And I've Fallen Behind Once Again!!

Missed a few days there!! Couple rather long days in the field didn't allow for me to get online yesterday or Wednesday.

So where to start? I guess I would like to talk about what an attraction/curiosity I represent in some of the places that I have been this week. I have had the fortune to visit some pretty remote places where tourists (read: white people) almost never go. This has lead to some amazement amongst the children that we drive past and in the villages and homesteads we visit. The reactions span the spectrum from wide-eyed staring and silence to yelling MZUNGU and the favorite HOW ARE YOU. The reactions are typically amplified at at times due to the general nature of the work the team is doing, specifically when sampling pigs... For those of you who haven't spent much time around pigs, you should know that handling them can be a little stressful (to the handler). Pigs absolutely hate to be restrained and are not quiet about their dislike for it. In fact, if you ever talk to an older vet that used to do swine work you probably need to yell at him cause he is near deaf from his time spent working with them. They SCREAM and SCREAM and SCREAM when you are holding them. And the tone varies from a from a shrill howl to a piercing siren... Needless to say, the combination of the sound of the pig and the presence of a vehicle and a mzungu are quite enough to bring young and old around to investigate. Luckily the Kenyans that are on the research team are able to do a great job explaining to on lookers and the local 'contacts' that people generally understand what we are doing.

Yesterday was an especially long one. I went out with Omoto(a Kenyan on the team) at 630am and we sampled pigs from several different slaughter slabs all over the central part of the district. Got to meet one of the local meat inspectors along the way as he rode his dirt bike from slab to slab. We ended up back at the lab around noon, which was just enough time to drop off the morning samples and grab a quick bite to eat before we headed back out. This time we were headed down south towards Lake Victoria and were joined by the geographer, Fabrice. We were going to have a proverbial 'kill two birds with one stone' afternoons. First, we wanted to check out one slab in Port Victoria that slaughters their pigs really early in the morning to provide meat for the fishermen that go out on the lake. Second, Fabrice wanted to get a firsthand view and understanding of the landscape in that part of the study area, as his research interest focuses on the Tse Tse fly (vector for African Sleeping Sickness). Luckily, we were able to score on both accounts. I was able to sample a pig at one of the slabs on the road into Port Victoria and we were left with enough time for Fabrice to do a good amount of exploring. We traced a river back from Lake Victoria to a swamp and further upstream towards a much smaller(though still impressive) lake. Fabrice was able to get the information that he needed to effectively categorize and map the area, and was also able to show me a great deal about Tse Tse flies, their environmental requirements and the other factors that could contribute to African Sleeping Sickness in the area.

We finally called it a day just before the rain started to fall. Not at all a long rainstorm but enough to make the 'shortcut' that we were taking back to the lab treacherous if not near impassable. But as earlier in the week, I am amazed what these Land Cruisers can do... It wasn't until we got back to the lab that I realized that had we gotten stuck, we were in the one project vehicle that did not have a winch...

Anyways, today was a nice little respite from the long days. We were finished sampling by 10ish and were back to the lab early enough to have morning tea(a delightfully retained remnant of British colonization). I plan on coming into the lab tomorrow for a couple hours before the US play Ghana(10am EST) in the World Cup. So if you're up early tomorrow and happen to be on Skype shoot me a line!!