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Farming, Sanitation, and Nutrition in Kenya
This interview is with an American health student who worked in Kenya with women farmers. She worked for a summer with women in the rural suburbs of Kenya, who are more Westernized than women in more remote rural areas. She worked with two non-governmental organizations (NGO's): Life Water International and Farming Systems Kenya. She also worked at a local hospital with a clinical nutritionist.
In Kenya, women are the farmers, as well as the mothers, caretakers, and salespeople:
Women in Kenya wear a lot of hats. In fact, they wear pretty much all the hats that can be worn. They are the mothers, the sole people that are going to be taking care of their children. They are the farmers, they are the ones that are in the marketplace. Often they are the ones that are handling much of the financial situations even, although they don't necessarily have control over it, they are asked to handle it. Pretty much any area of life, the needs of the family or an individual, a woman would have to handle or balance.
Health Problems: Sanitation and Nutrition
As farmers and caregivers, women in Kenya have control over nutrition, through water gathering, cooking, and crop choice.
In rural Kenya, water is not piped into homes. Instead, rain water is collected in buckets for cooking. This water is often unsanitary, and can spread disease. One solution is to pipe water to all Kenyan homes; however, this solution is extremely costly and would take some time to complete. Instead, health professionals recommend that Kenyan women boil water before using it to kill any disease-causing bacteria.
Upper respiratory infection is a common health concern for Kenyans. One factor that makes this type of infection more likely is the cooking style of Kenyan women. Much of the cooking is done over an open fire in an enclosed hut. While women are cooking, they are breathing in all of the smoke from the fire because the huts have little ventilation. A public health project could work with Kenyan women to restructure the cooking huts to have better ventilation.
Women also decide what their family will eat. Kenyan women are interested in learning new recipes that can incorporate healthier foods into their diet. Kenyan women cook over an open fire, so recipes must be modified to fit this cooking style.
Trying to cook zucchini bread over an open fire was really kind of interesting. But they did it! They are pretty fantastic with working with what they have. Somehow we got it to work, and it was kind of like a zucchini cake/patty thing.
Recipes are also limited by the types of crops that the women can grow on their land or purchase at the market.
Hear about the crops Kenyan farmers grow, and ideas about how to improve nutrition through crop variation.
Solving Problems: Some Preparation Required, but You Cannot Prepare for Everything
Conducting a survey can give valuable information about the lives of people that we know very little about. Much of the information about these Kenyan farmers was gathered through a baseline survey, as well as more informal conversations with the women. Other types of information gathering through the Internet or public libraries are just not available in many developing countries. Some preparation should be done before travelling to another country, when resources are available.
However, not everything can be prepared for. Although book research can prepare you to not repeat what someone else has already done, it cannot prepare you for new experiences.
A lot of the time, it was just through talking, laughing, and singing with these women that ideas came up, or questions came up, or they would ask me things about my culture or if I knew something. That would springboard, "Well if they are interested in it, then maybe I can work with it." Most of the time, things you expect to talk about will end up being manipulated if you just keep yourself open to what they really want to know.
By remaining open to new experiences, health professionals in other countries can be more effective at working with people from other cultures. These experiences cannot completely be prepared for however.
Try as much as you can to let go of any preconceptions. Even if you can't let go of them, try to recognize when they surface. Walking into a new experience, the best way to handle it is to try to get comfortable with the idea of not knowing what to expect ... Some of the times your experiences just need to be experienced.
Working Across Cultures
Some of what "just needs to be experienced" are major differences in cultures. One difference between American and Kenyan culture is the sense of time.
Listen to how an American health professional struggled with the Kenyan sense of time.
Respecting people of other cultures and their values is crucial to working successfully in other countries. Yet it is not simple to do as an American.
Hear how respecting other cultures can be difficult for an American in other countries.
Respect can be shown in many ways. The way a person acts or dresses can show respect for a culture. Working to fit in with a culture rather than fighting against it can make a health professionals' job easier. Attitude can make all the difference:
I'd like to lend a hand. I'd like to help out. Let me find out about you, I'm interested. I want to see what areas I can share your life with a little bit if you would let. I think with that kind of spirit you get so much farther.
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Dawn Haney, January 2001
Last Modified: 02/03/2001
Contact: Dawn Haney
haneydaw@arches.uga.edu