The Beginning

Hello friends and family!

I have decided to write a blog about my trip to Africa this summer. I am not the best of writers so this is a loftier goal for me than it would seem. I am going to try to update it as best as possible, so please feel free to follow the blog because hopefully I will have some fun and interesting stories over the course of the next two months!

I applied to DukeEngage back in November and found out that I had been accepted a month later. DukeEngage is a program of Duke’s that funds its students to do service work in a developing country over the summer. It is a fantastic program because it supports me by paying for my room and board while abroad and encourages students to do community service and to become more worldly. The program, however, is a bit odd to me because it puts a new light onto service work. Because the program is competitive among Duke students, those who are accepted are honored, causing service work to gain somewhat of a prestigious connotation. But service work is supposed to be selfless so the fact that students are competing for it seems counterintuitive to me. Duke should not be rejecting students to do service work and glorifying others who do. But luckily I came out on the winning side and am very grateful that I can take advantage of Duke’s resources.

The DukeEngage program that I am doing is partnered with the Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD), an umbrella organization with its roots in about 10 different developing countries around the world that connects people with different NGOs with whom to work and homestays with whom to live with. The program I applied to of FSD’s is in Kakamega, Kenya. It is in the western region of Kenya and one of the more rural areas of the country. When applying to the program, I indicated that I wanted to work in a hospital that dealt with malaria and HIV/AIDS so I have been assigned to work in Shibwe Sub-District Hospital. I am uncertain what I will actually be doing on a day-to-day basis just yet, but FSD stipulated that interns involve themselves with the daily activities of patient reception, administering of vaccines, the recording of vital signs, and develop community outreach and educational health campaigns.

I also indicated (after having been accepted, however) that I would prefer to live within the downtown area of Kakamega (because I had heard it was more of a town than would be expected and had even google-mapped it), but was opportunely assigned to the exact opposite of that – I will be living in the outskirts of Kakamega, in a much more rural area than the other Duke students, about forty minutes away from the Kakamega town but only a fifteen minute walk to the hospital. I just asked today why they assigned me there having seen my housing request form, and apparently it is because the “hospitals” most in need are the ones in the rural outskirts of the city so they wanted me to live closer to there. Not surprising. I will be living without running water for the next two months with a family of five (including a herdsman). We shall see how that goes. Personally, I think they are punishing me because I forgot to turn in one of my forms.

The week leading up to my departure was extremely hectic. DukeEngage Academy lasted two days from 8 AM to 7 PM. Then I went home for a week and tried my best to unpack everything, then pack everything again as fast as possible. My flight was on Wednesday at 2 PM and I finally made it to Kakamega today (Friday) at 11 AM – a total of a 45-hour travel time. We did have a bit of fun on the way… Duke conveniently set up our transfer in Amsterdam with a fifteen-hour layover. I landed in Amsterdam at 9 AM, met up with four other Duke students who had the same layover as I did, and went out on the town. We took a train to the city, and once there, took a boat tour around the canals and then walked around for the remainder of the time. The red-light district was not at all what I had expected. It was much smaller than I had imagined – being only a few blocks total. And I had expected the prostitutes to be standing around outside, clothed, but fully evident that they were prostitutes. This was not the case. They were almost naked and standing behind windows. It was window-shopping at its finest. We then took another ten-hour flight to Nairobi, then a third flight to Kasumu (somehow traveled business class on this one because of a last-minute error on Duke’s part with our flight), and finally an hour drive to Kakamega.

To be honest, I was EXTREMELY nervous to go on this trip. I was very tempted to back out last minute. I was nervous to be so far from home, to be in a completely different culture, and to be working in a hospital dealing with such dangerous and infectious diseases. But just being here for twelve hours today, I know I made the right decision. I am in Africa! It is absolutely gorgeous here. When flying above the city all you see is trees. The trees are even more beautiful than they are in the States. They are the typical African trees - the ones that are in the Lion King that are thin and have leaves branching only from the top. I couldn’t believe I was actually seeing them. I am not in the forest, though, so picture more like a savannah with a bunch of trees (if that makes sense…). Compared to here, the United States is like a steel, cement nightmare.

Driving up to Kakamega, it is very rural with huts everywhere. The “downtown business district” of Kakamega, though, is amazingly city-like. There are flea markets everywhere (I’m going to like this a lot), stores, and we even went to a grocery store that was about the size of a Ralphs back home. The fact that such a grocery store exists only about five minutes away from such a rural surrounding is so strange!

The first week we are here we are in an orientation and actually living in a hotel. The hotel is much nicer than I would have imagined also (for an African hotel – although I do feel now as though my perception of Africa was all wrong), so we are not living with our homestays until the 28th. There are three FSD workers here that are training us, two from Kakamega and one from San Francisco who just graduated college. What a small world (although FSD is San Francisco-based so it does make sense). They are extremely nice people so I think this week is going to go very well.

I’ve had two meals here so far and the food, too, surprised me. It is much better than I had imagined! Things are starting on a good foot. The hotel is preparing the food for us, though, so I think it’ll be higher quality than I’ll be having in the future, but I am glad that I like what I am eating now. They served us chicken (kuku), fish, rice, samosa, carrots, and a few other things I’m not even sure what it is called in English. The food is very similar to Indian food so I think that I’m going to like it more than I had expected which is such a relief. I also wasn’t sure if I’ll be eating a lot of food depending on how poor the family is (so I brought extra food with me), but apparently Kenyans pride themselves on their food and our homestay families will be upset if we have not gained weight by the end of this trip. I need to keep reminding myself to be careful with the water, though. I have already brushed my teeth with the water by accident. I think I’ll be okay just as long as I didn’t swallow much. I also need to be careful with mosquito bites and putting on bug spray. We are sleeping with malaria nets already in the hotel. They kind of look like princess canopies so I just need to keep imagining that so I’m not grossed out and scared of getting malaria.

It’s getting late and I am the only one still up so I think it is time for me to wrap this up. I will try to keep this updated as best as possible. Be on the lookout!