Mashavu

Notes from Wednesday June 2nd, 2010

 Early in the morning the “advanced team” set out for Nairobi on their way to the Ngong village site. That team consisted of Khanjan, Steve S., Jeff, Roma, Samir, Aaron, and Dr. Butler.  Their goal was to first head to Nairobi and pick up the food and the Mashavu banner for the demo that they were going to give to the community health workers in Ngong the Village of Olosho Oboir.  It took a while to get the food in Nairobi but after that the team left for the long drive into the valley to the village.  When they arrived the health workers were gathered under a tree meeting with the clinic doctor.  While Khanjan and Dr. Butler went and talk to them Jeff and Roma set up the kiosk that was going to be at the clinic for both the Wednesday and Thursday demos.  While that was happening Samir and Steve went down to the boys secondary school 30 minutes away to get everything set up for Thursday’s demo.
 After everyone had gotten their food the health workers came to Jeff’s Kiosk and got their blood pressure and temperature taken.  They were all very excited to see the system and have it explained because they could see how easily it could help their remote villages.  The pulse ox wasn’t working that well but the people thought that there was something wrong with them instead of the error being on the equipment.  We tried to explain to them that it is impossible to have a blood oxygen level of %-41 but they weren’t having any of it.  Aaron  sat with the doctor in his office and got the website up to show him how the information could be sent from both the kiosk at the clinic as well as the kiosk at the secondary school.
 Overall the demo was a great success.  Because of its remote location the people there were exactly the type of people that Mashavu can affect the most.  They wanted to know when they were going to be getting one and how soon all the devices could be ready.  They were a little let down when we told them that it is still in the developmental phase.  It did however get everyone really excited who was there and those same people were going to be attending the demo the next day.  Once one person understood the system then they would explain it to their friends and so on.  Word of mouth is how news travels in the village and we got the word out for sure.
 After all meetings were over the advanced team went back to Ngong to stay in the Shade hotel.  There the team ate dinner and got to bed early because they would be leaving at 730 the next morning to head back to the clinic in the village.  All and all the day was a great success and the whole team felt that they had done what they went there to do.

Today is a slightly wet Sunday with little showers in the early morning and cloudy but warm afternoon till evening. Due to absence of work to do, most of us started entering the conference room around 8:30ish for breakfast. The main events for the day are the Art Festival and CYEC Talent show organized by WishVast, then the much anticipated Kenya Vs U.S.A soccer match.

Mr. Khanjan Mehta asked everyone to leave for CYEC where all the events are holding place at 11:00am. In one of the main classrooms at CYEC, lays varieties of paintings, shoes, necklaces, drums, horns and a lot of other anonymous things with their sellers smiling and talking to people. It was an organized event, with 10% of all the sales made going to CYEC. Everyone was passionate about buying art things, and having some of the money donated to CYEC. The giraffe paintings sold very fast, the place quickly turned into a busy market and bargaining atmosphere. A lady got a painting for about 3800 shillings, while another friend of mine got the same thing from the same seller for 800 shillings. Some of the Mashavu and Essential Design crew went up to the field for soccer practice.

By 2:14pm, the attention was turned to the CYEC main front yard for the talent show. There were plastic chairs and benches arranged and on the front main stage lay a big speaker and a DVD player. It was a great place to be with more than a hundred people there for one thing; CYEC and being the same and one. The opening act was by a girl from CYEC who danced to a popular African song titled “Yori Yori” by Bracket. Her performance was amazing. The second act was a dancing performance by a gentleman too who is from CYEC. His performance was applauded. Various people ranging from CYEC workers, to various volunteers performed ranging from singing to stand up comedy.

3:00pm didn’t ring when the interesting talent show ended and it was time for the Soccer match. The U.S team was given a red and white jersey to wear, while the CYEC team wore blue and red jerseys. There wasn’t specific control of the ball most of game, with the U.S team most of the time struggling to kick the ball out of their defense, or just having a right pass. A lot of substitutions went on with some of the U.S players going in about 4 or 5 times. It didn’t help a lot except soften the defense for easy Kenyan penetration. After two painful goals, with one from the mid field, Colin Andrews scored an amazing goal that sent the entire crowd into roars. Most of the U.S players got tired after then and the Kenyan machine scored 4 more easy goals. After the game was over at 5:20pm, everyone celebrated and it turned into a moral victory for everyone.

Everyone walked back and ordered dinner. At 8:30pm, fresh showers of rain mercilessly poured from the sky while everyone looked for shelter. Mr. Mehta then called for a final meeting which consisted of all the projects teams, and CYEC staff. Everyone talked about their experiences and what impacted them most, then the CYEC staff also talked about how much they appreciated having us and how important we are to the children. It was an emotional room when Mr. Mehta stated the final schedule of activities and thanked everyone. The meeting was dismissed at 11:05pm with most of us going to bed due to sore bodies from the soccer game.

     Today was a free day, as well as the last day for Dr. Butler and the camera crew. Some people were still working on papers, but the majority of people decided to go to CYEC because of a rumor of a talent show to be held by the kids at around 2:30. We all walked to CYEC and hung around the kids, but as always Kenyan time prevailed and even the kids never knew when the talent show was going to happen.
     Nobody was too worried, though, because everyone from Mashavu and the CYEC kids were looking forward to the artsfest bananas (where the CYEC kids will sell arts and crafts) and the Kenya vs. USA soccer match. The Mashavu crew and the kids spent a wonderful day outside playing around. Sadly, Dr. Butler had to say his goodbyes to the whole Mashavu crew as he began heading back to Nairobi around 3:00 PM.
     As soon as the Mashavu crew got back from CYEC around 5:00 PM, some of the boys began preparing for this epic soccer match by shaving their faces into pro-wrestling facial hair to make themselves look more menacing. Everyone ate dinner and hung out. Some people continued working on their papers through outlining on computers or on notebooks. In general, it was a very quiet and relaxing cloudy day.

Yesterday was the day of the much heralded Mashavu ‘Big Bang’ Demonstration. Numerous representatives from governments, investors, corporations and NGOs had been invited to a remote site about an hour southwest of Nairobi to see Mashavu in action for the first time; the hope being that one of these entities might take the Mashavu dream and run with it, commercializing and implementing the telemedicine system on a large scale.

As we’re all aware, the Big Bang was the purported start of the universe, a colossal explosion from which all planets, stars, and solar systems sprang and from which they have been racing outward ever since. We hope that, in the wake of our Big Bang, Mashavu might expand just as quickly.

The day before the demonstration, the Mashavu team had split in two, one group traveling to Ngong for preliminary setup, the other traveling to Nairobi for a series of meetings. It was held in Olosho Oibor. The location of this demonstration, at the foot of the Ngong Hills in Masai country, was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, it is the site of a UNIDO energy kiosk a local clinic (UNIDO is one of our partners). This clinic administers to a number of communities, some as many as 12 kilometers away and on the opposite side of the Ngong Hills, the peaks of which, the locals informed us, were about a day’s travel distant. At a school in one of these far off communities, separated from the clinic by the gorgeous yet seemingly impassable slopes of these same “hills,” a group of students from the initial team had established a kiosk to transmit patient data back to the clinic on the other side where Dr. Musimyi, the local doctor and our collaborator, could respond with his recommendations. In this manner we hoped to demonstrate how Mashavu could save patients the time and money spent to reach a doctor by connecting them virtually.

At the clinic, the first Mashavu team had set up an additional kiosk to demonstrate the biomedical devices and software. These devices had been created by a team of Penn State bioengineers to be significantly cheaper than those currently on the market. Typical biomedical devices exist independent of one another, each processing and displaying data individually. With the Mashavu system, all processing is done by the computer and displayed on screen. By eliminating these processes from each device, Mashavu has dropped the prices of these devices dramatically.

By the time the second team arrived at the clinic on the day of the demonstration, a small crowd had gathered beneath the large Mashavu banner strung beneath the buildings awning. In addition to those waiting for the Mashavu demonstration, a dozen or so Masai women, many bedecked in their traditional red shawls and brightly beaded bracelets and necklaces, idled outside waiting for a weekly clinic hosted there.
The clinic was a single story, L-shaped structure. The demonstration kiosk was located approximately in the middle, surrounded by a team of bioengineers preparing their devices and linking them to the computer. Many of the visitors wore suits. The Penn State team appeared in matching green t-shirts with the Mashavu name and logo.

Members of the Mashavu public relations team presented the system to those visitors who arrived prior to the beginning of the demonstration and answered any questions. Such representatives included and Alexander Varghese and Patrick Kimathi from UNIDO.

By about 10:30am everyone had arrived and the UNIDO representative, Alexander Varghese, gathered everyone around. By this point all the representatives present. Mr. Varghese welcomed them and outlined the morning’s agenda before introducing Khanjan. Khanjan then provided a brief explanation of the Mashavu system and was followed by Simon, the local manager of the UNIDO power kiosk.

Following this series of introductions, welcomes, thank-you’s, and the presentation of the Mashavu system and dream, the crowd proceeded over to the demonstration. Here four Penn State students and Khanjan provided further explanation about the goals of Mashavu and how the system could achieve them. They first demonstrated the blood pressure cuff which performed admirably although it had to be done twice because one of our CYEC student partners who had been working with us for the past three weeks removed the cuff mid-demonstration. The thermometer followed and performed equally well. These demonstrations were punctuated by further explanations of the devices and system. The students then moved on to the pulse oximeter which, despite having given precise readings all morning, failed to give a proper measurement in its most public trial. However, this device’s rugged design and average percent error of less than 1% more than adequately speak to its robust design.

Khanjan and the students responded to questions throughout the demonstration and afterwards. Those gathered were curious as to the system’s power requirements, diagnostic capabilities, and additional applications among other things. Once these questions had been answered, Mr. Varghese directed everyone out of the clinic and over to the UNIDO power station. However, many representatives lingered to see more of Mashavu. CJ Jones, a representative of GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition) and Stefan Engles, the manager of private sector development for UNDP (United Nationa Development Program) were also present. Additional questions were answered and people watched as patient data arrived from distant kiosk and doctor responses flowed back.

Gradually the crowd made their way over to the power station and only some students and Masai mothers and children remained. Soon after however, a number of community members arrived and over the next several hours our kiosk operators demonstrated kiosk to each and every new group of arrivals.
Many members of the Mashavu team followed over to the power station and following the presentation there continued to discuss the Mashavu project with the representatives gathered there. (who and what discussed here). Samosas and water were served and within a couple hours of its start, the demonstration was largely over. Both kiosks continued to operate for several more hours but the ‘big bang’ had largely finished its presentation to the group that was present.

The Olosho Oibor village was home of the Masai tribe, known for its warriors. The Masai men traditionally must kill a lion (or other dangerous and scary animal) before becoming a man (some also apparently drink blood!). Some of the students had a chance to interact with the Masai people, and even met with a man who had already killed a lion. Since he had already completed his first rite of passage into the tribe, his task now was to find a wife to marry. Fortunately, Julie was “single and ready to mingle,” and was introduced to the man. However, the plans were made in haste and could not be carried out before the Mashavu team had to leave in the afternoon.

The students that were not part of the failed engagement ceremony were able to look at some homemade jewelry that was being sold by some of the Masai people. Beaded bracelets, necklaces, keychains and even a belt were sold at slightly unreasonable prices. Although Shengnan tried to bargain with the entrepreneurs, they did not budge much. The jewelry was good quality and many people walked away as happy customers.

Around 3pm, the students at the school clinic returned to the UNIDO demonstration. Everyone packed up and said their goodbyes to their new friends and business acquaintances. Some students got into a matatu, while the rest of the students climbed back onto the Safari vehicle. The matatu included Dr. Butler, Khanjan, Roma, Rachel and Steve. They had dinner at a restaurant with better vegetarian options along with some interested potential customers of Mashavu.

The rest of the group traveled to Carnivore restaurant, where they dined on a unlimited supply of pork, ribs, chicken, leg of lamb, turkey, beef, chicken gizzards, liver, crocodile and ostrich meatballs. Some also tried Carnivore’s “world famous Dawa,” an alcoholic mixed drink made with vodka, lime, sugar, honey and stirred with a bamboo stick. The students sat at two tables, which were almost divided completely into males and females. The CYEC student champions were also present, and seemed to have a great time and fun experience at the restaurant. After having their fill, the “boys” table surrendered with their Carnivore white flag. Bello won the eating contest as well as a Smirnoff Ice, while Jeff sulked in defeat. Fortunately, no hard feelings were rendered, and the students piled back onto the Safari bus, with their stomachs full and their hearts content.

The bus ride back to Nyeri and Ivory Resort, the students’ now accepted home, took about 4 hours in the pouring rain. This was the first time that the CYEC students had a chance to go into the big city of Nairobi. They seemed to have a great experience in the city, and this showed as they all sang some Swahili songs on the ride back. Some of the Penn State students grabbed wine bottles at Nakumatt and celebrated the last Mashavu clinic for the trip in Kenya. It was a bittersweet car ride, especially after saying goodbye to Brianna, the mother hen.

The safari bus returned to Ivory Resort shortly after 1am. Everyone went to bed exhausted, while nurse Mary and the CYEC students rode back to CYEC. It was a long but successful day.

June 1st, 2010

To the happiness of everyone, Khanjan’s “Aaron-boy”, our strawberry blonde alarm clock, allowed us to sleep in this morning and there was no 5:45 am wake up call. After the group was up, had eaten our standard breakfast of eggs and toast, and gotten scolded by Khanjan for procrastinating, we got to work. With the Ngong demonstration quickly approaching, the team spent the day sitting in the Ivory Hotel and Resort’s conference room compiling all of the data that has been collected from the Mashavu clinics, post-encounter interviews, community interviews and focus groups. This involved the creation of more excel spreadsheets than anyone has ever wanted to see. But at the end of the day, we were able to produce some “compelling” preliminary data to present to the attendees of the June 3rd demo.

Dr. Butler worked with the bioengineering students and assigned individuals to calculate percent error between the virtual devices and the commercial off the shelf devices. Using the data collected from the Mashavu clinics at the CYEC and the hospital in Mweiga, Colin, Alice, Julie and Pat used statistical analysis to determine the accuarcy and precision of their devices. The devices used at the clinics were very accurate and all had a percent error of under 7%. Colin’s pulse oximeter had a percent error of under 5% and for the clinic that took place at Mweiga had a remarkable percent error of 1%. Julie’s blood pressure cuff was the most accurate device and had a percent error between 3 and 5% depending on the day, Her device was still the most accurate however because the variance between blood pressure readings made her percent error even more impressive. Alice’s percent error was around the 5% range, but more work needs to be done to improve the calibration of the device. 5% error is still too high for a thermometer. FInally, Pat’s data for the spirometer was not very usable. The only clinic that it was used for was the Mweiga clinic and the directions for how to use it were lost in translation. Many of the patients were very old (Spirometer Ladies), and more often than not the data collected was not what we were looking for. The ability of the virtual devices to work equally well to the commercial devices (and at times better than them) is impressive due the vast differences in cost. The pulse oximeter that the BioE kids designed cost less than $10 whereas the comerical device was around $500. The other devices were also low cost as well but the biggest benefit of the devices was the fact that they can all hook up to the same computer. Tom worked all day to get the stethoscope working but in the end the team had to call it a day, because the noise filtering issue could not be worked out. After fixing the LabView program for the spirometer, Pat, Aaron, and Dr. Butler eventually got the device to the point where it could be used in the Ngong demonstration. Even though we were not able to ever use the two weighing scales, Jeff calculated the average weights for all of the data we collected.

On the other side of things, Brianna and Gill worked to type up all of the social science interviews and focus groups to try and determine what healthcare in Kenya looks like, what Kenyans do for fun, and how Mashavu can fit into life here. Of the 150 students and community members we interviewed, the major hindrances to accessing healthcare reported included long lines (or queues) at the hospital, the cost of care, and the cost (both time and money) of transportation from individuals’ homes to the hospital. The fun survey showed that Kenyans value entertainment in the form of Tusker (the local brew) and futbol. One very interesting point from the fun surveys is that a number of people reported that if they found 100 shillings they would use the money to buy air time for their cell phones – which shows just how a part of life cell phones are.

Carey spent the day compiling the post-encounter interviews and learned that almost every person would recommend Mashavu to a friend. He was also able to conclude that everyone was comfortable with the Mashavu process, validating that our design is socially appropriate. Despite the overwhelming support, we realized that it was sometimes a challenge for people to come up with on-the-spot critiques of the system. Rachel worked on compiling a spreadsheet that laid out patients’ age, gender, chief complaint and most importantly — the intial reactions of the doctors to seeing a case, and their assessment after seeing the patient. In most cases, the doctors were able to get a good idea of the patient’s status from the information that was sent to them. The exceptions to this occurred when significant language barriers were present. This data is critical though because it shows that the information we are sending to the doctors is very valuable to them. Further, by reviewing all of the top chief complaints we got a clear picture of how the health status of community members. From the healthcare surveys, we learned that less than 30% of the Kenyans go to a doctor for a regular check up. They only are willing to spend the time and money to get to a doctor when the situation is critical. Thus it is understandable that 35/67 people had chief complaints that needed to be addressed.

At night we had a group meeting, during which Dr. Butler protected us all killed a cricket with his bare hand. Then we had a lengthy discussion on exactly what data had been collected and what still needed to happen, before turning over the conversation to plans for the next couple of days.

Tommorow we leave for Nairobi at 6:15 am. The group will be splitting up, with some people heading straight to Ngong to begin preparations and others spending the day in meetings with potential partners. It should be a long but

- Rachel & Pat

Saturday was a hectic day,
We worked very hard, and then hard we did play.

Everyone was tired from the long safari ride,
But sleep is something that this trip does not often provide.

We got up bright and early, 6:15 to be exact,
Quickly gathered our things and got Mashavu packed.

Got to the CYEC, unpacked and met,
As Con-OPS made sure everyone was all set.

We had invited students from local universities,
Seventy came from Kenyan institute of Management and from Kamahti University of Technology we had twenty.

We were not only doing a Mashavu clinic for them,
but also holding interviews for social science, Wishvast, and the Anaerobic digester, ahem.

They came in on a bus, it was quite an overwhelming sight,
as the clinic was not set up yet, and the internet was putting up a fight.

We only got through one patient in the first hour,
the VPN client for the internet acted up and the devices were being sour.

The blood pressure cuff on one kiosk stopped working,
the pulse ox was finicky, and the thermometer was bezerking.

After lots of frantic movements, it finally started to work
with Tara Y, Julie, and Renae running the kiosk like clockwork.

Samir was the gatekeeper, getting the patients from line and giving a hello,
after they were greeted and consented by Brianna and Bello.

They then spoke to Alice Cheng and Carrie about their Mashavu experience,
or went in focus groups with Samir and Brianna, a fine lady and gent.

The day was tiring but succesful, over 50 patients were seen,
and more than 90 were interviewed for the various teams.

After the packing, we headed back to the Ivory, for the shower some did run,
as people readied themselves for the Banana leaf for a night of fun.

All in all, another succesful Mashavu day,
As we worked very hard, and very hard we did play.

Monday, May 31, 2010

The day started off bright and early with Aaron’s 5:45am wake up call. The Mashavu team got ready, ate, and headed off to Mary Immaculate Mweiga Hospital for their last community clinic. Today was an exciting day because Mary, 6 of the CYEC students, and Steve G., a WishVast student from last year, also traveled with the team to Mweiga.

The first event of the day was a health care focus group headed by Colin, Steve, and Brianna, which was attended by doctors, nurses, and community health workers from the hospital. The faculty started the meeting with a prayer, which was really interesting. Sister Veronica and the rest of the hospital staff provided invaluable information during the focus group. Their input helped the team to both identify how the Mashavu kiosk can be used best, whether it be a method of triaging in the hospital itself or a pre-hospital check-up clinic in the community, and narrow down the best way to implement our kiosks. They gave insight on how the team can best educate the community on how important health awareness and preventative treatment can be as well as who would be best suited to operate a Mashavu kiosk, someone who exhibits a good balance of trust and professionalism within the community.

The focus group ended at 9:30am, and the team immediately switched to clinic mode. They rushed to get the kiosks set-up and ready to go as the number of people waiting to be Mashavued grew steadily. The team ran in to our usually bumps and hiccups in the system, ranging from a blood pressure cuff with a severed connection on the sensor to a barely functional second kiosk for the first half hour or so of the clinic. But as always, the BioE members of the team worked diligently and got the clinic up and running on time.

The clinic started with Shengnan and Alice L. greeting the community members and running orientation. Bello and Tom explaining the process and collecting consent from those patients. Tara Y. and Brianna running education. Pat, Gill, and Rachel were on Kiosk 1 and Colin, Rene’, and Tara S. were on Kiosk 2. Samir and Alice C. conducted post-experience interviews. Jeff and Julie helped the patients travel from station to station, and Carey, Steve, and Roma were general operations.

Around 11:00am, the CYEC students joined the team at the clinic, which was a huge help. It was relatively much easier to communicate with the patients in their mother tongue of Kikuyu and Swahili. Approximately 45 community members went through the Mashavu Clinic. We noticed quickly that the average patient at our Mweiga clinic location was much different than the younger and relatively more healthy and educated university students that we were used to seeing in prior clinics at CYEC. The most notable difficulty was, without a doubt, the language barrier. Watching the clinic operators trying to explain to the patients how to take a deep breath and blow through a spirometer properly was both frustrating and quite comedic at times. These difficulties in communication led to longer Mashavu experiences for the patient and, in turn, limited the amount of patients we were able to see drastically. Even with the help of translators, the patient questionnaire and gathering of medical history, our rate limiting step, took upwards of 30 minutes for many.

At the end of the day, though, the team was able to see every community member that came to the clinic and ended the day around 4:00pm. They thanked Sister Veronica for her help and the staff for welcoming the Penn State team to their facilities for the second year in a row.

Ross and Carol left to go back home today, as well. Their medical advice and overall support and participation in the Mashavu venture were greatly appreciated by the entire team.

After everyone returned from Mweiga we have a brief meeting to talk about the specifics of the day and go over details for our trip to Nairobi and Ngong on Wednesday. The team will be meeting with important officials in Nairobi and demonstrating our Mashavu system in full on Thursday to many health care workers and ambassadors.

The day ended with some valuable down time, a celebratory Tusker, and recuperation for the fun week ahead.

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

Additional Information from Wednesday, May 26, 2010

While the focus groups were finishing the Mashavu demonstrations at local Nyeri Hospitals, a group consisting of Khanjan, Andrew, Kartik, Jeff, and Roma loaded up a matatu and headed back to Nairobi. The ride there took around 3 hours all of which Jeff spent talking in the back seat. By the end of the ride Khanjan claimed that Jeff spoke more often and louder than himself (which is saying something). The crew stayed at the Terminal Hotel again. After a nice Ethiopian dinner with Rosa and Chris who are CYEC people who are stationed in Nairobi. Dessert had to be skipped however because of a sudden fit of hiccups by Khanjan. Everyone was trying not to laugh because he was pacing around the restaurant trying to hold his breath or anything else that would help him. While this was going on, Christian and Ben from WPSU landed in Nairobi and checked into the Terminal Hotel. They will be joining the team for 10 days to film a 30 minute documentary about Mashavu, WishVast, and Essential Design for the Big Ten Network. The documentary will air in late July. After returning from dinner, the team retired for the night to prepare for the long journey to Ngong the next day.
The next morning they went to the Java House in Nairobi for breakfast and coffee. Khanjan didn’t want to eat anything because he was afraid that he was going to get the hiccups again after the previous night’s experience. After eating the team said goodbye to Kartik; he is staying in Nairobi to do a case study on street youths in the city. Right after breakfast, they met up with Maureen, Paul, and Victor from UNIDO who traveled with them to survey the site of the “Big Bang”. After a short pit stop to pick the mobile power unit that will be used at the site the matatu headed to the District Hospital for Kajiato North to pay a courtesy call to the District Medical Officer of Health and invite her to the demonstration. The journey then switched gears from driving through the suburbs of Nairobi to hitting the back roads that wind down the valley side down to the town of Olosho-Oibor in the Massai region of Kenya to the local clinic where the demonstration will be held. After an hour of scenic driving, they arrived at the UNIDO power station that powers the village. At the power station, Roma and Jeff were given a tour of the site and saw exactly how it worked. There is a bank of batteries that are charged by both wind and solar power and produce 5 kilowatts of energy a day. If there is no sun or wind, there is a diesel generator that can produce 11 kilowatts a day as a backup. At the station, there is also a barber where kids can get their haircut for 30 shillings and adults for 50. This was put there to save people the long tedious ride to Ngong to get a haircut, which costs more money and uses up a lot of time. There was a soap making room where women mix soap and sell it to the local people. The man giving us the tour said that this was important because historically in their culture the men have all the wealth and power, and it was important that women got involved in small business to enter the business world, as well. There was a room for charging cell phones and another room with 4 Dell desktop computers that share a USB modem for mobile internet, as well as a scanner/photocopier that cost 5 shillings to use. The final room had a 27 inch LG flat screen with 6 channels for which they charged 10 shillings per use. A surprising fact was that they said they make around 1000 shillings a day from TV alone. Power lines ran out from the station to both the clinic and the school on either side.
The clinic was small yet well built, and they had power in every room, as well as a computer for the doctor. Dr. Musimyi, the head doctor of the clinic, was kind enough to sit down with the group and talk about the Mashavu system and how it could be implemented. In the meeting, Khanjan gave the full pitch of Mashavu and explained how it would be able to help people that come to the clinic. Because there are 12 villages that share the one clinic, telemedicine can be an invaluable tool for the people in the Massai valley. They already have existing health surveys that are taken every month from all of the members of the community, but it costs a lot of money to keep printing these surveys. An example that really got the doctor on board with Mashavu was a case that we saw when we were waiting for the meeting to start. A little boy had a really infected wound on his leg that originally started off as a bug bite. Khanjan told the doctor that one of the health workers could have visited the boy, taken a webcam shot, and received feedback from the doctor that very day. When the doctor heard that he would actually be able see his patients over the internet, he was hooked. He started talking about all the different possibilities like having Mashavu on a bike for easier transport. The UNIDO people also stressed that this is something besides TV and printing that the power created at their kiosk can be used for. The final note of the meeting was picking a village nearby where we would set the mobile power unit up at and a kiosk for the Big Bang. Enoolerai Obo, which is a 10 minute matatu drive away was the perfect distance logistically.
After the meeting, we visited the boys’ secondary school in Enoolerai Obo to get permission from the school to set up a kiosk there. The assistant principal sat down with us for a meeting. The best part of the meeting was that it wasn’t Khanjan who was giving the pitch, it was the doctor from the clinic. I think that it really gave the impression that Mashavu is very exciting and something to get involved with. The assistant principle was very welcoming and invited us to use the school grounds as part of our demonstration and to feel at home. The site was surveyed and a nice big acacia tree was picked to set up the kiosk under. The principal said that the more visitors they have the more blessed they are so he was truly blessed.
After the meeting, the group headed back to Nairobi to pick up the food for the safari, as well as the safari trucks to take back to Nyeri for everyone. Shopping in Nairobi was fun and some goodies were picked up for the rest of the students. The group left Nairobi around 10:30pm in enormous safari trucks and finally arrived back in Nyeri at 1:30 am.

We shall try a poem once more
We hope it is not too poor
Safari Day two
Nothing too new
It started dark and early
Everyone was feeling a little bit hurly
Music blasting to wake us
Made it hard not to cuss
Finally we were on our way
To watch some deer and antelope play
We drove and found many critters
But none gave us the jitters
Finally we stopped for some grub
But it wasn’t quite the same as the HUB
Eggs, beans, and oranges
Nothing rhymes with oranges
Once more we loaded up
Some sitting on top
Others continued napping
Not knowing what was happening
We were on the prowl
For an animal with a growl
Eventually we found a lounging lady lioness
Upon seeing us she didn’t seem to be in too much distress
It was a scene straight out of Disney
A cub jumping on its mom in a frienzy
We also saw some elephants, giraffes, and buffalo
But once again our energy was getting kind of low
As we left we stopped for some lunch
The noodles and veggies gave us an extra energy punch
On the road again
Not much to do then
Music, sleeping, and reading
And one quick stop for eating
At one point Min’s camera ran away
We hope to find it someday
With the sad, there is the good
We soon arrived, back in our hood
Time for bed
and to rest our head
The next day is ominent
And soon to be the present