Excel for Kenyans

As previously mentioned, I have been helping M out in the lab every day since school ended. Due to some delays, he only just received many of the samples necessary for his work so he has quite the backlog and so I’ve been helping him work on lab experiments.

M’s work is just one of several projects ongoing simultaneously in the hospital’s labs. From what I can tell, they are quite active in research in the overlap between infectious disease and entomology since so many diseases here are mosquito/insect transmitted. The Center for Global Health and Disease at Case works quite closely with a number of Kenyan organizations in this research so M has gotten to know some of the researchers. Many of these researchers are PhD or Masters students in either public health or entomology and are doing thesis work. This involves a significant amount of data collection that they have to analyze for their theses. Word got around that I was assisting the primary investigator on M’s study with some of her backlogged data and I was asked to “show some students some basic Excel tricks”. No problem.
Fast forward a few days and I’m shown a flyer where I’m advertised as giving a full presentation for Continuing Medical Education (CME) at the hospital for doctors, hospital administrators, and the researching students. Now CME in the US is a requirement for medical professionals to keep up on their skills. Needless to say it’s taught by someone MEDICAL. I definitely don’t count. In fact by my estimation, I would actually the least educated person in the room based on degrees conferred. Perfect.

Now I spent the last 5 years working with Excel almost daily so I know how to analyze data. They wanted me to present, however, on data collection and data management. Not a whole lot of data collection in biotech consulting but ok, I can do this. So, I began by asking the students what they wanted to learn and kept getting the same response: “I want to learn to analyze my data in Excel”. Oh, that really narrows it down. Several promised to send me their data and copies of their previous analyses so I could see what they needed to accomplish. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear that no one sent me anything. In a lucky break, however, I did manage to sneak a look at one girl’s data while I used the bathroom in another lab so I had some idea of how she could reformat it more effectively for analysis.

I made up some dummy datasets and created a 23 slide presentation over the weekend. Although I’ve been in many more stressful business situations, I wanted to make sure I didn’t waste anyone’s time (doctor’s are at a premium in Kenya!) or reflect poorly on M or M’s lab (an actual concern given the status of wives in the part of coastal Kenya where the hospital is).

The presentation was slated from 12:30-2. We considered heading up there at noon to set up but realized that would be foolish. We headed up right at 12:30 and were met by an empty room. Eventually someone showed up with a projector and we continued to wait. People started straggling in around 1:00 and we started at 1:05. They all just kept saying “oh, we’re on Kenyan time” as they arrived late. No one had misplaced the time, this is actually a conscious choice to not show up on time though I suppose you have little incentive to come on time if no one else does. Didn’t really phase me since I expected it but it is interesting.

So, I proceeded to give my presentation as slowly as I could and tried to give a lot of examples. I was met with a lot of silence and stares. Definitely not my toughest audience but it was hard to gauge any reaction since no one had any questions. Later I approached several of the students and said I knew that the presentation had been pretty basic and I was happy to answer their more complex questions and they all said that they had actually learned a lot.

After talking with some of our missionary friends later, I think there are several possible reasons for the silence and the reality is probably some combination of all of these items. First, they didn’t want to embarrass me and asking a question could make it seem that I hadn’t taught the material well. Second, they don’t want to expose their own confusion/lack of knowledge in front of their colleagues. Third, I’m a young mzungu woman and the racial/cultural/religious/language barriers are huge in Msambweni which is a mostly Muslim, rural, fishing village.

Afterwards, I had to sign their CME manuals to verify their attendance. I tried to demure that it wasn’t really CME but they were insistent that they get credit for their attendance! So, I signed my name. Anyway, people seemed appreciative later and at the very least, hopefully it was a goodwill gesture for M’s lab.

We head to Nairobi via night bus tonight and then will travel to Kisumu for a half-marathon on Wednesday for World AIDS Day. Kisumu is in Western Kenya on the shores of Lake Victoria and the drive from Nairobi to Kisumu will include driving through the Rift Valley. After the half marathon, we plan to travel through some of the smaller national parks in the Rift Valley. We're going to try and post from the road but we are always mindful that you can never count on anything to go as planned so we shall see. Have a great start to the week!


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