By Fajar Rachman Adji
I remember it was late Saturday night, past 11 PM, when I first landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, after a more than 24 hour flight from Los Angeles, with a brief transit in Frankfurt. “Karibu Kenya,” said William Mwangi, meaning “welcome to Kenya” as I got out of the luggage conveyors and met my driver outside of the airport. It was cold, but I felt warmer than I had ever been because of William’s openness, easy kindness, and the way he spoke of Kenya’s history, its wild landscape, its music of language. I laughed, already feeling the life I would have here. For the next two months, I would call this place home. This summer I would spend my fellowship at Amref International University (AmIU), working with Amref Health Africa to advance family planning and strengthen the primary health care networks across Kenya.
That Monday was a public holiday, Madaraka Day, they said, often described as Kenya’s first step toward independence. By the next morning, the jet lag had softened enough for me to step into AmIU’s Research, Innovation, and Community Extension (RICE) department. There, I met Dr. Lakati, my supervisor for all the projects I would take on in Kenya. This was the second time we’d met, the first time at Soto Street Building last April with Dr. Ferguson to discuss this fellowship. She is the loveliest soul I have ever met. That day, she gave me a brief tour of the office, the air scented with steaming chai and fresh mandazi. Around the table, a few in-person staff, Patrick and Mildred greeted me warmly. They shared stories of the primary health care and family planning projects that would soon become the heart of my work.
Over the next few weeks, I could never have imagined how far this fellowship would take me. I was involved in the Deepening Sustainable and Equitable Increases in Family Planning (DEESiP) project, an initiative led by Amref Health Africa in Kenya. For two weeks, I traveled to Tana River for data collection where I engaged with religious leaders, community structures, and the public sector to understand equitable access to voluntary family planning in Tana River and Garissa Counties. From Wilson Airport in Nairobi, we flew aboard a De Havilland Canada Dash 8, its twin propellers carrying us low over the patchwork landscape, until we touched down at Malindi airstrip, and then continued our trip by car to Hola, the downtown of Tana River. This was only the beginning.
Days in the field were long, but so exciting. We conducted key informant interviews, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions, to really gather each participants’ insights. Mornings began with team debriefs, afternoons with shared lunches (sometimes injera with beef liver, my first taste of the dish), and evenings with check-ins on our enumerators as they carried out the household surveys forming the quantitative side of the study. Every member of the team worked hand in hand – field teams coordinated with local health workers, reviewed checklists, and sometimes traveled hours by road just to ensure every piece of information was complete and accounted for.
Leaving Kenya, I carried with me more than field notes and data. When I think about my time with Amref, it is clear that this fellowship has been more than just fieldwork for me. These moments, whether in the office, out in the field, or even sharing a meal, represent the relationships and trust built along the way. I did not only learn about public health systems and community engagement, but also connected with colleagues from across the world. These connections form a global network of professionals, and friends, who share the same commitment: creating lasting health change.
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