Embassy Visit

September was a very high security alert month in Nairobi. There were the annual concerns about 9-11 and Sept. 21 was one year after the attack at Westgate Mall in Nairobi. You are right, I didn’t tell you about it and that is because I didn’t want anyone to be concerned. Nothing really changed in my daily routine because I know not to go to shopping centers or any other highly populated areas on weekend afternoons. Also, I picked an apartment away from heavily tourist areas so it would not be a likely target. Fortunately there where zero incidences.

U.S. Embassy

GSK set up a meeting with USAID for an informal gemba process information sharing to empower next-generation synergies… Sorry, I have gone months without hearing corporate buzzwords. Basically, the five of us visited the U.S. Embassy to meet with a director of USAID Kenya.

It felt great to be on U.S. soil again.

Of course pictures were prohibited, but breaking the rules a little is a benefit of being an American. Of course Eileen (from Texas) and I hassled Lisa and Beverely (UK) and Caroline (Canada) and told them how great it was to be out of Nairobi and in America.

I can’t find an English clip, but you get the idea. The marine says “We don’t tolerate that kind of crap in America.”

The meeting went very well, despite the miscommunication of why we where there. GSK told us we were there to learn about USAID and he thought we were going to give a presentation to him.

IAVI receives nearly all of its funding from USAID grants and I learned a lot about what they are reading for in a great proposal. Maybe something in my notes will be helpful to IAVI during the next grant writing process.

It was interesting to hear that USAID funding will likely remain with deficiencies over “rich people problems.” So HIV and malaria will receive funding over the growing problems of hypertension (which I might have by the time I leave due to the high salt foods) and diabetes. Broken down further describes how the major focus will likely to stay on HIV treatment since it is easier to show impact (e.g. number of Kenyans now on ART from 3,000 in 2006 to 700,000 today). Funds for prevention are harder to show impact (e.g. are the free condom programs contributing to reduced HIV or is it something else?). Funding for HIV programs has been reduced due to funding going to Ebola outbreak. This will dramatically affect IAVI next year.

United Nations

“Welcome” (said to a group)

Immediately across from the U.S. Embassy is the United Nations building. We took the tour of the beautiful compound. I was amazed that the green landscape and modern architecture existed within Nairobi.

They also had donated art from many countries.

I have no idea what this is representing

Worldwide, elephants are also at risk of stepping on landminds

Here we pretended to be debating issues we feel strongly about. Some examples were: global warming, poaching, better healthcare funding, and avocados should be on the food pyramid. Guess which one I said.

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Mini Science Lesson- Blood Separation

You might have learned that blood consists of three elements: red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. This simple break up is very useful for blood donation. However, I am interested in the smaller molecules of antibodies.

Separation by weight:

When whole blood is spun really fast (actually quite slow compared to other scientific processes) it can be separated by mass. The cells break which allows the most dense parts to collect at the bottom. The less dense will remain on top (plasma) or in the middle (buffy coat). It is in this small center region where the antibodies can be extracted.

This assignment has taught me blood handling, separation, and freezing methods.

Did you know: buffy coat gets its name because of the color? I did not know ‘buffy’ is a color… but my sense of color definition is rather small.