As you may recall from my last post, this past week has been incredibly busy as everything that needs to get done before the end of the year pretty much fails to get done. We successfully received our VIP visitors although we don't know yet how much they want to collaborate with us. On Friday CDC/KEMRI had a big retreat with enforced fun for all of the staff, including such amazing activities as an eating contest and trust falls. We (Darryn, Jo, Steph and I) escaped a bit early from the big day for our own personal working/writing retreat at a farmhouse about an hour outside of Kisumu. As you can see, it was both relaxing and productive, if you pretend that I could see my laptop screen while sitting in the 90 degree sun.
But honestly we did get a lot of work done, and went on a couple of horseback rides around the amazingly green landscape that is the sugar plantation. Actually it's not JUST a sugar plantation, they grow coffee, raise cows and make cheese, breed horses (they have 65) and run a guesthouse. Oh, those Kenyan Cowboys really know how to live the life! A few other visitors (two vets and a veterinary immunologist) came and joined us for the second night, bringing along a 12 year old Australian Cattle Dog that has lived on 4 continents. We had a lot of good talk about zoonotic disease surveillance etc leaving Steph to hopefully make progress on her solely human related work. The immunologist did her PhD and a postdoc at UCDavis before coming here. Honestly I meet more people with Davis connections than seems at all possible.
On the way back home this afternoon, we stopped at Tilapia Beach for lunch. This is the view over the "lake" aka invasive water hyacinth field... it drifts around disconcertingly and is sort of nauseating to watch because you don't really expect what looks like green land to be moving.
On the way back home this afternoon, we stopped at Tilapia Beach for lunch. This is the view over the "lake" aka invasive water hyacinth field... it drifts around disconcertingly and is sort of nauseating to watch because you don't really expect what looks like green land to be moving.
Tomorrow we have the day off for Kenyan Independence Day (actually today 12/12), Tuesday I'm going to the field to officially end the pilot stage of the surveillance project so that we can start afresh in January with a system that hopefully will work consistently, and Wednesday I fly to Nairobi for important work meetings with the important visitors from last week, then don't bother coming back to Kisumu before flying back to NJ on the 22nd! Wowee.
As a long time fighter of aquatic weeds, I was amused to find one more way they effect us. You get motion sickness from watching them! I haven't heard that before.
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