Questions on America

Lindar was back this morning so I was able to identify insects. Well, at least better than I had been doing in the past when alone. After a while of doing that, Fabian showed me the final step in his scoring process. He has designed a program where he can enter the names and numbers of that certain insect (copied from the excel document Lindar and I created) and give a numerical score to the water quality. This score is then compared to the rating scale which will tell us just how polluted the water is. He uses a system founded in South Africa since the insects seem to be similar between the two locations. We went through this process once with the insects I identified. Based on the system, the water in that sample was slightly modified. Fabian now uses the scores for his reports. He can look at rainfall and agricultural patterns in the area and try to correlate the two. Any graphs Fabian creates are given to the community. However, the graphs probably don’t mean a lot to the community without interpretation. Fabian explained to me he is still trying to figure out how to communicate with the community.

After lunch, Macharia (I’m not sure what is job is at icipe) began teaching me how to use the GIS program. A lot of what he taught was a review from what Sarah had originally taught me. The new stuff was fascinating. I can see so many practical ways to apply GIS. Technology is so advanced; often times I feel like I am not getting the full potential out of the technology I use. With tools such as GIS, capable of linking Google Maps with coordinates provided by countries, there are limitless possibilities. Once the lesson was finished for the day Macharia asked me many questions about living and growing up in the United States—questions about prom, football, and foods. People in Kenya seem to be fascinated by prom. There are constant questions asking if it’s just like in the movies and if people really spend so much money on their dresses. I tell people it’s pretty much a movie, but the event still only is one night of your life. People also always seem to know about the American obsession with football. Even after trying to describe it for a month, I still can’t seem to put into words the excitement that surrounds such a sport. The typical topic of foods always ends with me raving about how good and cheap their fresh fruits and vegetables are and the person I’m talking with complaining how expensive unhealthy foods are. As humans, we always seem to want what we don’t have. I find comfort and happiness in talking about my country and sharing with other people. There is familiarity in the subjects and familiarity is rare for me in Kenya but in a good way.