Getting Settled

Jambo,

So I arrived in Kisumu Monday night and have since been settling in, getting a new phone and internet connection and hanging out with the people living in the same house as me. It has been excellent so far, although I haven’t done any work yet other than one (3 hour long) meeting with my mentor. Tomorrow we are going out to the CDC base at Kisien and I’ll get to meet the people I’ll be working with. There are also a bunch of people doing work in a place called Kisii so be ready to be super confused with me. For tonight, I’m going to read up and think through some project ideas to be prepared for tomorrow and hopefully visiting the places will make the first steps easier to pull together in my mind.

I’m staying in a house where I rent a room and everyone shares the kitchen, the first night I arrived a Dutch girl named Masja who was leaving the next day cooked a bunch of salads for everyone, potato salad, pasta salad with and without tuna, and green salad. She also made a ridiculously garlicky mayonnaise/yogurt sauce to eat with bread. Linda, also from the Netherlands, is vegetarian so that has been helpful so far. On my way over I was concerned about the transition back to eating eggs and cheese but it has been okay so far, and since I was super hungry the night I arrived eating salads made with a bit of mayonnaise was okay and the garlic made the sauce I mentioned basically amazing. I avoided the hard boiled eggs that were on the side, though, still don’t think I’m up for that after last summer’s eggscapades. Last night I cooked some lentils and rice which turned out okay, and I shopped and bought the food including getting tomatoes, onions and sukuma wiki (greens) from a small vegetable stand at the market in town.

Besides the food, the transportation here has been a good experience. There are of course boda bodas, bicycles with seats on the back, plus motorbikes which are similar, and tuk tuks which are almost as fun, but lead to a very bumpy ride on the fairly bad road to the house where I’m staying. I had my first ride on a motorbike boda boda today, which, don’t worry, didn’t go very fast on the dirt roads and there are good handholds and I held on VERY tight. It also bounces with the bumps better than a car or tuk tuk, it seems. In a couple of weeks I might take a matatu up towards Mpala for a short visit, in order to get out of the big city when the referendum vote on the new constitution occurs.

The referendum is a huge deal, but I have been unable to find good information on what exactly is involved in the new constitution that has been passed by parliament that the people are voting on whether to accept. There seem to be phrases like “abortion is allowed to save the life of the mother” and “every person has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex” involved, the full interpretation of which is unclear to me... Right now there seems to be a rally going on in the park visible (and super loudly hearable) from the rooftop bar where I am using free wi-fi.



It’s partly in English, so I occasionally catch snippets, and there seem to be musical intervals between speakers. I haven’t figured out whether they are “yes” or “no” supporters, but apparently the majority of people (especially in this area) are in support of the new constitution, and the prime minister and president support it as well, although it would eventually supposedly limit some of their or their successors power through the imposition of term limits and maybe some other regulations. So, the only thing that seems like it might lead to unrest is if some high up people that claim to support “yes” somehow rig the election to have “no” win, which would be pretty slimy. The thing is, apparently, that even though this vote has nothing to do with tribal differences, tribal stereotypes are so ingrained that dissatisfied people will make their dissatisfaction about tribes and that could potentially lead to violence targeted at other tribes.