Kenya Krash Kourse

We had our Kenya orientation today. There are four of us in the Slemenda Scholars program, where we serve as ambassadors of sorts between Indiana University and Moi University in Kenya. The other students in the program are pretty cool. Our orientation wasn't quite what I expected, though. Most programs don't let you choose whatever travel dates you want and how much time you want to spend in the field. It's nice to have that kind of flexibility, but we almost felt like we weren't given enough guidelines and restrictions. I guess my mentality was that the program directors know about the program, whereas we don't, so they should have had more details in place for us by this point (e.g. travel dates).

We tried to use that flexibility to our advantage, though, since they originally proposed June 15th for our departure. The four of us spent some time deliberating on how to fit an extra week into schedule without disrupting the flow of the program, so we can travel, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, go on a safari, etc. We could have gone a week early and traveled during that week, but we any attempt to climb a mountain that early without acclimatizing would have killed us. We could have stayed a week later, but then that would put us extremely close to the start of school, and it'd be beneficial to have some time to unwind, readjust to jetlag, etc. Luckily, I was in the presence of smart people, and Andrew suggested that we go a week early, start our program a week early, and travel a few weeks into our stay at a natural break point in the program. So that's what we decided on. I imagine we'll come back with about a week to spare before classes start, so that should work out pretty well and give us a full eight weeks in Kenya. [Edit: We're getting a full nine weeks! See entry on 5-26.]

During our orientation, we watched a video (which I had seen a couple times before, unfortunately, but it's a great video) about the IU-Kenya AMPATH (Academic Model for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS) program. We also did a couple of educational activities, went through the typical precautions and expectations runthrough, and got our vaccinations. All this time I had thought that I would need to arrange my own shots through my doctor, so this was a relief. Yeah, I've never been so happy to get shots. We got four today: HepA, polio, meningitis, and yellow fever. The doctor was just waiting for us with all his needles lined up. It was a good bonding experience for us. We also got oral typhoid fever vaccine, which is supposed to be kept refrigerated. But because we got our vaccinations and then sat through another few hours of orientation, the typhoid vaccine also sat out for a bit. Here's to hoping there's still some residual immunogenicity. Ron, the IU-Kenya program manager, said that we got about $850 worth of vaccines today. It turns out yellow fever is a pretty big deal, since we got "yellow cards" that show our date of vaccination, which are necessary for travel into the country.

As for what we'll be doing in Kenya, I'm still not 100% sure. What I know is that the COBES (Community Outreach Based Education and Service) program that goes on every year was pushed back about a month due to the post-election violence earlier this year. Because of that violence, Kenyans and the AMPATH program are still recovering and rebuilding. When we first get to Kenya, we'll travel from Nairobi to Eldoret, which is where Moi University and the IU House are located. The four of us will rotate through to see different aspects of the AMPATH program for about two weeks. Then, per our own plans, we'll take a week "off" to do whatever. When we come back, we'll start COBES, assuming classes procede as scheduled. This entails a week or two of classes which are historically boring to us foreigners. I don't say that to be disrespectful, but it's just the truth from every first-hand source I've asked. It's just the nature of the class, since the teacher is teaching what we learned as MSIs as well as some things that don't pertain too much to us, like how to build a well. On top of that, Kenyans are soft-spoken, so traveling students couldn't hear much anyway. Our participation in the class is to help integrate us with the other Kenyan students, to experience their educational system, and so that when we go into the field with them later, they know who we are. After the classes, we will be integrated into community groups with the Kenyans and live in a remote site for a few weeks. What we do there I'm not entirely sure, but I think it involves learning about and helping the local community with healthcare projects and otherwise. I must sound awful not knowing that much about what I'm doing in Kenya. I don't mean to sound like I don't care or anything, but there really are a lot of questions we won't have answered until we step foot in Kenya. To loosely quote one of the partnership founders, the Slemenda program has always always been really flexible, but this will be its most "fluid" year ever, mostly because of what happened this year. Good thing I work all right with or without a schedule. Besides, it's summertime. Summers and schedules don't get along very well, anyway.