One Year , Kenya Believe It?

Well it’s been several weeks since I’ve written, the reason being I’m swamped with projects and Peace Corps stuff. It’s unfortunate that when I have the most going on I also have the least time to write. Right now I’m sitting in the network office studying cash crops and need to take a breather, so I’ll try to as best I can to bring things up to date so I won’t have so much to remember the next time around.

Last week I enjoyed three days in Kisumu for mid-service medical, and I can officially say I’m both amoeba and worm free. Many of my friends didn’t fare as well, but parasites do make a good story, so I was a little disappointed to miss out on all the fun. I put off the tri-annual report required by Peace Corps until the last minute, so I had to sit in the office and type it while everyone else went out to lay by the pool. It killed me.

I made it to Kisumu just in time. I arrived in the morning and by the middle of the day all matatus in town were on strike. The same kind of shake down day I wrote about was happening again in Kisumu, and the drivers and touts decided to go on strike. Apparently the police finally came to a shocking realization that nearly all public transport in Kenya is unroadworthy. The matatu drivers, however, do not feel that they should be fined (or pay a bribe) just because their windshields are cracked, the doors fall off when opened, their mufflers are missing, the seat belts don’t work, the speed governor is mysteriously broken, the registration is outdated, the tires are bald, etc. etc. etc. Basically everyone who needed to use a matatu (I’d say that’s a good 90% of Kisumu) was out of luck, and taxis and tuk-tuks decided to triple their fares. There were a few shining examples of matatus that had either paid a hefty bribe or really and truly had nothing wrong with them, but when they attempted to drive down the road the touts and drivers of the problem vehicles threw rocks and broke windows until the roadworthy vehicles either became unroadworthy or came to the realization that a strike might not be such a bad idea. This continued for days, and we were stuck in Kisumu with no way home until Peace Corps admin finally got tired of paying for hotel rooms and gave us a ride. The good news is that we had extra time for a “one year in Kenya” celebration. Kisumu has some really great places to eat (for Kenya) and we went out for dinner and drinks and had a great time.

So allow me backtrack a bit and talk about what else has been going on. A new public health volunteer has moved close to Kakamega. Her name is Jessica and I spent the weekend before last showing her around and introducing her to other volunteers in the area. Her village wants income generating activities and I think that some of the cash crops I’ve learned about will be very useful to her project. I’m glad she’s here because so many people living near me are leaving. Adrienne, probably my best friend here, is getting a site change because of problems with her living situation and her supervisor. It looks like she’ll end up moving to the coast, which is great but means I’ll rarely see her. Another volunteer living nearby just got a site change too, and still another is in the process of trying to move. Also, the volunteer living the closest to me recently decided to go home and be with her boyfriend, so she’s gone as well, and yet another went home and was supposed to be back two weeks ago, but has yet to return. My guess is he’s not coming back.

I’m having my fair share of problems with my projects, mostly due to lack of motivation from the network or corruption. However, I think I have the best site in Peace Corps. About a third of volunteers go home early (although in my group it’s looking like half), and about another third have to get site changes, usually because of security or disagreements with their supervisor. These are things the Peace Corps recruiters fail to mention, and I’m glad to be where I am. I feel blessed that, despite the frustrations, my project is promising and nothing is so bad that I can’t tough it out. I just hope I can stay in that lucky minority of volunteers for the second half of my service.

So there’s plenty of progress being made with cash crops too. One of them, artemisia, has more potential than anything else I’ve worked with. Artemisia has very effective anti-malarial properties, and I found an organisation that is buying it from farmers for pharmaceutical use. Representatives from this company came to our network office and discussed its cultivation. They informed us that Artemisia has very good earnings potential (I calculate it to be about $400 per acre in five months time) and they are willing to sell our farmers artimesia seedlings so that we can begin growing the crop.

The reason I am interested in this crop, beyond earnings potential, is that I have been told that farmers and the local community can use the leaves as an herbal remedy for malaria. When I mentioned this to the representatives from East African Botanicals, they informed me that this is incorrect. They claim that artimesia, in unprocessed form, is dangerous for human consumption and the leaves must first be exported to Switzerland, where they are made into a medication that is then imported back to Kenya and sold at 500 shillings (around $7) per pill. This is pretty typical of the way things work here, since it makes the product (called Coartem) inaccessible to most people, where well over half are living at less that 100 shillings per day.

When I visited an organisation called World Vision/Challenge Farms in Kitale, I met a woman named Cheri who has received artimesia seedlings from an organisation called Action for Natural Medicines (www.anamed.net). She gave me volumes of information from the organisation concerning the medicinal properties of raw artimesia leaves as a low-cost and effective treatment for malaria, and she is even using the leaves in tea form to treat the children at her orphanage.

I started wondering if the reason East Africa Botanicals is discouraging unprocessed artemisia is simply to keep market demand high for their high-priced anti-malarial drugs, which is just plain evil. Then again I can’t say that my experiences in Peace Corps have done much for my opinion of human nature. I can see first hand how little is really being done to treat diseases that are endemic to areas where people don’t have a lot of money (On a related note, Constant Gardener is a great book)

I wrote the founder of Anamed, a doctor living in Germany, and he directed me to his American counterpart who gave me contact info for several people in Kenya already using unprocessed artemisia to treat malaria. I visited one of them in Kisumu, and she claims a nearly 100% success rate. I have another meeting with a doctor who has been promoting the drug next week. Also, thanks to Anamed, I have read dozens of scientific studies and press releases about the medicinal properties of the plant, as well as its apparent lack of side affects. I have concluded that everything East Africa Botanicals had to say concerning the danger of the plant was a lie. If unprocessed artemisia can act as a safe and effective anti-malarial treatment, then there is no reason it should not be encouraged throughout Africa, where malaria claims the lives of millions who cannot afford imported medicine. I have purchased seeds and have detailed instructions on cultivation, as well as proper preparation and doses for malaria treatment. Habakkuk has started a nursery for the crop and I hope to educate additional farmers soon.

I’m also making progress with the Wake Up Women’s orphans group. I have met with them several times over the past few weeks and gave them chili pepper seeds to grow as a cash crop. They also want to start a poultry project for income generation and to get eggs and protein for the kids. I have another meeting scheduled with them next week to go through all the details, including what anticipated expenses and income will be as well as how the money will be accounted for, and a Crisis Corps (basically a six month extension of Peace Corps) volunteer is living nearby and has offered to assist me. I hope to be able to get enough information to apply for grant money to assist with this project soon.

Also, I was severely disappointed in my work with Benson and the Kenya Programme for Disabled People, but I have made alternative plans and am in the process of helping several disabled groups with wheelchairs. Fundraising effort and all details coming soon! I have two meetings next week with the disabled groups and professionals who will fit them for equipment and provide me with itemized costs to finish the project. I’ll keep everyone up to date.

So enough about work. The last weekend was a lot of fun. I went on a 70 mile bike ride around the outside of the rainforest, then through the middle of the woods back into Kakamega and to my house. On the way I stopped to visit several volunteer friends and even carried a mattress on the back of my bike to drop off with my friend Seth. The ride was beautiful. It is so amazingly scenic, and there is so much that I miss driving by in a matatu. The only problem with going on bike is the “how are you?” and “give me money!” and “mzungu!” I hear constantly. At least the back way through the rainforest was peaceful, as the only people I came across were the occasional mamas carrying branches on their head. The forest was thick with clouds of butterflies and chattering monkeys filled the trees. I’m going to spend a weekend there with my tent and a good book in the near future.

So that’s the latest, now it’s time to get back to researching artemisia, coordinating the fundraiser, and drafting the grant for Wake up Women. It’s going to be a busy week, but a fulfilling one too.