Happy Malanka

Selling wares

Kakamega Forest - Large shallow roots

Happy Malanka to all my Orthodox friends and family.  I hope you all had a fun time at the festivities.  On our side, we went out for supper and stayed up until 10:30.  That is late for around here!

Typical stalls

Washing cars in Lake Victoria - Kisumu

Kakamega

Donkey and cart

Garbage along the side road

Alex eating a huge serving of ugali

Homa Bay

Andrew & looking at Lake Victoria

We have been settling into a real routine around here after the Christmas festivities.  Between Christmas and new years, we took a 3 day trip down to around Lake Victoria area.  We went to Kakamega Forest which is the last bit of Rain Forest in these parts which used to reach all the way across Africa at this latitude.  It is a National Park now.  We stayed in Kisumu the first night.  We drove into the city about 7:30 p.m. (already dark here by that time) and what I noticed the most, was the lack of electricity.  There were so few buildings with electricity.  And there are no street lights anywhere in  these smaller cities.  We celebrated Jim's birthday that evening with a nice dinner out.  You will see in the pictures, Andrew.  Andrew is one of our new friends.  He was introduced to us as someone whom we could trust as a taxi and we soon became friends.


We spent the next two days traveling around Kisumu area and south down the lake to Homa Bay.  Around Homa Bay are the Homa Hills. These are old volcanoes worn down after millions of years.  We climbed the highest one in the area so that we could see out across the landscape.  I won't be climbing Mt. Kenya if I don't get into better shape! We did lots of driving on the trip and saw a variety of different landscapes - rain forest, rice fields, mountains, sunflower fields, Lake Victoria.

Happy boy on first day at school in Eldoret

Since then we have been settling into school (Alex - not so well) and fully into work (me - going well).  For my eHealth colleauges, I am working as the PM, business analyst and change manager on a project.  I have 2 analysts in training working about 80% on the project with me, a system analyst about 10% and 2 quality data analysts, very part time.  We are working on a pilot project (2 sites) to transform the HIV clinics to Chronic Disease Management clinics (large modification of the health record - paper and electronic) and the current Primary Health Care clinics to a streamlined primary care centre with electronic records including reporting to the government and no paper chart. They have done some work on the initial PHC patient record already and we are coming in to streamline it and to make sure that it has all the clinical and reporting components required. The goal is to  have the pilot completed by the end of this fiscal year and use it as model for the rest of the 23 sites and their satellite sites.  At the same time, the IT group is working on a wireless network across the AMPATH region.  We are waited anxiously for this as it means that we will be able to have a networked EMR for AMPATH across all 25 sites.  Very exciting and so much opportunity for improvement!

We are also tasked to come up with a strategy for a Univeral ID for clients / patients.  This will be a more difficult task and has been one that has been one the books for a while.  A research project has just been completed with 4 sites using a Universal ID however, at this time, some patients can have up to 13 different IDs.  The research project work however will be extremely useful and one of the analysts on the project was the project assistant.


So this will be a challenging year at work but it is very exciting.  The analysts that are working with me are very smart and there is certainly great potential for leadership in this area.

As for the rest of the family, Jim has been doing some small jobs.  He is putting in a quote this weekend to the Sally Test Program (children's area at the hospital)  to build a wall of cabinets for a new centre at one of the hospitals.  Alex has been having a few issues adjusting to school and the new schedule so we have been working hard to help him. And for those who want to know, I heard from Sally Hull at Hull's Haven Border Collie Rescue and Penny is doing very well!  She has been trained  out of her aggressiveness and is now being fostered by a family who has a little boy who adores her and who has a minature  Penny to play with. If you know of anyone who wants to adopt her, please call Sally at Hull's Haven.  And we have adopted a pet here.  Tuffy the farm cat has been coming around for about a month now.  He was very skinny (ie. starving) when he first started coming around but is now well fed (better than some people here).  He has a home on the patio (box with Jim's old sweater inside) and is best friends with Jim.  He however wants to come in the house and I won't allow it.  Pretty good for a farm cat I would say.

As for coping with the culture here, sometimes it is difficult.  I often feel guilty.  We live in this nice home with all the amenities of life.  And just across the way are people who are struggling to feed themselves. There are people in town who drive Mercedes cars past the street kids.  It really doesn't make much sense. I have talked about it with my new friends and colleagues and they struggle with it plenty.  Consider this, a member of parliament in Kenya makes over $200,000 Cdn a year TAX FREE not including corruption $ (Stephen Harper makes $300,000 a year and a Canadian backbencher MP makes $150,000 and have to pay tax).  Remember the doctors who make $12,000 a year (not tax free).  Think about the worker with limited education (because their family could not afford to send them to school) who make $5 a day or about $1000 a year.  Some of the people here believe there will be an uprising one day against the rich and those are the ones who are in government.  The Northern African uprising of 2010/2011 will move south eventually.

Once again, in the mean time we do what we can.  Today I will see Ronald (the runner) at the market.  I am meeting Joshua (just graduated from grade 12) for chai (tea) or lunch.  Whether I can provide some hope or hands on support, I do not know. But I will do whatever little I can.  I will take any guilty energy I have and put it to good use. 

So I am off to enjoy the beautiful sun that is out this morning and my Kiswahili lesson before I go to the market.  I was up at 5:30 because I could not stand listening to the neighborhood dog choir anymore.  Can always take that afternoon nap as it is Saturday!

Take care all.  Enjoy the winter (LOL).

Lori