Preparations & Teaching

This weekend I will most probably visit a community bank in a local village, a couple of hours outside of Nairobi. Together with Nelie (Sieb will be in Sudan for 2 weeks to give business training), and a local, we will bring a lot of prepared documents to do a thorough assessment of the bank's current situation, as to be able to write recommendations on its financial strategy afterwards.

When we are back from this community bank I will take a few days to write said recommendations, and after that it's off to more rural areas! We have one bank to visit in Mombasa, and after that one more in Coast. I will probably be gone for about two weeks (including couple of days Mombasa beach, of course).

In addition, I am also helping out a family friend with his school. Due to the current situation, he has some problems getting teachers to the school, so the poor pupils have been deprived of their mathematics-shot for some time now. Last week, and again this morning, I therefore prepared and conducted some classes in math for a few classes. I really liked both the teaching and the students, so I am planning to do it more often, and a bit more structured. We are also trying to make a project out of his school for my organization as to get more volunteers from abroad to help out.

Sorry for the lack of messages lately, I have been kind of hectic. I will promise to write more often, and I swear that somewhere this week I will post a fine piece of prosaic nonsense I'm so famous for.

Kwa heri!

Office orientation & emergency aid

Hi everybody,

This week I finally got some idea of what my work here in Kenya is going to be like.

We are currently trying to make the Bengi Investment Group (BIG) concept a separate entity, with its own management structure and policies. James, on of my local colleagues, is almost finished writing a 40-page business plan for BIG, including all the services a community bank can provide for its community. In the +- 8 years that BIG community banks are in existence, there are already some success stories. In one community for example, a small group of villages received a loan to buy machines necessary to produce peanut butter, and are now generating income with their established peanut butter company.

Up to this moment CIVS' sole source of income was the mandatory fee volunteers pay, but with our new business concept there is dire need for money. I think that my main objective in the long run will be to write grant proposals and raise funds for our microfinance initiative. At the moment I am still working my way through the digital world of grant writing, as well as setting up appointments with other, more professional microfinance institute to consult them on proper acquisition of funds.

Besides this I am doing or planning to do some generic office work.
1) Reorganizing the big mess that is our internal network
2) Standardize training materials for new volunteers
3) Create a volunteer-only section on the website meant for internal communication
4) Make the BIG section of the website prettier
5) Writing new volunteer applications for emergency aid

To elaborate on this last point: The current political impasse in Kenya left 500 people dead and over 250,000 internally displaced. The latter lost all their homes, and businesses. Since the areas most affected by the violence are the slums and the poorer rural areas, the developments in the country have been especially disastrous on these people.

For this reason I decided to help a local group of volunteers, coming from a church, to assist in distributing food and clothing to these displaced people.
Last Thursday I went to Dandora, a Nairobi slum. Thousands and thousands and people were waiting for us, so with the little structure we had we provided them with maize, beans, soy, and crackers. All this donated by the United Nations Development Programme, and partially coordinated by World Relief. Since we ran out of food we had to flee, but the local volunteers return almost every day to Dandora and other areas with new supplies. I try to go once in a while as well, in between office work, since there are not enough hands to help even though the food is plenty. Here at CIVS we are now trying to get volunteers to Kenya especially for this purpose, so for these reason I wrote those applications I spoke of earlier.

The political situation is interesting to follow from within, and far more complicated than watching the Dutch news would suggest. Coming weekend I hope to write some more about this.
For now, thank you for reading!

PS For my china loving friends, check out http://www.topix.net/content/ap/2008/01/china-says-democracy-hurts-kenya

Arrival etcetera

After a long debate on whether to go or not, I decided to ignore all parental and governmental advice, and didn't cancel my ticket to Kenya. And what a good decision it was!

The burning buildings outside Nairobi were already visible from the plane, and the airport terminal was filled with cranky tourists waiting for their plane home. Of course all of this wasn't exactly adding to my comfort level. Luckily Maggie (CIVS) and one of her family members were there for me the minute I stepped outside so I immediately felt in safe hands.

First mistake during the cab ride:

Daniel: What's this area?
Maggie: It's a residential district.
Daniel: Oh, are these the slums?
Maggie: Uhm, no this is just a residential area.
Daniel: ...

Oops. In my defence: Four metal plates attached to a fence, with the words 'Sunrise Hotel' written on it, didn't exactly qualify as upper class in my frame of reference.Of course my frame of reference changed by now.

Buruburu, where I live, is relatively safe. Walking after nightfall is never a good idea, but during daytime everything is just fine. There is a nice big supermarket around the corner, and a long market extending all the way over the rail road track (and by 'over' I mean 'over including the tracks themselves'. It looks like they have some rebuilding to do every time the Mombasa-bound train departs from Nairobi.)

Of course the office is in this area as well. Everyone is very nice, and gave me their own introduction of their work in person. (Please visit the CIVS website for more details on persons & task descriptions). I will give a more accurate description of my own work once I know what I am going to to. For now, I am still trying to find my way through the tons of documents on our internal network.

For all of those who tried to contact me: Image that on this blog it takes about 5 days between clicking the post button and the actual posting, and you will have a pretty good idea of how fast our internet actually is. I hope you understand that I will not be able to email much with this 0.0056k0.006 modem of ours, so please understand if I do not reply to your messages. You can, however, text message me! Please try:

xxx

Lastly, I have the nicest host family. I'm not exactly sure how many family members live with me, but I estimate the number to be somewhere in the 10^23 order of magnitude. Nice as they are, I think they already gave up training me to be an efficient bargainer at the market:

Daniel: Mama, look at these pants I bought!
Mama: How much?
Daniel: I got 'em down to 1000 Ksh.! (10 euros)
Mama lauging for approx. 15 minutes.

More details follow once I am able to zip some pictures in 1/2 kB files for uploading.

Everyone thank you for your concerns and please keep following this blog and posting comments!

Daniel

PS. I lost all my hair. Literally.