Some Differences.....

I started out the day with a problem that I have been facing since I arrived.  I have a refrigerator in my room, but the problem is that it never shuts off.  I turned it down to almost off, but it still keeps running.  This causes an issue because it freezes everything.  I went to pour milk on my cereal this morning and the milk was a solid block of milk.  So, I had a breakfast of champions instead which included an African banana, some trail mix, a snickers bar, and some juice. 

Today for lunch we had a couple of new items mixed in with the traditional rice.  We had sukuma wiki which is a Swahili word that translates to “push the week” or “stretch the week.”  Sukuma wiki is a form of collard greens.  We also had Ugali.  Ugali is a tasteless dish of maize flour cooked with water to a dough like consistency.  It is eaten with a meat or vegetable stew or with sukuma wiki. 

Today was a good day at work.  I worked on a document that will give the hospital administrator some help with best practices from an IT perspective.  I am also working on figuring out a solution for their imaging system to make it work on Linux pc’s.  It works great on Window pc’s, but I am trying to make it work on Linux and Apple as well.

There are several differences that I have found or observed in my first full week in Kenya.  Some are cultural differences and some are just different than what we do in the United States.  So lets start with the cultural differences.  As I drove up this way from Nairobi, I mentioned that I saw a lot of people sitting or laying alongside the road.  As it turns out, most of these people were men.  Women are the ones that do the majority of the work in this culture.  Apparently there was a study done where women and men wrote down everything they did throughout the day.  Women worked all day long and men wrote that they slept and ate for the most part.  I wonder what this country would be like if men were working as much as the women.   There are men who work.  There are plenty here at Tenwek working, but it seems that men in general do not work as much as the women. 

Each morning around Tenwek all of the sidewalks and floors are washed with rags or mopped with soap and water.  The women that are washing are wearing dresses and some look like they are ready to go to church.  Not the typical outfit that someone in the US would wear to wash floors.  I am sure the floors do not get that dirty in one day.  My guess is that Tenwek is providing jobs for those who want to work. 

Ok, this is the most surprising cultural difference I have found.  Nursing mothers openly breastfeed in public.  In the US, mothers who breastfeed in public put a blanket over their chest and baby.  This is not the case here in Kenya.  Yesterday at church, I was just looking around to see how many people were there and to my right and to my left there were two nursing mothers sitting there in the pews behind me listening to the sermon and nursing.  There was also a woman a few days ago doing the same thing on a bench outside the hospital.  I guess things are a little different here in Kenya.

Another difference I have found is when walking around outside the hospital grounds, many of the kids will stare at me.  Most want to say hi, and they are generally really friendly.  Some want to shake your hand.  They don’t see to many white people, so I think they are trying to figure me out a little. 

I mentioned my milk was frozen this morning for breakfast.  I had intended on having the Kenya version of corn flakes cereal.  The cereals here are not that great.  I have tried rice crispies and corn flakes now.  The corn flakes actually taste like corn.  I was expecting something a little more similar to frosted flakes but these are definitely not frosted flakes.

Another thing I have noticed on a lot of people is their belts.  They are always really way to big, and they often times create their own holes in the belts.  My guess is they find whatever belt they can afford and make it work. 

Kenyan’s all want to shake your hand.  The one’s at the hospital shake hands more like Americans because they know that is what we are used to.  I shook hands with one of the guys at church yesterday and he gave me a real Kenyan handshake.  It was kind of like a slap of the hand then a shake and then you try and snap fingers with the other person as you release. 

One of the things I have noticed with my coworkers is they are so quiet.  They talk in a bit of a whisper.  I am constantly saying What?  When they pick up the phone to answer an IT question, I can barely hear them even though they are right next to or across from me.  I think it is a cultural thing not to be so loud like Americans are. 

I am constantly converting kilometers to miles and dollars to Kenyan Shillings.  My coworkers have all kinds of questions for me that require conversion. 

Chai is served every day at 10:30. 

I only drink filtered or bottled water here.  There is a filter that produces clean water for us to drink.  I even brush my teeth with the filtered water.  The water out of the tap cannot be used for drinking. 

They collect rain water off the roof of all the buildings here.  I hear it is used for washing clothes as the ground water has a tint to it that stains clothes.  They are large tanks, so I am assuming they use the water for something else as well.  I don’t think it is drinking water though.