Karibu Kenya!
Karibu Kenya! Welcome to Kenya! Feel free! I’m constantly hearing this during my first few days here in Nairobi, and I love it! Kenyans are so welcoming and friendly; it's so nice to be back for a second time. It was quite the trip, two days, two planes later and I'm being greeted at the airport by a man with a sign that says my name. The drive to the university where I'd be staying brought back all kinds of nice memories as well as familiar sights, sounds, and smells. Looking out at the beautiful landscape, I can’t help but hear the song from the Lion King in my head.
I settled into my residence at Kenyatta University, which isn’t exactly a 5-star hotel ;) but it’s a serious step up from rural life. I have a small room with a mattress, a table, some shelves and a cupboard. Electricity is a plus! I also have a little balcony where I can wash and dry my clothes. There are communal "toilets" (i.e., an oval shaped hole in the ground) and cold showers. There is even a communal room with a television, which has one local station. I get my meals at the cafeteria/restaurant for approximately 25cents a meal.
The campus is stunning, there is so much beautiful green space and it is surprisingly massive. I feel like I'm back at Western, getting lost on campus. Students are dressed "smart", which means they are dressed well - clean and professional. In Nairobi and on campus, Kenyans wear suits, dresses, skirts and sometimes jeans to class. They dress very differently than the traditional dress that is found in more rural areas. Nairobi basically looks like downtown Toronto but more green. The city is very developed though there are also many slums within the city walls and on the outskirts.
On my second day, I was asked if I wanted to join some students in a field study they were conducting in a nearby slum. There was a PhD and a Masters student in nutrition who were looking at Omega-3 intake and whether that had an impact on depression in mothers. It was really interesting! The students, myself and another student from Canada took a matatu (a crazy van that crams like 15, sometimes 20 people/animals in it) to the slum. Though not the smoothest ride, being in the matatu was strangely comforting. As they say, TIA - This is Africa! We hiked around the slum for a while carefully paying attention to each step, as there is garbage everywhere. I walk so much around here and with the hot sun, that's just about all the exercise I can manage for now. These slums are another world. There is no way I could do it justice by attempting to explain it in words or with a picture. Try to picture an outdoor market place with people selling all kinds of things such as second-hand clothes, food, cooking appliances, etc. in shanty shops while others have their stuff to sell on the floor. Within the market, there are tiny, narrow pathways that lead to almost hidden communities where you find homes built of scrap metal and children playing with garbage. If you're someone who is constantly using hand sanitizer or washing your hands, you might faint from seeing such sanitation problems.
So we met a community health worker to take us around one part of the community to interview some mothers. Without this community health worker, we would not have been welcome in these areas. Of course, everywhere I go, I am starred at. Especially in the slum, I will have children come up to me, chant "mzungu, how are you?" and shake my hand. Mzungu means White European. It may seem strange to us since you would rarely find someone in Canada trying to get your attention by yelling "hey white person" but this is not meant to be offensive. You kind of just feel like a celebrity since children want to come up and shake your hand. I love being greeted by the kids, they're so cute and friendly. Even babies smile when they see me. Adults mostly just stare at you but if you greet them with habari (hello), they will welcome you kindly.
So back to the research, the interviews were done in Swahili since these women doesn’t understand English because they’ve never been to school. The students would ask the mothers exactly what they ate in a given week, what their portion sizes were, and how much that would cost at the market. This was phase 1 of the study. Later, the students will introduce the mothers to a diet rich in Omega-3’s and after some time, determine what kind of effect it has had on their mental well-being (or depression). Although I couldn’t understand the interview, I could read their answers as the questionnaire was in English. It was really interesting to just observe the living conditions, to notice the inflamed stomachs of the malnourished children, and to recognize certain facial expressions in the mothers (even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying). After our interviews, I asked one of the students if she believed the mothers/participants were being truthful and whether she thought the presence of a mzungu (white person) would affect her results. The student explained to me that some mothers definitely lied about what food they consumed and that she could tell when they were lying. She said that some would over-exaggerate what they consumed so that they would not appear poor. Others would under-report what they actually consumed in hopes of receiving handout food. The students figured that the mothers/participants would report somewhere in the middle so as to both not appear poor but so that they may still be given food. She also believed that my presence would not affect the study because the mothers were aware that I could not understand them.
That information was so useful and definitely something that I will be considering when I begin my research in the rural village of Oyugis. As for now, I’ve been making a few friends here and there and hope to take part in other field studies while I’m at the university. In fact, I met one Kenyan student here who just got back from doing a year of his program in Canada. He was at Western! What are the chances? We had interesting experiences to swap for sure. We debated on whether Jacks or Frog was the better bar in London – the important things of course. He says he misses his washing machine in Canada…me too!
While I’m on campus, I’ll be auditing a few classes, getting paired with Kenyan students to do some field work, and apparently, I’m joining the football (soccer) team here. I guess someone figured out from my Western soccer t-shirt that I played so they want me to practice with their team, which sounds super intimidating since Kenyans can run like nobody’s business. Running around in this heat should be good since all I seem to eat here are beans and chapati (sort of like pita bread). Hopefully I don’t make a complete fool of myself because this white girl seriously sticks out around here. We shall see how that goes…
