Training Day 4 (A day at the fair)

Today was our field day. Although the hotel where we are staying is incredibly glorious, it was nice to get out a bit into Mombasa. I travelled with the education volunteers and most of the Small Enterprise Development counterparts to an Irish NGO called Camara. They train people in refurbishing computers and using them, then they sell the refurbished computers to schools at highly subsidized rates. They are huge proponents of free-ware, so they immediately uninstall Windows from all machines and set them up to run Linux (an incredibly smart move considering the prevalence of viruses here). They gave us a brief spiel and then they weren't really sure what to do with us for the rest of the morning (I don't think they expected us to be there for three hours) so we ended up sitting around a bit. I considered trying to pitch this to my school, but it would be quite a logistical headache, and I am fairly confident that I don't want to be the point person on this one. Still, I will take a general survey and see if people are willing to do what is necessary to make this happen.

After that, we went to the Mombasa Trade Show (it's a huge agricultural fair and it made me think a lot of a state fair). Our first stop was at a tent where they were selling water purification supplies (chlorine for lightly contaminated water, and stronger stuff for more heavily contaminated stuff) and also doing an HIV and malaria awareness campaign. They put on a skit for us and then sent us out to try to sell some of their products. I teamed up with Nick's counterpart and we made a pretty formidable chlorine selling team. Actually, this part was pretty disorganized and most people couldn't figure out what was going on, so it was something of a relief when we moved on to the next tent.

Next we went to the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) tent. They gave us a little background information and encouraged us to explore their tent. They had various advocacy groups with booths. Most of them didn't grab my interest, but then I saw a group of blind people. I met with their chairman and we talked a little bit about their work in providing awareness to the blind community in Kenya. I really enjoyed speaking with them, so I made sure to grab their brochure and I promised them that I would visit their office the next time I was in Mombasa.

At this point, we were given free range to explore the fair for a few hours. I wandered around to the back of the tent and found a few volunteers who had decided to donate blood there. I realized that I hadn't donated in over two years (that's what I get for travelling to malarial areas; however, I imagine that the Red Cross is probably still calling my disconnected phone in the states asking me to donate blood in spite of the countless times that I've explained to them that they won't accept it presently) and decided to join the party. I stepped on the scale and found that I had put on 5 pounds this term (I consider that an accomplishment!) and then proceeded to the table. I filled in the survey (much shorter than what I'm used to in the states) and then they did the iron test and took my blood pressure with a gadget that was pretty fancy. They even tested my blood type in front of me, which I'd never seen before (don't worry, I'm still O+). Then I went over to the chair where they covered my arm in rubbing alcohol, but they didn't use any iodine (that stuff is always such a pain to wash off) and after searching a bit for my vein, they found it and put it in with no problem. I filled the bag pretty quickly and was impressed that even in a country on the metric system, they stopped the counter at 453 mL (that's a pint). Then they let me rest for a minute and gave me some cookies and soda before letting me go on my merry way. While I was sitting there, I talked with a few of the other volunteers and joked a bunch with Chris (a business volunteer from my language group with a great sense of humor). In conclusion, donating blood in Kenya is a much better experience than doing it back home.

Afterward, I wandered into a room where they were doing free HIV testing. They matched me with a deaf counselor, which was pretty neat, and he took me to a back room to conduct the test. We had to wait five minutes for the results, so we talked a bit in the mean time. He has worked with a few Peace Corps volunteers, so we talked about them a bit (he can read lips and speak flawless English and we even wrote in a notebook a bit to communicate; alas, the 20 or so things I can say in sign language weren't very practical in this conversation). Then he gave me my result and I proceeded to wander about the fair.

I was trying to collect some useful information to bring back to my school, but I didn't do very well on that. Most of the tents really wanted to sell me something rather than give information or answer questions. The woman at the coconut oil tent was very persistent in trying to sell me a jar of the stuff. In spite of the fact that it is apparently over 90% saturated fat, she kept extolling the nutritional virtues of it. However, the most persistent salesman was in the Chinese herbal supplements tent (so much for my attempt to get nutrition handouts) who wanted me to buy anything from them. After I evaded his first four attempts, he handed me a bottle of zinc and tried to whisper that it would "help the libido." I was very glad that we had learned some crass language on Monday, so I made a crude joke in Swahili that he laughed at a lot and used that as my opportunity to escape.

I noticed that it was approaching the end of the day, so I hurried back to the gate to catch a Peace Corps vehicle back to the hotel. While we were waiting, Louis (what a great guy!) mentioned that he had been unable to find the information on small-scale bio-gas plants. I laughed and told him that I had brought an informational DVD on just that from an Indian NGO (my friend Jagdish from IDDS is quite the hero) and offered to let him borrow it. We talked a bit more about that and other development topics, and I think Louis was pretty happy to get the information. I hope it helps. I hope I can work on a bio-gas project next term, but I seem to have a pretty full plate already.

Only one day of training left. I'm going to be sad when this ends.