Public Health (class), Ngong Hills, and African football! (1 Feb 2010 and a few days before)

Public Health Class

For those of you who are not aware, I have had an interest in public health since probably 2007 or so. For the record, I am interested in development, women’s human rights, human rights, international law, trade law (so far only focused on int’l pharmaceutical access), women’s health, HIV/AIDS, and public health generally. For this program, we each had to choose a topic in development to learn more about. The options were environment, social services, public health, or microbusiness. I picked public health. This course is kind of an extension of the development course, but is taught by a professor at Kenyatta University in Nairobi. At first, I wasn’t sure if I should be in this track or the social services track as my internship is more about social services, but my first class confirmed that I was in the right place!

Briefly, some of the issues we will be discussing are HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria (the big 3), the Millennium Development Goals (go to http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/ if you don’t know what these are) and a few neglected diseases, meaning diseases that get negligible amounts of international funding based on the facts that 1) only people in developing countries have them so there is no (paying) market for pharmaceuticals , (few are researched and few drugs are made; drugs used for these diseases now were originally made for other diseases or more appallingly for household pets in the US) and that 2) they normally don’t kill people, but disable them, meaning that the international community does not pay much attention to these as they do to other diseases such as HIV/AIDS, which has killed millions. One tragedy with these situations is that these diseases are relatively inexpensive to treat if there are known treatments, whereas HIV is very expensive to treat, so a little funding goes a long way with these diseases! If you’re interested in donating or learning more, the Sabin institute does a lot of work with these diseases (http://www.sabin.org/global-network). One of these ‘neglected’ diseases is schistosomiasis, a disease which slowly damages internal organs and slows cognitive development in children among other effects. Treatment costs between 20 and 30 US cents. However, in some parts of Kenya, this disease is so common that young boys think that it is a right of passage/sign of puberty to have blood in their urine, one of the symptoms of the disease (from WHO website). We will also be talking about women’s health as there are two people in the section (one being me) who are interested in issues of women’s marginalization and health, female circumcision, and other issues affecting women’s health. I mainly wanted to talk about this in case I reference my public health section in the future, although I think that this class is emphasized less than the other courses I’ve mentioned in previous blogs.

Korean Restaurant Adventure

After school on Friday, we got out early, so two of my friends and I went to a Korean restaurant nearby our school. This restaurant was clearly a place for Korean travelers/tourists and not everyday Kenyans, but the food was great! They brought out a hot towel for us each to wash our hands with before the meal and cooked the food on a nearby outdoor grill. The interesting story came after the meal, however. One of my friends has a Korean girlfriend and so he said hello in Korean to the only other customer in the restaurant. The Korean man came up and talked to all three of us. Apparently, he is a chairman of six corporations in South Korea (he gave us his business card) and is also a former high-ranking South Korean military leader. He said that he had come to Kenya to look for investment opportunities! Lastly, he pulled out an 8 x 10 photo of his family and George W. Bush’s family! While this wasn’t a highlight of the trip by any means, our conversation with him was one of those travel experiences that are purely happenchance, could never be planned, and are therefore memorable!

Ngong Hills

On Saturday, six of us from my program went to Ngong Hills together as a group. Ngong Hills are famous in Kenya- they overlook the Rift Valley on one side and the nearby cities leading up to Nairobi on the other side. There are seven hills (number can vary depending on who you talk to) lined up in a row and most of the land is traditionally inhabited by either Maasai or Kikuyu (more recently) peoples. According to a Maasai legend, a giant tripped over Mt. Kilimanjaro and the earth rumbled when he fell, creating the hills (thank you, Rough Guide to Kenya). The Maasai and Kikuyu (some intermarried) still live in the hills and surrounding area today. On a clear day, one is supposed to be able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro, especially from the 7th hill, but also the 6th and 5th if one is very lucky.

This trip was the first time that a few of us had gone out as a group without one of the MSID (program) leaders. Using our travel guides and host moms, we figured out which bus to catch, but this was only the beginning of the journey! Ngong Hills is located West of Nairobi in the neighboring province, so the bus ride there took a long 30 minutes. Normally, a bus ride would not be that eventful, but on buses here, there is no way to know where to get off other than getting to know the routes and talking to the bus workers. On every bus and mutatu (informal buses, many are large vans), there is not only the driver, but also usually at least two people advertising the bus (holding up the number to people waiting at the bus stops) and asking people ‘where are you going?’ in hopes of packing the bus full. These individuals (I have only seen men doing this job) ride on the door of the bus and hit the bus windows twice to signal to the driver to stop. As the bus is leaving a stop, these workers just barely grab the door handle in time to hop back on the bus as it pulls away from the stop. On the ride to Ngong Hills, I thought that one of them actually tried to catch the bus after working on it for a while, but didn’t grab on in time and ended up falling out of the bus! The bus kept going, so I guess his shift was over! I do not understand how these workers organize their shifts as it seems to be up to chance whether or not the workers stay on the bus or jump off and stay off, although I’m sure this is just to the untrained eye. On the way back from the Hills, one of the workers got off to buy a single cigarette and got back on the bus. This was the sole reason for the bus to stop at this market/non-bus stop. Being on the bus is usually a lively adventure that requires concentration so that you can get to where you want to go, at least until you are familiar with the routes! There are also many buses and mutatus that play loud R&B music (sometimes with video), so many people are rocking out to the latest African pop music (sometimes American) on their rides around Kenya. Riding the bus is definitely an experience here!

After having about six conversations with a bus worker to figure out exactly where we were supposed to get off, we were told to get off at the last stop, take a few turns, and then ask directions to Ngong Hills from there. We finally found where we were supposed to be, but the Hills (which are featured in both of the Kenya travel guides I have) had no central office, map, or arrows about where to start climbing or what to do. We started to climb up a dirt road where we thought the Hills might be, but we were stopped by a member of the Kenyan military (part of the Wildlife Service which works to protect the environment and tourists in Kenya) who told us that we could not climb in the hills without a guide. So, we restarted our journey with Moha who showed us the way. My friends thought that the military may have scammed us and we didn’t actually need a guide, but since there were no signs and both my travel guides had mentioned robbery as a possible event at Ngong Hills, I was happy to talk to have him along and enjoyed talking to him on the route.

Now, when we wanted to go climbing in Ngong Hills originally, I at least was thinking that the hills would be forest covered (read: there would be shade). However, this was not at all the case. Instead, we were in direct sunlight for the whole trip, all of which was uphill until we got to our destination, which turned out to be the top of the 5th hill. We stopped here after we had climbed uphill for over two hours (note: some Kenyans were RUNNING up these hills next to us) and . . . one of the girls who came with us had mono and was unaware, as were we all, of the strenuous nature of the climb!

But it was all worth it at the top as we were able to sit and eat our lunch (along with nearby goats, cows and a dog, which people who live nearby herd on the top of the hills) of peanut butter and bread, which we had bought at a market in the town of Ngong after getting off of the bus. Our guide, Moha, told us that he was Somali and had been in the military for 10 years! He said that he loved soccer and wanted Ghana to win the Africa cup in the match between Ghana and Egypt, which I’ll talk more about later.

Pic: Eating lunch at the top of hill #5! Moha is taking the picture here.

Pic: This is a picture of all of us who went and Moha, our guide.

The downhill walk after lunch was great! We couldn’t see Kilimanjaro because of the haze, but the Rift Valley and other surrounding scenes were beautiful! In addition to seeing a chunk of Kenyan geography, we walked directly under about five huge wind turbines on the way up and down the hills- it was a Don Quixote moment for us all, although I mentioned this to the group to find that I was the only one who was thinking this at the time . . .

Pic: Yes, we climbed up this hill. Don Quixote moment!

Dinner at Carnivore restaurant

Saturday evening, a large group of my classmates and I (about 25 of us) went out in the evening to Carnivore restaurant in Nairobi. Carnivore is a world famous restaurant known for serving extraordinary meats such as ostrich and crocodile. I had fish and a life-changing brownie (brownie was worth the $1500 ticket to Nairobi in itself). We were celebrating one of the group’s birthdays and it was a moment to remember when the staff came out with a sparkler-clad brownie and sang happy birthday first in English and then a song in Swahili, accompanied by conga drums and spoons/glasses. Some people in the restaurant probably think that the Swahili song is happy birthday, but it is not. It is instead a song using basic conversation vocabulary in Swahili, which I had learned in my Swahili class!

The Africa Cup!

Sunday was a quiet day; I spent some time with a friend of mine who had spent the night (some host families ask students to stay somewhere else instead of coming home late- again, my host parents are amazing, so they not only encourage me to experience all parts of Kenya including night life, but consented to having one of my friends stay over as well who couldn’t go home if she wasn’t going to be home before 9.) and then spent some time alone and then with my family before watching the Ghana v. Egypt Africa Cup soccer game!

Egypt, who has won the Africa cup for the past 3 years won once again, 1 to 0, scoring the only goal in the last 5 minutes of the game! I had an interesting conversation with my dad about this during the game. Apparently, many of the African soccer players play on European club teams when they’re not playing games for their home country because they are not paid enough in their home countries. My dad said that the two leading forwards on the Ghanaian team were rivals in English club soccer and that the Ghanaian team actually only meets together for games in Africa rather than training and practicing with the team all year. During the game, the announcers said that one of the biggest problems in the Ghanaian team was that everyone wanted to score himself instead of playing as a team; their team cohesion was their biggest deficit in the game. The Ghanaian team differs from the Egyptians in this way as the Egyptians do not play on European club teams. They are paid enough in Egypt to stay there and thus play more as a team than any other African team. I wonder how much this contributes to Egypt’s winning streak?? Also, in the African cup games, there is one commercial break at half time; otherwise, there are no commercial breaks during the two 45 minute halves! I wonder if commercial breaks have anything to do with the style of US football (stops and starts constantly . . .)?

*Constitution update: the Parliamentary Select Committee (people agreeing on a draft Constitution) concluded last week and the next step for it is debate and agreement of the Constitution in Parliament. Again, this will probably be a trying step for the Constitution as it has been personal interests of Parliamentarians that have dictated the debate in the past, causing a draft Constitution to fail in 2005. Kenya’s MPs are among the highest paid government officials in the world and there is a huge gap between what Parliamentarians are paid in Kenya and what other workers are paid. Most Kenyans I have met support Kenyan unity and progress, but government corruption is constantly a challenge.

Also, just today, a debate in the religious communities of Kenya may also stall or fail the Constitution. Separate Islamic courts are a part of the Constitution, which has resulted in Christian leaders asking their constituency not to vote for the Constitution. If Christians as a group do not vote for the Constitution, it will not pass, as Christians are the majority religious group in Kenya.