I'm back in Nairobi town now, as of one week ago. Nicole and I flew in from Harare on a night flight and arrived at our beloved hotel - the Hillcrest - late on Monday. We had a nice homecoming with most of the staff there - they were glad to see us back.

We were glad to BE back. We put the frustrations of Zimbabwe behind us and started off the week well. A colleague of Nicole's from UW when she worked on an IRB (institutional review board) was in Nairobi with her husband doing a training session on ethics in clinical research for researchers in many different studies around kenya. This training was partially funded by the UW. Helen and Jim McGough are wonderful! We met them for dinner on Tuesday night at the Fairview Hotel, where they were staying and where the training was taking place, to talk about our project and catch up with her. Helen knew this conference would be a good way for us to get in touch with various researchers fast, so she very kindly made time the next day for us to introduce ourselves and what we planned to do in Kenya to all the training attendees.

It was such in interesting conference regardless! Various researchers spoke about their research and concerns about clinical trials in their country. It was a great dialogue. Thought provoking questions. The day that we attended (unfortunately the last day of the conference) we were able to meet many people over the course of the day through introductions and chatting over tea breaks. There were a lot of Seattle connections at that training - not only was it sponsored through the UW, but the McGough's of course live in Seattle, a few Kenyan researchers there had visited seattle, and one of the lab techs that is now working at University of Nairobi is from Colorado originally, but lived in seattle for several years and was on the same flight May 22nd that I took from Seattle to Amsterdam. ah! We also made a Philadelphia connection - a medical student, Camille, who goes to UPENN, and is here for the summer working with a research team. She speaks Kiswahili! and we hope to work her skills into this project of ours.

On Thursday we went to visit the research lab that is the home base for an AIDS vaccine clinical trial. the lab is at Kenyatta Hospital, the main hospital in Nairobi, and we were shown there by one of the people we'd met the day before at the conference, Raphael. He's a lab tech who's been working on this clinical trial for a year and his sister Beatrice, who we also met at the conference, has been working on it for several years through one of the clinics where participants are seen. We then met with the principal investigator of the study at Kenyatta, Dr. Bwayo, who's the doctor we really needed to sell our project to to get access to clinics, researchers, and human subjects. I was ready for some reluctance, but he couldn't have been more helpful! after he'd heard what we wanted to do, he immediately introduced us around the lab and explained more about the study. Dr. Bwayo, as well as MANY other researchers here, are going to Barcelona this week for the international AIDS conference going on there. But, in the meantime, we will be able to go to the clinics associated with the study and talk with some of the participants, most who are commercial sex workers.

Flush with the successes of the morning, Nicole and I walked from Kenyatta to the city center to do a little book shopping. Nairobi is downright filthy, but I remember especially noticing that morning how good smells still exist amidst all the bad exhaust. We'd pass through pockets of good smell while walking down the sidewalk. Good smell, perfume or bakery - then bad smell bad smell bad smell, bus exhaust or garbage or b.o. We went to bookpoint, a big book store, and I bought "Pride and Prejudice." I'm collecting books and not wanting to part with any of them - which makes for heavy backpack.

Then we met up with our friend Beryl, who we hadn't seen since we got back to Kenya. It was so good to see her!!! We missed her so much and she looked so beautiful, all dressed up and hair done. We all went out to lunch to catch up.

That night I found myself in the dining room of the hotel when another of our friends, Josef, turned up. He lives near the hotel and knows a lot of the staff so he drops by frequently and unannounced. We started talking about his business - he makes mandazi (semi-sweet flat fried bread treats! amazing!) and sells them to businesses in Nairobi everyday. He wakes up VERY early in the morning to get these things made and does it with very little help.

Played some more pool with staff from the Hillcrest at Wheels, our new favorite hangout. Met up with Helen and Jim one last time after their 3 day trip to Masaai Mara national park and before they flew back to Seattle. (and Linda Lasz! I randomly saw a minivan from your ol' school, Rift Valley Academy, on the road sometime this weekend).

Sunday we met Beryl and her brother Jabez (it was so good to see Jabez too!!!) and went to the house of their brother Rogers and his wife Seline and their 2 year old son, Alvin. We'd planned to go over there before we even left for Zimbabwe because I wanted to get my hair braided and Seline is a hair stylist. Jabez surprised Nicole and I with homemade cards and flowers - oooohhhhh so sweet! And Beryl surprised us by bringing along this HUGE bag of produce that she'd just bought at the market. Little did we know what she'd been planning...while we were gone to Zimbabwe Beryl planned to make us this whole special surprise dinner that we would eat at Rogers' house! So we set to work shelling peas, peeling potatoes, chopping carrotts, and picking out all the bad pieces from a PILE of green grams (aka lentils). Seline and Beryl made fresh chapatis, and as the master chefs put all the ingredients together into an amazing feast! It was all vegetarian, with two different greens dishes, the lentil dish, peas and corn, a dish made from maize, potatoes and something else yummy that I've forgotten, and a fresh vegetable salad. We all (including Alvin's five-year-old friend, Stephanie) ate to beyond full.

When we'd recovered from our food comas, Seline took Nicole and I outside to braid our hair into new 'dos. Everyone passing by stopped to watch. It was intense work, even for Seline's fast hands, and I'm amazed at how she braided so tiny, tiny in some parts. Some during and after photos will turn up on the website in the next few weeks...

In the next log entry I'll have to tell you about how we got home that night, and about the Matatu culture of decorating commuter vans all wild style with lights, slogans, graffiti images, and blaring Reggae. oh, you'll like that...

-Marta

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