Trip journal part 2
October 17, 2002
Today was Gender
Awareness Day at Egerton University.
I actually had scheduled my trip to be here for this day and it was
worth it. The day began with a
meeting with Dr. Wanjiku Chiuri and the chair of the sociology dept about a
possible grant opportunity. They want to focus on gender and empowerment and
HIV/AIDS, about the problem of women in the university, and the questions
raised about girls in the pipeline for science studies or really any studies at
the university. Only 52% of girls
enter primary school, and perhaps 12% reach 8th grade. This is combined with a massive dropout
at 4th or 5th grade. With HIV/AIDS in the family, girls drop out to care for
parents or small children, or because disease costs eliminate their school
fees. Girls of 10 or 11 can work in homes as housegirls and bring money to
their families as well. We thought
that they could combine figures from the local primary and secondary schools
about enrollment of girls and boys with informant interviews and focus groups
to determine how HIV/AIDS is impacting enrollment of girls in primary and
secondary schools, and thus their roles in society. It is an educated woman who is an empowered woman, and with
girls being pulled out of school, empowerment and equity become more
difficult. The potential for girls
going to secondary school and university is compromised by finances, the need
for caregiving, and then also by discouragement in the schools and by sexual
advances by teachers and principals.
The situation is very depressing.
UNAIDS has identified a potential crisis as young girls are infected at
high rates, and the potential women of child bearing age of the next generation
is depleted. What will happen to
the population if there are no women to bear children???
After we met to discuss
the grant, we went over to Gender Awareness Day on the main quad of campus,
between the administration building and the library. The students from the
WomenÕs Center had put up posters of their activities and also about the SENCER
course and the workshop. They had
also done a T-shirt clothesline with statements about domestic violence, and
about HIV/AIDS. The program linked
gender awareness and HIV/AIDS, and celebrated the 10th anniversary
of the WomenÕs Studies and Gender Center. Two people living with AIDS spoke
very movingly about their ailment and about how the disease had affected their
families. A physician from Nairobi spoke about how universities can take
leadership in HIV/AIDS and spoke of their failure to pursue this problem with
the full focus of their research abilities.
The closing event of the
morning was a fashion show. It was
very interesting culturally. About 10 young women paraded out in clothes of
varying coverage. The first to
come was Esther, who is a Masaii, and who was dressed in full costume with a
matching suitor. The other girls
were more fashionable. The student
narrator talked about the beauty of African women and the need for them to be
strong.
Friday, October 18, 2002- today I stood
20 feet from Daniel Arap Moi
We left Egerton early to
travel to Kenyatta University in Nairobi, where we were guests of Professor
Olive Mugenda, the DVC for finances and planning. We arrived about 8:45, and quickly had tea with Dr. Philip
Owino who heads the AIDS Control Unit.
We drove with him to the parking area for VIPs and walked in to the
graduation square and were seated under a covered area. Caroline LÕangat
Thorwat of AWSE, Chair of the Chemistry Department at Kenyatta, was the leader
of the procession as Òmace bearer.Ó
There were 1500 education
graduates, and 500 additional undergraduate degrees- and some masters and
27 doctorates. It's important
for Kenya to produce its own Ph.D.s.
The president awarded all the degrees by group except for the doctorates,
which were awarded separately and with great honor.
The graduation started
with performances by the university choir and the special singing group, and
traditional dances. Since I was
sitting on the VIP platform about 20 feet from the president, they were
performed right in front of me.
Sadly I couldnÕt take pictures because the security is pretty tight
around the president.
Graduation lasted until about 1:30 and then Philip herded us quickly to the garden where luncheon was served to the Deans and honored guests. As the SENCER team, we were honored guests of the Deputy VC Olive Mugenda, who had been at the SENCER meeting in California. After lunch we went over to see the singers and dancers perform for the President. The crowd was crushing, and as I moved over to the Egerton group I popped a balloon and alerted the security guards to a potential disaster. They realized it was just an awkward white woman.
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In the evening I joined Esther Keino and her companion
for Chinese food. Esther and her friend explained that their generation of
Kenyans is still attached to the land, but their children don't have those
ties. Their generation held on
to rural farms in the belief that they would retire to the village, but after
being worldly and urban, they are having trouble seeing themselves in that
role.
Wednesday, October 23,
2002
Kisumu, Kenya
Today was my second day
at Maseno University outside Kisumu.
Maseno is the youngest of the Kenyan private universities, only
chartered in 2000. It previously
was a campus of Moi University. My
hosts are Patrick Aiechyo and Arsenith Sigot.
The schedule at Maseno
is different than the other 2 schools so far because they haven't progressed
as far with planning. Instead
of training identified professors, IÕm doing more general presentations about
SENCER and course planning. Today
there was some anger because some people thought that I was coming with money
that they hadnÕt had access to, but actually IÕm just here with ideas.
Yesterday I met with
students and members of the campus AIDS control unit, and generated ideas for a
course. Today I made a
presentation to the DVC and deans, and then one to the department heads.
IÕm intrigued with the
geology here, and that that I saw on the flight from Nairobi. I would love to see geo students find a
way to visit here. Tomorrow I am
meeting with professors from various programs including the geographer who
heads geology and geography and who has done medical geography/demography about
HIV/AIDS.
So today was
interesting. We spent the
afternoon at Pandiperi Catholic Charity, where they provide a range of services
for street children, for malnourished children and had a VCT Center and do lots
of training of street workers. I
was very impressed and left the Sister with all of my American cash. My hosts from Maseno University also
purchased a dress for me at the tailor shop at Pandiperi where they use
dressmaking as a fund raiser. This
was very nice.
Thursday, October 24,
2002
Maseno university,
Kisumu
Perhaps there were 2
highlights today. First was eating
a delicious goat stew at Arsenith SigotÕs beautiful house such outside the
university campus. The house is sprawling
and lovely.
The second highlight was
meeting the VC of Maseno University.
Yesterday we had met with the DVCs and deans and had had a very positive
and encouraging meeting. The VC
today was somewhat confrontational and wanted to know how he could afford such
a course for his students. I was
equally straightforward with him and asked him if he could afford not to.
We scurried around all
morning meeting with people. First
we went to the science faculty and met the chairs of all the departments. They
all want to collaborate with American scientists, and I will contact list
serves to see who I can hook up.
Then we had tea, which made us late for a meeting with Monica Aiechyo,
who is director of undergraduate program.
Monica is also a participant in the Global Partners program that is
funding my trip. She was very supportive,
and we discussed opportunities for educational exchanges. After Monica we went to meet Professor
Adouma, head of the new school of public health. Then we went to geography and
geology. The geology in the area
was awesome, and I hope to link these people up with Barbara Tewksbury from
Hamilton and Sue Swanson. The medical geographer is a demographer who is doing
great work on fertility and maternal mortality. Then we went off to meet the head of the communications/journalism
program who also wanted contacts, toured the home economics department where
Arsenith is professor.
After lunch I gave a
talk on teaching about HIV/AIDS to about 40 people. The response was good and
the questions were generally interesting. Then I went to listen to a horticulture
lecture. The lecturer, Mary, was
excellent and gave an interesting presentation, with student participation, on
spinach!!!
On the way home we saw
a beautiful rainbow over the lake. If
there weren't malarious mosquitoes, it would be perfect here.
Friday, October 25, 2002
Today was quite
amazing. We left the hotel at 8 am
to travel to Miwani, a rural community encompassing 60,000 people. It is another part of the community
outreach of SENCER- Maseno.
Patrick Ayiecho has worked to build this community for 10 years and has
encouraged the development of a health clinic, and training of home health
workers to assist people living with and dying of HIV/AIDS. There are 176 home
health workers in the community, and a set of Òopinion leadersÓ which are trained
village elders, and a large number of womenÕs groups that support the work of
everyone. The more that I get to know Patrick, the more that I appreciate him.
So we traveled for about
20 kilometers on blacktop road, and then turned off onto an amazingly bad
road. This one had suffered from the rains and had deep ruts and rivers to
cross. As we went along the road
we noticed lots of women in dark green dresses, and I didn't understand why
they were all there. PatrickÕs
car, in front of ours, stopped to pick them all up. That was confusing too, until we got to the health center and
found that they were all community health workers and that they were at a
celebration in our honor. It
was the SENCER Team Field Meeting, to establish the alliances for field placements
for Maseno students. We were
greeted with singing and dancing and ululating, and an older woman waved a
ceremonial ox tail over our heads in blessing.
The program included
a visit to the clinic building, and entertainment- songs and a poem, and then
introductions of community members and leaders and of the members of the SENCER
team. I was an honored guest,
although sadly I didn't come with the gum boots and 4 wheel drive vehicle
that is sorely needed. I did
give a short talk, emphasizing the impact of HIV/AIDS on women as infected
and affected, and the important role that the community care givers and women's
clubs were doing in reducing the silence surrounding HIV/AIDS.
At the end there was
more singing and dancing and they gave me amazing gifts. Sometimes it is fun to be an old white
lady in Africa.
Wednesday, October 30
Today is the last day of
the academic part of my adventure and the first day of the vacation.
Monday I went to Jomo
Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, where Professor Mabel Imbuga
is Dean of Sciences. JKUAT sits in the town of Thika, outside of Nairobi. Thika
has the highest incidence of HIV in the country, even higher than Kisumu I
think.
The situation there is different from all
the other universities- only Mabel and the VC, Professor Ratemo Micheka, have
been at SENCER, and the professors and lecturers don't consider their course
to be a SENCER course, and donÕt have the strong perspective of innovation
as well as teaching about HIV/AIDS. But Professor Micheka had returned from California with a strong
commitment to developing a course about HIV/AIDS, and raising awareness on
his campus. The impact of strong
VC support is very obvious there. Prior
to Monday's meeting, Mabel had convened a small group to begin planning a
core course for undergraduates on HIV/AIDS. They provided some goals and an outline,
and the larger group of about 18 continued the morning, listening to the planning
ideas and then my presentations, to develop a course outline and find an administrative
home for the course. The group made good progress, and there was little dissension.
Everyone seems quite committed to this project.
The group met at the Blue Point Hotel, which sits at 2 waterfalls.
Tuesday mornung I met with
the director of the Africa office at USAID, Andy Sisson, who is Roc OrdmanÕs
cousin. Andy had arranged for
Janet Heyman, who is in charge of HIV/AIDS programs, and Leslie Perry, who
deals with health programs to meet with me as well. They were very attentive to my discussion of the program and
seemed quite supportive of it and the ability to find funding. They were most interested about the
activity of African universities responding with the development of courses
about HIV/AIDS, and suggested that there might be opportunities to fund the
development of a model course for the African region.
Then we went to JKUAT,
where Mabel escorted us around the university. We toured the hospital, where we met the Voluntary
Counseling and Testing nurse, who said that she had lots of trouble getting
students to accept condoms, even if they were negative. They all said that they would just
abstain.
After lunch I participated
in 2 AIDS Awareness Day events. The first, which ran from 2 until 5, was for
faculty and staff. The attendance was great- more than 350 people attended.
I was one of 5 speakers- a physician with expertise in international
health, a speaker from the home care program at Pathfinder, a woman living
with HIV/AIDS, the VC, and me. There were also the requisite thankers and
greeters. The physician was excellent. His talk focused upon the history of epidemics and their impact
on the course of history. His
main point was that HIV/AIDS was having as significant an impact on Africa
as the epidemics brought by the conquistadors to Latin America, and that the
youth of Kenya should think of the battle against AIDS as a war of liberation.
It was quite interesting. My
talk was short and sweet. I decided
in both the talk to the faculty and staff, and to the students, to focus on
the use of condoms as one of the ways that the US has been able to control
the epidemic. With the students, I talked first as a
university professor and then explicitly as a mother. I told them that I was the mother of young people 21 and 23,
and that I didn't know what they did at night, and that I didnÕt want to know,
but I did hope that they did whatever they did with a condom. I also then said that I didn't know what
they would be doing, but if they were doing it with someone else, to be sure
to use a condom, for their mothers.
The evening for the students
included a very good performance group who did short skits about HIV/AIDS.
One of the most moving was about incest- first of the mother and her father
and then the daughter with the mother's lover. It was really devastating. The students really responded well to the skits.
We didn't get home until
after 8 pm, and then I was picked up at 8 am the next morning by Mabel's sister,
Ethel, a botanist at Kenyatta. We
went to the meeting for Kenyatta Unversity at the Utali Hotel.
There was an impressive
group of department heads, deans and other important people from Kenyatta
University at the meeting at Utali Hotel.
I think that there were more than 50 in attendance. The meeting was started by the DVC for
Finance, who had been at SENCER, but she was also chairing a meeting in the
next conference room, so she didn't attend much of our meeting. The DVC for Academic Affairs made a great
opening speech about humanizing the curriculum, and about engagement, and
about recognizing the huge impact that HIV/AIDS had on the students at KU. Her really set the stage well for the
things that I wanted to say.
I had time for 3 short
talks during the day's program. The
other s who spoke described either what their department was doing about teaching
about HIV/AIDS, such as in Nutrition and Public Health, or they described
the ways that they hoped that they could integrate HIV into their curricula.
There was a very humorous presentation by the Physics chair, about
friction and condoms. Actually, the discussions about condoms
that ran throughout the day were quite disturbing. Again, as a JKUAT, there were real reservations about the use
of condoms. It started with the
Reverend, who said that condoms are 30% failure rate, but continued with an
emphasis on abstinence, and hesitancy to talk about condom use as a real strategy.
This avoidance of condoms as a strategy is really distressing to me. I again pulled out a condom and opened it up and stretched
it out. I think that Kenya can
go far with discussion and with abstinence, but they also need to embrace
condoms as a real strategy.
So I did my presentations.
Caroline said some very nice things- that she could tell that I was an excellent
teacher, how she really appreciated that I used examples from Kenya for my
discussion, and that she really understood the SENCER ideals better now than
she had at the SENCER meeting. I appreciated her feedback. It has been hard talking about AIDS in Kenya to Kenyans, struggling
for the right voice, and figuring out how to deal with issues that touch these
people so closely and personally. Even in this group of 50 leaders, some were certainly HIV positive.
One of the questions that was raised but not fully addressed was how
KU lecturers could teach about HIV/AIDS when they weren't always perfect themselves-
one might have an abusive husband, or be HIV positive, or whatever else. It will be important to consider.
So after 3 + weeks, this
has been a success. My presence
prompted each university to organize programs during my visit- programs that
might have been postponed if I were not coming. The gift of books from Jones and Bartlett and others made a
great difference at each university, and I think that the CD of readings will
help, too.