Trachoma, Masaailand, Company Towns, and Technical Difficulties

This trip actually happened a while ago, but I just got the photos today. Magadi is a region of kenya known mostly for its alkaline soda lake (Lake Magadi which was featured in The Constant Gardener as Lake Turkana). I went out for work to visit some AMREF self-help groups in the Masaailand of Magadi. It was quite cool. They have a great community health component which focuses on the control, treatment, and eradication of trachoma in the area. trachoma is passed through flies and contaminated water. AMREF supports the women by training them as community health workers, teaching them to build VIP latrines, and changing water behavior uses. Visiting the groups was probably the best part of the day.

Then we toddled off to the town of Magadi. Magadi has one industry of note, a soda bottle factory. They use some of the salts from Lake Magadi in the processing. Magadi town is entirely owned by the Soda Factory. it has a very odd west virginia coal mining vibe. I kept hearing "15 tons and what do you get, another day older and deeper in debt" as we wandered around looking for food and water. It was sort of strange to see old masaai mzees sitting by a heated swimming pool.

Our last site invovled a 2.5 hour drive through hell to the more inhabited part of magadi. In the foothill of the mountains there is lots of water (not so in the rest of magadi which is unbearable dry and dusty), and there is a very nice clinic nestled up there. Although the clinic was very nice and a very good place to go if you ever find yourself ill in Magadi, it was not quite worth the bumps, dust, and bruises sustained on the drive out there. The roads were made worse by the repair work. Every 20 feet or so we had to offroad around a culvert repair. it would have been fine had we been warned to take the 4 wheel drive vehicle. We got stuck on the way back. The effort in the image was ultimatly unsuccessful. We dug out the tires with our bare hands, jacked the car up to put rocks under the tires, and eventually escaped. I haven't been that dirty in a long, long time.