!!)
Bottom: Back on the safari trucks just over the Uganda-Kenya border!

We left Jinja early in the morning and set off towards the Kenya-Uganda border. It is remarkable how the closer we got to Kenya, the drier and more dustier it became, and the sparse the vegetation became. It took us two mildly stressful hours to cross the border back into Kenya. We were greeted by our open, breezy safari trucks on the Kenyan side and as soon as we started driving I was happy to be back in them and not in the hot buses we drove around in in Uganda. We immediately drove to Sauri, the first ever Jeffery Sach Millenium Village Project. Despite the debate and controversy surrounding Sachs and his ideology, the visit was quite uplifting. We visited a school and a clinic and both were pristine. The school had a computer lab and a kitchen where they cook meals for their School Feeding program that ensures that students get a least one good meal per day. The terrain around Sauri is beautiful: rugged and mountainous.

We then hopped on the trucks again and headed off to our campsite on the banks of Lake Victoria. Our campsite was beautiful with a rocky cliffs and tall trees everywhere. The park has many Impala which are like the East Africa answer to the deer only with long horns and if possible, even more bold. The campsite was a stunning setting for a 21^st birthday!   

We also visited Kisumu during our stay here, the third largest city in Kenya. Kisumu is very nice and feels very safe. It is the Millennium Cities Project that accompanies Sauri.  We got to do some shopping at the Nakumatt- like an African Wal-Mart and so some people stocked up on supplies for the next few weeks in which we’ll be camping in very remote spaces. My friends also bought cake ingredients and birthday presents so you could say my birthday was “Brought to you by Nakumatt”. Some friends baked me a delicious and enormous birthday cake using the camp stove. I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday.

The Source of the What? The Nile.

Studying for Ecology exam at Jinja

After a very short drive from Seeta, we arrived at another beautiful hotel overlooking the Nile River. The sunset over the Nile is absolutely breathtaking. At Jinja we had a few lectures sitting beside the river, got to go into town to do a bit of shopping, and visited a fisheries research institute that does research in the hopes of rehabilitating the horribly overfished Lake Victoria. At Jinja we had our final exam for our first session’s course and then bid farewell to our session one professors.

By the way, this post is named after a funny mannerism that many of the speakers that have lectured us tend to use.  We’ve taken to using it amongst ourselves much to the annoyance of one of the grad students travelling with us.

Pool Party!

So we got off a little later than expected from Lake Nabugabo because we had to wait for the roads to dry before we set out. We were hit with a very violent thunderstorm the night before we were set to leave. It was so bad that I was the only tent-dweller who toughed it out through the storm-  I actually didn’t wake up until near the end of the storm- McKenna sleeping skills at their finest.

We were pretty excited when we arrived at our accommodations in Seeta, a burb of the capital Kampala, since they turned out to be a very nice hotel with a pool!! The weather here is extremely hot and the sun is very intense so the pool was an enthusiastically-welcomed luxury. At Seeta we had lectures at the hotel and visited Mabira Forest. Mabira Forest is called an “empty forest” because it lacks nearly all animals. This is because under Idi Amin the forest was largely cut down and used for agriculture. Although it was eventually re-gazetted as a forest and much of the trees have recovered, few of the animals have returned. The best part of the forest was a huge parasitic tree. This is a type of tree looks like a vine surrounding another tree that eventually surrounds the host and kills it while the parasite grows large. This tree was a particularly dramatic example of that. I hope you can appreciate its size from the clip (edit: couldn't post it- too long to load).

Lake Nabugabo



Lecture on the banks of Lake Nabugabo



Brandon, Steve, and Reb in chest waders- doing research at Lake Nabugabo

We arrived at Lake Nabugabo Holiday Centre (three hours ahead of schedule- of course) and we couldn’t believe our luck. The centre is basically a resort- we eat our meals right beside the lake, the grounds are gorgeous with beautiful old trees, and our lodgings look out over the lake. I’m sleeping in a single tent (some people got lucky and are staying in cabins or the lakehouse) but it’s impossible to complain in a place as beautiful as this. As long as I’m not in a single tent when we stay in lion country then I’m fine. The food here is probably the best yet- they brought in a chef from a hotel nearby to cook for us for our visit. The best thing that we’ve had so far is the fish- Nile perch and tilapia. Despite the fact that we learned all day about how both species are depressingly overfished (although ours was properly, legally fished) in the lake, it was undeniably delicious.

Our lectures are done under trees with the sound of the lake lapping up on the beach in our ears. We’ve done some research here as well: we have visited one of the local fisheries and asking local fishermen about the lake, collected data in another swamp (wearing chest-waders!!), and finally, my favourite, gone out onto the lake in a motorboat to help a McGill grad student with her research tracking Nile perch. It reminded me of Dalhousie lake J. We reluctantly leave tomorrow morning and head off for Seeta, a suburb of the capital, Kampala. I hope everyone is very well at home! Love you!

The Pearl of Africa, indeed.

Emmanuel Amoti

At Emmanuel's farm with his beautiful children

Chapatti!!!

Eco-team

Anna and I in a papyrus swamp. Note my muddy boot.

Shopping at the Women's co-op. I've gotten a lot of compliments on my dress Mary-Jane!

We landed after a quick flight from Nairobi to Entebbe, Uganda, and then immediately boarded a bus that would take us on a not-so-quick bus ride to Kibale National Park. The difference between Uganda and Nairobi is immediately obvious upon landing- Uganda is pleasantly humid, cooler and has more lush vegetation. We arrived in Kibale three hours ahead of schedule and I loved it instantly. The forest is exactly as you’d imagine a tropical rainforest. One day, as we waited for lunch to be served, we all sat out eating fresh “timbits” rolled in sugar and chai spices and watching approximately 50 monkeys playing in the trees only 15 feet away from us. I’m realizing that as much as I love cities, I feel at home in the open countryside. In Kibale we stayed at a research field station near the edge of the Forest. The food is still delicious- I feel like I’ve never eaten this healthfully in my life- the meals have a large variety of vegetable dishes and many meals are vegetarian.

We’ve started the first of our course sessions and this session I am taking Ecology of East Africa. My professor, Lauren Chapman is incredibly knowledgeable. I appreciate her holistic style of teaching ecology: she incorporates development issues, political and cultural factors, and economic influences in our study. We’ve spent our days tromping through the forest doing experiments like catching and examining butterflies, studying forest conditions and the effects of human encroachment on the forest, and my favourite, examining the conditions and biodiversity of a papyrus swamp. When we aren’t in the forest we’re either listening to a lecture under a Eucalyptus tree or analyzing our data in the small library at Kibale. One day of lecture was devoted to learning about biodiversity outside the National Park and so we ventured out of the park and into the community to visit one of our teacher/Lauren’s field assistant Emmanuel Amoti’s farm. (Side note: my class this session is 11 people and we call our professor by her first name. She also knows all of our names. This is such an amazing change from the usual prof-student relationship.) Emmanuel is an incredible man. Not only is he knowledgeable about seemingly everything relating to the park: it’s flora and fauna, history, politics, etc., he’s also incredibly entrepreneurial. With his field assistant salary (which is comparatively high for the community) he has financed many agricultural and aquacultural endeavours. He owns many pieces of land on which he raises cows, pigs, and goats, and grows many crops including tea, beans, banana, yams, corn, millet, and groundnuts. He has recently engineered a pond to farm tilapia. He does all this to feed his family and use the leftover to sell for profit to use towards his children’s school fees. Amoti is responsible for 21 children: seven of his own, and 14 nieces and nephews whose parents have died of AIDS or, in the case of the mothers, have had to abandon their children in order to re-marry and thus have the economic support of a husband. Despite this, Amoti is not the kind of man who inspires pity. He is constantly smiling and has such an admirable work ethic. He does inspire, though contempt for the institutions that seem to cheat him. For example, Amoti’s major export crop is tea that he sells to tea factories that turn around and sell it in its slightly processed form for a ten-fold increase in price. Another example is the sorry state of education in Uganda. Primary and secondary education are supposed to be paid for by the government but in public schools class sizes are huge and teachers are sometimes absent, not to mention the expense of school supplies. Amoti is working to earn money so that he can afford to send all of his children (not just his own- he wants to be sure that all 21 feel equally cared for) to a private school where the quality of education is much higher.

Other highlights from the week in Kibale include the women’s co-op, church and the canteen. The women’s co-op is run by Rose, who was due with her third child the day before we visited the co-op. We bought handicrafts like baskets and jewellery that the women of the community make and heard about their aspirations for the future. On Sunday many of us attended church. I loved the colourful decorations of the church, the loud singing, and the unabashed piety of the entire congregation. After each song, everyone prayed out loud for all to hear. All sorts of people participated in the service from small children beating drums during the songs, to older women leading the singing and dancing, to a young man giving the sermon as the local nurse translated for us Wazungu. Next, we’re off to Lake Nabugabo, a small lake west of Lake Victoria. They’ve told us that it will be a 12-hour bus though we think that’s an exaggeration. Last time they said we had a nine hour bus ride we made it there in six.

Nairobi!!!

We left Montreal after a two hour delay in which our plane had to be de-iced, and travelled for nearly one day. We landed in Nairobi and were brought to our home for the next five days: ICIPE (International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology). This is a very innovative research facility that has been partnered with my program for many years. Our accommodations are much swankier than I expected- I shared a nice hotel-style room with one other girl. The food at ICIPE is excellent and very healthy which has helped the transition. My favourite dishes are a salad that was exactly like a salad-version of pico de gallo with fantastically spicy green chilies, sautéed kale, and a dish that we have taken to affectionately calling “pea mash”. We also eat tons of sautéed cabbage which takes me back to the days of living with the lovely Sheth family. And of course, the Tuskers are delicious.  

Monday: On our first day the organizers of the program wanted to give us an easy day to recover from our jetlag so they took us to beautiful Nairobi National Park. We had a safari ride through the park and saw rhinos, lions, a bunch of beautiful birds- my favourite being the Grey Crowned Crane(the national bird of Uganda), buffalo, warthogs, gazelles, zebras, and giraffes. Apparently we are a pretty lucky group because it’s very rare to see lions and we saw two! We also had a lecture sitting under an acacia tree by the park warden, who is also a top notch scientist, about the future of the park and the challenges the management is faced with. It was very interesting. In the park near our lunch spot was a monument commemorating the historic burning of the tusks. Kenya’s president lead a well-publicized group to gather a mound of tusks and set it on fire to demonstrate Kenya’s commitment to ending elephant poaching and the sale of ivory. The overwhelming feeling I left the Nairobi National Park with was a sense of admiration. I admire how much importance Kenyans place on the environment as evidenced in their intense pride of the Park and their commitment to protecting biodiversity even at a short term economic cost to them, and also on human rights as shown in their new constitution which many Kenyans have been quick to tell me has the best bill of rights in the world.

Tuesday: We went to the University of Nairobi for lectures from U of N profs as well as meet a group of students and get a tour of downtown Nairobi by these students. My favorite part of the day was walking around downtown Nairobi and talking to these students. We talked about school, our families, our friends, and our futures. The most memorable comment of the day for me was one made by Ken, one of our guides. He asked me how many children the average Canadian family had. I told him two to three was probably average. Ken was utterly shocked and said, “and people are SATISFIED with this??” Ken is one of ten children and he is the only one to have gone to university. His father has two wives.



Walking into the UN



Wednesday: In the morning we packed into our awesome safari/armoured vehicle trucks and headed to the swanky area of Nairobi to visit the United Nations Habitat Headquarters. Habitat is the sector of the UN concerned with dealing with human urban settlement, most notably urban slums.   Nairobi is the third most important city in terms of UN offices, after New York and Geneva which is important since making it by far the most important UN centre in the developing world. We were given lectures by three very accomplished, very intelligent people involved in the “informal settlements” project. In all, the UN was interesting but sometimes, in true UN form, the presentations were hyper-organized with a few too many flow charts for my liking. The highlight of my visit was when my favourite speaker of the day was behind me in the line for lunch. (Culinary side note: absolutely fantastic food at the UN, lots of selection. I got barbecued chicken with a mango salsa and a delicious side of mixed vegetables that had been sliced thinly and sautéed lightly with some garlic.) He gave me some great advice that, although my mom has been saying it to me for years, was reassuring and instructive to hear from a man in such a high-profile position. 

In the afternoon we visited the Canadian High Commission, also in the very posh part of town. The building and grounds were beautiful at the High Commission and the speakers were great. My favourite speakers of the day were the director of CIDA for East Africa, the director of the IDRC for the area, and the chief political officer. It was somewhat depressing to hear what they had to say though, since a recurrent theme of the day was Canada’s current dismal record in terms of International relations and aid. An interesting point made by the director of CIDA was that the budget of CIDA for operations in Africa was first cut not by our current government but by the previous Liberal government.  

The most striking thing about Nairobi, to me, is how full of contrasts it is. The area that we were in was incredibly beautiful and lush with houses that were as big and beautiful as the neighbourhood around 24 Sussex. But only moments away, there are obvious displays of incredible, crushing poverty. The contrast was especially stark when considering where we visited on Thursday.



Kids at a primary school in Mathare



Thursday: On this day we visited the two largest slums in Nairobi- Mathare and Kibera. We went into our tours of these communities with ideas from our debrief from the night before in which someone astutely brought up the dreaded slum tourism.  We went in trying to distinguish what we were doing from the idea of slum as tourist attraction. We first visited Kibera slum- the “trendy” slum. This is the community that politicians go to visit- Obama, Ban Ki-Moon and Kofi Annan have all made appearances. We were greeted in the UN Habitat building that is near the entrance of the slum and then escorted by members of the Settlement Executive Community and we were shown their new sanitation facilities, and the new access road, among many other things. We then hoped on the trucks and headed across town to Mathare. The main stops on this tour were a couple of primary schools. We were shown around by members of Roots, a youth organization for kids from Mathare and the directors of CME (Canadian Mathare Education) Trust, a organization that gives scholarships to secondary schools to children from Mathare.



I’m still not quite sure about what to say about this experience or how I feel about it. As I write this, I am battling over what to describe, which ideas to express. It’s hard to explain things fully so as to adequately capture the complexity of what you saw. I don’t want to give you a World Vision commercial-style description of what we experienced because it’s not all so bad, but I don’t want to being naively optimistic either. What I can say for certain is that the visits were incredibly overwhelming and emotional.

Friday: After Thursday, the staff wanted to give us a break so we spent the day in a few short lectures about the work they do at ICIPE, packing, and visiting a mall to get anything we wanted before leaving Nairobi. We ended the day with a few Tuskers and tried to get some sleep before our 4 A.M. wake-up call to ensure we would miss the indescribable traffic (an example of the challenges of urban planning in the rapidly expanding cities of the developing world) on the road to the airport the next morning.