Yesterday and today were quite different than each other. Saturday consisted of Claire, Shannon, and I composing various protocol documents for the research project. We worked from 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. with breaks for meals….It made for an extremely long day sitting in front of the computer, but we accomplished all of the urgent things and most of the less urgent things that we identified! This morning the other mzungus (“white person”s) left to go to Aqua Clara’s Kisii office.
My primary tasks for the day were to make sufficient copies of the documents we worked on for the first 3 weeks of the research. I had Scott show me on Google Earth where I could find some print shops. They are common, but there are so many small shops on the streets of Eldoret that it’s difficult to pick out any one sign/business. A “hole-in-the-wall” shop really takes on a new meaning here. I almost missed the place I was seeking, but I noticed it right before I walked by and the shop manager was extremely helpful.
Google Earth has proved to be a quite useful tool. Some of you may know, but I’m not very good with street names. I do, however, have a pretty good sense of direction so by pinpointing the useful points with Scott on Google Earth I have begun to build a pretty useful map. I only wish I could carry it with me….I was able to remember everything from memory though. After printing, I ventured to the other side of town to do some grocery shopping and purchase a few supplies for the project. Along the way, I made a few new friends including a couple of young adults who were eager to give me a thumbs up and a fist bump and an older man who shook my hand, walked with me for 100 yards, and spoke to me with words that I couldn’t make out. (I think he was asking if I was traveling…probably to find if I wanted a taxi.) In purchasing my groceries, I didn’t fully think through the distance that I had to walk back carrying them. It’s a little over a mile to the edge of town, and just under a mile to go to the far end of town where I was buying my groceries. Basically, I ended up with about 4-5 liters of drinks in my backpack and two bags in the 10-20 lb range. It was bad for the first mile, but the second one was a little tiring in the hot sun and high altitude.
Eldoret’s elevation is roughly 7000 feet and is the home of the majority of Kenyan long distance runners, which are renown around the world. Teams/people come from all over the world to train here, and one person associated with Aqua Clara, Luka Kibet, was a moderately successful marathon runner a decade ago. (For perspective, he ran the Nashville Country Music Marathon in 2 hours, 13 minutes.) He now owns and runs a training facility for athletes just out of Secondary School with dreams to attend college in the US and Europe on running scholarships. He has had a large handful of students succeed in that goal. I enjoy watching various runners alongside the road when traveling the countryside. They’re incredible to watch.
I head to campus to meet with the students tomorrow to give them all the project documents that we worked on this weekend and then they should be heading to the field to start collecting data!
-Steven
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