TravelStream™ news feed for member jdekoz on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/jdekoz en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 11 Aug 2005 03:37:45 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1123745220/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1123745220/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1123745220/tpod.html Thu, 11 Aug 2005 03:37:45 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Nairobi, Kenya

So we are closing up shop here and I have to admit that I can’t wait to get out. I miss loved ones and family, for sure. I am excited for this coming year and the next step of working towards leveraging this experience into something resembling a career. Reliable electricity, phone service, warm showers, no daily malaria pills to take...all these trappings of home are missed as well. However, I am also just done with being here.

The little idiosyncrasies and quirks that were charming and alluring have become exhaustingly exasperating. Top of that list? Standing out and being noticeable EVERYWHERE and ALL THE TIME. I can't even wish super-fame on my worst enemies. Kids, and even some adults, staring and muttering or even yelling “mzungu.” Then the constant follow up: the juvenile I-just-saw-a-white-person mantra “How are you” being yelled, not even as a real question, incessantly, repeatedly even if you answer in English, in Kiswahili, in Spanish, in French—just doesn’t matter. I am convinced a significant proportion of the kids chanting “how are you?”, “how are you?”, “how are you?”, “how are you?”, “how are you?”, “how are you?”, “how are you?” don’t even know what it means. The cuteness factor wore off a couple weeks ago and I can’t wait to walk around and NOT be noticed. Anonymity is such an underappreciated luxury.

The project has already slid into its next phase and we are now putting systems in place to continue the work without us. Our work was successful in training a strong group in both the rural and urban communities we worked in (Nyota and Kibera, respectively) to identify resources and opportunities and in how to identify and partner with organizations and companies who can be linked to their business ideas and help get them off the ground.

In Kibera, we have a few entrepreneurial youth groups who will be pursuing an extension of their current business only with the added leverage of SCJ’s involvement and products. These groups are already performing trash-pickups, carpet cleaning and a few other home-cleanliness (or “environmental” as they like to say) services. The idea we co-created was that SCJ supply them with training and some marketing support and the groups would start to provide services into the homes of their clients based on SCJ products: insect control, air freshening, toilet/latrine cleaning. The youth groups increase their income, add employment, and get help “professionalizing.” SCJ gets an entry point and a new model to crack into a market it has never had any success with: the over 1 million inhabitants of informal settlements in/around Nairobi. More importantly, a relationship is being forged and developed that could lead into areas not yet dreamed of in terms of distribution models, promotion, product development...who knows? As the youth groups learn more about SCJ and vice versa, and both figure out how to communicate well with the other, the possibilities for innovation and "win-win" solutions to real business, environmental and social problems are limitless. [This info about the specific SCJ model being created here is confidential, by the way, so please don’t go telling Unilever or P&G!...or anyone else.]

That our work has successfully planted a seed is the exciting part! It is crucial that we are careful however. Too much money or attention too fast without the proper training, systems and, quite frankly, time to process the changes could split the groups apart. The pilot will run over the next 9 months and will include a crucial training component and will bring the company and the groups together regularly to work out how to best move forward. It has been tough for us, now suddenly somewhat on the outside of the action, to let go but let go we must...at least to some degree. It will be exciting to watch this project grow and metamorphosize over the coming year. There is an outside chance that I might be able to be part of a team that comes back, a tantalizing option, but one I’m not even ready to think about yet.

For me, the steam is out of this experience and I am just being pulled along by logistical momentum. I need time to recharge a little. There is still some work to be done, tying off loose ends, but my mind is already elsewhere—mainly the Barcelona airport where T and I will be meeting in roughly twenty three hours. My thoughts are also of little-armed hugs from nephews, tranquil conversations with my sister on the beach, embracing my dad and smelling the faint residue of early-morning cigarettes, saying “good night” to my mom knowing we’ll be having a leisurely breakfast in a handful of hours-- en bref: HOME.

Kenya has been fantastic, has opened new windows, has expanded my reality, has clarified things for me, but now is the time to go. Time to go and explore those new things, realities, windows, fantasies.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122797520/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122797520/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122797520/tpod.html Sun, 31 Jul 2005 04:14:27 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Nairobi, Kenya

We held our idea generation workshop in the rural area this Tuesday and Wednesday (July 26th and 27th) and it was, I think all would agree, a success. I should temper that with some detail about our somewhat reduced expectations. Through our meetings last week with Mark and Scott from SCJ corporate, we had come to the realization that a near-term business opportunity for SCJ (Corporate or Kenya) was not likely to come out of our work in the Nyota settlement. More pointedly, it became clear that they were not all that interested in rural opportunities and would probably be stretched (in terms of organizational resources and strategic thinking) in exploring and piloting the opportunities coming out of our work in Nairobi, without rural "cats to skin."

So we went into the two-days not expecting a major win for SCJ but expecting we could develop some great ideas and business opportunities for the community and our other partners. On that front, I think we succeeded doubly. Erik came up to assist Catherine and me and was instrumental. He facilitated masterfully (despite my trying to "help" and co-facilitate, probably slowing him down!) and we concluded with two implementable ideas and a lot of energy around them from community members and NGO partners.

During our stays and work in the area, we identified a half-dozen community members who we felt had the entrepreneurial spirit, innovative capability, empathy, drive, language capabilities (Kiswahili is a second language to most, after their tribe's tongue, and we considered decent English a bonus) and connections to other groups that would make them good participants in the idea generation workshop as well as capable of implementation. We also pulled together NGO partners with operations in the area or specific capabilities that might be helpful or required by the community. We brought some of the first bank and MFI reps to the area and it was great to see everyone connecting and realizing opportunities even before the workshop actually began. In attendance we had:
· Patrick (local young entrepreneurial farmer and youth leader)
· Martha (local young female farmer and "café" owner/operator)
· Isaya (an older "mze" farmer who is very experimental and well respected for his farming skill) [Pamoja Pioneer member]
· Hannah (an older female farmer who runs her own farm) [Pamoja Pioneer member]
· Kimani (Ministry of Ag rep, local church leader, respected farmer, head of dairy coop, our main local contact)
· Ken (local carpenter and McGyver-esque handy-guy, youth educator)
· Njeri (PRA expert, Egerton Univ. Economist)
· Dennis (ApproTEC Impact Monitoring Manager)
· Vincent (ApproTEC driver, former PA in Thika area)
· Janet (ITDG office manager, masters student w/ dissertation on Micro-Enterprise Creation for Poverty Alleviation)
· Joseph (SCJ Kenya second-in-command and distribution manager)
· Justin (Kibera Youth Self Help Group and local Molo farm owner)
· Beatrice & Benson (K-Rep bank Nakuru District business development manager) [Beatrice first day, Benson second day]
· David (Faulu MFI organization local rep) [second day only]
· Erik, Catherine and Justin

The workshop was held at the same school as our PRA but some recent rain made getting there very interesting (we thought we might be walking the last 1+km instead of losing the van in some daunting mud but Vinny got us through). We started by just letting everyone mingle (while we set things up) and then kicked things off with introductions making sure to keep everyone standing instead of sitting formally in the desk/benches of the classroom. It was clear that the ice had not completely broken but we had to get into the meat of our work. We started with a break out discussion (three groups of 5) around the question "what would a successful business opportunity from this workshop do/look like?" The idea here was to garner some sense of success criteria, evaluation metrics, and different expectations in the room while simultaneously getting everyone into working in their teams and familiar with the break-out/present/feedback/Q&A work we'd be doing for the next two days. Catherine is holding the original notes hostage in Nakuru but the key takeaways from this first exercise included "a successful business should..."
· Use local resources (labor, natural resources, knowledge/skills)
· Create employment
· Be sustainable (generate income, be self-funding, positive effect on environment and community)
· Opportunities for learning (create passion in its employees)
· Leverage new technology
· Generate additional business(es)

We then broke for lunch at Martha's "café" which barely fit the entire group but made sense being within walking distance of the site. I was really pleased to hear everyone seemingly enjoying each others' company, discussing each others' work and connecting more deeply. Erik and I spoke on the walk back to the school and realized that even if nothing else came from the workshop simply bringing this group together had created value and acted as a catalyst for various opportunities.

Fighting the post-lunch lull by forcing our energy up another notch, we embarked on a resource listing exercise. Everyone was given pink and green cards and asked to list their personal skills, resources, capabilities, etc. on the green cards and, likewise, those of their organization or community on the pink cards. From there, we then asked them to create a team profile that outlined the skills, resources, knowledge of their team. We explained to them that they would be using these cards as building blocks for business ideas tomorrow and that detail was crucial. This exercise went well but required a couple iterations after some group feedback to focus them on the type of information that would be useful and the level of detail necessary. It was remarkable how difficult it was to get detail but we pushed them and gave them examples which got the detail flowing. For example, we had to take a card that said "good farmer" and drill down to get cards that had the more granular skills like "soil analysis," "knowledge of crops" and "experience with agrochemicals." This exercise and its iterations concluded the day's work and we had tea and biscuits as everyone relaxed and seemed happy with their work. We BoP folks, however, were a bit nervous about the distance we had to cover in the next day from the resource cards to detailed, implementable, mutual-value creating business ideas.

We spent the night making large summary flip-charts of the day's results, tweaking the output just a little to better lead the groups towards the desired outcome, and copying hundreds of resource cards so that each group would have a full set from everyone else.

Day two got off to a horrible start as our van hit a school-child on our way out of Nakuru at dawn. [See previous log for the story there.] The child was fine but the image of a seven year old skidding a couple meters across the tarmac completely limp is forever scarred onto my mind. There was nothing Vinny could have done to avoid the child-he just bolted across the street without looking right in front of us. We brought the child to the hospital and soon got the team ferried to the site. We were about an hour behind schedule and did some quick agenda manipulations to make sure we would still conclude in time to get those driving the 3-4 hours to Nairobi that night on the road by 4:00. We were short both Vinny and Dennis who were stuck in Nakuru dealing with parents and police and decided to work in two groups rather than three very small groups.

We started with a review of the success criteria we had developed as a team the day before to frame the day's work correctly and to get everyone thinking and working together again. We also gave them time to look over all the resource cards to re-familiarize themselves with the "building blocks" available to them. With the day's first exercise we threw them into the deep end and asked them to develop 2-3 business ideas using the resource cards and with our success criteria in mind. We framed their presentation of their ideas with three questions to answer:
1. What needs are being met by the business?
2. What value is created and for whom?
3. What challenges or obstacles are there in starting this business?

Both groups were off and running with wide participation and great energy. In fact, it was tough to stop them and get them thinking about their presentations! I was relieved and proud as the groups outlined three ideas that were deemed worthy of presentation. There were no immediate opportunities there for SCJ but most of the partners in the room had a role to play that would bring them value. [If SCJ were to leverage its insect control knowledge to create an organic pesticide or to work out a Ziploc-branded fruit preserve container of retail quality, we might some opportunities for them.] They presented their ideas to the group before lunch and, as they filed out of the room to walk to the café, we asked them to choose one business to work on during the afternoon, thus self-selecting into new groups. The timing was perfect as everyone left for lunch knowing what they would be working on and with whom. The business ideas presented were (the first two were selected for further work in the afternoon):
· Organic Fertilizer Company
· Community Organic Farm
· Fruit Farming and Processing

As we came back into the room after lunch, there was very little need for encouragement as the teams were clearly excited about developing their ideas and got to work. As the teams worked on integrating the feedback and working through implementation plans, rain started to fall in earnest against the steel roof and thunder rolled across the hills. Erik and I looked at each other with concern, knowing that enough rain would make it hard or impossible to drive out of the area. Mother Nature responded with a solid sheet of rain rapping loudly across the roof.

As the groups finished up and presented their work the value of having experienced business people (Joseph from SCJ and the MFI bankers) was clear in the organization and level of detail. The presentations included more detail on the business, its start-up and operations as well as some great thinking regarding key obstacles and strategies to overcome them. One group had even assigned responsibilities to each member and worked out a timetable for implementation. The group pushed each team with feedback and great questions and it was clear that most members of each team were committed to seeing the ideas to fruition.

The organic fertilizer business will employ local youth (who lack employment and activity) to collect organic matter and manure from the area and collect it in a location to be determined. ITDG and Ken will work to build the latest in composting technology that can make organic fertilizer from good organic matter in a matter of 3-4 months. Kimani from the Min. of Ag. and Egerton University are to be involved in testing and certifying the product. Local labor and jute bags (some of which are no longer useable for potatoes) will be used in packaging. Initially, the fertilizer will be sold locally with a demonstration farm(s) to show the benefits of the organic fertilizer. Moving to scale and exporting the idea to other areas were part of the discussion as well. This initiative was partly being led by Justin from Kibera and may struggle without him pushing it along. However, Ken and Janet seemed committed to it and both are working in the area and could drive start-up. A key challenge identified by the group will be the lag time between collection of organic matter and income generation from selling the resulting organic fertilizer. No solid solution emerged from our discussion other than making sure everyone involved understood and expected the initial delay in the business' cash flows.

The community organic farm business would bring together farmers who would each select a portion of their land to dedicate to organic, cash-crop, export (?) farming. Crops like snow peas, stinging nettles and fresh peas were identified as having potential in terms of ag viability, stable price, demand, etc. The organization would be owned by its farmer/shareholders based on the land and effort they put into the business. ITDG would be involved in sourcing quality seeds, technology transfer and marketing in Europe. [I also met a woman last night from CARE who may be able to help identify foreign markets.] ApproTEC's technologies would be used for irrigation and, perhaps, some on-farm processing. One crucial challenge identified for this idea will be organizational cohesion. Farmer coops have a bad history in this area and keeping groups together is a leadership challenge. My hope is that Kimani, as a church leader and trusted ag advisor to farmers in the area, will be able to manage the feat.

We learned a lot during the workshop and the value of the urban approach, with multiple lead-in and "training" meetings before the actual workshop, was clear. These meetings give the participants time and experience with the type of work we are asking of them-something very foreign to most. The lead-in meetings also train everyone in how to connect with the others and get them comfortable with the diverse backgrounds in the room and how to productively combine them. However, some very interesting challenges exist in trying to implement this approach in a rural area:
· Regular communications with participants is difficult or impossible
· In remote areas, distance and transportation is a significant challenge and expense for all involved (and enough rain can make it impossible)
· Time dedicated to meetings must be limited by the understanding that it is time NOT spent on participants' farms

I am of the opinion that had we focused on community identification during our homestay and extended the time we had in the rural area, we may have been able to better define the communities we wanted to work with. The Protocol's call for a "base-camp" might have also facilitated communication, regular meetings and implementation but I can not imagine how we would have established a central base-camp given the time and resources we had. By working with communities/groups that already had natural connections through extended family, proximity, common interests or shared activities several of our challenges might have been addressed:
· Reduced distance between home and meeting sites
· Facilitate communications and meeting organization with word-of-mouth
· Reduce the amount of introductory and team-building necessary
· Implementation of ideas might have been facilitated by strong bonds within groups

That said, this approach might also raise issues like:
· Limited diversity of opinions and ideas collected
· Perceived exclusivity of new business ideas (could also be positive for implementation)
· Putting the MNC BoP team in the uncomfortable position of choosing with whom to work

I am now in Nairobi and am looking forward to the rural workshops as another chance to be involved in truly creative group work and to see how a different approach might work. I will also focus on "creating the ecosystem" for the plans we developed in the rural area and for future BoP work. I'll be networking with various organizations and individuals who may be valuable for us and who may find value in our approach and work. It is a strange sensation to know our work here is wrapping up. I am looking forward to being home (hot showers, salads, etc) and to seeing loved ones but am simultaneously sad to leave the smiles, generosity and energy I have found here. I predict a longing for Kenya and BoP field-work will flavor my work back in Ithaca this fall but I would not trade this experience and am so thankful for having had this opportunity.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122797040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122797040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122797040/tpod.html Sun, 31 Jul 2005 04:07:02 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Nakuru, Kenya

I will never forget the horror of a child disappearing behind the hood of a car. He bolted without looking in front of us-we had no hope of stopping-and for an eternal split second I couldn't see him. My heart held its breath as my body lurched forward with braking momentum. I looked out the side window praying against all odds that he'd squeezed by . . . dull thud . . . singeing inhale and then I saw him. A site branded to my mind never to be forgotten and not yet softened in its mental recurrence. His little limp body skidding across the tarmac on his head and book bag, little bare legs dragging softly. We were out and around the van before I exhaled my terrified gasp. A bystander was already over the boy's body. I saw his legs lying at what seemed off angles. Before I could stop them they had picked him up briskly. I heard Erik yell "careful" and I put my hand out to support what could have been a damaged neck. My hand recoiled as they took him past me to our van and I saw the blood. Barely visible on his little close-cut black head, the blood caught the morning sun and my mind flashed "UNIVERSAL PRECAUTIONS." As they lay him into the van I heard him cry, the first sign of life-I breathed and my worst fears dissolved. Erik gave up a towel to stem the bleeding from his head and we sped off as the door closed. The witness who had picked up the boy, an older gentleman with a grey-specked straggly beard, had jumped in with him and was talking to him. Justin from KYSG was leaning over him and trying to soothe him. I could see nothing and was desperately reading faces and listening to voice tones for information. The boy was crying steadily now, a welcome sign of consciousness and hope. Erik's face looked relieved so I asked and he confirmed-it didn't seem that bad.

We sped to the hospital. I called Catherine at the hotel and hastily explained what had happened: we'd be late for our conclusionary idea-generation workshop. As I said it though, I could care less about the culmination of a month's work. Perspective lay across the seat in front of me, barely older than my own nephew Kozmo, bleeding, crying, in shock. We pulled into the hospital, staff barely awake before seven, and the boy was in fighting form. He kicked and shrieked and wailed, petrified of injections, pleading at the limit of his lungs to be brought home, to be brought to school, to be left alone. This kid had just been bounced off our hood and sent skidding 2 meters on his head and was now giving the hospital staff, and us, hell. At that point I was pretty sure he'd be OK.

Catherine showed up in Joseph from SCJ's car now full of NGO and other partners whom we were driving to meet when we had our accident. We were still shaken and Catherine switched us into business-mode. We reworked the agenda and sent a car-full ahead the 90 minutes to the site. I would follow with Justin from KYSG in a taxi once we had a strategy for dealing with the boy's parents and the police. Kabi's uncle, a head officer in the Nairobi police, helped enormously with the police issue and I left trusting that smooth-talking Vincent and soft-mannered Dennis could handle this better without me. We left them as the X-ray machine was warming up.

Everything would work out, despite a police threat to impound the vehicle for "inspection" and a sobbing mother. The police quickly cleared the way once Kabi's uncle rang the local chief and the parents were most reasonable once emotions calmed and the rapid, cover everything medical care was clear and showed no lasting injuries. I was shaken for hours, a cottony near-nauseous sensation creeping into my chest anytime the image of that little limp body skidded across my mind. That image has left a scar that still affects me when I think of it. Then I remember the spirit of that child and am reassured: bleeding from his head and fighting off doctors and nurses and, I can only presume, saying not-so-nice things about us-"these crazy wazungu knocked the hell out of me and kidnapped me to torture me at a private hospital!" He'd be OK. We'd be OK.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122531180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122531180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1122531180/tpod.html Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:33:41 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Nakuru, Kenya

This summer it has never been obvious where work and play start or stop. I have been amazed at how willing I have been to participate in and indeed augment this work/play fusion. In the past, I have been a vicious defender of work/play balance and have long prided myself on being able to work intensely in concentrated time and place in order to maximize "play" time and place. As I think of it, perhaps it wasn't work/play balance that I sought, but rather work-time minimization and play-time maximization.

This summer however, those boundaries have melted as great friendships, travel, adventure, discovery and fascinating conversations have permeated both work and play. Sitting as a team discussing theories of how companies can engage with developing communities or discussing the details of what we learned that day about making a living as a Kenyan are both work and pleasure. There is no mental time-clock to punch because it would be impossible to know when I was clocking in or out. Of course, when Tatiana and I stole off for a long Birthday weekend in Lamu, on the very Northern coast of Kenya, that was very clearly "punched-out" time. Even then, however, our conversations often flowed towards "work" and what we'd been doing and we were about to do. That didn't happen when I was consulting-somehow Heineken's anti-InterBev competitive strategy was not fodder for a great many interesting conversations outside the office.

It has yet to be seen whether this summer will lead to a career in BoP Protocol or related work, something I would welcome, but at least for these three months I have met my goal of creating a career that combines continuous learning, regular challenge, creativity, sustainability, business, travel, and working with colleagues of the highest caliber.

My objective with this entry (most, you'll surely be aware, do not actually have objectives!) is to provide some insight into the work we've been doing and some of my related thoughts. It occurred to me that my logs have been accounts of experiences, all part of the work, but that it would be interesting to take the time to lay out a broader account of the work we've been doing. I did not spend time polishing it so please forgive me if it lacks flow.

Our thinking with regards to our work and our ability to present it succinctly has improved and continues to evolve. The introduction I wrote in the first of my Kenya logs had the right components but I wanted to offer a more refined explanation, one we have been using recently.

The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Protocol is a process framework for building partnerships between multinational corporations (MNCs) and BoP communities in order to develop a deep understanding of community needs and to generate new mutually-beneficial income-generating opportunities. The organization that created it, the BoP Learning Lab, is made up of partners and people with very different backgrounds, knowledge and experiences. For instance, the group includes NGOs like the microfinance pioneers Gramean Bank and World Resource Institute. Our corporate partners are TetraPak, H.P., Nike, and S.C. Johnson. The aim of our work is to combine the knowledge, experience and strength of local communities, our corporate partners and in-country partners to jointly create new business opportunities for mutual value creation.

Kenya has been chosen as the first place to pilot this approach. Our original partners in Kenya are S.C. Johnson (also our most important single sponsor) and ApproTEC/KickStart who have been instrumental in enabling our work in Kenya. We have also created a network of partners/contacts while here, including:
· Carolina for Kibera: an incredible organization working in East Africa's largest slum
· Egerton University: where we were trained in Participatory Rural Appraisal
· Ministry of Agriculture Extension Office: who has helped us tremendously in rural areas
· Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG)
· CARE: the world's second (or third?) largest NGO
· Pyrethrum Board of Kenya: a parastatal semi-government organization (aka: "necessary evil") which, by law, must buy and sell all Kenyan pyrethrum
· Pamoja Pioneers Self-Help Group: a self-formed group of 32 farmers in the Nyota Settlement interested in organic farming and improving their technical knowledge

Our objectives this summer and in working with communities through the BoP Protocol are:
· To understand the needs and challenges within the local community
· To understand the strengths and resources of the local community
· To work together with the local community in creating new business opportunities
· To bring together a diverse network of partners that can support the new businesses as they are implemented

However, before we got neck-deep in community engagement, we had to pay our dues the way only MBAs (and an anthropologist) can: consulting services. Both our main partners had previously asked (demanded?) for some basic consulting services as an assurance that they would reap some value from hosting us. Where was the trust that this BoP stuff would be valuable in itself!? Anyway, we split into two teams to investigate SCJ's distribution systems and evaluate KickStart's marketing strategies. We gave ourselves two weeks while we were still just getting used to Kenya to do this work and, for the most part, it was not a serious challenge. It did give us something to do while we got acclimated and kept us from jumping right into the BoP Protocol work before we had some semblance of a clue as to how things worked in Kenya.

I was on the KckStart team which meant I did a week of interviews at their headquarters to get a sense for the organization (yes, a SWOT was in the back of my mind, I admit) and then another week riding with their Impact Monitoring and Technology Development groups as they performed their field work. These field visits were great in giving us a sense for farmers' issues, the variety of farming communities and some of the solutions/coping strategies being applied to the challenges facing small-scale Kenyan farmers. We presented preliminary findings from this work to KickStart leadership last week and they seemed pleased with the results. We'll do some more analysis and number-crunching in the fall but, it is my opinion that we have already delivered the value they were so concerned with securing as we discussed our work plan ahead of time.

To do the bulk of our work of testing the Protocol by engaging the community, we split up into two teams, one rural and one urban: two very different but connected types of communities. The urban team (Erik, Patrick and Kabi) has been working in Kibera, East Africa's largest slum of roughly one million inhabitants. They have also recently branched out into some other slums. The rural team (Catherine, Tatiana and myself) has been working in the Nyota Settlement. This site was chosen as the focal area for our 4 week engagement because SC Johnson has a particular interest in Kenyan pyrethrum (SCJ is one of Kenya's largest py buyers) and Nyota has traditionally been a pyrethrum-growing area. It soon became clear that this area was not the poorest, by a long mark, farming area in Kenya. Nonetheless, we were committed to working there and opportunities were still rampant. One of the challenges (or saving graces?) of this area is that it is well off enough to not be a priority area for development NGOs. It was both strange and relieving to never see the ubiquitous white Land Cruisers with TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) on the doors in this area. Most of the homes I visited, I was the first white person to ever step over the threshold. That in an of itself created an unforeseen tension and pressure to give everyone a respectful amount of time while also trying to keep my work in mind and balancing those with spending significant time with the specific family/community where I was living. Some egos had to be bruised and feelings slightly hurt (eggs and omelets?), but overall I think I managed to strike an equilibrium.

Our engagement with the Nyota community began with a week-long homestay which I have already written about elsewhere. The homestay was crucial in spending enough time within a small area and with one family to build the trust necessary to start to be able to understand life there (i.e.: gather rich data) and read between the lines of what we were being told. The experience was invaluable in all of our work that followed, almost like a Rosetta Stone to life in the Nyota Settlement. The week after our homestay, we held a three-day Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) meeting (July 5-7) to engage the community in identifying its strengths, resources, and problems as well as to determine potential income-generating solutions. We had over 250 community members attend each day's meeting which created a significant challenge. Catherine and I relied heavily on Kimani, a trusted contact from the Ministry of Ag, to help us manage this overgrown group and facilitate the exercises. We could not have predicted such popularity but in retrospect we should have done a lot more work in tightly defining the community and the individuals with whom we wanted to engage. It also became clear in retrospect that PRA was not a tool we could "plug and play" into the BoP Protocol work. Its roots are in community development work and NGO involvement and it is not well suited to seeking business opportunities. The spirit of PRA, that outsiders should mainly be facilitators and partners rather than drivers of solutions, is invaluable and lies at the heart of the BoP work. However, working through three days of PRA lead us to broad community-level problems and solutions, things like better roads or roof catchment systems, that did not lead to clear business opportunities or ways for MNCs to get involved productively and profitably in the community.

To successfully engage the community and to facilitate community dialogue and co-creation with companies requires training for all involved. Communities need training in how to speak to companies about opportunities, not just problems. Companies need training in how to communicate with community organizations who are not versed in laying out issues and opportunities in business terms. The urban team has been experimenting with these concepts quite successfully with a "community" of youth groups focused on garbage collection, recycling and composting for cash. These groups are already focused on income-generation in their activities and some are remarkably sophisticated in their "business" thinking. Patrick described how one group leader was half way through an SWOT analysis as they walked along a mud path before Patrick realized the structure and enquired incredulously. The response: "Well, yes, of course, it is a SWOT analysis." Just today (Thursday, July 27th) we completed a two-day idea generation workshop in Nyota, the rural area, that, with some less then gently facilitation by Erik and, less professionally, myself, ended up a great success. We had innovative and entrepreneurial community members, several local NGO partners, two micro-finance banks and Joseph (second-in-command for SCJ Kenya) all in a crumbling, cold, drafty, borrowed classroom for two days. We pushed hard and forged two great business ideas involving most of the participants and all indications that the groups formed in the meeting were intent on implementation.

Sitting through several farmers' meetings, trying to organize and run a few of our own and observing the leaders of this community, it has become painfully clear that the spirit of the Protocol is light-years from the typical spirit of meetings in Kenya. One great challenge in our work has been to get open, participative and egalitarian interaction in groups. The leaders, especially those insecure, self-appointed leaders like James, are wont to let go and NOT lead or conclude meetings. Women rarely speak up in coed groups. Young adults are not likely to come to meetings at all, let alone participate. When we try to create a circular seating arrangement, people automatically reshape the room (or field, as the case was a couple times) to position the "audience" facing the "lecturers" who they assume to be the white folks or the chairmen/leaders of whatever group(s) brought them there. During meetings, speech immediately becomes very formal with most leaders clearly practiced in speech-giving and highly capable of delivering remarkably well-structured (if WAY too long) speeches. Everyone automatically starts referring to each other by their position: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Treasurer, etc. The ironic comedy of parliamentary meeting procedure, official titles and stiff, formal speech all taking place as everyone sits on logs in a cow-patty strewn paddock is perplexing, exhausting and hysterical.

In one of our preparatory meetings (the one in the cow-patty filed), James made sure to sit next to Kimani (Min. of Ag rep.) and near the theoretical power-side of the circle, where two of us BoP folks were seated (though we had intentionally tried to spread out evenly). This was before we learned we had to control or divert James away from grabbing attention, credit and power. Of course, he had to have the last word, inserting himself after our wrap-up as if it were his meeting. His conclusion was a banal and pseudo-impassioned repetition of what had been already decided and discussed. The display was annoying and pathetic to us and, apparently, an obvious self-agrandization to the others. I can only assume that Kimani chose James as a "farmer trainer" for Ministry of Ag work and as our guide in the community because James has some level of respect and trust within the community. However, it seems that he is very much self-appointed in his leadership and that he has let it go to his head. In discussions with other community members I started to sense that his ego's growth may be starting to undermine his foundation. Nonetheless, he has the position of "farmer trainer" for the Ministry of Ag and is thus the conduit to this farming community for potentially valuable information. Therefore they will tolerate and support him for their own benefit, without exploring viable alternatives. Is this the birth of the mediocre, egotistical, yet popularly (if not violently) supported African despot? Well, that might be taking it a bit too far-and giving James too much credit-but it certainly is indicative of what happens so tragically at a national level all over Africa.

The good news is that we have been successful in learning how and when to shift the spirit of a meeting and how to facilitate participatory and egalitarian teamwork. It doesn't always work but there seem to always be some in all communities (as true in an urban slum, as a corporation, as a remote farming community) who sense, understand and resonate with the spirit of the BoP Protocol. These individuals and groups very quickly become key partners and have formed the core of the communities with whom we are working. With almost three weeks left here we will be working on creating an even stronger network of partners who can support the work we have started: the business ideas/plans that the communities have created with our help. This will include companies active here in Kenya and NGOs who are active in key sectors here (like ag. and waste management) but who we are also weaving into a network of global players with whom the BoP work can connect and partner in developing markets the world over.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1121504400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1121504400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1121504400/tpod.html Sat, 16 Jul 2005 05:02:31 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Muchorwi, Kenya

So strange to be looking at Muchorwi, my home and workplace for most of the last 2 weeks, through the peeling tinted windows of a matatu knowing I wouldn't be alighting today, that I wouldn't walk the strip of tarmac lined with casual and disappointed labor fragile in their toughness and iron-sheeted dukas tough in their shoddy fragility. The sensation was that of bumping into an ex with whom circumstances, not lack of romance, had exiged estrangement. Enhancing the mix of longing, guilt and embarrassment was that I was on my way to see another, not a serious love, but a flirtation: a community of squatters some kilometers down the tarmac in the next cluster of mud, steel structures clutching the road like children to the leg of a departing parent, hoping beyond reality. As my matatu slowly bucks over the second speed bump of adolescent Muchorwi, its speed bumps perhaps its most permanent features, the memories of my time there wafted through my mind on the garbage-smoke breeze.

The first night there, still sharing it all with Tatiana, we had stood in Mama Jane's (MJ) bare yard, wet toothbrushes in hand, minty mouths agape, eyes loosing focus, drowning in belittled amazement. With our headlamps off, the night sky rushed in and swallowed us. We had dove into the darkest ocean, the darkest blue-green ink of velvet light-absorbing depth, and were now amidst the phosphorescent plankton. Stars swam, floated, ebbed above and around us blocked only by this mound of rock, this Earth, and a few long-legged, fuzzy-topped trees. If we had taken a big enough step, we could have left Earth in a stride and been entangled in the dew-spangled cobweb of the Universe. We could have reached up and taken hold of the Milky-Way, our fingers pressing into its fresh mozzarella pallor and firmness, and pulled ourselves up into the sky. My instinct towards order and identification was humbled and frustrated by not just the enormity and multiplicity of the stellar sea but how can you identify and quantify froth on waves as you bounce and plunge among them. Constellations were there, no doubt, but they too had been swallowed by the fathomless sky. Tatiana and I climbed out, clamoring up the rocky bank off our reality, our hair wet and bodies dripping stars, necks, bodies and minds tiredly aware of their relativity on this stage. Stepping under the corrugated steel I glanced back to watch the Milky Wave crest, fall, slap on the gentle black beach of Nyota night.

The tout slapped the hollow mini-van door, bringing me back to busy daytime Muchorwi as the matatu slowed to collect two more, slinging burlap sacks to the back door. As we accelerated away from our own diesel-black spew and past the butcher/hotel (restaurant in Kenya), I could only see flames in its sunless interior, a side of mutton blocking any light trying to filter through the lone window and smoke. The obscurity welcomed me back into reverie.

There is a universal truth (despite Tatiana's most eloquent and intellectual protestations against the very concept) that the kitchen is the heart of every home. It took only a few days for the formality of eating in MJ's crocheted, preserved living room to feel like quarantine. Thick white and maroon doilies covered any furniture that could support their fragile cleanliness-which was ALL of it. There were two clocks, proud mirror and gold clocks, hanging ceremoniously on opposite walls, both keeping time for history, never moving, faithfully reminding of better times, times when pyrethrum money flowed into this home. Between the stuttered clocks hung half-a-dozen calendars: two from 2000 with Millennium fireworks and the rest ranging up to present, all left on months that had been busy enough to distract from calendar flipping. The only other wall hangings were stiff fading portraits of male family members looking over us from the grave. Diabetes having claimed a respected, professional driver patriarch (standing forever in military uniform before a VW bus with a Dragnet gum-drop siren on its roof) and TB having taken a loved, fertile first-born son, stern in his eternal headshot. All these: clocks, calendars and memorials, hung in front of a layer of bed sheet-sized lace, used in homes that history blessed with py money, to cover dirty rough wood or mud walls. The lace brightened and added to the theatrical, ceremonial ambiance. Other homes, those that had had less py money or whose patriarchs has not been driving and had drank the family's good crops, covered their mud walls with newspaper to conserve the mud and brighten up the home. This current events wallpaper froze banal tales of football victories and government corruption and mobile phone ads for the family to absorb until distant victories, assumed corruption and Swedish-designed untouchable trappings were woven into their beings.

The tight heavy cloak of guest-hood was shunned when our meals were no longer quarantined to doily-block. I don't think there was an invitation, it just happened with time, familiarity and friendship. Instead of peering into the dark cookhouse and seeing strange faces, laughing teeth and long, flame-thrown shadows through the cooking smoke and not feeling welcome, easily we could sit one of two low benches, add our smiles to the circling dance and absorb deep, earthen warmth. Here family is forged in mud cookhouses, below stalactites of oily soot clinging to iron sheet or thatch. Bonds of blood, survival and love are strengthened in these mud kilns, beating at the center of every homestead across the cold, damp, starry night. Conversation flowed in Kikuyu, its literal details out of my reach but its rhythm, its arm and hip swaying dance around the fire, made its meaning easy to grasp, if impossible to translate. It was with reluctance that I took my last meal in MJ's house, back in doily quarantine. Mounds of ugali, a stir-fry of courgettes and peas I had shown MJ how to make the night before and sukumawiki were brought in and a fork was produced. I had been welcomed into the family fire but now, my bag packed and standing stuffed by the door, I was being guided back, out the way I had entered: through crocheted, stiff, historical formality.

The sliding door of the matatu slammed shut and the rotund mama next to me settled her weight, wedging her mama hips between me and the "secured" door. We were five across a bench for three, knees pressed reassuringly, painfully, against the welded and screwed-in piping between us and the driver, the driver and us. She angled her oiled and dressed-up body so not to press dangerously against the rattling door. A thick heavy arm went behind my head, it had no where else to go, and a polyester clad, continent-sized breast was molded into my armpit firmly. The pressing proximity was usual and nearly comfortable holding me steady as the driver slalomed massive potholes (cauldron-holes?). With no hope of relief or change, I noticed numbness trickling down my left leg as my neighbor's hips allowed no room for blood flow. I'd have to be careful when trying to wiggle out in Keringet that my legs be awake enough to support my weight.

In second gear, engine struggling with its fleshy cargo, we topped the hill and passed the trail to MJ's where T and I had walked in an afternoon rain of "wazungu" and "howareyou's." Around the corner, with Muchorwi behind us, a patchwork of fields, most only a couple acres, divided by a father's reproductive insanity into ever smaller plots, spread across the hillside and into the valley. The agricultural quilt is made up of potatoes in different stages: earthen just-plowed, light green pinstripes on fertilized brown-black just sprouting, deep green corduroy ready to be sprayed and mounded and a ragged, balding velvet of green, blackened by frost-burn and bacterial infection on its edges, ready for harvest. Occasionally an off-season rogue patch of flowering peas punctuates the hilly montage with white poca-dots and pale green. Rarely, a thick stitch of grey-green pyrethrum, white daisy flowers left beyond when they should have been plucked, starting to wilt off-white, join two viable cash crop patches.

My eyes follow the topography along the rare surviving stand of trees and come to a distant memory: there on the ridge is the church that had opened its heart to me in another life, just four days ago. Last Sunday I woke before the sun began clearing the cold pre-dawn mist, before the roosters' calls started bouncing across the farms and, I thought, before anyone else was awake at MJ's. I slinked out of my sleeping bag below two heavy blankets (yes, it was that cold) and dressed in the thick dove-grey partial light. I snuck out of my room and paused by the heavily latched front door and though I heard the solar powered radio left on overnight pulling its battery dry. But the rhythmic mumbling was coming from MJ's room-she was awake ahead of me conversing with the Lord, making her and her family's case with a higher power. I went outside to the latrine and on my way back in nearly ran into MJ on her way to the cookhouse. After kind and slightly forlorn greetings, I asked if I could have some warm water to shave for church (maternal disapproval and training ringing in my ears, just above five days' worth of stubble). "Lala salama?" I asked, knowing it would be the last time her warm leathery face would crease into a smile at my Kiswahili as she answered "mzuri sana." After a warm bucket-wash and a much-needed shave, I settled into my now customary (a whole three days of custom) spot next to the jiko (charcoal cooker) and thick iron pan awaiting me and my particularly enthusiastic dance of BoP culinary mastery. I am the Chechnyan ballet of chapatti: a little rebellious but unfailingly professional! But I digress...

With a couple of my best chapatti in my belly, sloshing about with two cups of tea, we set out for church. MJ slung a bad of potatoes, probably 40 kg, across her forehead, rested it on the small of her back and fell into a smooth laboring walk. I offered to carry it, she laughed me off an I realized that if she hadn't I'd have struggled to get 100 meters down the track, let alone the 4-5 km to the Small Home for disabled kids, where we were bringing them. Instead, she handed me her black leather purse, a donkey-kick to the gut of my manhood, but at least it felt like an offering of help to a woman who clearly needed none: not in running her shamba, not in raising generations, not in leading her family, not in being a fine example for the community and certainly not in carrying a 40kg bag off her own potatoes on her head. I contented myself wit ha symbolic purse-carrying gesture.

Past the school, now potato-less, we walked along a warming ridge, the sun following us high into the stark sky. Just off the track a gathering of brightly clothed mamas stood before a burnt ginger-bread church and somber, jacketed, earth-toned men stood apart on the path. The church stood alone on the ridge, the highest, darkest point in undulating fields of potato and maize saturated green with recent rains. The weathered church sat wrinkled and tired from its battle with the winds, the rains, with the reality that life is difficult here for all, even burnt ginger-bread churches. The children from the Small Home were there, sitting from their own battles on the ground smiling and greeting all newcomers. Of course, everyone was greeting everyone else, that is just how it's done here. With some signal imperceptible to me, everyone started filing into the church. My eyes adjusted quickly to the dark and I passed over the stone threshold from the flattened grass outside to the neatly swept mud floor inside.

Diffused light reflected off green fields and through the only windows in the somber little church. Pews filled the 10 meters to the altar, a mix of thin, low benches rubbed and polished a waxy chocolate brown and more recently built, fresh, rough, pale benches with a board for kneeling. The altar stood lonely on a six-inch raised mud area, a proud table set with crocheted cloth, a small worn leather Bible and two votive candles, not yet lit, marking its corners. The congregation filtered into pews hushedly. I sat with MJ on waxy chocolate about half-way to the lonely altar. A regular metallic clicking caught my ear, out of place in the organic earthen texture of the church. A boy from the Small Home led his mates down the aisle. His left leg swung limply below him, barely the size of a skinny forearm as he pendulummed gracefully, proudly, his crutches clicking like tap shoes. Behind him a smiling girl, whom I had always seen supported by others or a cane, strutted on wobbly malformed legs, her arms reaching reassuringly for the wood pillars supporting the iron-sheet roof. A wheelchair throne for a little boy followed, pushed by two with baby's faces, maybe 12, and arms that forgot to grow. As they settled into the front few benches of the church I looked around to engrave the image on my mind. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I felt absolutely no pinch of cynicism toward this church (THE Church is still another matter). Cobwebs swayed as a light breeze was ushered into the church by the tall maize just outside the window. The rough-hewn planks of the walls had been covered with cardboard, painstakingly nailed to the wall, non-printed side out (except in one spot by the roof where the "Evere" of "Eveready" was visible). Each nail was reinforced with discs of cardboard making little raised blackheads on a dry flaky skin keeping the wind at bay. Rods of light pierced the dusty darkness like garden hoses of sun were being held to the little holes in the roof, pouring thickly and brightly wetting the mud floor with gold.

Another secret signal and we were singing and clapping. I clapped in Kiswahili, spared everyone an attempt to sing but couldn't help humming along. A group of women, apparently self-chosen, began singing second voice in perfect unison from different corners of the church. Sub-beats were clapped out in the crowd like confetti tossed over a party. My soul rose into throat and I found myself resisting tears as the communal support and love exhumed unfamiliar emotions. Six children danced down the aisle, barely glancing at the goofy mzungu with glistening, wet, surprised, appreciative, thankful eyes. They dipped, clapped, skipped, side-stepped and hopped to the space just before the raised mud lip of the altar and danced in the waves of song, of clapping, of release, of exhausted love. The priest, glowing like the square wick in a paraffin lantern flowed in his bright white gown. As he passed the wobbly legged girl, her cane nowhere to be found, I noticed her struggling to stay standing, clutching and stretching her neighbor's sweater, even trying to sway with the crowd. The priest noticed also and gently whispered to her and she sat, relieved and slightly defeated. A prayer rose up and I recognized its Catholic rhythm, bowed my head and fell back into the abyss of communal understanding, trust and impossible encouragement. For the next hour songs intense, dances heartfelt and prayers rhythmic drenched me and I emerged exhausted, energized and cleansed. We walked out of that little burnt ginger-bread church in the fierce sun and I respected and understood the power of true religion, communal belief, shared release. The wind carried the song seeping through the cracked walls to my ears as we strode down the path toward my departure, toward the end of my homestay. I had found a home but I could not stay.

My forehead bumps the window of the matatu as we round a corner and I'm pulled from reverie. We are just outside Keringet and my leg is totally asleep. On a ridge, almost exactly where the church had been when I slipped into memory, is a large dark cube-the only angle on a horizon of smoothly sloping fields. The stone cube is a colonial pump-house above a borehole some couple hundred feet deep, wet year-round. In an area thirsty for clean water, this leftover infrastructure and resource lays quiet, dilapidated, untapped, looted and stripped naked of everything but potential. The mama whose boob has adopted my armpit's mobile rings and she writhes to get to it, nearly decapitating me with an elbow digging in her woven purse. The phone goes silent as she pulls it out triumphantly too late and as the brakes shriek and we pull into Keringet. With murmurs of "pole" I'm spat out of the matatu and into Keringet. Another day at the office in the BoP begins as memories of Muchorwi fall over the green horizon.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120212840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120212840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120212840/tpod.html Mon, 04 Jul 2005 06:47:11 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Nakuru, Kenya

Here is a smattering of the observations and thoughts I scribbled on a little pad I have been carrying in my back pocket and in the margins of my notebook:

· Bouncing and side-slipping our way into the area, diesel SUV engine revving fast in low gear, we avoid the worst section of "road" and try to pick our way through a eucalyptus forest only to get stuck. It quickly dawned that AAA was not coming to get us. Kimani, from the ministry of Ag, and I jump out, as the inexperienced driver jams the gas to spin himself even deeper. We start grabbing branches of lovely menthol smelling eucalyptus branches to jam under the tires. A farmer came out of nowhere to help, startling me. Not long afterwards the truck is backing out of the friction-less yet impossibly sticky mud. With the farmer, a complete stranger, trotting ahead of us to show us the best route, we low-gear it through the forest and slip and slide our way to MJ's homestead, our new home. (That would be the last car I would see on the paths/"roads" of the interior.)
· Yards in the area are still kept as bare earth (as opposed to nice grass which sheep easily keep perfectly manicured) which was originally to dry pye but is now just habit, as hardly anyone is growing pye for sale
· Was sitting against a fence writing when the calf in the pen behind me snuck up on me and licked the back of my shirt with her rough tongue, startling the crap out of me
· Safari ants like you've only seen in nightmares, attacking and killing a field mouse by the borehole, forcing us to move our meeting with community leaders, covering an entire corner of the house and yard (they are swiftly killed/dispersed by some chemical mix MJ spreads with a rag)
· Mud tells so much: tractor tire to make the rut, child's bare feet leave their mini-imprint on their way to school in the early morning, little sharp hoof prints from sheep grazing on the roadside, cow's big clumsy hoofprint sliding on the dark glue-mud.
· Gentle tinkle of soft rain on corrugated steel carries me off to sleep knowing my friends' fields are drinking their fill
· The areas government offices in Keringet are housed in the old colonial main-house across a courtyard from the police station, in another colonial home, and the old stables, now inhabited by squatters, one family per stall with kitchen, living room and, surely, toilet outside. The only thing these squatters have in abundance is poverty and hope. Hope that perhaps someone will employ them as a beast of burden, like the ghosts of their decaying stalls, colonial echoes, modern squalor.
· In Keringet, the seat of government in the area, ministers and officers plod proudly through the mud of the road, puffed up in pressed suits not unlike the impossibly clean rooster announcing himself with jutted chest from a mound of partly burnt refuse.
· It got so I could tell when it was going to happen (though it was not very common)...the shift from proud farmer and father, happily showing off his few farming successes and 13 children, to dramatic supplicant, keen to show pathetic poverty and need in case a handout may be possible
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120299240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120299240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120299240/tpod.html Mon, 04 Jul 2005 06:37:18 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Molo, Kenya

LESSONS / ADVICE

A few lessons I've learned and some advice for those to follow:

· Take your sunglasses off the top of your head before driving on Kenyan roads-hurts like hell to have them smashed into your skull as you bounce off the roof with the bumps
· Train for the inevitable: squats and learning to aim your feces will serve you well in the pit latrines
· Price transportation (matatus and taxis) well before committing so that you can believably faint walking away as part of your negotiation
· Be ready to drink sweet, milky tea EVERYWHERE you go-if you go through a private doorway in rural areas, tea will soon be served
· A wash cloth makes bathing out of a bucket much easier
· Beware of popularity in a rural community-you can't satisfy everyone with visits, meals, tea-time, advice, stories of the U.S., etc...
· There is still a huge number of people in this world that think that pro wrestling (ie: WWF, Hulk Hogan, etc.) is real and will be crest-fallen and incredulous when you tell them it is fake.
· When placing your feet in a matatu, bags of potatos, grains, maize or beans are fair placement. Beware of chickens though, they make lots of noise and flap like hell when you step on them
· It is a universal truth that the back row of a potentially boring lecture or meeting will fill up first.
· Sit behind a table and folks will assume your authority
· Your presence is a source of pride and stature, something you have to manage carefully so as not to have your time completely absorbed by your partners showing you off around the community.
· All salesmen on an expense account only want grilled meat (nyama choma in Kenya, steaks in the US)
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1104750840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1104750840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1104750840/tpod.html Mon, 04 Jul 2005 06:26:29 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Nyota, Kenya

Our path back home to Mama Jane's, perhaps 5km, leaves the tarmac at Muchorwi Trading Center and winds behind the primary school. Barbed wire, some posts and thick hedge growth lay to our right between us and the school. It was past three so class was out and I thought we might escape without incident. Slowly, nearly imperceptibly, the school yard noises changed, shifting from the semi-random cacophony of children playing and gaining momentum, coming together. Like an orchestra going from tuning independently to slowly coming into organized harmony. As T and I walked along the school fence we could hear a chorus beginning, then the patter of steps behind the hedge, until we reached an opening filled with little faces and blue uniform sweaters. The eruption that occurs as we say "habari zanu" is previewed by incredulous and confused silence, eyes widening, smile frozen wide. Despite the bewilderment, the traditional and automatic response of "mzuri" trickles out of the mouths of the more bold children and rolls, mumbling, out of the rest of the crowd. Their reply seems to surprise them. Their own words and the realization that we may not be a figment and that we even speak Kiswahili is too much-they ERUPT! The slap of rushing feet behind the hedge becomes a thunderous rumble of sandals and decaying shoes too big for the little proud feet in side them. Children flock the fence as word of these strange white walkers spreads across the school yard. Beige shorts and skirts, white(ish) shirts and royal blue sweaters, some new and showing only slight signs of the omnipresent Nyota mud, other uniforms barely holding together enough to stay on the skinny young frames, allowing shoulders and elbows to play free in the sun. As we walk along the hedge, the rumble of excited little feet precedes and follows our path invisibly down the hedged fence until the feet reach an opening and the sound sprouts heads through the fence. Wide eyes and incredulous smiles, ripples of laughter and nervous shy giggles and frightened yelps poke through the bushes as we pass and wave.

As we turn onto the path through the potato fields and leave the school area, a faction of six slinks through the hedge and falls in behind us leaving a safety margin of a dozen paces. The boys daringly get closer and closer as we head down the sloping slick mud path. We can hear their whispers, probably conjecture as to the origin of these alien visitors. The sensation of many eyes on us is pungent. Usually, we try to play it cool and act as if everything were normal. But this time, Tatiana and I are feeling a little frisky and playful. We slowed our pace and count to three, spin and give the kids our best growls and devil faces. The reaction is priceless. Book bags (simply reused plastic bags) went up for protection, frightened faces and shaky legs sprinted back up the slope for safety amidst shocked squealing. As T and I start laughing and change our demeanor to show docile friendliness, I am relieved to see some of the kids' fear flush away, at least partially, and their smiles return. For a moment, as I saw them tearing up the slope in horror my mind flashed to T and I trying to explain to outraged elders, and maybe a stern camouflaged police major, what we had been thinking when we scared their children to death. Luckily, it won't be necessary as the realized we are just messing with them. Well, most of them forgive, but several girls hang back farther and look at us from the corners of their eyes, faces turned in defense, scornfully.

The walk home takes us past grey-green pyrethrum fields, now left to seed, and past recently planted peas looking fragile amid the football sized clumps of dark, dense dirt. Women, always bent over at the waist, straighten achingly amid their crops to watch us walk by, their smiles brightening immediately with our wave and greeting.

Once home, we help bring several piles of weeds to the sheep's' pen for zero grazing (a new technique farmers are proud to be implementing). Tatiana is conscripted to sift a basket of rice and I set to chopping fire wood. The ax, a mere step above a hand ax, and the tough, dense Kenyan Cyprus has me struggling and sweating in minutes. I soon realize, a couple blisters and wood chips later, that you can't tackle this wood with this ax from above, the was we do at home. Once I set the log on its side and take a few spiteful frustrated swings I realize that this must be the proper techniques as small split pieces start to peel off the log. A few swings later, my ego slightly restored, I've accepted the difficult lesson that power (money, donations to government) is far less potent then effective, accurate chops (slow, learning approach WITH communities). A far reaching lesson from the Nyota BoP.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120472040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120472040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1120472040/tpod.html Mon, 04 Jul 2005 06:23:09 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Muchorwi Trading Center, Kenya

Mama Jane, Mama Salome to the rest of the community, is a mother, a farmer, a manager, a broker, a generous mother/aunt/grandmother, a supporter of the less fortunate: all components for sainthood. But the way her smile emerges in the corner of her eye and wrinkles across her face lets you know that there are unsaintly secrets below. She wakes before dawn, stays in bed and prays in regular quiet tones, and I hear her rousing her grandson (living with her since her eldest son died of TB) for school. Usually, before enough dawning farm noises let me know it is time to succumb to the pressure in my tea-swelled bladder and get up, she is bent at the waist (a position in which she spends nearly half her waking hours and that seems as comfortable to her as standing) starting her cook fire. As I enter the dark cook-house, my head is just high enough to be in the smoke collecting in the peak of the soot encrusted steel roof. Joke, Mama Jane's full-time shamba boy is already up and out of his cot in the store room behind the cook-house and chowing on a handful of bright white leftover ugali. The ugali arcing to his mouth and his eyes are the only points from which to discern his outline against the mud wall as the morning sun is still too low to melt the obscurity and his clothes, hair and skin share the earthen color of the walls (his tobacco and "bang" (dis)colored teeth are no help either). I greet him with my only Kikuyu: "wemwega." He smiles and responds unintelligibly, his mouth full, though he is also unintelligible to me with his mouth empty. I'm just never quite sure if he is speaking Kiswahili or Kikuyu or to me at all-he's no fan of eye contact. I settle next to him on the low bench to warm my hands in the flames squeezing out from below the large pot of water set to boil. Cup of hot, sweet and milky tea in hand, I notice the charcoal (purchased from the poor soul whose lot in life is the steal wood from national forests and slow-burn it to make charcoal) starting to glow orange in the jiko next to Mama Jane (MJ). My stomach churns in anticipation of the fresh chapatti that will be cooked on a thick pan placed on the opening at the top of this universal Kenyan cooking stove. Not that I don't like the boiled white sweet potatoes that are the other breakfast staple, but fresh chapatti and chai are my favorites-and I've gotten pretty good at making the chapatti and relish the rare opportunity to help in the kitchen. The regular but part time shamba boy folds his tall skinny frame (clad in his blue blazer, faded light blue under the sun, sleeves sown back on by different strands of white, red and royal blue thread, thick home-made off-white wool cap atop his head) through the doorway and greets us as he sits against the far wall, as if he hadn't earned the warmth of the fire yet. He gets his tea and settles into his spot, the mud rubbed off the wall by his and others' backs, exposing the branch frame of the house. His legs bounce nervously either because my presence unnerves him or because he has already smoked his newspaper joint of bang and is revved up and high for work. Throughout all this, MJ doesn't stop: washing out the big steal tea pot, scrubbing another huge pot (bright steel inside, thickly, blackly crusted on the outside) and making more tea. The next entrant through the gated doorway and into this warm, dark, smoky stage is MJ's grandson, Mina, in shorts and school uniform, his skinny young legs goose-bumped. He grumpily grabs a handful of ugali and sits heavily next to me-he isn't a morning person. Within minutes the 4 year old daughter of MJ's dead son is at the door in her blue and mud school uniform, sleeveless school sweater pulled over a faded and patched teal, yellow and blue 80s ski jacket. She comes over and slaps my leg-she's a pro at the slapping half of my "gimme five" lesson. She pushes her cousin, trying to make room to sit next to me on the bench but MJ quickly reminds her of the time and she and Mina head for school: her bouncing ahead, he begrudgingly trailing his notebook in its plastic bag. MJ's "too old to be unmarried" daughter, Eumay, comes in tiredly as I poor the first chapatti onto the little sizzling puddle of cooking fat. She's fighting something and we're all hoping it isn't malaria. A handful of chapatti made, and two in my stomach, MJ pours some warm water into a small pale (a recycled container of some sort) and Joke and I go out to milk the cow. He yanks her out of her pen, clicking and cursing (or is he wooing?) her in his deep graveled voice, and ties her up. He roughly and thoroughly washes her utters and teats with the warm water, picking off the clumps of mud and manure, until the utters are a pale, steaming pink. After drying the teats, he hands me the bucket and rattles off what I can only assume is something like, "go ahead, show me how clumsily and slowly you can milk a cow." I get the bucket 1/3 full, frustrated with my poor aim but enjoying the warmth of the teats tightly squeezed between fingers and thumbs. I slow down as my hands start to tire and cramp. Joke can stand it no longer and taps me on the shoulder smiling and rattles something else which I take to mean, "OK, I can't watch this display any longer." I stand, somewhat defeated, and he goes at the teats with consistent, strong and perfectly aimed strokes. He fills the remaining 2/3 of the bucket in half the time I struggled with my 1/3. We bring the milk into MJ and she gives a bowl to the two kittens, their whiskers and eyebrows curled and seared from falling asleep too close to the fire. The rest she pours into her largest pot and places it on the three cook stones (cinder block sized stones set on the floor in nearly every Kenyan cook house) to boil. She points to the steaming plastic wash basin by the door: "for you in bathroom."

I won't go into the dance I perform to undress, clean myself (sort of), dry off, and redress in the tiny little wash shack next to the latrine. Lets just say I'm a lot better that I was the first time and the mud floor is barely wet now after I've washed-thus my feet are a lot cleaner! As I leave to check out the shamba of MJ's eldest nephew and a solid new friend, Patrick, MJ and her daughter-in-law (who lives with her now that her husband, MJ's eldest son has passed) are settling into some laundry, again bent over at the waist hands scrubbing in soapy wash tubs on the ground. As I walk off down the path, I can only imagine how my back would hold up bent over six hours a day.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1119793740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1119793740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/jdekoz/kenya_bop_2005/1119793740/tpod.html Sun, 26 Jun 2005 09:50:47 -0400 Decleration of Ignorance: Participating in the Summer 2005 BoP Protocol Pilot Test in Kenya

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Nakuru, Kenya

There are hard days.

There are days when visions of humanity are just proof of our parasitic, viral nature. There are days when the only beauty still to be found is cowering in hiding from our abusive touch. Trees tremble in the faint breeze, rivers slink in retreat, the earth itself hardens for fear like habitual victims of battery being systematically beaten and killed. The beauty of this country is in such contrast to the monstrosity of what we are doing to it. Driving I so often am mesmerized by the grace, the perfect proportions, the vibrancy only to enter a town and have this Madonna turn her head and show me her other profile: gnarled, infected, puss-ridden, festering. Plastic bags mashed into the dark earth. Smoldering garbage piles with smoke and flies, both equally thick, neither disturbed by the goats and children searching barefoot for hope, for food, for anything. Loud horns blare, wimpy horns whine, obnoxious musical horns squawk to announce the next fetid diesel fume-spewing vehicle. Trying to jump over the open gutter without looking prissy, I nearly knock over a street boy. His hand brings his glue bottle up to his mouth for a hit and then stuffs it back down the stretched neck of his XL, shit-colored snoopy shirt, hanging like the loose skin of a dying cow. His glassy eyes and mucus-covered face (the constant glue-sniffing destroys the sinuses, not to mention brain cells) affect a perfect UNICEF look. He skips the "how are you" pleasantries and juts his hand at my healthy gut and almost imperceptibly says "money," not asking, not pleading, just matter of factly stating a need. I say nothing and look beyond him, trying to affect an air of imperviousness. "Money," he repeats backing up and matching my stride. "Meme ni mwanafunzi. Hapana pesa," ["I am a student. No money"] I say, knowing I've screwed proper Swahili. I am just trying to keep the mix of fear, anger, pity, and sorrow that this interaction, this day, has simmering within me. I want to punch him. I want to hug him. I want to help him. I want to drag him by his drugged-out neck to school, or jail, or the gallows. I want to run away. I want to nuke the whole damned place. I want to retreat to Safari-Kenya. He has me hating myself, hating him, hating Kenya, hating humanity.

Yeah, there are hard days.

The savior is that they are fleeting, rare and vastly outweighed by the beautiful days of work, hope, discovery, friendship and progress.
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