Maker Faire Africa and other Nairobi Adventures

On Wednesday, I traveled to Nairobi for Maker Faire Africa. Jodie had only arrived on Monday night, and we barely scratched the surface of catching up on everything (in spite of the mountains of emails we exchanged while we were traveling) before I had to leave again.

I arrived in Nairobi in the afternoon and had a quick meeting with a prospective customer in City Centre before scurrying off to the Industrial Area. I wanted to check one or two more things off my to-do list, but I was pretty exhausted from 7 hours on the bus (I think they made the road bumpier in the past week) so I just grabbed a quick bite and was asleep by 8 PM.

On Thursday, I headed to the Peace Corps office to check in with a couple of people. I had a nice conversation with Serah, who was always incredibly helpful during my Peace Corps service before going to say hi to Mary in the Medical office. She was also friendly and we struck up a conversation about maize grinders (a topic I'm researching for GCS), and she had some useful insights. Then I ran over to the motor-pool and talked to GG (I can't remember his real name anymore, since everyone just refers to him by his initials), who gave me directions to navigate the maze that is Nairobi and was entertaining, as always.

My first stop was the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute or KARI. I was on the matatu, and I saw the building, and I was surprised that GG had given me wrong directions. But I hopped out and went to the main building (there were several on the campus) and asked for the maize specialist. They asked me to sit and wait for the director to help me. After 40 minutes, the director came and told me that I was in the wrong building. Apparently, GG's directions were completely accurate, and I had simply gone to the wrong building (a soil institute--though I'm not sure why the first three people I spoke to couldn't have mentioned that they don't do any crop work there). So I hopped on another matatu and got to the right building. Unfortunately, the director wasn't there, but I had an in depth conversation with one of his research assistants on seed varieties and farm sizes around Kenya. He also directed me to a rice specialist so that I could learn about a bicycle powered rice thresher being developed by some Korean development workers. Definitely an interesting project.

After that, I traveled to CNFA, which is one of our partners in Tanzania to meet with their Kenyan administration. He mentioned that he had just been working on the intractable problem of maize shelling and was trying to figure out what sort of technology was available for farmers. Talk about fortunate timing. He helped me understand the system for working with agro-dealers in Kenya (it requires coordinating with CNFA, AGMARK and KENADA, for a start) and gave me some contact information for some interesting groups. He made a good point about thinking about COMESA (the COmmon Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, but it's an economic confederation in eastern and southern Africa; East Africa=Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi while COMESA=East Africa + Ethiopia, Zambia, Malawi and other nations), which makes sense for scale.

At that point, I wanted to meet with a few more people, but Nairobi rush hour had other ideas. It took me about an hour to travel the 4 miles back to City Centre, so I opted to get myself sorted for Maker Faire. I checked into the hotel and wrote a bunch of emails on my phone (I really missed my phone while I was in the states) before crashing.

I woke up early the next morning to finish up everything before the Faire. I ran to the bus station to pick up the GCS machines that had been sent for the occasion, only to be told that they hadn't arrived. It was only after arguing with several employees there who were trying to eat their breakfast that they found the machines. The driver couldn't find the bike shop (it probably would have helped if I had given him the correct street), so I had him drop me back at the hotel. I grabbed two machines and began asking around for the shop (which was a much better landmark than the non-existent street I had written down) and found that it was only five minutes walk to get there. The first trip I was hauling 50 pounds and wishing that I had the arm-strength that I used to have. Then came the 70 pound load. I was pretty sore, and it was only 9 AM. Then I had to wait around at the bike shop so that they could fix up a bike (they were supposed to have that ready when I came), which was another 20 minutes of them tightening bolts that I would soon be loosening to assemble the machine. Finally, the bike was ready, but as I started riding, I realized that I didn't have rope to secure the cargo to the back rack, so I had to walk it to the University for Maker Faire.

I arrived slightly late, but found that I was just in time for the event's beginning. I spent the first hour of the Faire assembling the sheller and bike before I was ready to start presenting at my booth. Fortunately, the weather was unpleasant, so there wasn't much traffic at the start. As the day wore on, though, more and more people were coming, and I was having trouble talking to everyone. I had to switch back and forth between Kiswahili and English while talking to different customers (which led to a slight problem when I was talking to one of the event organizers, and he just looked blankly at me and said "I'm sorry, I don't understand Kiswahili"--I hadn't even realized that I wasn't speaking English until he told me). Fortunately, Bernard arrived at 3 PM and tweaked the set-up a bit so that it ran better (we didn't have maize anyway, so we relied on video, which actually made a really compelling case--a few people weren't convinced when I assured them that we hadn't doctored the footage) and he helped me with talking to customers. We actually got lots of positive feedback, which was nice. Most people just wanted to know when they would be able to buy one (definitely excited about GCS selling them in Kenya!) and how much the cost would be (their jaws always dropped when I told them that it would be under 5000 Kenyan shillings or about $60).

The other wrinkle in the day was that it was the signing of the new Kenyan constitution (sorry, no link--that's a pretty hefty document, and I'm not sure they've moved it online yet). Most of the government and a large group of foreign dignitaries were just a few miles away, along with an enormous crowd. It was definitely an exciting day, since the old constitution had been to the detriment of many citizens and the new one looks to create a better system of government for the wananchi (people of the country). I was actually super-excited to be so close to the momentous event and was glad that it had all turned out so well (though, of course, with a few unsavory characters in attendance). However, the parades and honking horns weren't the most conducive to my sleep, but in this case, I was happy for the lost sleep.

I was so worn out by the first day of Maker Faire, that after moving into a double (rooming with Bernard), we both fell asleep by 9 PM. Day 2 (of 2) of Maker Faire was pretty similar to the first, but without the complications of the constitution. Bernard and I were both fighting upset stomachs (we're pretty sure that it was the food at the hotel where we were staying) and needed a few bathroom breaks. We also took more time to tour other exhibits and see what else people had brought. I really liked the guy with the sisal twiner (sisal is a fibrous plant that grows in arid climates and is typically made into rope or twine), but I really wanted to replace his motor with a bicycle (don't laugh, this would be a really good project). I visited a couple of bio-gas projects where I felt that they had a different definition of "affordable" from me. Oh well, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for bio-gas. I spent a bunch of time with the guy at the adjacent booth who had a really cool rural toilet design and who really wanted to get some GCS shellers down to South Africa. I also talked to a lot of people working on "trash rehablitation" (e.g. crocheting old plastic bags into shoulder bags, or crafting old flip-flops into beads and necklaces), which is always fun to see. I even saw a few people from MIT and talked a bit with them. I even saw a book on development in Kenya that had a picture of Stupin and Suprio (friends from IDDS) in there. All in all, it was a good day. A bunch of people went out to a club for the after-party, but my stomach had other plans, so Bernard and I crashed early again.

I really liked rooming with Bernard, since he's such an entertaining guy (very subtle humor) and we get along really well. I was also really impressed with the organizers at Maker Faire and how on-the-ball they were. The event ran really smoothly (except for the tainted hotel food) and was a lot of fun (it definitely helps that they attracted some great Makers). Oh, and they brought fast internet, so I downloaded some development manuals from here (also added to the Linkes page on the blog) which I'm super-excited about.

I am just taking it easy in Nairobi today (trying to pace myself a bit) before having a few meetings tomorrow and hopping on the bus back to Arusha. All in all, this has probably been my favorite trip to Nairobi.