http://voiceofkibera.org/
I really like the way this map turned out. The makers combined the KML files from http://mapkibera.org/ (which I think is the best thing in the world!) and the Ushahidi platform (http://www.ushahidi.com/, again another really cool project-the co founder keeps a really interesting blog: http://www.kenyanpundit.com/).
Oh, and I'm going to this movie tonight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWCbQjPJR2w
Friday, November 5, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Facebook Photos
This should be accessible to everybody, it's a facebook photo gallery with some of my pictures from western kenya (more to come soon)
The past couple weeks part 1
The picnic I mentioned in the last post went very well. Somehow we were able to get everything together and feed and water about 85 people for 35,000 Khs (450$). The only problem we had was that we couldn't seem to cook the meat fast enough; although, this is due in part to the fact that Kenyans like their meat very well done (burnt to a crisp). Helping to manage a large barbecue in Kenya opened my eyes to two truths: without a car it is difficult to organize a barbecue (especially in Kenya), and leading people even those you know well can be extremely difficult. Enough of that-unless you have more questions of course...
During the barbecue and for the week following I fell relatively sick, I guess Montezuma got his revenge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveler's_diarrhea). On tuesday, thursday and friday of that week I had mid-terms in three classes: International Economics and Trade, African Authors Seminar, and Kiswahili. The first two went well (relatively easy essay questions), but Kiswahili was more difficult. Pretty soon Micaela's going to write a guest post talking about the basic structure of Kiswahili and its slang counterpart, Sheng.
Saturday evening my body decided to purge itself of everything inside of it other than vital organs (one can only hope). Sunday morning we left our apartment at 5:30 to catch a bus out to rural Kenya where we stayed for a week with a home stay family . We caught the bus at a crazy station in East Nairobi called Machakos. As soon as we arrived at the station we were surrounded by drunk men calling me Johny, hitting on all the girls, and asking which bus we wanted. The station was nothing but confusion and mud on this drizzly morning, it took us a while to shed the men, the confusion, and the mud and make our way onto our bus. While waiting for the bus to leave the station (in Kenya buses only leave once they're full), a series of vendors came on the bus touting their merchandise of hats, soda, water, candy. biscuits, flashlights, and locks (?). An hour after getting on the bus it filled up and we left the station. We passed through beautiful landscapes of hills, the rift valley, tea plantations, and sugar plantations (much less depressing than the sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic for some reason though). Along the side of the road stood the famous, although I don't really know why, crying stone http://www.letsgokenya.com/crying-stone.
Most of the time, however, instead of looking out the window I had my eyes on the man selling cures at the front of the bus. He spoke loudly without stumbling over his words with the conviction of a southern baptist preacher, telling us in Kiswahili all the benefits of his products. One could cure malaria and typhoid, another could clean the bathroom and your (he said this one in english) "private parts," and the third could cure sleeping sickness. He went on and on for over two hours without respite. His speech finally ended, a few Kenyans bought his cures, but I didn't have any money on me which is a shame because I wanted to buy a present for my mother. The bus ride lasted about 7 hours during which, as a passenger on the aisle, I was bashed in the face by the behind of every Kenyan on the bus. Eventually, we reached a village on the edge of the Kakamega forest and...(look for part 2)
During the barbecue and for the week following I fell relatively sick, I guess Montezuma got his revenge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveler's_diarrhea). On tuesday, thursday and friday of that week I had mid-terms in three classes: International Economics and Trade, African Authors Seminar, and Kiswahili. The first two went well (relatively easy essay questions), but Kiswahili was more difficult. Pretty soon Micaela's going to write a guest post talking about the basic structure of Kiswahili and its slang counterpart, Sheng.
Saturday evening my body decided to purge itself of everything inside of it other than vital organs (one can only hope). Sunday morning we left our apartment at 5:30 to catch a bus out to rural Kenya where we stayed for a week with a home stay family . We caught the bus at a crazy station in East Nairobi called Machakos. As soon as we arrived at the station we were surrounded by drunk men calling me Johny, hitting on all the girls, and asking which bus we wanted. The station was nothing but confusion and mud on this drizzly morning, it took us a while to shed the men, the confusion, and the mud and make our way onto our bus. While waiting for the bus to leave the station (in Kenya buses only leave once they're full), a series of vendors came on the bus touting their merchandise of hats, soda, water, candy. biscuits, flashlights, and locks (?). An hour after getting on the bus it filled up and we left the station. We passed through beautiful landscapes of hills, the rift valley, tea plantations, and sugar plantations (much less depressing than the sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic for some reason though). Along the side of the road stood the famous, although I don't really know why, crying stone http://www.letsgokenya.com/crying-stone.
Most of the time, however, instead of looking out the window I had my eyes on the man selling cures at the front of the bus. He spoke loudly without stumbling over his words with the conviction of a southern baptist preacher, telling us in Kiswahili all the benefits of his products. One could cure malaria and typhoid, another could clean the bathroom and your (he said this one in english) "private parts," and the third could cure sleeping sickness. He went on and on for over two hours without respite. His speech finally ended, a few Kenyans bought his cures, but I didn't have any money on me which is a shame because I wanted to buy a present for my mother. The bus ride lasted about 7 hours during which, as a passenger on the aisle, I was bashed in the face by the behind of every Kenyan on the bus. Eventually, we reached a village on the edge of the Kakamega forest and...(look for part 2)
Friday, October 15, 2010
PICNIC MANIA!
This Sunday the AU Abroad program in Kenya is holding a picnic/barbecue for people associated with the program and all the students' internships. For some reason I happen to be on the planning committee. There are 16 of us students and each one of us has an internship, which means about 100 people will show up the barbecue. Most Kenyans eat a lot of meat and drink a lot of beer. I've asked around and some people have told me that we need six bottles of beer and at least two chickens per Kenyan. The committee has stepped away from such hellish (and expensive-600USD for beer alone) estimates. Now we're looking at around one bottle of beer and 1.25 pounds of meat per person. We'll also have a lot of other foods at the barbecue. In other words my free time for the weekend has already been eaten up by the time it has taken me to write this post (and it's a short one).
If you ask questions about Kenyan food, eating habits and anything else I'll answer them!
If you ask questions about Kenyan food, eating habits and anything else I'll answer them!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Projects
I'm using this post to tell people about the two main projects I'll be working on while I'm here in Kenya. In order to receive academic credit for my internship I have to put together and submit a grant proposal. As a student I want to try to write a grant that will help other students get through school. Many organizations already help families send their children through primary school, however, educational aid tends to stop there for some reason (paying jobs tend to want more than an elementary school diploma). Secondary school is supposed to be provided by the Kenyan government, however, the government fails to meet the demand and many private schools fill in the gaps. Families in informal settlements have trouble paying the lump secondary school fee at the start of each term and have in the past asked Action Now Kenya for short term loans to help them pay school fees. I want to write a grant proposal for a pool of money for these secondary education loans. The interest accrued from the loans will fall into a scholarship fund for one of the students who has received one of our educational loans and is heading off to tertiary school. I also want to try to make an internship/apprenticeship program for the students benefiting from the loans. I haven't yet worked out the particulars but I looking at 20-40 loans at 6,000-20,000khs (75-250$) per term. If people have suggestions or questions just write a comment (ps, i'm looking for possible donors/maybe a linkup program with US high schools).
The second project I'm working on is my final project for my class on urbanization. I once saw a really cool map of the neighborhood of Los Angeles. Each neighborhood had a little face on it. The faces had the skin color of the majority of the residents living in the neighborhood. The faces had other features--smile/frown, the shape of the face, the position of the eyes...--which represented certain variables like average annual income, average education level, life expectancy and so on. I want to make a similar but cooler map of Nairobi on a program like google earth. I want to interview a bunch of Nairobians and ask them to draw a map of Nairobi. If the person gives permission I will write up some notes on the interview, make a place mark for where the person lives and impose the map they drew over the satellite image of Nairobi. Hopefully, if I interview a lot of people from different parts of the city I can show how people living in different areas of the city interact with Nairobi spatially. If they focus most of their activity around one area of town that part of their map will be more detailed. On top of these interviews I want to take photos of the different neighborhoods and put links to the photos on the electronic map. I also want to find quantitative data to put into the map. A lot of other students in my abroad program are working on projects that could produce really cool information that I'll try to make maps out of. I'd really appreciate advice or suggestions with this idea because the input I've had from other students has been really helpful so far. Hopefully if it works out fairly well I could do the same thing for cities in the US.
The second project I'm working on is my final project for my class on urbanization. I once saw a really cool map of the neighborhood of Los Angeles. Each neighborhood had a little face on it. The faces had the skin color of the majority of the residents living in the neighborhood. The faces had other features--smile/frown, the shape of the face, the position of the eyes...--which represented certain variables like average annual income, average education level, life expectancy and so on. I want to make a similar but cooler map of Nairobi on a program like google earth. I want to interview a bunch of Nairobians and ask them to draw a map of Nairobi. If the person gives permission I will write up some notes on the interview, make a place mark for where the person lives and impose the map they drew over the satellite image of Nairobi. Hopefully, if I interview a lot of people from different parts of the city I can show how people living in different areas of the city interact with Nairobi spatially. If they focus most of their activity around one area of town that part of their map will be more detailed. On top of these interviews I want to take photos of the different neighborhoods and put links to the photos on the electronic map. I also want to find quantitative data to put into the map. A lot of other students in my abroad program are working on projects that could produce really cool information that I'll try to make maps out of. I'd really appreciate advice or suggestions with this idea because the input I've had from other students has been really helpful so far. Hopefully if it works out fairly well I could do the same thing for cities in the US.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
My internship
Around 11:30 AM on Monday a man wearing an orange teacosy on his head and a matching gown squirted a watery liquid into my mouth from a green stained plastic bottle. I'm as confused as you are right now, providing context won't really clarify things but I'll give it to you all the same.
I'm interning with Action Now Kenya (ANK), a small non-profit which provides micro loans and business training to people living in the informal settlements of Nairobi. ANK has three full time employees and four community workers who occasionally report back to home base. In 2007 ANK started working as a partner organization with the microfinance agency Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/). In this relationship Kiva dealt with the investors and ANK dealt with the clients (the people receiving the loans). Soon after partnering with Kiva, ANK and Kiva dispersed over $100,000 in small loans. The timing, however, was incredibly bad, just a few months later post election violence erupted in Nairobi (http://tinyurl.com/ycuwu5j). The fires, violence, displacement of people, and looting were most intense in informal settlements and so many of ANK's clients were unable to pay back their loans because their businesses were destroyed or looted. When Kiva asked for money from ANK to pay back the investors, ANK wasn't able to reimburse the investors at once and is still trying to do so today. On a positive note, ANK recently started a new loan program independent from Kiva. On Monday I went into Kibera to meet some of our current and prospective clients.
Kibera, and informal settlements in general, are difficult to explain so I'll save most of the details for another blog post. I'm pretty sure that over half of all small businesses in Kibera are either hairdressers or dressmakers/tailors, and so on Monday I met some hairdressers and dressmakers/tailors. I mostly enjoyed the dressmakers because they had beautiful old sewing machines and tended to employ/train other community members. I also met a doctor who runs a clinic which has been burnt down on two occasions and which he has rebuilt doggedly after each disaster. I met a man who makes the best Mandazi (less sugary but better than doughnuts) in Kibera. I met an old lady who sells onions at a stall at 10 cents an onion. I ate a lunch of chapati (kinda of like a tortilla) with beans and kale at the hotel (which translates to restaurant) of one of our clients.
I was also invited into the house of the husband of a prospective client. He happened to be a priest of a church particular to Kenya and was wearing an orange teacosy on his head and a matching gown (I guessed they had something to do with him being a priest, although I'm still not entirely sure). I'm telling you about the teacosy and gown mostly because I was taken aback when I first saw them but when I learned he was a priest they began to make just a little sense to me. On second thought maybe the hat looked more like a chef's hat, but not the kind that look like a soufflé, instead the kind that looks like a cylinder. In any case, in one corner of his house he had an elaborate alter with many differently colored candles, religious images, rosaries, and shepherds' frocks. I talked to this man for a while about his wife's business before conversation turned to his alter. He picked up or pointed to each item and told me its significance. Eventually, he picked up a green stained bottle and...you already know the rest. I found out later that the liquid was blessed water that had been boiled with special curative herbs. The whole incident was really quite strange.
After walking all over Kibera to meet clients I was happy to get back to my apartment and relax.
I'm interning with Action Now Kenya (ANK), a small non-profit which provides micro loans and business training to people living in the informal settlements of Nairobi. ANK has three full time employees and four community workers who occasionally report back to home base. In 2007 ANK started working as a partner organization with the microfinance agency Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/). In this relationship Kiva dealt with the investors and ANK dealt with the clients (the people receiving the loans). Soon after partnering with Kiva, ANK and Kiva dispersed over $100,000 in small loans. The timing, however, was incredibly bad, just a few months later post election violence erupted in Nairobi (http://tinyurl.com/ycuwu5j). The fires, violence, displacement of people, and looting were most intense in informal settlements and so many of ANK's clients were unable to pay back their loans because their businesses were destroyed or looted. When Kiva asked for money from ANK to pay back the investors, ANK wasn't able to reimburse the investors at once and is still trying to do so today. On a positive note, ANK recently started a new loan program independent from Kiva. On Monday I went into Kibera to meet some of our current and prospective clients.
Kibera, and informal settlements in general, are difficult to explain so I'll save most of the details for another blog post. I'm pretty sure that over half of all small businesses in Kibera are either hairdressers or dressmakers/tailors, and so on Monday I met some hairdressers and dressmakers/tailors. I mostly enjoyed the dressmakers because they had beautiful old sewing machines and tended to employ/train other community members. I also met a doctor who runs a clinic which has been burnt down on two occasions and which he has rebuilt doggedly after each disaster. I met a man who makes the best Mandazi (less sugary but better than doughnuts) in Kibera. I met an old lady who sells onions at a stall at 10 cents an onion. I ate a lunch of chapati (kinda of like a tortilla) with beans and kale at the hotel (which translates to restaurant) of one of our clients.
I was also invited into the house of the husband of a prospective client. He happened to be a priest of a church particular to Kenya and was wearing an orange teacosy on his head and a matching gown (I guessed they had something to do with him being a priest, although I'm still not entirely sure). I'm telling you about the teacosy and gown mostly because I was taken aback when I first saw them but when I learned he was a priest they began to make just a little sense to me. On second thought maybe the hat looked more like a chef's hat, but not the kind that look like a soufflé, instead the kind that looks like a cylinder. In any case, in one corner of his house he had an elaborate alter with many differently colored candles, religious images, rosaries, and shepherds' frocks. I talked to this man for a while about his wife's business before conversation turned to his alter. He picked up or pointed to each item and told me its significance. Eventually, he picked up a green stained bottle and...you already know the rest. I found out later that the liquid was blessed water that had been boiled with special curative herbs. The whole incident was really quite strange.
After walking all over Kibera to meet clients I was happy to get back to my apartment and relax.
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