So…yeah, BUSY BUSY BUSY basically. That's all. I am taking time out of my packed schedule to write this because it seems like relevant procrastination.
So I was in Nairobi the past couple of days, so that I could meet with the head of epidemiology at the Department of Veterinary Services. I even briefly met the Director of Veterinary Services for Kenya, and he told us stories about the good ol' days when Veterinary Officers in remote districts could pretend to be doing work when they weren't. It probably seems like the meeting was a really big deal, and it was sort of, but I went with two of the Kenyan vets that I work with, and basically they are all buddies because there is only one vet school in Kenya and every vet therefore knows every other vet and all of his or her business (77 newly minted vets graduated last year, and apparently that is a huge class). Anyway, they weren't as excited about immediately implementing my mobile technology disease surveillance in every district as I would have hoped, but they did want to make sure that the information we collect gets to the local Veterinary Officer, possibly monthly, which sort of defeats the purpose of real time reporting but ANYWAY we'll see what actually happens. They are, on the other hand, piloting digital pen technology for notifiable diseases as well as mobile phone reporting for "zero reports" where they do active surveillance to make sure that certain diseases (like Rinderpest, which was recently eradicated) is actually not there. The mobile phone based syndromic surveillance that we are doing with ADSARS would do a third and separate thing, which is allow for timely surveillance of not-necessarily-notifiable diseases as well as emerging diseases.
I also had the opportunity to observe arthopod collection in the slum of Kibera, which basically involved following around a guy with a ghostbusters-type backpack vacuum cleaner mosquito catcher through the narrow streets and open sewers and into people's homes. The demographic surveillance they are doing in Kibera is equivalent to the study in the rural area near Kisumu, except it is about as urban as you can get. The part of Kibera that we were in is predominantly Luo, so they speak Dholuo, which is just like being in the field out here so it was quite an interesting contrast. The houses we went into were filled with a lot more stuff than I had imagined would be the case, but it made me realize that the difference between rural poverty and slum poverty, in a certain sense, is that by moving to a slum you have the potential for electricity sometimes, and to own a TV and furniture with cushions, and have a water tap nearby, and what you give up is a relatively clean environment and the ability to grow food to eat. Obviously that is a simplistic description of a very complex social phenomenon but it expresses my first impression, I guess.
But the primary reason that I am so busy, besides everyone freaking out about getting stuff done by the end of the year, is that we have some very important visitors next week and I have to do a presentation on ADSARS to try to convince them to collaborate with us. While in Nairobi, I also got to meet with our newly appointed head of Zoonoses at CDC Kenya (previously lab director), and he is awesome, and he loves ADSARS, and he has a ton of suggestions and can convince the lab people that this is a priority so that maybe we can actually get some lab tests to happen…and also next week when he's in Kisumu will find time to talk to me about my life plans and potentially making things happen in order for me to not just abandon this project while it's just getting going. So we'll see! But anyway, in addition to the important people, I'm supposed to be in Bondo for the third and final stage of the participatory epidemiology study Sunday through Thursday, plus Darryn and his ex-boss Sarah will be around and I'm submitting abstracts/papers for conferences, and writing about ADSARS for CDC's Global Disease Detection yearly newsletter by Monday! I'm also going to travel back to Nairobi with the whole group of visitors December 14 - 17 which is practically tomorrow, and then it probably wouldn't make sense for me to come back to Kisumu just for the weekend before flying to the US on December 22 so basically that means I'm leaving practically tomorrow. DOES TIME EVEN MAKE SENSE?
But it is just as important for me to mention that I ate Lebanese food in Nairobi and it was basically the best EVER EVER EVER and I ate at least 4 platefuls and then had leftovers for breakfast and why can't Kenyan food be more like Lebanese food?
