It Was Bound to Happen…

I am... still feeling tired but getting better after coming down with malaria (Mom/Dad, don’t panic, I’m doing fine but figured it was better to tell you after I was better vs. while I was sick). And I’m hoping some of you will check out our wishlist wiki page (see top of this page, on the right for the Wishlist) if you want to send any care package items!

OAF Update
Things have been really busy here. We’re wrapping up our overhaul of the Child Health Program. Margaux’s done a great job of defining how education, product sales and data collection will work going forward, and has been working closely with our Child Health managers in two districts to test some of her ideas and prepare them for the changes. I attended two Light Mother trainings this past week (Light Mothers are volunteers from our districts who help us train OAF members in health topics such as nutrition and prevention of illnesses; they also help us monitor the health of our members’ children and facilitate sales of water treatment, mosquito nets, and other health-related products). They went very well and I’m excited about the prospects of the program going forward.

We’re also making strides with improving our HR processes. We’re creating manuals with clear HR policies and forms that can be used for everything from hiring to putting staff on probation. We’re also kicking off a project to develop a positive culture here for our employees, with the goal of showing them they are appreciated and a valued part of the One Acre Fund team (we can’t afford to pay our staff exorbitant salaries, so we want to make sure they know that we recognize the hard work they give us).

We have a lot of other projects going on. We’re harvesting beans in several districts, and are working to measure these harvests so we can better understand what kinds of yields we might expect (where we can, we’re also measuring harvests from farmers who didn’t plant with One Acre Fund so we can try to gauge the lift that we’re providing). We’re also moving forward with our drip irrigation sales project. Several Field Officers are holding sales meetings next week, and we’re hopeful that many farmers will buy kits so they can plant successfully during the dry season. We held our first sales meeting this past week with one field officer – here’s a pic of the demonstration we did.


We also had a member of our team leave us – Ian, who ran our Kakamega district for the past year, has left to return home to the United States. He did a great job and worked really hard – he’s going to be missed! Here’s a photo of his going away dinner with a cake I made (the green blob is supposed to be a maize cob)…


Yep, it Got Me
So yes, I did end up coming down with malaria. I’ve been taking my doxycycline regularly, but apparently the preventative drugs (doxy, malarone) aren’t much of a guarantee. Only 4 of us expats have escaped it at this point (one of whom covers up in DEET and sleeps in a small tent, under a mosquito net, with her bedroom door closed – a triple layer barrier against mosquitoes). All the rest of us have had it at least once now, and several of us have had it within the last couple months. I’ve been really surprised at how many of our Kenyan staff have had it (and how frequently people get it!). I’m pretty sure it’s because of the rain we’ve been having – it’s been very wet, and there are pools of water that attract plenty of mosquitoes.

I have to give a big thank you to Margaux, who literally made me go to the clinic to get tested. I found out about this last Sunday (Oct 26). I’d been feeling pretty run-down, but didn’t think it was much of anything (I figured it was due to running myself ragged in the States, I’d actually gotten a bit of a cold when I came back). I was laying on the couch, and Margaux decided to round up me and Sid to take us to a doctor (he was looking a bit worse off than I was). Melissa, Sid’s fiancée, came as well (she had been diagnosed with malaria the week before but was there for the emotional support). Margaux called a private doctor on a Sunday, asked if he could meet us, and then loaded us into the van and off we went. The doctor was great – very professional, and had clean supplies (yes Mom, I asked and watched – the needle came out of a fresh package). He decided to test me for malaria and typhoid. I was sure they’d be negative, but lo and behold the malaria test came back positive! I was so bummed, but also a bit glad that there was a reason why I was feeling so tired. Sid got his results back too (no malaria, but a nasty stomach infection) and we went off to the chemist for meds. I took Coartem for 3 days, and have been having alternating periods of feeling a lot better and still feeling pretty tired. I didn’t take any time off, so am spending most of this weekend sleeping as much as possible. If I still feel tired into next week, I’ll go back for a follow-up (though Melissa thinks I should be better in a few days, as she was still tired/weak after she finished the Coartem also).

So what is malaria, you might ask? And isn’t it deadly? According to Wikipedia:

“Malaria is a vector-borne infectious disease caused by protozoan parasites. It is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions, including parts of the Americas, Asia, and Africa. Each year, there are approximately 515 million cases of malaria, killing between one and three million people, the majority of whom are young children in Sub-Saharan Africa.[1] Malaria is commonly associated with poverty, but is also a cause of poverty and a major hindrance to economic development.

Malaria is one of the most common infectious diseases and an enormous public health problem… Usually, people get malaria by being bitten by an infective female Anopheles mosquito. Only Anopheles mosquitoes can transmit malaria and they must have been infected through a previous blood meal taken on an infected person. When a mosquito bites an infected person, a small amount of blood is taken which contains microscopic malaria parasites. About 1 week later, when the mosquito takes its next blood meal, these parasites mix with the mosquito's saliva and are injected into the person being bitten. The parasites multiply within red blood cells, causing symptoms that include symptoms of anemia (light headedness, shortness of breath, tachycardia etc.), as well as other general symptoms such as fever, chills, nausea, flu-like illness, and, in severe cases, coma and death. Malaria transmission can be reduced by preventing mosquito bites with mosquito nets and insect repellents, or by mosquito control measures such as spraying insecticides inside houses and draining standing water where mosquitoes lay their eggs.

Although some are under development, no vaccine is currently available for malaria; preventive drugs must be taken continuously to reduce the risk of infection. These prophylactic drug treatments are often too expensive for most people living in endemic areas.”

So here’s the skinny – you can (and should) take preventative drugs like doxycycline or malarone, but while they lower your chance of infection they don’t completely prevent it. If you feel tired/sick, you should get tested immediately (the test was less than $5). You can recover quite well if you take anti-malarials quickly, but many people in poor areas don’t have access to either preventative or treatment medications. This is why we urge our Light Mothers to sell bed nets and to do home visits to see that children are sleeping under them if possible. Here’s to preventing it as much as we can, and to getting better soon!

Election Jitters
We’re getting really excited about the upcoming U.S. presidential election! I received my absentee ballot in the mail (in Kenya! In Bungoma, actually! So amazing!), and sent it off so hopefully it makes it in time (not that my vote for President is likely to count – Obama’s probably going to take California in a landslide). Here’s a pic (taken by Emmanuel, he was so proud of himself) of me holding my election package.


And another of me mailing off the ballot – I went to a lot of trouble to vote this year, I really hope all of you make it to the polls if you haven’t voted already!


Several of us are planning to stay up on Tuesday night and watch the election coverage. It’s apparently going to be on from 2am until 9am. I think Wednesday will be like a national holiday here – if Obama wins, people will be partying; if he loses, they’ll probably be drowning their sorrows. We’ve asked around and been told it’s unlikely there will be violence if he’s defeated; we were told that if he loses and there is violence in the U.S., things could get ugly here, but that seems pretty unlikely.

I don’t want to jinx anything, but at this point we’re really hopeful that Obama will win. I heard Palin’s conversation with “Nicolas Sarkozy” (aka, some Canadian radio personality pretending to be the French President) on the news here today – this woman cannot get within a heart attack of the presidency, please! Not to mention, doesn’t someone screen her calls? I can’t imagine that the Republicans don’t recognize what a liability she is and aren’t guarding her from calls like this with an army of people. Or are they that blinded by her nice legs and inflated hair? At any rate, we’re ready to party in Kenya – let’s get this election over with already!

The Fun Stuff/Highlights

• Hearing some random Kenyan yell something at me on the street, and finding out he was calling me “Nakhumicha”. Andrew, a Kenyan staff member of OAF, was with us and said it’s a nickname meaning “born in the rainy season” – which means you’re fertile. Mom, there may be hope for me yet!
• Singing and clapping while our Light Mothers led us in an amazing song. Many of them seem so committed to helping their communities improve the health of their children; it was inspiring to meet them and see them go through a training
• Watching Rafiki scramble all over my house when she gets super energetic. She’s a terror! She scampers all over, sliding around when she tries to turn on the cement floor. I put a plastic bag and a piece of twine on the floor – she loves to play with them. She jumps into the bag, then battles around in it, then pops out and looks at it as if it’s trying to challenge her to another fight. Hilarious!
  
  
• Having a vet come out to the house to give Rafiki a rabies shot. We had to hold her down, and afterward she curled up and slept for a while – I think she was in shock. As if in-home shots aren’t enough, I’m arranging to have her spayed – and apparently the surgeon will come and do it at the house. Crazy!
  
• Halloween – one of my favorite holidays! I dressed up as Sarah Palin; Paul dressed up as Andrew (the OAF founder); Melissa and Sid were Mother Earth and a black-eyed pea; Lukas dressed up as a drip irrigation kit, and the other boys were fertilizer and maize bags. Margaux wins for best costume though – she was the best maize cob I’ve ever seen (complete with fronds sticking out on top)! Here we are with our host, Hassan, at his restaurant (he throws a Halloween dinner for the mzungus in town). So fun!
  
• Meeting the most adorable little boy while out in the field with Lukas observing his work collecting household expenditure information. This little boy couldn’t stop staring at me and giving me the biggest, sweetest smiles whenever I smiled at him. He was running around barefoot, in tattered clothes, clearly sick with some kind of cold/flu, but was happy and sweet as could be. I took a photo of him so whenever I’m feeling down I can look at him and recognize that there should always be something I can be happy about. He probably has no idea, but he really affected me that morning – I hope he makes you smile too.
  

I miss you all and am really looking forward to being back for the holidays! Hugs and kisses,

Veronica