There are three young puppies right outside our office. Sometimes they come over and we pet them. They're probably about three weeks old at this point and really sweet.
One of them has already acquired a limp. He can't put his back right foot on the ground. I'm not sure if he will ever be able to walk on that foot. He was fine during his first week. Then one morning, I saw that he was limping. My suspicion is that one of the small kids who thought it would be fun to throw rocks at him actually hit him with one of them.
This morning was probably even worse. I heard the puppies yelping and wailing and went to the window to see what was going on. A teenager had picked them up by the tails and was just running around with them. I would've thought that their cries of agony would offer some indication to stop, but he was completely unperturbed. He got bored quickly and set them down.
In some ways, this is one of the hardest things for me to deal with here.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
4 out of 5 ain't good
Wednesday. That's the only day this week when I didn't have to interact with immigration officials here.
I can't really offer any details. All I can say is that I didn't do anything wrong. But that sure isn't how I felt during their three visits to our office, my three visits to their office and a couple of phone calls (including one where it was looking like I'd have to leave the country).
I'm hoping this nightmare is over now.
I can't really offer any details. All I can say is that I didn't do anything wrong. But that sure isn't how I felt during their three visits to our office, my three visits to their office and a couple of phone calls (including one where it was looking like I'd have to leave the country).
I'm hoping this nightmare is over now.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
And ***** was his name-o
I made a new friend. He's pretty quiet, but he likes to walk home with me. He's playful and free-spirited. I guess I don't even mind his fleas too much. But I only call him rafiki (friend). I think he deserves a proper name. I invite all suggestions, though I warn you that the name is going to be a swahili word. Although it would be pretty cool to give the dog a spanish name. That way people wouldn't be confused when I refer to him. And c'mon, wouldn't it be pretty great to have a dog named Sombrero or something?
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The books
One of my jobs here is doing some accounting. Not exactly a thrill a minute, but it's something that I can do well, and a good way to learn a bit about the company. Today was not great (I had to go to the Tanzanian Revenue Authority, wait in lots of lines to submit one of our tax forms, got sent back and forth to lots of counters and wound up losing two hours in there), but yesterday was actually slightly painful.
I was working with our accounts and trying to sort out the details with our inventory, but I couldn't find what I was looking for in the software that we use. So I went to the help page and searched through the articles on inventory. I found the correct one and tried to follow the steps. When I reached step 4 (out of 10), I was at a complete loss. They told me to click on a drop down menu that was nowhere to be found. I tried tweaking lots of different settings and even called over a coworker to make sure I wasn't staring at it and missing it. Finally, after 30 frustrating minutes of this, I contacted their help staff (unfortunately, that requires waiting until US business hours, which is not very useful for us over here). Below is an excerpt of the reply that I received:
"Unfortunately, you accessed an article that is for the upcoming release, but the instructions in the article do not apply yet."
Hmmmm, seems like they might want to fix this. Then, the staff member sent me a link to their help page (which I had clearly used to access this article) and suggested that I might find it useful for future queries. I checked, but I couldn't find an article that says that random articles are actually useless on the current version. Funny how this is a "professional" version of the software. I am pretty sure that free software like GnuCash doesn't pull shenanigans like this.
I was working with our accounts and trying to sort out the details with our inventory, but I couldn't find what I was looking for in the software that we use. So I went to the help page and searched through the articles on inventory. I found the correct one and tried to follow the steps. When I reached step 4 (out of 10), I was at a complete loss. They told me to click on a drop down menu that was nowhere to be found. I tried tweaking lots of different settings and even called over a coworker to make sure I wasn't staring at it and missing it. Finally, after 30 frustrating minutes of this, I contacted their help staff (unfortunately, that requires waiting until US business hours, which is not very useful for us over here). Below is an excerpt of the reply that I received:
"Unfortunately, you accessed an article that is for the upcoming release, but the instructions in the article do not apply yet."
Hmmmm, seems like they might want to fix this. Then, the staff member sent me a link to their help page (which I had clearly used to access this article) and suggested that I might find it useful for future queries. I checked, but I couldn't find an article that says that random articles are actually useless on the current version. Funny how this is a "professional" version of the software. I am pretty sure that free software like GnuCash doesn't pull shenanigans like this.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Typifying stereotypes
Well, it's been a really low-key week. Most of my work was at the office. We did have to say good-bye to Jackie for a while (presumably). Jackie and I definitely didn't accomplish everything that we set out to do, but we actually did check a lot of things off of our list (watching several movies/TV shows, making hummus and lots of other exciting dishes, and of course, providing endless entertainment to everyone around us).
Anyway, this morning I was getting some much needed sleep (I haven't slept in for a while now) when all of a sudden, I couldn't sleep any longer. I could hear the conversation between two people in the living room (both MIT alums who shall remain anonymous) who were trying to figure out what a capacitor stores. I cringed at some of their guesses. I could've just rolled over, but as a physics major, I had to weigh in. After giving a lengthy, if slightly incoherent, explanation (I could probably have told them what they were trying to figure out in three words: energy and charge) I decided to roll over and go back to sleep. They realized I was awake and tried to ask me a few more (non-physics) questions, but I just mumbled some things that I don't remember and slept for another three hours.
I'm pretty sure most other MIT alums aren't this bad (in terms of fitting the stereotypes most people have about us). I was just always a fan of those "The More You Know" ads. If only they were about circuit components instead...
Anyway, this morning I was getting some much needed sleep (I haven't slept in for a while now) when all of a sudden, I couldn't sleep any longer. I could hear the conversation between two people in the living room (both MIT alums who shall remain anonymous) who were trying to figure out what a capacitor stores. I cringed at some of their guesses. I could've just rolled over, but as a physics major, I had to weigh in. After giving a lengthy, if slightly incoherent, explanation (I could probably have told them what they were trying to figure out in three words: energy and charge) I decided to roll over and go back to sleep. They realized I was awake and tried to ask me a few more (non-physics) questions, but I just mumbled some things that I don't remember and slept for another three hours.
I'm pretty sure most other MIT alums aren't this bad (in terms of fitting the stereotypes most people have about us). I was just always a fan of those "The More You Know" ads. If only they were about circuit components instead...
Monday, March 15, 2010
The burden of trash
Back in the states, it was so easy to forget about waste. It seemed as though putting it in one of those nice bins was enough to take care of it forever. Life here serves as a constant reminder of how false that is.
Vegetable waste is usually the easiest. By tossing it out the window, a goat or chicken is sure to come and enjoy a nice meal. Meat waste attracts puppies, except if you produce too much, the dogs start to become aggressive when their gravy train stops. The rest is much more difficult.
A lot of things come in plastic containers. In a lot of places, the paths are just littered with plastic water bottles (locals drink very little bottled water, so it tends to be a rule of thumb that concentrations of water bottles is pretty directly correlated with concentrations of tourists). One of the reasons that I tend to be so impatient with safari-going tourists (and unenthusiastic about safaris myself) is that I know the numbers of plastic bottles of water they typically consume and where those bottles are going to end up. Don't get me wrong, I would be pretty anxious if drinks weren't packaged well here. But if I want to throw something away, there's no away.
Sodas are nice. They mostly come in glass bottles, which are washed and reused. (Reuse is different from recycling, since it's not converted into another product--think of aluminum cans. When those are recycled, they are melted down and turned into another aluminum product.) Although the extra weight of glass bottles means that with all the transport to and from bottling facilities, there is extra fuel expended on the big trucks that ship them, that's more forgettable than seeing plastic bottles on the ground. (In Kenya, most places let you buy sodas in either glass or plastic bottles, while in Tanzania plastic soda bottles are almost unheard of, but cans are much more common than in Kenya. I could actually write a whole blog post about soda, but that might try everyone's attention span.)
In general, the solution is to burn the plastic and paper trash. I admit that I have dropped my fair share of litter around cities as I've traveled. (Not something I'm proud of, but I feel like I became much more of a litter-bug when I started spending time over here and picked up some unsavory habits from the locals. Of course, they probably picked it up from Westerners, so I can't pass the buck on this one.) Recycling paper and plastic (and even metal) is virtually non-existent everywhere that I've lived for the past 16 months. Heaps of trash are bad for the soil (especially things like styrofoam which don't really decompose), invite pests (which can lead to diseases) like rodents and insects and are considered socially unacceptable. Burning them produces some unpleasant smoke (which is surely nature's way of telling me that this isn't the right thing to do either), but at least it provides some kind of away.
Today, I got a bit of my comeuppance for being part of the problem. As I tried to move some of our trash around (the juice cartons were difficult because they came with foil liners; the poor product design is making me resistant to buying Del Monte juices over here), I grabbed what I thought was a paper part of the carton (which I expected to be pretty warm) but turned out to be made of plastic. The plastic melted onto my thumb and gave me a pretty unpleasant burn (fortunately it wasn't burning too hot, so the burn wasn't too nasty).
For all the work on finding new ways to reuse or recycle plastic bottles and other abundant waste products, I feel that the burden should really be on the companies to design containers that have a logical function after they're used (one of the coolest examples I've seen is biodegradable juice cartons that encourage users to use them to plant a tree), instead of just cluttering the ground and the atmosphere.
Vegetable waste is usually the easiest. By tossing it out the window, a goat or chicken is sure to come and enjoy a nice meal. Meat waste attracts puppies, except if you produce too much, the dogs start to become aggressive when their gravy train stops. The rest is much more difficult.
A lot of things come in plastic containers. In a lot of places, the paths are just littered with plastic water bottles (locals drink very little bottled water, so it tends to be a rule of thumb that concentrations of water bottles is pretty directly correlated with concentrations of tourists). One of the reasons that I tend to be so impatient with safari-going tourists (and unenthusiastic about safaris myself) is that I know the numbers of plastic bottles of water they typically consume and where those bottles are going to end up. Don't get me wrong, I would be pretty anxious if drinks weren't packaged well here. But if I want to throw something away, there's no away.
Sodas are nice. They mostly come in glass bottles, which are washed and reused. (Reuse is different from recycling, since it's not converted into another product--think of aluminum cans. When those are recycled, they are melted down and turned into another aluminum product.) Although the extra weight of glass bottles means that with all the transport to and from bottling facilities, there is extra fuel expended on the big trucks that ship them, that's more forgettable than seeing plastic bottles on the ground. (In Kenya, most places let you buy sodas in either glass or plastic bottles, while in Tanzania plastic soda bottles are almost unheard of, but cans are much more common than in Kenya. I could actually write a whole blog post about soda, but that might try everyone's attention span.)
In general, the solution is to burn the plastic and paper trash. I admit that I have dropped my fair share of litter around cities as I've traveled. (Not something I'm proud of, but I feel like I became much more of a litter-bug when I started spending time over here and picked up some unsavory habits from the locals. Of course, they probably picked it up from Westerners, so I can't pass the buck on this one.) Recycling paper and plastic (and even metal) is virtually non-existent everywhere that I've lived for the past 16 months. Heaps of trash are bad for the soil (especially things like styrofoam which don't really decompose), invite pests (which can lead to diseases) like rodents and insects and are considered socially unacceptable. Burning them produces some unpleasant smoke (which is surely nature's way of telling me that this isn't the right thing to do either), but at least it provides some kind of away.
Today, I got a bit of my comeuppance for being part of the problem. As I tried to move some of our trash around (the juice cartons were difficult because they came with foil liners; the poor product design is making me resistant to buying Del Monte juices over here), I grabbed what I thought was a paper part of the carton (which I expected to be pretty warm) but turned out to be made of plastic. The plastic melted onto my thumb and gave me a pretty unpleasant burn (fortunately it wasn't burning too hot, so the burn wasn't too nasty).
For all the work on finding new ways to reuse or recycle plastic bottles and other abundant waste products, I feel that the burden should really be on the companies to design containers that have a logical function after they're used (one of the coolest examples I've seen is biodegradable juice cartons that encourage users to use them to plant a tree), instead of just cluttering the ground and the atmosphere.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Charcoal in Embu
Well, just to make myself sound super-important, I'm going to refer to this as an international business trip. :)
My friend Joe, who worked on IDDS with me two summers ago, is traveling from Kampala (Uganda) to Cape Town (South Africa) this summer in conjunction with the World Cup. He will be showcasing some technologies (including GCS products) that can make a difference for rural communities across Africa. He has been familiarizing himself with the route and meeting some really interesting people along the way. He was in Arusha two weeks ago and told us that we had to visit a remarkable women's group in Embu, which is 2 hours north of Nairobi. Last week, Winnie (the chairlady) called us to tell us that the maize was ready, so on 48 hours notice, we put together this trip.
I took advantage of the timing to make the stop in Nakuru before the real purpose of the trip. On Wednesday evening Reuben, Jodie and I traveled to Embu and met Winnie. The following morning, Winnie took us to the project site. We were excited after hearing about their big irrigation project. It wasn't until we got there that we learned what they meant by that. They wanted to do a large irrigation project and were hoping that we could offer some technical advice. Not exactly our specialty. Nothing to worry about, I'll still assemble some materials for them. We were also surprised when Winnie was the only woman from the group who was at the demonstration; she was accompanied by ten men.
Fortunately, they did have lots of maize (a rare sight in the region these days). We had sent several messages to make sure that the maize would be sufficiently dry for shelling (removing the kernels from the cob) and they assured us that it was completely ready. When we arrived, we found that it wasn't completely dry (it probably needed another week), which meant that the machine wouldn't perform as well. We asked them if it was dry enough for shelling using their typical method (beating it with a stick) and they told us that they would have to wait a few more days. We were slightly exasperated, but at least they got a general idea. We left the machine with them, so hopefully they'll be able to rouse some interest in the coming weeks and we'll have better luck when we follow up.
The other part of the demonstration was making charcoal. Joe had talked with them about the shortage of trees and the possibility of turning corn cobs into charcoal and they were very excited. We sent them a list of the materials they would need. We were a bit luckier on this venture. They had all the supplies (we only asked if cassava was available and they went out and bought about 15 kg, even though I was planning to buy about 1/2 kg on arrival; oh well) except for the oil drum. They told us that it wouldn't be possible or economical to get a 200 liter drum, but they offered us a 20 liter drum. I'm not sure what they purpose of those are, I mostly see them as rubbish bins, but I tried to hide my skepticism as I announced that we would find a way to make it work. They offered us a 100 liter drum, but unfortunately it was not air-tight, so I said we would just make do with the 20 liter drum.
I did the basic prep work of inspecting and cutting holes in the base of the drum, making a lid and making a cassava grater (I felt proud of metal working skills). After Jodie finished with the maize sheller work, I showed them the charcoal making process. Cobs and husks were abundant, so we had fun filling the drum. In fact, the audience was so excited that they packed the drum a lot more tightly than I've ever done it before. I was hesitant at first, but I realized that the looseness we typically incorporate is to allow airflow, but since the container was so small, I realized that we could probably get away with it. We lit the drum and it took a little work to keep the airflow intact, but it burned really well. The burn went pretty much exactly to plan. The only hiccup was when we tried to use the cover, but found that it wasn't airtight. Fortunately, they were able to improvise a different cover using a piece of cardboard (I can't believe it didn't catch fire).
After forty minutes, I checked and felt the drum wasn't very warm and I was slightly disconcerted. Still, I let it sit a bit longer hoping that it would keep going a bit longer. Another hour later, we opened it and found that over 95% of material had successfully carbonized. It was also better than using the full size drum because the airspace we put in typically leads to the drum being only 40% full when we open it since the charcoal is much less dense (very anticlimactic), but this time it was closer to 70%. We made some cassava porridge to make the charcoal briquettes and the audience was very excited about that. When we finished, I looked at the yield and realized that in spite of using a container that was 10 times smaller, we still mustered about a quarter of the typical yield, so we were very proud.
Two of the men (one was called Twiga, which means giraffe) there were asking lots of questions and seemed to have lots of ideas for how they could own this project. Everyone seemed very impressed and excited to go out and show their communities what they had learned. They had a very clear picture in their minds of how they could use the sheller and then collect the cobs and make charcoal. It seemed like having complementary technologies (no, not complimentary) made a really big difference.
Now I'm on my way back to Arusha. I didn't get to see anyone from Peace Corps or any of my other friends here in Kenya. Oh well, I'll have to follow up with this project, so hopefully with more planning I'll get to see more people next time :).
My friend Joe, who worked on IDDS with me two summers ago, is traveling from Kampala (Uganda) to Cape Town (South Africa) this summer in conjunction with the World Cup. He will be showcasing some technologies (including GCS products) that can make a difference for rural communities across Africa. He has been familiarizing himself with the route and meeting some really interesting people along the way. He was in Arusha two weeks ago and told us that we had to visit a remarkable women's group in Embu, which is 2 hours north of Nairobi. Last week, Winnie (the chairlady) called us to tell us that the maize was ready, so on 48 hours notice, we put together this trip.
I took advantage of the timing to make the stop in Nakuru before the real purpose of the trip. On Wednesday evening Reuben, Jodie and I traveled to Embu and met Winnie. The following morning, Winnie took us to the project site. We were excited after hearing about their big irrigation project. It wasn't until we got there that we learned what they meant by that. They wanted to do a large irrigation project and were hoping that we could offer some technical advice. Not exactly our specialty. Nothing to worry about, I'll still assemble some materials for them. We were also surprised when Winnie was the only woman from the group who was at the demonstration; she was accompanied by ten men.
Fortunately, they did have lots of maize (a rare sight in the region these days). We had sent several messages to make sure that the maize would be sufficiently dry for shelling (removing the kernels from the cob) and they assured us that it was completely ready. When we arrived, we found that it wasn't completely dry (it probably needed another week), which meant that the machine wouldn't perform as well. We asked them if it was dry enough for shelling using their typical method (beating it with a stick) and they told us that they would have to wait a few more days. We were slightly exasperated, but at least they got a general idea. We left the machine with them, so hopefully they'll be able to rouse some interest in the coming weeks and we'll have better luck when we follow up.
The other part of the demonstration was making charcoal. Joe had talked with them about the shortage of trees and the possibility of turning corn cobs into charcoal and they were very excited. We sent them a list of the materials they would need. We were a bit luckier on this venture. They had all the supplies (we only asked if cassava was available and they went out and bought about 15 kg, even though I was planning to buy about 1/2 kg on arrival; oh well) except for the oil drum. They told us that it wouldn't be possible or economical to get a 200 liter drum, but they offered us a 20 liter drum. I'm not sure what they purpose of those are, I mostly see them as rubbish bins, but I tried to hide my skepticism as I announced that we would find a way to make it work. They offered us a 100 liter drum, but unfortunately it was not air-tight, so I said we would just make do with the 20 liter drum.
I did the basic prep work of inspecting and cutting holes in the base of the drum, making a lid and making a cassava grater (I felt proud of metal working skills). After Jodie finished with the maize sheller work, I showed them the charcoal making process. Cobs and husks were abundant, so we had fun filling the drum. In fact, the audience was so excited that they packed the drum a lot more tightly than I've ever done it before. I was hesitant at first, but I realized that the looseness we typically incorporate is to allow airflow, but since the container was so small, I realized that we could probably get away with it. We lit the drum and it took a little work to keep the airflow intact, but it burned really well. The burn went pretty much exactly to plan. The only hiccup was when we tried to use the cover, but found that it wasn't airtight. Fortunately, they were able to improvise a different cover using a piece of cardboard (I can't believe it didn't catch fire).
After forty minutes, I checked and felt the drum wasn't very warm and I was slightly disconcerted. Still, I let it sit a bit longer hoping that it would keep going a bit longer. Another hour later, we opened it and found that over 95% of material had successfully carbonized. It was also better than using the full size drum because the airspace we put in typically leads to the drum being only 40% full when we open it since the charcoal is much less dense (very anticlimactic), but this time it was closer to 70%. We made some cassava porridge to make the charcoal briquettes and the audience was very excited about that. When we finished, I looked at the yield and realized that in spite of using a container that was 10 times smaller, we still mustered about a quarter of the typical yield, so we were very proud.
Two of the men (one was called Twiga, which means giraffe) there were asking lots of questions and seemed to have lots of ideas for how they could own this project. Everyone seemed very impressed and excited to go out and show their communities what they had learned. They had a very clear picture in their minds of how they could use the sheller and then collect the cobs and make charcoal. It seemed like having complementary technologies (no, not complimentary) made a really big difference.
Now I'm on my way back to Arusha. I didn't get to see anyone from Peace Corps or any of my other friends here in Kenya. Oh well, I'll have to follow up with this project, so hopefully with more planning I'll get to see more people next time :).
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Homosexuality
Reuben and I were staying at a hotel in Embu last night (don't worry, I'll fill in the details soon). We wanted to be economical, so we decided to just share a room. The place didn't have any rooms with two beds, so we would have to share a bed. No big deal, right? Nope.
Just as we had settled in and were about to crash, the clerk came and knocked on the door. He said that his boss had just told him that sharing rooms wasn't allowed. I figured this was just a scheme to put us in two rooms and thus defeat our thriftiness so I decided to speak with the manager. The clerk kept apologizing profusely. I talked (in kiswahili) about the fact that we earn the same wages as most Kenyans and that we weren't tourists, but rather advisors here to visit some farms. The manager was unmoved.
Then the clerk started to explain the reason (very apologetically). They were worried about two men sharing the room. I could see where this was going. I know that there are plenty of suspicions of Western values. I could tell the clerk was really uncomfortable with what he was saying, so I stopped him (the manager, on the other hand, was silent the whole time and seemed to enjoy his subordinate's discomfort). Reuben and I do not share complexion, so claiming to be brothers wasn't really going to work. I thought about trying to claim that we were cousins and trying to take a big stand. Then I remembered how exhausted I was. And I realized that having my own bed would actually be kinda nice. In the end, I just accepted it. The whole thing bothers me a bit.
Oh well, lesson learned. I won't stay at Eden Safari Lodge next time I'm in Embu.
Just as we had settled in and were about to crash, the clerk came and knocked on the door. He said that his boss had just told him that sharing rooms wasn't allowed. I figured this was just a scheme to put us in two rooms and thus defeat our thriftiness so I decided to speak with the manager. The clerk kept apologizing profusely. I talked (in kiswahili) about the fact that we earn the same wages as most Kenyans and that we weren't tourists, but rather advisors here to visit some farms. The manager was unmoved.
Then the clerk started to explain the reason (very apologetically). They were worried about two men sharing the room. I could see where this was going. I know that there are plenty of suspicions of Western values. I could tell the clerk was really uncomfortable with what he was saying, so I stopped him (the manager, on the other hand, was silent the whole time and seemed to enjoy his subordinate's discomfort). Reuben and I do not share complexion, so claiming to be brothers wasn't really going to work. I thought about trying to claim that we were cousins and trying to take a big stand. Then I remembered how exhausted I was. And I realized that having my own bed would actually be kinda nice. In the end, I just accepted it. The whole thing bothers me a bit.
Oh well, lesson learned. I won't stay at Eden Safari Lodge next time I'm in Embu.
Nakuru
So yesterday was my triumphant return to Kenya. I am here on GCS business, which I'll discuss in another post. My first stop after arriving was at Java House for some free wireless and a really good milkshake. I put the wireless to some good uses, but I also used it to edit the GCS blog so that I usually appear as Daniel instead of Dan (it might seem nitpicky, but Dan is my father, and I always introduce myself as Daniel, though I often seem to become Dan). Then I went to Upper Hill, which is where I usually stay in Nairobi, since it's a pretty friendly and affordable place.
This morning I grabbed a matatu to town and hopped on another one going to Nakuru (200 km northwest of Nairobi). We got there in 2 1/2 hours. The objective was to visit a site for Running Water International (RWI), since I'm trying to learn more about their work. They are working to manufacture and disseminate bio-sand filters (by sending water through a column of sand, it is possible to remove bacteria and other disease causing organisms as well as certain minerals). They seem to have the process down really well and some cool ideas to be a zero-waste enterprise, but selling water purification systems is always a challenge. Fortunately, I enjoy a good challenge.
I also demonstrated the maize sheller for some students at the polytechnic (similar to a technical college) where RWI is based. There was no maize to run through it, but they were pretty impressed. The teacher kept instructing them to speak to me in "kizungu" (roughly equivalent to "White Man's Language", rather than kiingereza=English). The technician who was helping me with the assembly was named Kamau and was really handy. At one point, the students were talking about tribes (always an interesting conversation in Kenya) and I told them that I was from the Taita tribe (my community had told me as much during my time there in 2009). Kamau looked up and greeted me in the Taita language. Fortunately I know the response, but not much else. Then he said something to me that baffled me completely. I put on a guilty smile and replied with "thank you" in the language. He laughed and said that I was a true Taita and then started talking about other tribes. It was a good demonstration but I was pressed for time, so I had to pack up quickly and rush for a matatu back to Nairobi.
My goal was to get back to Nairobi by 2:30. I boarded the vehicle at 2:00. Fortunately, we only caught the start of rush hour and I arrived at 4:45. I had kept Jodie and Reuben (a new addition to the GCS team, who I met today) waiting, but the timing seemed to work out well. I was a little worn down from not quite getting enough sleep and then eating only three apples the whole day, but this is only the start of my brief Kenyan adventure and my triumphant return.
This morning I grabbed a matatu to town and hopped on another one going to Nakuru (200 km northwest of Nairobi). We got there in 2 1/2 hours. The objective was to visit a site for Running Water International (RWI), since I'm trying to learn more about their work. They are working to manufacture and disseminate bio-sand filters (by sending water through a column of sand, it is possible to remove bacteria and other disease causing organisms as well as certain minerals). They seem to have the process down really well and some cool ideas to be a zero-waste enterprise, but selling water purification systems is always a challenge. Fortunately, I enjoy a good challenge.
I also demonstrated the maize sheller for some students at the polytechnic (similar to a technical college) where RWI is based. There was no maize to run through it, but they were pretty impressed. The teacher kept instructing them to speak to me in "kizungu" (roughly equivalent to "White Man's Language", rather than kiingereza=English). The technician who was helping me with the assembly was named Kamau and was really handy. At one point, the students were talking about tribes (always an interesting conversation in Kenya) and I told them that I was from the Taita tribe (my community had told me as much during my time there in 2009). Kamau looked up and greeted me in the Taita language. Fortunately I know the response, but not much else. Then he said something to me that baffled me completely. I put on a guilty smile and replied with "thank you" in the language. He laughed and said that I was a true Taita and then started talking about other tribes. It was a good demonstration but I was pressed for time, so I had to pack up quickly and rush for a matatu back to Nairobi.
My goal was to get back to Nairobi by 2:30. I boarded the vehicle at 2:00. Fortunately, we only caught the start of rush hour and I arrived at 4:45. I had kept Jodie and Reuben (a new addition to the GCS team, who I met today) waiting, but the timing seemed to work out well. I was a little worn down from not quite getting enough sleep and then eating only three apples the whole day, but this is only the start of my brief Kenyan adventure and my triumphant return.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Low energy weekend
I can't really explain why, but I felt pretty low energy this weekend. Most likely it was just from my workload this week and some weighty decisions that I had on my mind. In any case, it felt good to be a bit lazy.
Jackie sugeted that Friday night would be a good night to make chapati burritos. I brought ten chapatis from town and was really looking forward to the meal. When I got home, Jodie and Jackie were just starting Invictus, so I decided to watch with them. As we watched, I cut up the vegetables and cooked the beans that we had been soaking all day. Then Jackie made the guacamole and I reheated the chapatis for our feast. We were all pretty hungry, so at the end of the movie (we weren't really thrilled, but I guess I wasn't disappointed either) we wolfed down the meal. That sent us all into pretty deep food comas and made us crash early on Friday night (a sadly typical trend in my life these days).
Saturday morning, Jodie and I headed to the office for a half-day of work. I spent most of my time balancing the books, which was somewhat infuriating because I couldn't understand how some of the entries were recorded, but it all had a happy ending, I guess. After work, I felt pretty drained, so I was ready for a relaxing afternoon. We came home and found Jackie wasn't feeling so hot, so I had to postpone my relaxing afternoon (well, first Jodie and I ate the leftover chapati burritos) until after I ran out in the rain (I love doing that!) to grab some juice (the supermarket is about a mile from our house). All the Tanzanians thought I was crazy for going out without an umbrella.
When I came back, we decided to watch Up in the Air. We agreed that it was pretty entertaining, but not incredibly cheerful. Jackie felt that the best remedy was to watch Glee. We watched the first ten episodes (42 minutes each) before deciding that 2 AM was probably a good time to get some sleep (we also realized that we hadn't actually eaten anything substantial for dinner). Needless to say, we were all pretty entertained by it.
Sunday morning, Jackie made too much oatmeal, so I had some of that for breakfast while I made banana bread. I forgot to set the towel on top of the "oven" to trap the heat, so it burned a bit on the bottom (still, it was pretty delicious). Jackie and I then drove to the grocery store and bought some supplies for the week. We wanted to watch more Glee, but the power kept going in and out (our neighbors have a TV but no electricity, so they leave the TV here and watch whenever they like, and when they aren't around, we sometimes put on a movie), so it was a bit drawn-out. Fortunately, there are only thirteen episodes so far, so after some struggling, we succeeded in watching the last three. I'm pretty excited for the next set to come out.
While we were watching, Jackie made a pretty tasty salad with greens and tuna and all sorts of good foods. Most meals I eat at home involve cooked veggies, so salad was quite a treat. Then Jackie and I decided to experiment with a honey mustard chicken marinade. We didn't have any recipe to follow, but we threw together some honey, mustard (both dijon and yellow), lemon juice, roasted garlic, egg yolk, flour, water, salt and pepper. I diced up the chicken and we left it to sit for a while and we both decided to focus on work for a bit. Then, for dinner I helped Jackie make a tomato curry soup and then I cooked up the honey mustard chicken while she turned some stale bread into croutons for our soup. When Jackie and I tasted the chicken, we couldn't believe how amazing it had turned out. I'm really excited to make it again. The soup was worryingly over-curried, but Jackie suggested a dash of basil, and it worked the trick. Dinner was absolutely delicious. Then a bit more work before crashing.
This weekend was pretty much just what I needed :)
Jackie sugeted that Friday night would be a good night to make chapati burritos. I brought ten chapatis from town and was really looking forward to the meal. When I got home, Jodie and Jackie were just starting Invictus, so I decided to watch with them. As we watched, I cut up the vegetables and cooked the beans that we had been soaking all day. Then Jackie made the guacamole and I reheated the chapatis for our feast. We were all pretty hungry, so at the end of the movie (we weren't really thrilled, but I guess I wasn't disappointed either) we wolfed down the meal. That sent us all into pretty deep food comas and made us crash early on Friday night (a sadly typical trend in my life these days).
Saturday morning, Jodie and I headed to the office for a half-day of work. I spent most of my time balancing the books, which was somewhat infuriating because I couldn't understand how some of the entries were recorded, but it all had a happy ending, I guess. After work, I felt pretty drained, so I was ready for a relaxing afternoon. We came home and found Jackie wasn't feeling so hot, so I had to postpone my relaxing afternoon (well, first Jodie and I ate the leftover chapati burritos) until after I ran out in the rain (I love doing that!) to grab some juice (the supermarket is about a mile from our house). All the Tanzanians thought I was crazy for going out without an umbrella.
When I came back, we decided to watch Up in the Air. We agreed that it was pretty entertaining, but not incredibly cheerful. Jackie felt that the best remedy was to watch Glee. We watched the first ten episodes (42 minutes each) before deciding that 2 AM was probably a good time to get some sleep (we also realized that we hadn't actually eaten anything substantial for dinner). Needless to say, we were all pretty entertained by it.
Sunday morning, Jackie made too much oatmeal, so I had some of that for breakfast while I made banana bread. I forgot to set the towel on top of the "oven" to trap the heat, so it burned a bit on the bottom (still, it was pretty delicious). Jackie and I then drove to the grocery store and bought some supplies for the week. We wanted to watch more Glee, but the power kept going in and out (our neighbors have a TV but no electricity, so they leave the TV here and watch whenever they like, and when they aren't around, we sometimes put on a movie), so it was a bit drawn-out. Fortunately, there are only thirteen episodes so far, so after some struggling, we succeeded in watching the last three. I'm pretty excited for the next set to come out.
While we were watching, Jackie made a pretty tasty salad with greens and tuna and all sorts of good foods. Most meals I eat at home involve cooked veggies, so salad was quite a treat. Then Jackie and I decided to experiment with a honey mustard chicken marinade. We didn't have any recipe to follow, but we threw together some honey, mustard (both dijon and yellow), lemon juice, roasted garlic, egg yolk, flour, water, salt and pepper. I diced up the chicken and we left it to sit for a while and we both decided to focus on work for a bit. Then, for dinner I helped Jackie make a tomato curry soup and then I cooked up the honey mustard chicken while she turned some stale bread into croutons for our soup. When Jackie and I tasted the chicken, we couldn't believe how amazing it had turned out. I'm really excited to make it again. The soup was worryingly over-curried, but Jackie suggested a dash of basil, and it worked the trick. Dinner was absolutely delicious. Then a bit more work before crashing.
This weekend was pretty much just what I needed :)
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Work
A lot of people ask me what sort of work I do here at Global Cycle Solutions.
Well, to be honest, my work changes constantly. Last week was really exciting because I was out in the field. This week was a bit less exciting because I was mostly based in the office. I had to do a bit of accounting. I sent out heaps of emails, some which proved to be dead ends, while others proved very fruitful (and in the long run, these communications are as crucial as the work I did in the field last week, if not more so).
I also visited a few NGOs and other offices around town to raise our profile. In general, we like to work with organizations that connect really well with Tanzanians. For most of those, when I go into the office, I don't meet an ex-patriate, but rather a Tanzanian. When they first see me, I know they are wondering what kind of foreigner I will turn out to be (maybe a lost tourist asking for directions, or an aid worker with little to no idea of realities on the ground, or maybe, just maybe, someone who might have something useful to say). At the start, speaking Kiswahili with them was difficult for me because I did sound choppy, and they would usually switch to English. I felt that I achieved a breakthrough this week, because when I was speaking with people, not only did they stay in Kiswahili the whole time, but they also spoke at their regular pace, rather than a deliberately slowed pace like most people do when we communicate with a non-native speaker. I was pretty proud and I felt that it reflected well on the company as well.
The hard part here is that unemployment is really high. People move in and out of jobs really quickly, since the ones who have skills are often poached by another organization. I've had that happen twice so far where I formed a relationship based on a personal interview, but follow-up emails led nowhere. Upon returning for another face-to-face meeting, I am told that my contact no longer works there. It's really startling in fact. And it certainly complicates doing business here.
The most important part of my work, though, is basically brainstorming. Coming up with coherent ideas on how we can best use our resources and figuring out how we can execute them. Right now, we are figuring out how we are going to get our machines into people's shops around Tanzania, and how we are going to get customers into those shops to buy the machines. It seems like a pretty straightforward scheme, but with the challenges of infrastructure here and our drive to keep overhead costs down, it is an exciting challenge.
Well, to be honest, my work changes constantly. Last week was really exciting because I was out in the field. This week was a bit less exciting because I was mostly based in the office. I had to do a bit of accounting. I sent out heaps of emails, some which proved to be dead ends, while others proved very fruitful (and in the long run, these communications are as crucial as the work I did in the field last week, if not more so).
I also visited a few NGOs and other offices around town to raise our profile. In general, we like to work with organizations that connect really well with Tanzanians. For most of those, when I go into the office, I don't meet an ex-patriate, but rather a Tanzanian. When they first see me, I know they are wondering what kind of foreigner I will turn out to be (maybe a lost tourist asking for directions, or an aid worker with little to no idea of realities on the ground, or maybe, just maybe, someone who might have something useful to say). At the start, speaking Kiswahili with them was difficult for me because I did sound choppy, and they would usually switch to English. I felt that I achieved a breakthrough this week, because when I was speaking with people, not only did they stay in Kiswahili the whole time, but they also spoke at their regular pace, rather than a deliberately slowed pace like most people do when we communicate with a non-native speaker. I was pretty proud and I felt that it reflected well on the company as well.
The hard part here is that unemployment is really high. People move in and out of jobs really quickly, since the ones who have skills are often poached by another organization. I've had that happen twice so far where I formed a relationship based on a personal interview, but follow-up emails led nowhere. Upon returning for another face-to-face meeting, I am told that my contact no longer works there. It's really startling in fact. And it certainly complicates doing business here.
The most important part of my work, though, is basically brainstorming. Coming up with coherent ideas on how we can best use our resources and figuring out how we can execute them. Right now, we are figuring out how we are going to get our machines into people's shops around Tanzania, and how we are going to get customers into those shops to buy the machines. It seems like a pretty straightforward scheme, but with the challenges of infrastructure here and our drive to keep overhead costs down, it is an exciting challenge.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Competition
I'm learning here how valuable conferencing and networking are in the start-up world. One of the more interesting ones is called The Unreasonable Institute. It's certainly an interesting model, especially the fundraising mechanism.
Basically, in order to show that the venture is actually promising, all the projects are placed in a marketplace and anyone can vote for them (shouldn't be too hard to find my project if you feel so inclined; I had a hand in some of those answers, so I'd love to hear what people think of the company). I like the need to prove yourself to the world. But I also worry. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the US companies can just reach out to their friends and family and get the funding, even if they don't have the best project (of course, there was a selection process to reach the marketplace) while a bunch of the ones based in Africa, Latin America and South Asia are at a slight disadvantage. Looking at the totals on the board, it's nice to see that some of the funded projects are from those regions, but I worry that there are others that don't have the connections. We shall see.
I've also heard some skepticism about their target ventures. They are looking for projects that are going to reach 1,000,000 people. There are lots of fantastic projects that work with a single community or region and won't reach anywhere close to 1,000,000 people. But they can have a much greater impact than a lot of projects that reach a million people. That's not the point. This conference is looking at dissemination strategies. They are selecting based on a criteria (ambitions for scale), which eliminates a lot of good projects, but it also encompasses a lot of good projects. There are plenty of conferences on ICT4D (information and communication technologies for development), and those are probably excluding some really cool development projects on housing in urban slums. But having that focus allows them to accomplish more and there are plenty of other conferences for each different niche. I'd love a lively comment page on this issue.
I am skeptical about a few of the points, but to be honest, I haven't gone through the details too closely. Overall, I would describe my feelings as cautiously optimistic. I am certainly hoping for a wild success, and it seems like they have the team to accomplish it. Should be interesting.
Basically, in order to show that the venture is actually promising, all the projects are placed in a marketplace and anyone can vote for them (shouldn't be too hard to find my project if you feel so inclined; I had a hand in some of those answers, so I'd love to hear what people think of the company). I like the need to prove yourself to the world. But I also worry. I'm pretty sure that a lot of the US companies can just reach out to their friends and family and get the funding, even if they don't have the best project (of course, there was a selection process to reach the marketplace) while a bunch of the ones based in Africa, Latin America and South Asia are at a slight disadvantage. Looking at the totals on the board, it's nice to see that some of the funded projects are from those regions, but I worry that there are others that don't have the connections. We shall see.
I've also heard some skepticism about their target ventures. They are looking for projects that are going to reach 1,000,000 people. There are lots of fantastic projects that work with a single community or region and won't reach anywhere close to 1,000,000 people. But they can have a much greater impact than a lot of projects that reach a million people. That's not the point. This conference is looking at dissemination strategies. They are selecting based on a criteria (ambitions for scale), which eliminates a lot of good projects, but it also encompasses a lot of good projects. There are plenty of conferences on ICT4D (information and communication technologies for development), and those are probably excluding some really cool development projects on housing in urban slums. But having that focus allows them to accomplish more and there are plenty of other conferences for each different niche. I'd love a lively comment page on this issue.
I am skeptical about a few of the points, but to be honest, I haven't gone through the details too closely. Overall, I would describe my feelings as cautiously optimistic. I am certainly hoping for a wild success, and it seems like they have the team to accomplish it. Should be interesting.
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