A Masters in life experience (June 29, 2011)

I sometimes spend many hours reflecting on my life choices.  Were they right?  Were they wrong?  Why did I make them?  What have I learned and how have I grown?  Am I becoming the person I want to become?  Sometimes I like the answers I come up with, sometimes less so.  These days, the second degree that I am perusing is often the topic of all of this reflection.  Because it would seem that I have taken a liking to expressing myself by blog, you now get to be privy to my inner most self-reflections on such topics.

What inspired me to pursue a Masters?  Well, if I’m honest with myself, it wasn’t the most carefully planned choice I’ve ever made.  What I knew going in were 4 things:

• I love school and I love learning 
• I have a chance to participate in a great, interdisciplinary project, which represents many of my interests all rolled into one
• I have a time to kill until Warren is done his apprenticeship and we can travel together
•  I don’t think anyone has ever become less employable with more education 

And so it began the most challenging experience of my life.  I was so unaware of what lay ahead; some things very good, others not so much.  But as I sit here and reflect on the last year, I realize that I have really learned a great number of lessons, most of which I never anticipated.  Allow me to share:

1: I am a social person.  This is not a great revelation, but what WAS surprising to me the level of challenge I face when I cannot learn by talking with others.  When learning consists of reading an endless stream of scientific articles, not balanced by a lot of discussion of what I’ve learned, I simply don’t thrive.  A personal weakness?  Perhaps.

2: Whom I work with and for are quite possibly more instrumental in determining my happiness at work than is the nature of the work I am doing.

3: I really enjoy teaching and I am not terrible at it.  The resources at the Teaching Support Center have been a GREAT way to explore and improve my teaching strategies.

4: I have the ability and the independence to take on brand new challenges, which I know little about.   What’s more, I know that if I apply myself, I can complete these challenges with success.

5: My enthusiasm may be less infinite than I once imagined.  This revelation was a crushing blow to me, as it had never before occurred to me that the natural enthusiasm that I was lucky enough to inherit from my parents would never be something that I would have to work at maintaining.  But, I know that attitude is a choice and I hope I can always choose to be positive.

6: Passion and excitement for something are not exactly synonyms.

7: “The ripest fruit first falls”.  Vincent once told me a fable that is often told to Kenyan children.  It goes like this:  Once upon a time, a hare and a hyena were walking through the savannah.  They came to a fruit tree, but they noticed that the fruits were over their heads and out of their reach.  The hyena said to the hare, “come, let us go.  This fruit here is not yet ripe.”  When I heard this, I heard “do not reach for anything that does not come easily to you.”  (I was slightly appalled, as I grew up with the childhood slogan, “reach for the stars”).  However, when I recently saw the poster above in a 3-table restaurant in Karagite, my view started to shift.  Maybe there is value in understanding that the ripest, most delicious fruit is that which has already fallen into your life.  I have much to be thankful for.

8: Balance in my life is more important than I ever used to believe.  I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I can’t wait for the time when I have a 9-5 job and I can use my week nights and weekends to take up new hobbies, attend hot yoga, visit my extended family, go canoeing and camping with Warren and Piper and finish the oil painting that I started a year ago.  Just for a small while, I am ready to use my free time for self-indulgent activities.

9: I need to strengthen my sense of self.  Historically, I have been to quick to let other people’s feedback determine how I see myself.  I’ve learned that I need to know who I am from the inside out and not from the outside in.  (This might sound easy, but I assure you it’s not!)

OK.  I think that’s enough deep thinking for one night.  Thanks for listening!

Extra work is a double-edged sword (June 18, 2011)

Preface:  I would like to start by dedicating this blog to Kelly-Lyn Webster, my beautiful sister-in-law.  Kelly, I am quite sure that you could have far greater things dedicated to you than one of my amateur blogs, but this is what I have to offer!  After hearing that my blog inspired you to start a blog of your own, you in turn inspired me to want to step up the effort I put into writing.  Thank you!

Two weeks ago, Vincent (my Kenyan colleague) and I were issued a mission to complete.  While some may grumble at the extra work, they clearly don’t understand the adventure associated with mapping “ground truth points”!  For those among you who have never had to make a land use map from a satellite photograph, let me tell you a bit about ground truth points.  When you take a picture of the earth from space, as with any other photograph, it saves the image as pixels, with different land uses on the earth resulting in slightly different coloured pixels in the satellite picture.  If you want to use that picture to make a map that shows how land is being used in a given area, you have to be absolutely sure which pixel colour corresponds to which land use.  That’s where we come in.  Our mission is to drive around the Lake Naivasha catchment and find areas where the land use differs, take lots of pictures of the land use and record the corresponding GPS coordinates.  This way, someone much more well versed at mapping than myself can plot the areas we visit on a satellite map, confirming that the land use there corresponds to a given pixel colour.

Do you see how this job could be kinda cool?  For my own research, I may never have had to venture more than a few kilometers from the shore of the lake, but it is now my job to explore the far-reaching, isolated areas of Lake Naivasha’s catchment.  Let me tell you a bit about what I’ve found there!

This is the 4 x 4 we get to drive.  I have now driven a manual transmission, 4 x 4 truck on the opposite side of the road, on the opposite side of the world.

This Thursday, we collected ground truth points in an area called Korongo.  Because the Korongo area is home to 3 large flower farms, the workers of those farms have settled in an informal settlement called Kasarani.  As compared to Karagite, the slum across the road from my house, Kasarani seems much more structured.  There is less garbage littering the ground, the dump sites are smaller and the homes seem “warmer”.  Maybe that’s because Kasarani is only a fraction of the size of Karagite, which is the largest of Naivasha’s slums.

After only a few minutes of working in Kasarani, it became evident that muzungus are a far more rare occurrence here then in more metropolitan areas.  As we parked our vehicle across from the primary school, the school’s two classrooms emptied and I found myself worried that the fence surrounding the school would not have the strength to support the weight of the 100 chanting children that pressed against it.

“MUZUNGU!!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

“How are you?!”

(It was absolutely necessary for me to write it that many times to give you a glimpse of how often that phrase was repeated.)

Vincent is stunned.  He cannot believe that the children here are so taken by a muzungu.  As we continue walking, I find myself starting to resemble a broken record.

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Very fine, how are you?”

“Muzuri sana” (Occasionally, when I get tired of feeling like the muzungu I am, I respond to the children’s chant in Kiswahili.)

As we walk around the periphery of the settlement, we are followed by a mob of children.  They are so curious about what we are doing.  I show them our GPS and explain that we are making a map.  They are fascinated and they all want a turn pushing the GPS buttons.  It seems to be a fair trade to allow a few children to push GPS buttons, as one little boy did let me play with his toy car several times.  As we near the end of our work in Kasarani, I start to become bored of exchanging the traditional two lines (if you have somehow forgotten what they are, please refer to the above dialogue).  Three little girls, all holding hands, look at me and say (you guessed it):

“Muzungu, how are you?”

I respond:

            “Muzungu??  Where is the muzungu?  Are you a muzungu?”

The children erupt in laughter and the 3 girls all point at one another, each insinuating that her friend is a muzungu. 

When we reach the vehicle and attempt to leave, Vincent is terrified of running over one of the children surrounding the vehicle.  He drives hastily until we emerge from the crowd, and then accelerates quickly.  A few of the more ambitious children sprint beside the vehicle until they can no longer keep up, but then we are free.

A typical street-scape view in Kasarani.

While it’s true that it is usually the children who are the most outwardly fascinated by muzungus, we get the occasional adult interest as well.  Today, our ground truthing adventures brought us to an isolated area in the upper catchment, where there are no flower farms, only small scale agriculture.  As my colleague, Melissa, and I got out of the vehicle to investigate a fascinating water harvesting system that we stumbled across, a crowd of several men flock out of the bar where they were relaxing.  They are very interested in engaging the two muzungu women.  We try really hard to ignore them, but when one man pulls out his camera and asks if he can take our picture, we stop.  Unsure exactly how to react to being the photographed, instead of the photographer, I propose a trade.

“OK.  You can take our picture, but only if we can take your picture.”  (That seems fair, right?)

He seems a bit hesitant, but he must have decided it was an acceptable deal because he lifted his camera to take a picture – so, I lifted mine too!  An interesting photo that I won’t soon forget!

A photo for a photo - - fair is fair! 

This is typical of the agriculture we saw in the upper catchment today.

However, perhaps more intriguing than the photo exchange was water collection system that Melissa and I originally got out of the car to investigate.  Naivasha is located in a rift valley, where there is a long history of volcanic activity.  In many places, the lava is near enough to the surface, that groundwater is heated until it becomes steam.  In this area, they have found that by drilling as little as 10 feet into the ground, they can tap into the steam.  They use a barrel to catch and condense the steam before funneling it into a holding tank.  What a good idea!

This picture shows the entire apparatus used for collecting steam from boreholes and condensing it for drinking water.

This picture shows the condensed steam being funnelled into a holding container.

Other adventures of today’s ground truthing expedition included mapping several isolated bush land areas, where it occurred to me that I really don’t know what to do if I see a lion (oh well, I’ve seen the Lion King.  Most lions seem pretty personable) and visiting the Great Rift Valley Lodge, one of the most natural, beautiful tourist traps I have ever seen. 

I hope that by this point in the story, you are convinced that my extra workload definitely has some perks.  What a ride!

Too much sun in the Jua Kali shops (June 15, 2011)

            Over the past month, I have discovered that some of specific parts that I need for my science are not readily available for borrow or purchase in Kenya.  Because of this, I have had both the frustration and the blessing of having to fabricate some of the parts I need.  I doing so, I have visited many of Naivasha Town’s jua kali shops.

           The literal translation of jua kali is “too much sun”, which may give you a clue as to what it’s like in these shops.  They are workshops, which may have a small indoor component for material storage or for accepting payment, but all of the work is done outside, in the sun.  Especially in the industrial area of Naivasha Town, they line many of the streets.  When I first began visiting jua kali shops, I noticed the same seeming lack of structure that I see many places in Kenya.  I have come to realize, however, that although on the surface many things in Kenya seem to lack organizational structure, everyone here knows who is where, what is what and functions just fine – it is just me who hasn’t learned!

The two saws at the wood jua kali.

The jua kali shop featured in these pictures (I only had the nerve to ask to take pictures at one!) is a large timber shop where we had some wooden poles made for dust collectors we will be using this summer.  I have to say, that once we explained exactly what we were looking for, they were quick to make us exactly what we wanted.  One thing I found striking, however, is the lack of health and safety precautions.  The saws lacked guards and many times while they were cutting wood, I found myself very worried about the worker’s fingers, which seemed to be dangerously close to the spinning blade.  (Warren, when I see things like saws without guards and men working on roofs without fall arrest gear, I can’t help but think of you and your passion for health and safety issues.  You would find this very interesting!)

It was not to far from time this that I was worried about the safety of the workers' fingers.  The saw they were using had only a guide for the piece, but no safety guard.

This is the router.  It looks like an old beast, but it produces lovely bed posts and other products!

            Another jua kali shop we frequent is that of Vincent’s mechanic.  I have discovered that he is a genuine, helpful, honest man.  He is always quick to drop what he’s doing to help us and is always very reasonable with his prices.  On occasions where my white skin colour has attracted “muzungu pricing” from other shops (translation: 3 x the normal price), the mechanic has also helped us barter for a more reasonable price.  Overall, my experience with jua kali shops has been very positive and a great learning experience! 

My home away from home (June 9, 2011)

There are a few things that you should know about where I’m living:

1.  It’s probably not what you might be thinking:

a.     It’s a beautiful cottage with two bedrooms, two bath and it sleeps 6 comfortably.

b.     It’s behind a guarded gate (although the guards are not the most intimidating people I have ever met).

c.      We have both running water AND hot water (most of the time)

d.     We have electricity (most of the time)

e.     Our flower gardens are always magically well groomed, healthy and colourful.

This is the angle of my house that you see as you pull into the driveway.  Pretty, no?

Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE windows.  The natural light in this cottage is amazing. My bedroom window is the one on the far right.

After a loooonnnggg drive up the bumpy driveway, you reach...

... our guarded gate!

2. In the last week, we have had a pair of hippos, a large male water buck and tens of monkeys hanging out steps from our door.

3.  Tony the stray cat is a beloved addition to our household.  She (yes, Tony is a girl) has even won the love of my roommate Sumedha, who swore never to love a cat.

This is Tony with my roommate Phaedra.  I don't think anyone in the world loves cats more than Phaedra.

4.  We eat dinner with our fingers and we eat it by candlelight.  Dinner is usually accompanied by Kenyan beer and followed by chocolate for dessert.

5.  The ants in the kitchen eat more food than the people.  Never forget to wipe the counter when you’re done!