Training Part II

Wow, well, the rest of training was definitely a whirlwind. There were really cool speakers. There were not so exciting speakers. There were fun nights out in Nairobi. There were really relaxed nights just hanging out with other volunteers.

First and foremost, I finally met a lot of the other volunteers in country. Most of the volunteers who were here from before we arrived hadn't been able to come to our training, so this was the first time we got to meet them. Some of them seemed really cool and we really clicked. Others of them, I probably just didn't get to know as well. There are two more from the Chicago area, so that was exciting. There was a business volunteer named Grover who has had some pretty amazing adventures here and is an all-around great guy. I met the other two math/science teachers in country right now, and that was pretty cool too. Kristy is teaching 8 lessons a week. Pretty much every problem she encounters, I have the exact opposite problem.

I think the most interesting session had a university professor from Nairobi, a Kenyan university professor who works in Pittsburgh and an NGO worker from Transparency International. The session was conducted as a panel, and they talked primarily about tribalism and corruption in Kenya. Three of us in the audience (myself included) seemed to dominate the debate a bit, and as it turned out, we had comparatively similar views. The one from Pittsburgh really enjoyed playing devil's advocate, which was fun, though at some points, it seemed counter-productive. It was a bit sad that he dominated the conversation from the panelists, because it was clear that the other panelists had some good insights, but he made it hard for them to get a word in. All in all, it was really exciting.

Probably my biggest disappointment was sitting through a poorly planned session while the business volunteers went to a beekeeping project in Nairobi. I had really wanted to learn about beekeeping and hopefully get started on that in Maktau. I had a few futile arguments about it. I went to the Peace Corps office and made sure to check out some books on beekeeping. I guess I will make my training needs more clear the next time we have a training. Being assertive wasn't the problem. That's for sure.

In the middle of training we took a field trip to Kickstart, which does some work with appropriate technology. I was actually really frustrated by a lot of their work there. They have four basic technologies that they distribute. The first is a version of the improved Bielenberg ram press for oil extraction. This was probably the best technology that they had. Unfortunately, the oil press is not the primary focus and they do not devote a lot of energy to promoting it. They have a hay baler that seems way too expensive for a lot of small farmers (over $1000), although I don't know a whole lot about hay baling technology. It seemed to me that they could have reduced the cost by reducing the amount of materials to build it, which would also make it lighter (i.e. more transportable which would make it easier to be used by several households so that they could split the costs). Again, they are not devoting much energy to promoting it. Then, we saw their brick making press. This seemed like a pretty good design, and unless I am mistaken, it is pretty common around east Africa (and possibly a wider region than that). In the work I've done on brick makers (during IDDS), I would have expected this machine to cost $300-500. They were selling it at close to $1000. I was somewhat dismayed by this, although the people showing us around were not able to give any kind of cost breakdown. They also do not spend much energy in promoting their brick makers.

The nadir of the day, however, was seeing what they have been doing with treadle pumps. They devote the largest part of their research and marketing to their water pumps. Treadle pumps are a proven and successful technology all over the world for use with irrigation schemes. Kickstart has done some very impressive work on making less labor-intensive models for people irrigating small farms. They have driven down the cost to make it accessible to more people. They have devoted considerable resources and set up a reliable distribution network so that they can reach people all over the country. And then, in all their literature, they show people spraying the water indiscriminately during broad daylight. I was completely shocked by this. For all their talk about large farms wasting water, it would seem logical that they would actually devote resources to water conservation. Nope. Not at all. They don't seem to care at all about how people use the water after it is pumped. They in fact have a sprayer so that people will waste the water, and they don't have any resources on drip irrigation, irrigation ditches or irrigation schemes of any kind. In a country where water is such a huge issue, you would think that they would have something in place to address water conservation. I think that more than anything, their indifference was what pained me. I am hoping to return to Kickstart at some time during my time here and see if I can work with them on just integrating a social aspect to their business model so that they can truly help people. At this point, I worry that they may actually be doing more harm than good.

After Kickstart, a small subset of us went to a Plastics Recycling SACCO (Savings And Credit Co-operative Organization) where my friend Jackie is volunteering. They collected and prepared materials for a charcoal burn. Peace Corps agreed to allow any volunteers to skip the second NGO they were visiting that day to see the presentation. After hearing me talk about charcoal for 5 months now, I think volunteers were probably pretty tired at that point, but at least they were still curious. While Jackie and I prepared the materials, the staff at the SACCO talked a lot about their work. Then, we went out for the charcoal burn. The corn cobs and corn husks had only sat out for a few days, so they really had not dried out at all. We tried it anyway, and I tried to hit the important points (deforestation, indoor air pollution, economics and all that jazz). I was a little disappointed with my delivery, but far more disappointing was the burn itself. There was way too much moisture, so at the point when we wanted to try to ignite the volatile gases, the water vapor was still too thick. We wound up just sealing the drum and just explaining to people what should happen in theory. All in all, I think that people were impressed, so I was happy about that. At least now everyone appreciates the importance of sufficiently drying the crop residues before carbonizing them.

Thanks to Paula (she's one of the business volunteers and also one of my favorite people) I managed to get Jackie time to make a presentation during training. We stayed up late stealing slides from old D-Lab presentations, and me coaching Jackie on what were some good points to hit during her presentation. I heard that Jackie did really well. It would have been nice if I had been allowed to see it. But that topic probably isn't bloggable.

During training, I took full advantage of Nairobi and drank milkshakes, ate pizza and other cheese products, did some shopping, and went out to clubs for dancing and partying. There was a Japanese/Lebanese (it seemed an odd combination, but I definitely approve) restaurant where we had a gourmet dinner of sushi and hummus. There was a club called Tacos. I didn't see a single taco there, but the music was fun. There is a restaurant called Java House, and I think that I found myself there 6 times for milkshakes and food like tuna melts and burritos. I finally have a cell phone with email again. Sadly, though, I was down with stomach problems for a lot of training. This is the second time that I have had stomach problems since coming to Kenya. Both times after eating Nairobi food.

We had some nights where we stayed in the hotel and just kicked back. We played a lot of music. We watched The Office and other things. There was a lot of talking and bonding and we definitely became a lot closer. We all swapped war stories (there was probably some gossip in there too) and shared a lot of laughs. We played cards (I took everyone's money in poker). One night one of the deaf volunteers showed a documentary about perceptions by deaf people and hearing people
and their perceptions of one another. It was just really nice to see everyone and catch up. Leaving is never fun. :(

Also, I did not manage to find a Cherry Coke.