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 :).
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