A Mountain of Oogali

Hello again,

As promised here is a (comprehensive) summary of more of my last week:

Monday was our last preparation day for the Board wrap-up meeting we had on Tuesday. Before we could get going on our preparations however we had to go into town again to run some errands. We were very low on groceries and also needed to visit the bank in Kisumu we are looking at switching to. We wanted to clear up some issues and submit some documents.  Before we could do that however we had all been invited over to Maurice’s house for a full day event of eating (he said we would have to eat a mountain of oogali - a form of maize meal that you use to eat other foods - very high in energy), exploring, hanging out and getting to know the rest of his family better. Katie and I were planning on going to his place after we returned from town, but we had a few things to clear up with him and a few documents to pick up for our trip into town, so we headed over at around 9 after eating some breakfast. As it turns out we had no need to have eaten breakfast before going over as his wife Irene had made us some chapati and samosas with tea, so we were both royally stuffed by the time we left. Once in town we first met with the woman who will be in essence our account manager, before we then decided to try completing a special errand of ours for the Board. They had requested that they could have GIVE t-shirts (a common request) or some form of name tag to identify themselves as Board members while at official events. When we had originally submitted our project proposal to the executives of GIVE early in the year, one piece of feedback we got was a concern over the motivation of the Board during the year. A suggestion which we then got was to make business cards for the Board members, with them receiving more business cards each month if they attend the meeting and are still actively engaged in the Board. I was less sold on the idea than Katie I must admit, but she seemed set on the idea so we went ahead with it. It turned into a bit of a process to get them made however as we first went to a print shop only to find out they didn’t do business cards. The people there did however point us to a place where we could. To get there we had to walk through a back walkway (alley is the wrong word) behind the Ukwala (a cheap version of Walmart?). They hadn’t told us that the place was an insurance broker, but despite the confusing appearance, they did offer to make business cards.  

After spending some time designing the cards and paying a down-payment, we printed off some photos for the Board members and did some grocery shopping. With Jo coming on Wednesday there would be 11 of us, so we had a lot to pick up! It is hard to fathom how much food you go through with that many people after having lived with one roommate for most of the past year. For example we go through probably around 4kg of rice a week...(that number is also due to us eating it twice per day, every day of the week. Fully loaded with the vegetables (another group was picking up the other stuff) we finally caught a matatu back to Kaguya to drop off our stuff and return to Maurice’s place for dinner. We got there just as everyone else was finishing off their dinner, so we were tasked with helping to finish what was left. A common joke of Maurice’s is that if you don’t finish your food you will get “chira” which is a form of a curse given by a woman to someone else (we have already confirmed that you cannot get chira from that!). It was quite the feast though and we had trouble trying to finishing everything that was there. Irene had prepared us chapati, rice, lentils, ogali, chicken, fish, beans, potatoes, kale and some other things I cannot remember. It was cool to get to eat all together with everyone including Sally our translator and Kennedy who is the field officer for the Education Team. It was also pretty neat to see some scrap books which past travellers had given to Maurice after they left. It got our minds going about trying to do something similar. Once dinner was finished we were all given a tour of Maurice’s family farms (one for him, one for Irene, one for Dorris and one for Phlavine his son) before returning to try and finish some more food!

The next morning (Tuesday) we got up early for another beekeeping meeting, this time with the beekeepers themselves. Katie and I recognised that developing a solution would take longer than we had still in the village, so we enlisted the help of some of our other travellers who will be staying on: Victoria, Lisa and Hannah (from the Nutrition Team). It was a bit of a rush to get to the bank since we had requested that Maurice tell them to come early, and they actually did come early. Once there we got to meet with Joshua, Alex and Dorris (Maurice’s mother) who were the only beekeepers that could make it (they are also the most engaged ones). It was a very useful and informative meeting, as we got to hear first-hand about their experiences with the program, and with HCA. We knew that Ayub had missed a meeting that he was supposed to attend (out of his own personal time), but did not realise that he had ignored the attempts of Maurice and the beekeepers to contact him otherwise. We walked through the three options we had been developing, but they seemed most attracted to separating from HCA. Although it would be more uncertain, they seem to have formed a good and productive relationship with a group of other (more experienced) beekeepers in the area who they had paid to come in to show them how to harvest honey.

Since all the hives and equipment are technically all still GIVE’s, as no repayments had been made yet, there are two sides to the project which we want to sort out. The first is a contract or system for the beekeepers to harvest and sell their honey: either through HCA or this other group. The second will be a form of loan repayment, with the goal being that GIVE gets some of the originally invested money back, and that the beekeepers can have formal ownership of the hives and equipment. Due to the lack of success of the project, Katie and I have been given pretty free reign, where any repayments are welcome but at this point not expected. After talking with the Nutrition Team, we decided that it would be fair for the beekeepers to pay back the hives only before getting ownership of all of the equipment. When starting the project, we were given an estimate that each of the hives would produce on average 30kg of honey, and that the beekeepers could reasonably be expected to pay back GIVE 30% of their revenues. Knowing then that the price per kg from HCA (which is lower than the market value) would be roughly 150 KSH (between 150 and 200 KSH), we then came up with an expected value to pay back within 3 years. This is a very generous repayment system considering the original investment, but it creates a win-win situation for both sides (with GIVE getting some of the money back, and the beekeepers finally getting full ownership in a much more tangible / realistic time frame). I don’t know what the original travellers who set up the system would think, but they drifted away from the project pretty quickly after getting back to Canada, which is something I really do not want to do. Especially after seeing what has happened with the beekeeping project.

After the meeting was finished, I rushed into town with Victoria, Hannah and Lisa to pick up the business cards and run some other small errands (including meeting up with a lady who was going to make a skirt for my girlfriend). The trip was a success, and a nice break in some ways. Katie and I had been spending virtually every waking minute together so it was nice every once and a while to split up for a bit. I ended up parting ways with the Nutrition Team girls to head back to the village as they were having a day off to relax in town. I didn’t have time to eat any lunch but I did manage to make it to the bank just before the meeting was supposed to start. Naturally nobody else had showed up yet, not even Maurice, so maybe I could have stopped by at Kaguya for some lunch. This did give Katie and I some time to set up and whole punch all of the documents we were putting into the Board of Directors guidebook. Unfortunately a couple of the Board members were unable to make it but we got started about 45 minutes past when we were supposed to start. One of the Board members (Rose) was sick, and the other one (Joseph) was at the hospital as his twin children were sick. Hopefully they will all get better soon! Joseph was mentioning how important saving was to him because it allowed him to take his children to the hospital when they got sick, so that was a real world example of how saving can change your life...

The Board meeting went well, and they seemed grateful for us having put everything together. We have had a few requests to develop a training manual so that they can refer back to it, and use it if needed to train a new Board member. That will probably take a fair amount of time so Katie and I had been putting it off, but we do want to hear their feedback first so that we can make some adjustments. As the meeting was finishing we got to unveil the business cards we had gotten, and they were a hit! Everyone (including Maurice) seemed to like them, since only professionals really get them. They had the Board member’s name, title, company (Kanyawegi Community Bank) with their phone number, email (a common one which we created for the board) and the GIVE logo. Maurice has been put in charge of dispensing the business cards, but we don’t know how strictly he will act on giving out only 10 cards per month.

Once the meeting was complete we gave ourselves some time to relax and catch our breath before starting some work to prepare for the feedback sessions we were holding the next day. I have been in a lot of feedback sessions in the past through work, so it was interesting to be on the other side of preparing the feedback. Our feedback prepared we then settled down to watch “The Gods Must be Crazy” with the rest of the girls, which is a movie about a coke bottle being dropped out of an airplane that is flying over a bushman territory. They have never seen planes before, let alone a (glass) coke bottle, and assume that it has been sent to them by God. At first the bottle is seen as being amazing for it can be used for many different things, but it can only be used by one person at a time and creates property issues that lead to violence. (One person wants to use it, but another person is, so one of them hits the other). The result was that it gets characterised as being cursed and the man who finds it is tasked with throwing it off the edge of the earth. The rest of the movie is about his journey. It was pretty funny, with a fair amount of “3 stooges” humour. As people started to dose off I tried my hand at doing some more Access before giving up and heading to bed. 

Alright I have to run off for a doctors appointment now so I will leave it at that. Other people were in charge of taking pictures for these few days so I don't have any to put up. There should be lots in my next one though I promise!

Graham

Belated Bank Day

Hello again everyone,

Phew, I am sorry for not getting another post up before I left (I am sitting in the Amsterdam airport on my way home as I write this) but it was quite a hectic week and I was busy every night.

I am full of mixed emotions at leaving, but I feel ready to go home, and to see my friends and family. I am going to (hopefully) be putting up a few more posts over the next couple days that will get you caught up on what happened since I got back to Kanyawegi from the safari and hopefully provide some reflections I have had on my trip. All I will say for now (without trying to sound cliché) is that I will always remember the kindness that the people of Kanyawegi have shown us, and hope to return one day to visit. It was quite moving to hear first-hand how real an impact that our efforts (as an Economic Team and as GIVE) have made in the lives of the community members.

My memory is a little hazy at this point (in terms of chronology) but I will give as good an overview as I can of the past week. The morning after returning from our safari, Katie and I headed to the GIVE office (the bank) to meet up with a representative from Honey Care Africa about our beekeeping project. A few years ago (2009) a beekeeping income generating project was started in the villagers by a couple of the Economic Development team travellers. The concept was that GIVE would provide the capital and organisation for setting up two apiaries (think bee farm) in the village. Then a number of farmers were to be selected to receive the hives, equipment and training from a Kenyan organisation (Honey Care Africa). GIVE was to organise the relationship between the beekeepers and Honey Care Africa (HCA) such that the beekeepers would receive training, a guaranteed market for their honey and occasional technical support. The beekeepers would then supply all of their honey to HCA with 30% of their revenue being paid to GIVE towards the loaned equipment. The project was expensive (compared to most of our project) and not very successful. No honey has been produced over the past three years because of troubles relating to getting the hives colonised. The first year was very dry and since then they have only been able to get a couple hives colonised each year, with no hives making it to the stage where they are ready to be harvested. The problem has been compounded by a lack of expertise by the beekeepers (even after they underwent a fair amount of GIVE sponsored training), and poor coordination between HCA and the beekeepers. The agreement with HCA was to GIVE and not the farmers so there was little incentive for them to communicate directly or for either side to take a lead.

Since the project had been unsuccessful for so long (compared to what we were expecting), it was only a side project for us to try and develop a solution. As a result we put off the project until near the end of our visit, at which point we met up with our representative from HCA, Ayub, at the bank. The discussion was very productive as we got to hear HCA’s side of the story and learn more about our options moving forward. We also see Maurice and Ayub interact together. They are outwardly friendly enough but it is clear that they do not get along from a project standpoint. There was some miscommunication between them and Ayub had backed out of a training session with the beekeepers at the very last minute (after it was already supposed to have started). The three main options which we had were to 1) stay with HCA but sign a written agreement (the original one was verbal only) whereby a HCA employee in the area would come by on a monthly basis to help service and harvest any honey as needed. The main change from the current system is that this employee’s job would be to work directly with the beekeepers to make the project successful. The second option is the same as the first one except that HCA would employ one of the local beekeepers on a part-time basis to fulfill the same job, after receiving additional training. The last option would be to separate completely from HCA and to develop an independent group which sells to other markets the beekeepers find on their own. Katie and I were most interested in the second option (to provide more support / expertise, while retaining the guaranteed market of HCA and creating additional employment in the area), however it would require full support and commitment from both the beekeepers and HCA.

Following that meeting, Katie and I did some prep work for Bank Day on Sunday, before heading into town to see the bank we use to deposit client savings at to sort out some issues. We have been looking into changing banks because the service and functionality of our current bank account has been very disappointing. Kenya can be pretty bureaucratic so the process is a lot slower than we would like, but I have found it very interesting to learn more about how commercial banks function while simultaneously working on the governance structure of such a small bank in the village.

That evening I started to dig into the (basic) computer system we are developing for the bank. One big concern with regards to the bank is that the records are only kept in one place, and on paper, so it is a big security concern for us should something happen to those records. The potential solutions are to either make copies of the records (which would take a lot of time, be expensive and generally inefficient) or to create a database for the records. As a result I decided to try my hand at creating an Access database. Microsoft Access is a database program, which we had learned a little (very little) bit about in class this past year. I had been struggling with creating the database so one of the other travellers brought me an “Access for Dummies” book. So my project was to start working through that book and creating the database, while Katie dug into the guidebook. We decided to create a guidebook which we could leave behind for the Board to reference during the year, with more specific details for example about their role, the communication with us and all the forms they will require.

Saturday was spent working primarily on the guidebook and trying to continue improving Access. Katie made a trip to town and we also shared a call with Liz back in Vancouver. We had a very good discussion about the final steps with the Board and how we wanted to frame our final interactions with them. We decided to push a lot more for learning and personal improvement as motivation for the Board through more extensive feedback, to add to their motivation from the community. As I mentioned we spent the majority of the day working on the guidebook, as we tried to keep working through the big To Do list we had posted in our room.

About to start

Sunday then was Bank Day! We spent the morning completing the final preparations, before spending the entire afternoon at Bank Day. The event was supposed to start at 2pm, so we arrived just after 1 to help with the set up. It was great to see that most of the Board Members were already there setting up the tents, chairs and speaker system. We helped as best we could, but they seemed to know what they were doing so there was not much they needed help with. People slowly started to come at around 2:30.Maurice had been joking that he was going to make us present some entertainment for everyone, which we had brushed aside. However...he wasn’t joking! The third item in the program was entitled: Entertainment, and we were to fill that part. Thankfully we had already been talking about doing the Canadian anthem. To make it more upbeat we created a fully coordinated dance to go along with it. I think we all agree that we should probably not call it a coordinated dance now that we have seen the video of it, but the clients seemed to enjoy it. In return for our singing, the clients followed up with a much better sounding (and tuned!) song for us which was led by Doris (Maurice’s mother). At this point we started, after a speech by Katie and myself to hand out some awards for super savers, bank ambassadors and for Board Members. Super savers for this year were saving more than once every two weeks at the bank, while bank ambassadors were chosen for how many members they convinced to join the bank (that being said they were basically subjectively chosen by Maurice). We also read out the rules and regulations for the Board before they each individually swore an oath on the bible to uphold the rules and to serve the community in their position before they received their certificate.  

Everyone getting seated

Awarding James (our friendly neighbour to the bank) his super saver certificate

It was around this time that we saw some people (mostly Board members) walk off only to return with crates of soda that they promptly started handing out. Katie and I exchanged questioning looks since paying for soda had most certainly not been in the budget, but there was nothing we could do at that point. As it turns out the soda was donated, we think mostly by Board members for the event...they remained pretty quiet about it though since I never got a completely straight answer about who we should thank, which makes the gesture even more special. I find it especially interesting after the tea situation case which we ran during the training.

The Board fully sworn in and the awards handed, we then went through a ton of speeches (Maurice, the Board, clients and the chief), The speeches were quite touching all around. There was time set aside for 6 clients (3 male, 3 female) to speak, to which volunteers quickly made themselves available. All of them offered very genuine thanks to both us as GIVE and the assistant chief for all of the work we had done, and talked about how the bank had changed their lives for the better. A couple members also made it clear to the Board that they were excited for the year ahead, but expecting nothing less than honesty and integrity from them. It was great to see that one of the nominees, Tobias, who had not been elected (he actually lost on a tiebreaker with one of the female members of the board) speak about how happy he was with the board and the elections process. He even made a joke that next year he would have to wear a dress! Tobias clearly cares for the bank and is a very kind man, but at the same time I am very pleased with the people who have been elected to the Board. The board members then each had a short speech to the members thanking them for their votes and talking about the importance of saving or what they were hoping to do this year.

There was then some time for all of the GIVE members who were present to introduce themselves and what they were doing (the Education Team couldn’t make it). This gave all of us to thank the community for welcoming us, and also to briefly advertise for some of the projects we have all been working on. Maurice and the chief then closed out the speeches by talking more about the bank. Maurice focused on the importance of saving, and how to save for your children (such as through creating an account specifically for them). The chief finished everything by first teasing Maurice for speaking for so long, then by discussing the security of the bank. We had asked him to look into ways to legalise the bank for us, and he had gone to the Ministry of Finance to do some research. According to what he was told, the fact that we are a CBO (Community Based Organisation) legally protects us for now, but that we will one day have to become a full bank to be completely safe. To do this will require a lot more capital, and a fee structure to become self-sufficient, but the protection of a CBO is a good step forward. We had not heard anything about his research yet so this was a welcome surprise for us.

Once all the speeches were done, we closed off with a prayer and called the event to a close. With the Board and the other GIVE travellers, we all worked together to take down the tents, put away the chairs and clean up before dancing for a bit together. One of the field officers who works with the Education Team (Kennedy) joked to me that at that point we were “truly working together”. Bank day finally complete we headed back to Kaguya for some dinner and rest, and to meet up with the Education girls. They had left Friday morning (before Katie, Lisa or I got up) to go white water rafting in Uganda for the weekend and unfortunately only got back just as Bank day finished. They had some great stories so we spent a good portion of the evening trading safari stories for rafting stories.

Alright I will leave it at that for now, will try and post again tonight, then tomorrow sometime as well.

Best,

Graham

Safari Adventure Time

Hello again,

Now I will get you caught up on the fun part: the safari!

Alright, well as I left it off we had just caught a matatu from Kisumu to Nakaru. After a bit of a wait for the matatu to fill up with enough people it finally left and we were on our way. The first part of the ride was quite pleasant as it was sunny out, the roads were well paved and we carried easy conversation. About an hour or so in we entered what we think was the rift valley. The road was surrounded on both sides by steep hills and large fields of tea plantations. It was quite beautiful especially once it started to rain, although the road got pretty bumpy at points and the roof started to leak on me (not the end of the world). I found it very interesting along the way to see the different people and how they lived. It was also pretty interesting to see some of the shops which people were running, including a few Hotel-Butchery combinations. Can’t say I would have thought of combining those two types of stores!

Starting out on our adventure!

Fields of tea...and rain

The trip to Nakuru ended up taking much longer than we had expected due to a lot of road work being done so we didn’t end up meeting Simon until around 7pm. Thankfully the matatu driver was accommodating and let us out at a gas station where Simon was waiting for us. At that point we took a taxi with Simon to his house to get settled, meet his wife & child, and have some dinner. His wife Millie was very kind and his son Bryson was adorable. It was great to see that Millie was very good about feeding Bryson well with both breastfeeding and banana porridge. Once dinner was complete we prepared for bed, which consisted of a mattress (which Simon had purchased specifically for us) on the floor. Somehow all three of us managed to get enough space although our feet were hanging out over the end. The girls were a little scared because of a mouse which we saw run past our feet. Personally I found it more amusing than scary, but we used one of our Ipods to play some music by our feet to keep them at bay.

Simon, Millie and Bryson

On Tuesday we woke up early and managed to brave the latrine. It was not the most appealing experience, but had to be done! After some coffee and bread we left for town with a matatu. I was a little caught off guard about how cold it was (hadn’t thought to bring either my sweater or my long pants), but the matatu had a heater which was a pleasant surprise. In town we picked up some water and granola bars for the safari before heading out to meet up with the rest of the people on our safari in Naivasha (the turnoff for the Maasi Mara which is halfway between Nakaru and Nairobi). On the way we passed by what had been a refugee camp following the election violence of 2007, which had been developed in to a formal residential block. I think Habitat for Humanity had some hand in that project because I saw a sign up, which was neat to see considering the volunteer work I did last summer for them in Toronto. We also stopped at a viewing point over one of the lakes we passed to take in the sights and get some pictures.

Taking in the view

Once we eventually made it to the meeting place we had some time to check out the gift shop before eventually saying goodbye to Simon and joining up with the rest of the safari group. On our tour we had Marcin and Anna from Poland along with Owen from Holland. The driver / tour guide was Isaac. Everyone seemed quite pleasant. We then headed off on the nearly 5 hour drive to the Maasi Mara. Along the way I had a good long chat with Lisa, and we also got to see some giraffes and other animal after having stopped for a quick lunch. There was a gift store at the lunch place so I spent some time exploring to figure out prices, but didn’t actually buy anything.

Once we arrived at the Mara we quickly dropped off our stuff and headed into the park for an afternoon game drive. We got very lucky with our sightings as we got to see two cheetahs (apparently there are only 1000 in all of Kenya), some wildebeest, water buffalo, impalas, zebras, giraffes, and even 3 lions on a hunt. Right at the end of the drive we even got to see a herd of elephants, meaning that we had already covered 3 of the big 5. Not bad for a short drive. Once we got back we had dinner together as a group and celebrated what we had been able to see that day. The Polish couple was pretty tired, as were the girls so everyone headed to bed pretty early, although Owen and I ended staying up pretty late talking. He is an interesting man, who works in a global HR (Human Resources) company that helps find workers for companies or events, and as a result gets to interact with many people in different languages. We talked about the financial crisis (since 2007) for a while and I got to learn a lot more about the Dutch political system. He was just finishing up a month long trip all around Kenya to see the country and visit his uncle who lives in Nairobi. He had just broken up a few months ago with a girl he had been dating for 12 years so I think this holiday was part of a purposeful, but brief, chance to reflect on his life back home.

Seeing some giraffes along the way

Thumbs up for being on a safari!

Wednesday was the day of our long safari so we got up fairly early, enjoyed a hot shower and had some breakfast before heading out. We set out the goal of completing the “Big 5” with the leopard and rhino still on our list. We spent the first little while seeing some giraffes from up close, checking out some ostriches and more wildebeest. We then quickly headed off as Isaac had gotten a call that there was a leopard nearby. After a quick, but necessary pit stop at the washroom, we arrived at the tree where the leopard was hanging out just before a few more vans came. The leopard was simply gorgeous, very elegant and had a perfect coat. I forget the exact number but I think Isaac said that there were only 20 or 30 in the entire Maasi Mara, so we got pretty lucky to see one. 

Some wildebeest

Once we had our fill of leopard watching we then proceeded towards the Mara River, stopping on the way to see the border between Tanzania and Kenya. They have a bit of a funny system with a 20 meter ‘no-mans-land’ between the two countries to avoid any disputes. The border is then ‘watched’ by small military bases on either side, about a kilometre from the physical. At the Mara River we had a quick but delicious lunch before getting a tour to see some hippos and crocodiles. The rest of the day was spent seeing some more cheetahs, lions and elephants before heading back to our place. The intention was to then go see the market which we had heard about called the Minyata, but that turned out to be a tourist trap where they tried to get us to pay 1000 Kenyan shillings to enter their village and pay high prices for gift items. It was a little awkward saying that no, we did not want to pay to see their homes and watch them make fire. The word “homes” was pluralized because it sounds like every male takes more than one wife.

Zeebras

Cheetah

Proof that I was there!

I guess they saw something more interesting than us

The leopard hanging out in the tree

The leopard sighting

On your left we have Tanzania, on your right is Kenya!

Hippo prints

A family of elephants

Somebody was angry!

Sunset

We then headed into the nearest town on our own to try and find the market which we had seen the previous day, although they told us that the market only was on Tuesdays. The town was fairly abandoned but we did manage to find a couple stores which were open and selling various Maasi items such as bracelets, necklaces and other trinkets. Once we were satisfied (and realised that it was going to rain very soon) we hurried back to our campsite for dinner and rest. The food both nights was pretty tasty, although more westernised than we had been eating. It did feel good however to finally be able to eat a bit of meat, after having not eaten any for almost two months (aside from the sausages at breakfast on Monday).

The next day we got up extra early for an early morning game drive at 6:30. On the game drive we got to see a few more animals including some more lions and elephants before finding some more lions after they had just made a kill. We got the privilege of getting to watch and listen to them eat the animal they had caught (I forget the name of it).It was a little disturbing but fascinating at the same time. Once we had our fill (they were still eating) we headed back from some breakfast and to pack up. We ended up leaving at 10 am towards Nakuru, stopping along the way for some lunch, shopping and to switch vans. In Nakuru we met up with Simon and got on the matatu shuttle back to Kisumu (after we had a bit of a scare due to Lisa forgetting her wallet with everything in it in the car we had taken from Naivasha to Nakaru). Thankfully she managed to find it. While Katie and I were waiting we got talking with a man walking by us who as it turned out had hosted some GIVE travellers in the past while they were going on one of Simon’s safaris. Small world.

Watching over their lands

Young lion protecting his prey

Katie, myself, Lisa, Isaac, Owen, Anna and Marcin

The matatu which we had tried to get had unfortunately already left so we got stuck on a 7pm shuttle. It was already getting dark as we left, which did sketch us out a little bit. I tried to get Katie and Lisa to agree to sleeping in shifts but Lisa got knocked out by the Gravol she had taken for her stomach pretty quickly and Katie refused to cooperate. As it turned out Katie and I stayed up the whole time, although she wasn’t very happy with me following my attempts to encourage her to get some rest. We eventually arrived back in Kisumu around 12 at night, which was much later than we had originally planned. We had set it up for Maurice to meet us in town with a driver which we had a connection to (the brother in law of the translator we had been using for the board training sessions). At first we brushed him off fairly rudely since there were a lot of people trying to get us to go with them or ask us for money, but once he mentioned Maurice’s name we reluctantly followed him. We only really relaxed once we saw Maurice ourselves and got in the car for the quick ride back to Kaguya. I felt bad about being so cold to Sally’s brother in law, but it was hard to know who to trust, and it is better to be safe than sorry.

Once we got back home we said goodbye to Maurice for the night, and were greeted by Victoria who had very generously stayed up to wait for us and serve us some much needed dinner. It was fun to catch up with her and hear about all we had missed in addition to sharing all of our stories.

Anyways that is all the writing I can manage for now, tis bank day tomorrow (Sunday afternoon) so I had better get some sleep. Hope all is well wherever you are when you read this post,

Cheers,

Graham

Pre-Safari Adventures

Hello again everyone!

Made it back from the safari safe and sound, sorry that I couldn’t update the blog until now, we have been playing catch up since we got back.

Okay so I will give you a quick run through of what has happened over the past 7 days, and will hopefully get lots of pictures in there too.

Last Friday Katie, Lisa, Victoria and I headed in to town for a rapid fire visit to pick up groceries and run some other errands before Lisa and Victoria stopped by the airport to pick up Robyn, Elisa and Hannah from the airport. Thankfully Katie and I somehow managed to bring all of the groceries home with us, although it took us a while to detach ourselves from the matatu on the way out! It did feel much better to have the kitchen well stocked again, even though I doubt that it will last very long now that there are 10 of us here. Once we got home we washed the shirts for the soccer tournament on Saturday and relaxed until the new girls arrived. We had only met them once or twice before coming so it was fun to finally truly get to meet them. (It was also helpful to have them actually introduce themselves to other people since I had Robyn and Elisa mixed up in my memory!) After we ate lunch and showed them around the house they headed into Obambo to meet Maurice, unfortunately while Katie and I had to stay back to do more work.

That afternoon once everyone got back they took a quick nap before we all settled down to some dinner and welcome cake for the new arrivals. To cap off the night we started our preparations for the soccer tournament the next day by having the education girls run us through the condom demonstration. Needless to say that lesson was a pretty funny affaire! It is hard to keep a straight face while working our way through the 12 (yes 12) steps to using a condom correctly.

After making a few welcome calls back home I headed off to bed to get some rest before the soccer tournament on Saturday. We got up bright and early to head out as a group. Since we are short on bikes currently, 7 of us had to make the ~45 minute walk over to the school. This did give us a chance to talk with Hannah, Elisa and Robyn a bit more, they are very friendly and easy to talk with. At the soccer tournament we helped set up all the posters and tables before playing some keep-up with the referees, linesmen and Kennedy. It felt really good to kick a ball about again. I also got to find out that Robyn is a pretty good player along with Victoria as both used to play a fair amount. Once the games got started we actually didn’t have much to do other than talk with some of the kids not playing and making sure that things stayed more or less on schedule.

Some of the children checking out our informational posters

Getting all set up

Big crowd!

Time to play!

Allie hard at work

It was pretty amazing though to see them all playing barefoot, the quality of the games was not super high but I think that is mainly due to the lack of equipment, a good pitch and trained coaches. Much of the play was in the air or some kind of boot and chase, but with spurts of good passing play. Most of the games ended up going to a penalty shootout unfortunately since most teams struggled to score. The visiting schools won all the games so the crowd was a little subdued but it was neat to see everyone’s reactions to each penalty kick. Once the first 4 games had been completed we ran the condom demonstration activity where we showed everyone how to do it before getting some volunteers to help out. It was very good to see how many people were interested in trying and how many people (guys especially) that came up to ask questions afterwards. In some ways it was a little worrying to see how proficient some of the younger students were at putting the condom on the ‘model’, but I would prefer that they know how than not.

Sarah, Chaviva and Allie walking through the 12 steps

Success!

Once the demonstration was completed we hung out while watching the last games before cleaning everything up and heading back home. We had been planning on going to sleep on the rocks at Kitmaki that night but it was threatening to rain so we decided to postpone it until another time (a good decision in the end). That night Katie and I were pretty unproductive due to tiredness but decided to get up early the next day to finish up some more work.

More football

Time to relax with our new friends

As I mentioned, Sunday became a working day for us. The biggest thing remaining with regards to the board is that we are having a close up meeting on the Tuesday before we leave to close out any lose ends and give them a guidebook which we are going to put together. This will likely be our last or one of our last touch points with them before we leave, and should set the stage for everything that will happen during the year. Therefore we want to be very thoughtful with what we put in there and how we present it. We decided to get as much of this done before we were to leave on Monday for the safari so that Liz could take a look at them for us. That evening after a nice dinner Katie (finally) admitted that she had been feeling sick so I convinced her to get an early night’s sleep while I finished off the work we had to do. Thankfully she felt a lot better in the morning, but I think all the hard work we had been doing was getting to her. In addition to working that night I got sidetracked on a long conversation with Victoria which I really enjoyed. Going to sleep early is clearly not my forte! My brother Michael’s friends were convinced after living with him for a couple years that ‘Clarks’ don’t need sleep, and a few of the girls seem to agree with that sentiment! If only I could replicate this trend during the school year I would be much better off for school.

Time to prepare breakfast

Monday morning was a lot of fun, we invited Maurice, Pamela and Syprose over for an early morning surprise breakfast. I made crêpes and chicken sausages (with maple syrup) while Victoria made french toast and Allie made scrambled eggs. We all then settled down to the feast together with all 13 of us crowded around the table. Once all the food was finished Maurice convinced us to partake in some dancing, which was a lot of fun. Once we were fully danced out Katie took a look over the work I had done while I packed, got ready to leave and sent out a couple final emails. Once finished we then rushed out the door to head into town for a couple final errands and to catch the matatu to Nakaru. In town we had some lunch and picked up some last minute supplies before heading over to the matatu stand. Alas I continue to struggle with my attempts to withdraw money so I will have to be extra stingy for my last couple weeks here.

Time to feast

Time to dance...

and jump!

Okay I will leave it at that for now to talk about the safari shortly. I will need some time to sort through all the many pictures I took. For now I will simply say that it was amazing and we got very lucky with our animal sightings, although the transport on the way there, while there and on the way back was a little uncomfortable. We are home now safe and sound though.

Best,

Graham

Ps. I apologise in advance for my funny use of verb tenses, I tried to fix them as best as possible but probably missed a few