Going back?

It's reunions this weekend (but I'm not there), my little '11 buddies are all grown up and graduating, and I have less than a month left in Kenya. A few days ago I wrote some reflections in order to help me try to decide what to do in my last month to finish up my project, but it turned into more of a personal reflection. So it seemed like a relevant thing to turn into a blog post, although now that I reread it it is largely nonsensical:

Today marks exactly one month until I fly back to the US and head almost directly to the Compton retreat in San Francisco. That means it’s been about 11 months since our retreat last year and just over 10 months since I arrived in Kisumu on July 19, 2010. The other night I was talking to Ricky and he was commenting on how looking back on the beginning of his time here (he arrived around the same time I did) everything seems sunny and happy and in recent months he has become more stressed about his work, more tired of the tiring things about living in Kenya, and more ready to go home. So I had to think about whether I have gone through a similar transition – was I happier when I started? Am I ready to go home? Is that a result of failures and challenges or just a desire to have fast internet and be able to relax and not stand out every time I leave the house?

In my first five months here I had no thoughts of wanting to leave. After I went home for Christmas, came back, and left again for my time in the UK, the idea of being back in a developed country, with my friends from college and where everything is easy, started to appeal to me more. Now, as my departure date approaches, I feel less ready to leave the great friends I have made here, abandoning my project, the beautiful weather, affordable living, access to incredible places. To make up for it I have planned to visit about 6 US states and 3 countries in the summer before starting graduate school next year. I think my experience in Kenya is roughly paralleled by the weight I have gained and lost this year – ten pounds on gradually, represents filling myself with Kenya and starting to feel like I don’t fit in my current set of clothes, need to change and shed and start over in a lot of ways. Most of that 10 pounds off again, still sticking with my new clothes, my new life, but being better able to control myself and no longer needing to gorge on Kenya-ness and feeling a better sense of fitting in here in relation to fitting in elsewhere, home in Kenya, home in Europe or the US, home nowhere, but it doesn’t matter. I am so lucky to have this experience, and I tell myself this every day. I am 23, and I live in Kenya, I travel to France for conferences, I can communicate online with people back home, and I am managing a project that involves Zebu cattle and learning about diseases and public health and pathology and technology and research and management. I think I am ready to go home, to start grad school, be taught microbiology and statistics and research practices – this year, I opened up the spaces in my brain by trying to teach myself all of these subjects and more, and next year, I will start to fill in the gaps and I will be able to do such awesome work when I come back to Kenya to do my MSc research.

Has the US changed since I’ve been away? Will Kenya change over the next year when I’m gone? KEMRI/CDC is facing major budget cuts, laying off close to 1/3 of all staff, cutting programs, cutting global health research. Will it be a different center when I come back? Or will it be the differences in my perspective and knowledge that are more important than these logistical transitions?

Lyonnaise is much better than Mayonnaise

Hello everyone,
I apologize for the extremely long delay in posting. There have just been so many better things to do!!

For the past week, I've been in Lyon, France at the International Conference on Animal Health Surveillance. I got to do my first ever conference oral presentation, and luckily got it over with within just a few hours of the conference beginning. For the rest of the time I have been enjoying the conference, which was held in a pretty amazing chapel, and not eating the incredibly fancy but undoubtedly meaty hors d'oeuvres that were served (for example, there was some tiny pita bread filled with an unidentifiable substance, and they were held closed with TINY CLOTHESPINS! and balsamic vinegar and soy sauce and such things were served in small pipettes. It's so modern.)

One of the people I met at the conference was the Principal Investigator for that participatory epidemiology study I helped out with a while ago - and after discussing some stuff with him it looks like we will finally move forward with writing that up! Hooray.

Otherwise, this fountain fairly accurately represents how awesome Lyon is. Lyon is a goddess riding four mythical (their hooves have weird claws) horses with steam coming out of their noses. Although the city's claim to fame is being the gastronomic capital of the world, my desire to not eat veal or mussels has limited me somewhat. But tonight I ate at a great vegetarian restaurant (Zone Verte) which is right around the corner from the hotel. They serve only fresh, local, organic food and they serve it on wooden trays which fit perfectly into slots on the table. It is fun.

So the week before the conference, I was busy hanging out at the coast with Christina, who came up from Lesotho to visit! Vacation is hard work and I had barely any time to practice my presentation. For example, we visited the Gedi ruins in Watamu. It's a cool place - a Swahili city that was active from the 13th-17th centuries.

We also visited the amazing and empty beach (it's low season because it's rainy season so there is some seaweed) and played in the water a lot.

The sand is very white.

It was awesome. That's all.

I think I didn't know before how much I like the beach. We went snorkeling and it was like swimming in an aquarium, so many fish!! Amazing. Will have to come back during November when the sea is a bit calmer and you can find dolphins.

One of the most amazing things about Kenya is the incredible range of ecosystems and cultures and landscapes. Lyon is amazing too, as I mentioned. Traveling is awesome but I have been feeling torn between really wanting to actually live in a place (an amazing place, hopefully Pullman lives up to that standard next year...) and wanting to keep seeing new places. Perhaps the solution is to take reasonable length vacations interspersed with having one place to go back to. Something to work towards in life I guess!