Food for Thought

Alas, our exploits through Africa have reached their final chapter. However, it was just as grand as the rest of our trip. Thursday started off with a departure to the Nairobi Jhpiego office. There we debriefed the directors and coordinators on our incredibly fascinating and informative journey. Jhpiego has been a godsend in helping to orchestrate these adventures into areas unknown in order to advance our understanding of this country, its people, and their medical system. I’d like to take a moment and personally thank all of those involved in this process (especially Lynn Kanyuuru and Steve Oluoch) for making this trip a possibility.

After our morning debrief sessions we set off to locate the Ministry of Health. Our meeting with one of their representatives shed some light on the programs that are currently being implemented, and gave us some clues on how to execute our own. Luckily for us, the rep was incredibly knowledgeable and was more than willing to share his experiences and answer all of our questions.

2^nd to last day, and a full one at that. We started our day extra early (5:30am) in order to make our way about 3 hours north to the Kenya Community Cooker in Naivasha. ­This incredibly innovative concept kills multiple birds with one stone. Community members bring their (or randomly collected) trash to a collection site, then through combustion in excess of 800 degrees Fahrenheit using water and used motor oil, the garbage is incinerated and the excess heat is used to power stoves, ovens , and hot water heaters available for a nominal fee to the community members.  They use this to cook dinners and even wedding cakes!

After a tour and info session (and much begging), we convinced Steve to teach us all how to cook chapatti using the community cooker stovetop.  We received a bit of ridicule (from Steve) and a lot of encouragement from the locals as the How-are-you’s learned to cook.  We then left to the Masai Market to do last minute shopping. Although everyone found everything they were looking for (and probably some trinkets we didn’t), we definitely had to pay Mzungu prices. (the bargaining for 5 trinkets started at 34,000 shillings or around $400!)