Roughing It in Western Kenya

For the last week of October I traveled to Bunyore, Western Kenya, to spend a week living with a family in the rural part of the country. Before we got there, we spent the first night in Kisumu, where we ate fresh fish from Lake Victoria and took a boat ride to see the famous hippos.

hippo sighting! (We were terrified by this point, because the guys we hired to take us out here were creating waves with the boat and making noises to "agitate" the hippos so they'd come towards us.. not a good idea!)

After spending the night in a local hotel (where I slept for the first time under a malaria net), we headed out for Bunyore on a suicidal matatu. We sped around the deeply-creviced and potholed roads at lightning speed as live chickens squawked and pecked my ankles. The chickens were gifts for our host families, along with maize flour, sugar, butter, and other cooking supplies.

Bunyore is a gorgeous area set on the equator (= SO HOT!!). The village I stayed in was peppered with huge round boulders and cliffs, and my house was situated up on the mountainside, overlooking the rest of the community. Transportation was by foot, which became difficult in the rain, since every path is narrow, steep, and muddy. But I loved winding through the worn-down paths through rocks, over streams, and through jungle-like plants and fields. The air was so fresh that I immediately felt healthier and happier than ever.

I stayed with a retired schoolteacher named Nathan and his family. It took me about a day or two to feel comfortable in the home, but I quickly got a routine down. I’d wake up at 7:30am, take a bath (aka, going out back with a block of soap, a bucket of water, and a washcloth), and sit down for breakfast with my mama Damary, sipping their sugary tea and milk combo and talking about different aspects of rural life. I was working on my research project (an analysis of life expectancies in rural and urban Kenya), so her insight was really helpful. She said she was currently recovering from malaria, although apparently most people are diagnosed without a blood test, which in turn means constant misdiagnosis and self-medication leads to the development of drug-resistant strands of malaria. I met a lot of other people with malaria, including one of our group leader’s one-year-old son, but no one seemed concerned. Yet I slept under a net each night, popped anti-malarial pills each morning, and piled on the DEET.

Nathan, me, and Mama in front of our house

I went to the primary school, which was more overwhelming than it had been to enter Kibera the first time. Children were so extremely excited to see a white person that as I walked across the courtyard a wave of screams and “howareyouuuu”s swept over the school. It was a celebrity moment as the students swarmed me and asked for photographs.

The kids poured out of classrooms to see me (some rooms had 100 students in each class!)

the kids pulling back (and chewing on) the school's barbed-wire fence to get a better look at the white folk

Each evening I’d sit in the mud kitchen behind the house with Damary and my fifteen-year-old host sister. We’d start cooking ugali, kale, and sometimes chicken at around 6pm when the sun went down (we'd have dinner in the house using kerosene lamps for light). The kitchen had two open fires and little ventilation, so it took me a while to get used to the dark, smoky atmosphere. It was so interesting so watch the women cook—they’re able to reach into the fire to move logs around and pick up the boiling metal cauldrons with their bare hands. I learned how to cook the foods, but my main jobs were rinsing dishes and sitting on a wooden stool in the kitchen to hold a candle as they cooked. I think it was pretty obvious that I had no idea how to really help out!

  

making ugali over the fire

my friend Kelsey's host brother, preparing the chickens for dinner (and enjoying the plastic wand she brought for the kids)

It was really hard to leave my amazing host family. But they invited me back for Christmas, which I’m considering. Most of the students were so happy to return to Nairobi after the week, but I wish I’d been able to stay there longer- even without indoor plumbing or electricity, it felt so much more comfortable than my gorgeous three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in Nairobi.

I almost fit in! ;)