Ghosts at the Prom

Okay, second half of my Nairobi adventure. This one is going to be a long one, I expect.

Tuesday morning, I was a bit slow moving, but it helps to pace myself in Nairobi. I started by heading down to Parklands (an area of Nairobi near City Centre) to try to track down some people. I visited the office that had flooded and saw the damage and the fact that none of the staff was in and quickly moved on. Fortunately, my next meeting was just down the street. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this right away, because the streets often feel like a maze (I lived in Boston for four years, which felt pretty similar), but after asking a half dozen people for directions, I found the building. I had a nice talk with the staff at TechnoServe, and they seem interested in working with us moving forward. Then I headed to Barclays to exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Kenyan shillings. I was waiting in line behind some British gentleman who had been in Nairobi for some time, and felt that he was entitled to lots of special treatment. After twenty minutes of him harassing the teller and trying to draw sympathy from me for his plight (gee whiz, what a poor spoiled ex-pat) I gave up and left the bank with my dwindling supply of Kenyan money. I ran to the store and bought a juice before heading to my next meeting.

I told the matatu conductor to drop me at Afralti and he agreed. I don't remember that part of Nairobi as well, so I got out where he told me to alight. And then I discovered I was about 1 km down the road from where I wanted to be (the matatu was headed in that direction, but apparently the conductors on that route don't know their stops). I walked (with the sheller set on my back) to my destination and showed up sweaty and disheveled. As I walked in, I was greeted by some Peace Corps staff members who asked if I needed anything for my session. I decided that my first priority was to clean myself up a bit and regain my composure. Then I started chatting up a few of the new volunteers and managed to convince one of them to let me use his computer. As I was doing the set-up, he was getting really excited about my talk.

Meanwhile, I was frantically editing my presentation on Appropriate Technology (Jackie and I had written it together in April 2009--with a heavy dose of inspiration from Amy Smith--but I hadn't looked at it since then) as the room was filling up. I didn't feel like it was my best presentation (I don't think I fully regained my composure), but there was some definite interest from the audience and I had a nice Q&A session before handing it over to the next presenter. I stuck around a bit longer and added some files to one volunteer's computer of various manuals I have accumulated over time (these will likely be quickly spread around the Peace Corps Kenya network). I had a few volunteers come up to me afterwards and tell me that I had given the best session in their week and a half of training (one volunteer used the phrase "only good session"), and they were pretty excited about GCS's work, and several volunteers were wondering where they could order a machine.

Then I chatted with a high school friend who is in the new group of volunteers and we bonded about the Peace Corps experience. As we were talking, one of the other volunteers invited me to the prom-themed party that they were having on Wednesday night. I told them that I would do my best to make an appearance. I also spent a while talking to a Peace Corps staff member about how much staff has improved what they're doing since the debacle with my group (currently, 24 of the original 42 volunteers are still in the program, compared to the group that came a year after us, which has not lost a single volunteer). Then I realized that it was getting late, so I hurried back to Upper Hill (with a stop at a currency exchange that gave me a much lousier rate). At that point, I realized that I had forgotten to eat the entire day (I had a tiny muffin for breakfast and 2 liters of juice the rest of the day). I wolfed down two meals in quick succession and crashed by 10 PM.

Then, I was awake again at midnight. My brain wasn't feeling sharp enough for much reading, so I sent a few emails from my phone. Then I went to spend some time with the puppies. Mostly, I spent my time tossing and turning. It was 4 AM before I fell back asleep (I also abandoned hope of sleeping in the bed, and opted to curl up on the floor in the corner). Wednesday morning wound up being rather slow moving.

I took care of a couple of personal errands in the morning before setting off in the afternoon for Kariobangi, on the eastern extremity of Nairobi. The trip wound up taking an hour and a half. Part of the issue was that the matatu conductor wouldn't let me out where I asked (he alleged he was concerned about my safety) and then drove around making fifteen more minutes of stops before heading back and leaving me off 100 meters closer than where I had previously asked and demanding a tip for "helping" me out. I gave him 15 shillings, which was all the change I had on hand (also half the cost of the ride) and then he pocketed it and told the driver that I hadn't given him any kind of tip.

I walked through a small market to the KickStart technology facility (my previous visit is documented here). I really enjoyed my meeting this time. I talked with Alan, who runs the technology work and led development of the small-scale pump they have (much more affordable than their medium-scale pumps). We talked a lot about manufacturing and design and he was terribly sympathetic to the fact that I was showing up 45 minutes late. Then he dropped me a bit closer to town as he went home for the day.

I had to take two matatus (and walk through a moderately sketchy part of town) to make it back to where the volunteers were having their prom. When I arrived (completely underdressed), I found that the volunteers were on a field trip, but one of them had stayed behind, so we talked for a while about business and development (he had joined a very large company in its start-up phase, and was apparently neighbors with a prominent CEO before coming to Kenya). He seemed to be impressed with our work at GCS and I was blown away by his background and all the work he is already accomplishing in Kenya.

As I walked around Afralti, I thought back to my previous trip to the compound back in January of 2009 for swearing in. There were two locations in the dorm where I had physical reactions as the past came back to me and I was haunted by some of the volunteers who were administratively separated (the Peace Corps equivalent of getting fired) from my group right before swearing in. I thought back to packing up a friend's room faster than I've ever packed in my life because it was apparently imperative that she leave the country in the blink of an eye. I remembered talking to another friend and coaching her on a conversation that she was supposed to have with the country director, only to find out that the "conversation" was another staff member handing her a letter saying that she was being sent home, no questions asked. I've always had trouble letting things go, I guess.

Fortunately, the prom was a wonderful affair. I was amazed by how well-dressed everyone else was, though plenty of people were sporting flip-flops. They were mostly playing American music from the last 15 years, but I kept sneaking in and putting on Swahili music (and P-Square)It was really nice to socialize with old friends (some older volunteers who were around from my time in the program) and new friends. And by the time 3:30 AM rolled around, I was sitting with some Kenyans and a couple of the older volunteers and discussing regional geo-politics.

I made sure to thank the prom organizers for a wonderful time. I can now say that I have happy memories at Afralti, which was certainly not the case before.