Sunday’s Productions

Today many members of the core team such as Gill, Shengnan and Alice organized and typed up the information collected for the social studies interviews that were asked during yesterday’s clinic. The core team stayed at the hotel while others ventured off to the CYEC. Roma and Steve were invited into the home of one of the children’s grandmother where they spent time talking with the child’s uncle. He talked about the family’s farm and took them down to the river. He explained how the local farmer s have a farming association where they discuss and teach techniques used in farming. Roma and Steve were given a huge stick of sugar cane to return to the hotel with. Rene and Tara met up with a student from the CYEC who took them to the home of a local woman, named Mary. Upon arrival Mary introduced Rene and Tara to her family and her sister who was visiting for the day. Rene and Tara were invited into the kitchen for tea and discussed Mary’s oldest son who is currently boarding at secondary school. They sat around the small fire in the middle of the kitchen and enjoyed the company of Mary and the younger children. The youngest child sat staring at Rene and Tara terrified by her first encounter with “white” people. Not only did Tara and Rene learn more about the culture in the local area, but they felt as though they taught Mary a little bit more about what goes on in the everyday life of an American. One of the CYEC students took Carey out into the local area to see some scenery and to one of the quarries, where Carey watched a few Kenyan men chip away and shape stones into building blocks. Everyone returned to the Ivory hotel for a debriefing around 2:30.
During the debriefing the team discussed the organization and travel plans to Mweiga for tomorrow’s clinic. Aaron, Carey, Pat, Rachel and Steve had the honor to be invited to dinner at the home of Fatuma. The dinner consisted of traditional homemade Swahili food with such things as beef stew, a vegetable pace, chapatti and a delicious chili sauce. Over dinner, the group discussed the politics in Kenya and the new constitution that’s being designed; they also discussed liter topics such as what Fatuma favorite Swahili food is. Dinner was a success and they returned to the ivory hotel to continue preparations for tomorrow’s clinic.

Sunday morning was another beautiful day here in Nyeri. After a wonderful night of socializing, everyone slept to at least 9:00am before a few of us started walking into the conference room for breakfast. The atmosphere is mildly chilly, and we all sat in the conference after breakfast for casual conversations. Some of us transferred to the front porch of the hotel to drink soda and talk, while some read novels.
Saturday was a busy day, and everyone did a lot of work. So Sunday was declared a resting day. Shagnon did some laundry and Alice Cheng, Alice Lee, Julie Simmons and a couple of WishVast team members walked down to the closest gas station for snacks and drinks. Bello had one of the Penn State T.V station workers showed him how to operate high definition cameras in different exposures. Dr Peter Butler later walked around and announced that a meeting is set for 2:30pm and all the Mashavu team members should be present at the conference room. Mr Khanjan Mehta came back from Nairobi at 2:00pm so he took over the meeting that started at 2:34pm.
The meeting commenced with some of us telling Mr. Mehta how the socializing went last night, then it continued with a detailed explanation of the events that happened on Saturday at CYEC. Brianna recapped her roles and how she executed them, while Dr. Butler also gave a lot of details about the logistics used to get the system effectively working due to the high amount of students that came to CYEC. He also elaborated a little more about the troubles encountered during the clinics, and steps followed to solve them. Essential Design team summarized their experience during the interviews they conducted and how they collected consistent information from most of the students. WishVast told how they had a lot of people showed interest in their system, and that deviated the conversations to how much the Kenyan students are interested in buying stocks.
Mr. Mehta described the outlines for the upcoming events and clinics that are scheduled to be conducted. The logistics for Monday was carefully crafted, and the timelines were emphasized. A light sketch of logistics for the next week was elaborated by Mr. Mehta. He also took his time to explain the travelling plans for Ngong Demo and flight arrangements for some of us who are leaving earlier to go back to the U.S.
Before the meeting ended at 3:45pm, Dr Butler asked the BioE team to work on more accurate and functioning devices. The BioE team and some of the core team members immediately went into work. Dr Butler and Colin Andrews worked on the Pulseox, while Bello and Pat Hoopes worked on the Spirometer and Julie Simmons worked on perfecting the Blood Pressure device. Steve as always got on LabView to get the programs for the devices in splendid conditions.
By 6:00pm, the conference room was full of devices and spare parts, Highland water bottles and netbooks. Some of us that aren’t busy sat out and ordered dinner while having conversations. The night turned a little chilly and there wasn’t a lot to do by some of us, except the BioE team. By 10:00pm, more than half of us have gone to bed to be ready for a busy next day.
-bello