The Future of Kenya

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During the weekend of July 9th and 10th I experienced the face of Kenya’s future, which is captured in the image below.

 

Kenya’s future is not in Nairobi; not in Mombasa; not even in Nakuru.  Kenya’s future will come from children that we saw on the drive to Menengai Crater chasing our van (Matatu) begging for food.  Kenya’s future will come from children we directly talked with while going to and from our van to our boat in Lake Baringo.  The picture in this blog post are children from the village where we took our scenic boat trip.

 

Let me first describe the experiences on Sat July 9th while driving up to Menengai Crater, because I’m a chronological guy 🙂

As in any lengthy drive in many parts of the world, we had snacks in the van … water, chips, biscuits (cookies), sweets (candy), and chocolate.  We had been enjoying these throughout the day while at Lake Nakuru National park and had a few leftover by mid afternoon when we decided to go to the crater.  Maybe as we got about half way to the crater the scenery started to change.  It was, at first, a subtle change, then became more and more pronounced as we got closer and closer to the crater. The subtle shift seemed to be from small businesses at the side of the road to agricultural … maize (corn) crops started appearing more and more frequently along the side of the road.  The more dramatic shift was in the homes.  We had seen shacks, but these shacks that were people’s homes was something quite different.  Most appeared to be made from mud and were quite dilapidated.  In some of the homes, we could see goats in what I would assume was a front door into the home.  Then came another dramatic shift … the children … the many children in very poor condition.  Almost all had no shoes, many had threadbare clothes and many more still had no shirts.  It was obvious this was an area of poverty; of living with no electricity; of subsistence living.  The children themselves were amazing!  Smiles on all of their faces; a friendly wave, a shout of Jambo in response to our Jambos!  There were many touching glimpses and moments on that drive up.  Children with water jugs on their heads. Children with large (and I mean large) bundles of sticks and wood on their backs. Children working in the fields.  We decided to give whatever snacks we had in our van to them; however we decided to do that on the way back to reduce the word from getting around as demand far (far!) exceeded our supply.

When we reached the crater and started walking around, I walked to a spot I thought would be good for pictures.  On my way to that spot I passed two young couples, probably in their late teens.  I shouted Jambo (hello) out to them, they all responded back and called me over.  They told me one of the girls was celebrating her birthday.  Then they invited me to join them in her celebration!  I politely declined as I felt it was intrusive.  They insisted, at the very least, I have a piece of birthday cake and a glass of coke.  They came from the same area we had just driven though, yet they showed such warmth, friendliness, and generosity with their food and drink.  This is Kenya.  This in the future of Kenya. This is what makes me feel privileged to be here!

With that experience fresh in my mind as we drove back, we shared with the children along the roadside what limited snacks we had leftover. It was not enough. It will never be enough.

 

The second experience I wanted to share happened the next day on July 10th at Lake Baringo.  This was even more intense.

 

Lake Baringo is known for it’s tourist boat rides out onto the lake, so that’s what we did when we got there, late Sunday morning.  There’s a slight walk from where we arranged for the boat and the boats themselves.  The walk is through a little village, probably no more than 3 or 4 minutes in what I would be used to.  As soon as we started walking we were descended upon by children and young people.  Many asked for things, which we had brought and gave out like pencils and writing pads and chocolates.  However a few, mostly older children and youth engaged us individually in discussions as we were walking. They started out by asked where we were from.  We wanted to give, but it was impossible to give to everyone and the older and stronger ones seemed to be in front the most.  This experience was very difficult for all of us as we knew the need far surpassed what little we could provide.  In a way, it seemed that begging was the children’s job.  As soon as a tourist van shows up, I felt they were told in some way to beg for whatever they could get.  What was also different was that while we were out on the boat, the drivers asked us to donate money to help the village.  Interestingly I was told how much to donate as well 😦  The combination of being out on boat, being asked to donate and being told how much to donate made me feel very uncomfortable.  I had no idea whether anyone other than the boat would actually get any of this money.  It was a very unique situation I found myself in that day.

 

Now, finally to the point and subject of this post …  what I experienced that weekend is the future of Kenya.  How can Kenya have a brighter and better future if there are such dramatic differences in how people live?  How can Kenya “bootstrap” itself, if children’s “jobs” appear to be begging? How can I propose an e-Vote set of recommendations when people live a subsistence lifestyle on the outskirts of Kenya’s fastest growing city?

 

Kenya has a Grand Challenge ahead of itself and it needs, it must consider basic societal infrastructure to move the majority of it’s people beyond subsistence living as part of the grand challenge.  From what I have seen, I believe, I trust that Kenya can and will succeed in the Grand Challenge!

 

Nakuru is our new home for the next 3 weeks

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Due to poor wi-fi connectivity here in Nakuru, I’m in catch-up mode on this blog 😦

We left our temporary home in Nairobi on Wed July 6th and headed to Nakuru, or new home for the next 3 weeks.  Nakuru is in the Rift Valley about 2.5 hours drive northwest of Nairobi.  For the 12 of us, we took 2 van type taxis, called Matatus, which was shall we say interesting.  The roads were quite bumpy and the 2.5 hour ride became uncomfortable very quickly!  The scenery on the way was both spectacular and disheartening at  the same time … I’m learning this is the norm, in Kenya.

 

We took the “old road” route through the Rift Valley, which was absolutely amazing.  I’ve posted pictures on Facebook.  The tourist stop near the top of the valley was quite spectacular, even on that hazy day.  Though I coulda done without the vendors descending on us in a very strong manner.  That would be the first of what are now multiple times a day, vendors descending on us (more on that a bit later).

 

Driving through some of the towns and even as we entered the outskirts of Nakuru, was an eye opener.  People living in shacks, and shantytowns by the side of the street was not quite what I was expecting.  In many cases there were storefronts or small business fronts with the living quarters in the back.  I’ll upload video from the van as we drove along once I process and shrink the filesize down a bit.

 

We finally arrived in Nakuru and reached the hotel we will call home for 3 weeks, the Merica Hotel.  It’s a nice enough hotel, but the bathroom in my room is a little wonky … hot water is a hit and miss affair and both the shower and sink water comes out in a mist that seems to go everywhere 😦

The room has 2 single beds with mosquito nets over each one!  I used the mosquito nets the first couple of nights but I’m not sure how effective they would have been as I could not get a good “seal” between the two ends and of course tossing and turning opens up the nets.  I gave up using them after about 2 nights and now solely rely on my malarial pills.

The hotel is fairly western both in style, ambiance and food.  We get breakfast and one other meal included in the room rate and the third meal we try various local restaurants.  Though for a western style hotel, the wifi is terrible! 😦

 

We arrived in Nakuru later than we expected and were a little late for our meeting with the local District Commissioner, so we had to rush into the hotel, drop our stuff, change into a little more formal attire (though I was really late getting my stuff and missed changing 😦

As someone said, you don’t walk into someone’s house (Nakuru) without talking to the owner (the District Commissioner), so this was more of a meet and greet meeting.  It was a 5 or 6 minute walk to the district commissioner’s office from the hotel.  His office is very old school British with a lot of British terminology, artifacts and processes.

Sooo, for the first time I think in my almost 28 year career with IBM, I had to explain what IBM is.  We introduced ourselves as IBM employees and he asked what is IBM.  That was a bit of a surprise for me.  We had a nice meet and greet with him and he explained his role as well as gave us a number of valuable contacts.

After that back to the hotel for a quick change, then a late lunch at a combination Indian, Chinese, “western” restaurant.  The Indian food was quite good and we celebrated HwaYoung’s and Andrea’s birthday with cakes (2 of them!) that Krishna very kindly arranged!

That evening we walked around the town of Nakuru to see what was what.  Nakuru is very different than Nairobi!  Traffic is crazy, even more so than Nairobi, here in Nakuru!  It’ll take time to adjust to Nakuru!  More later.

 

 

Initial client presentations done … now the hard work starts!

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Over the past day and a half our three sub-teams presented to their clients.  The purpose of these presentations is to agree scope, high level timelines of the work we’ll be doing, deliverables (both interim and final) and most importantly to get stakeholder support and commitment for our work over the next month.

The first sub-team presented to their KENET (University collaboration) clients mid Monday morning.  It went really well with a lot of client participation!  On the University of Nairobi campus they presented to maybe about 30 or so people in a large meeting room, with other universities around Kenya watching via live video link.  The presentation was attended by the Vice Chancellors, Principals and Heads of Information Communications and Technology.  The guest of Honor was Prof. Crispin Kiamba who is the Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology.  They were all very impressed by the sub-teams preparation and presentation!  There was a lot of good discussion as the sub-team explained what their approach and high level plans were for the remainder of the month.  At the end of the presentation, I was shown a new custom .. tea and coffee was served along with a light snack.  I could get used to tea, coffee, and snacks after every presentation!  There is even an announcement of the presentation out on the KENET website at http://www.kenet.or.ke/index.php/en/component/content/article/1-latest-news/242-invitation-to-the-launch-of-the-kenetibm-corporate-service-core-team-project-on-july-4-2011-1000-1100-at-kenet-training-room
We then went on mini tour of the University.  University life here is like university life anywhere else … you get that same sort of vibe here!  The campus is very big and stretches on for a number of blocks.

Later that afternoon, it was my sub-team’s turn to present our e-Vote work plan to our clients.  Our clients are the Permanent Secretary for Information Communications and Technology (ICT), the ICT Board, the Independent Electoral and Boundary Commission, and the Minister of Justice.  Heavy weights!  Unfortunately, we were only able to present to the ICT Board members, though they are important, we were hoping to present to all of our clients.  There were some complications that I can’t really blog about, but we’ll have a challenging month ahead of us.

It was then back to the hotel for a whole team debrief of the day.  It was nice to reflect on the day’s successes and challenges with everyone and give each other hints, tips and feedback.

It was then time to enjoy a few drinks in the hotel bar in the early evening!  We arranged an impromptu dinner at a nearby restaurant and the fun continued on 🙂  More drinks, singing, a lot of laughter and, oh yeah a little bit of food 🙂  One our Finnish ladies introduced us to a Finnish desert … vanilla sorbet and vodka … yes, desert was essentially ice and vodka 🙂

After our fin night last night, this morning the e-Government sub-team presented their approach, understanding of the domain space and their high level timeline.  It went really well and the client was quite impressed with the work the sub-team had done!  Of course, there was tea and coffee after the presentation!  I could get used to that custom!

The rest of the day was spent in individual client discussions with each of the sub-teams separately.

My e-Vote sub-team had a great discussion with the Independent Interim Election Commission today and talked through the electoral process with them.  Unfortunately, our afternoon meeting with an e-Vote consultant from the Office of the President was cancelled.  There are a number of interviews we still need to do as well as lots more research and analysis we still need to do.
We have an early morning (7:30AM!) meeting with the Permanent Secretary of ICT and hopefully we’ll gain more information from that meeting.

Busy days and weeks ahead!

Dave’s first shakedown experience

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Soo, on my first day here in Nairobi I had an interesting experience.  Not that I am a world traveler by any means but I’m used to walking about, minding my own business, always aware of my surroundings.  I hope I don’t walk around naively.  My first day here (Wed June 29th) was a bright, sunny, HOT beautiful day in Nairobi.  I typically just walk through streets that look interesting or have interesting buildings.

I was walking down this dusty, busy, fume soaked road (I hope you get the picture that I’m still getting used to Nairobi traffic 🙂 and came upon Uhuru Park.  Uhuru Park is like a little oasis in the Nairobi City Centre, similar in concept to High Park in Toronto, Central Park in NYC or Hyde Park in London.  Like those parks, Uhuru Park has it’s cast of characters, but was very lively and friendly.  Kids playing in paddle boats in a pond, sculptures, couples, people just enjoying the day.

Perfect place to walk through and take pictures, which of course, I did!  Pictures are on my Facebook page, and I may cross post here sometime soon.

I’d spent maybe a little over an hour just walking through taking pictures when three men in suits with no ties stopped me.  This was early afternoon, maybe around 1:00, 1:15pm.  One of the men pulled out a “warrant card”  with the words Powers of Arrest written on it.  That alone immediately freaked me out … first day in Nairobi and I get thrown in jail!

Another one of the three started saying they had followed me through the park watching as I was taking pictures.  He said I was breaking city council rules by photographing the buildings (the building happened to be in many of the backgrounds of the shots and I had taken some direct building shots as well) and that I needed to pay.  I explained I had just arrived in their beautiful city and that I wanted to enjoy their park.  They kept insisting I needed to pay.  I then played the innocent tourist and kept saying I just arrived, I didn’t know the rules, I was just walking about.  This went on back and forth for maybe 10 minutes.  As they kept insisting I needed to pay, I began to realize this was a shakedown.  They never once asked for ID, which I wouldn’t have shown them anyway.  They never directly used their so called “powers of arrest” except as a threat and intimidation.  As this wore on, I came close to saying call the police and have them arrest me.  I certainly would never allow them to take me anywhere.  In the end they said I could finish up and leave.  I never did give them any money and continually played the innocent tourist line.

I was 99% certain this was an extortion attempt but needed to confirm with my Kenyan hosts first before blogging about it.  Obviously, they said it was just 3 guys looking for money and if that ever happened again just to firmly but politely tell them to leave,

It’s unfortunate that this kinda soured the rest of my first day and gave me a negative first impression of Nairobi.  That’s obviously since changed as I’ve talked to people about it and reflected on it.  I’ve also used the experience to help frame my work here.

There is such a huge divide between what my clients want (e-Voting) and what some few Nairobians feel they need to do (hussle and scam people for money).  How can I and my team close that gap?  I think we need to.

What also struck me about this experience is that some (many?) people only look at the immediate transaction (pay me now) rather than longer term relationships.  If those three men in suits, no ties, approached me as warm, welcoming guides who asked where I was from, what I was interested in, or wanted to show me their beautiful city, I would have appreciated that and would have paid them for their time, their hospitality and would have called them and used their services many more times as well as recommending them to my other CSC friends.  They would have made much more money and the tone of this blog entry would have very different!

That’s also something they didn’t think about or care about … the power of social media … they didn’t know or care I would be writing about this.  In a sense this is also Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs at work here.  They needed (I suppose), thier immediate need of money for food, drink, whatever.

In a way, I’m glad I had this experience as it taught me a lot, gave me things to think about to help frame discussions with my clients here, as well as see first hand how scams work in Nairobi!  Not bad for my first day in Nairobi!

What is some of the key learning after 2.5 days?

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Over lunch today, Lynn asked now that I’m a local 🙂 what are some of the key things I’ve learned over the past 2.5 days.

I think from the very beginning I’ve felt that Kenyans were warm, welcoming, friendly and talkative. I’ve tried to speak the few phrases of Swahili I know and when they hear that I am at least trying they certainly appreciate the effort.

I’d have to say that Taxi drivers know the real story! I’ve taken 2 taxis while I’ve been here and both drivers were very willing to share their opinions on what’s important, who’s important (not whom you might think), and their less than 1 year old constitution. I’ve done some (what seems like minimal compared to what’s out there!) research on the politics, hierarchies, social structure and constitution, so I am able to engage in a reasonable and simple conversation with them. Though it quickly became very animated!

From the interactions I’ve had so far, it’s unfortunate that it still seems to be a male dominated society. I suspect this perception is because I’ve had interactions with only one tiny sliver of the population. I’ll be talking to our NGO hosts and others about this to hopefully dispute this perception. It’s an important one, because we’ll be interviewing many people as part of the local research we need to do here as we create our final reports for our clients.

Despite the Corruption Free Zone signs I’ve seen in a couple of places, “shakedowns” still exist. I’m still very much struggling with this perception because I’m not (and can’t be) naive or completely ignore this exists. However I do not want this perception to become a stereotype and to influence my writing about my experiences or to cause people to brush off Kenya as corrupt. I’ll blog more about my experience in this area (nothing bad, just an experience) soon.

Finally, I wonder what the Kenyans perception of me is. I’m walking around with a camera so am looking like a tourist but not the typical tourist. Do they see me as just another tourist or if they knew why I was here would that change their perception of me in any way? I guess I’m feeling a tad self-conscious with this camera in my hand 🙂

I’ll blog more as these key learning change and evolve over the next 5 weeks. It’ll be interesting (for me anyway!) to see the progression from today through the next 5 weeks.

Happy Canada Day from Kenya!

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July 1st is not only the formal start of my CSC in country experience it’s also Canada Day! Researching and understanding how Kenya has evolved from a Protectorate to Colony to Independence to having it’s own Constitution gives me a new found perspective and view on what I have in Canada. Canada is an amazing country and things I take for granted there are things the Kenyan people are only just starting to come to terms with.

On the taxi ride back to the hotel from the National Museum the driver was very animated about the Kenyan constitution and how the ordinary person now has some say and some power in how their country is run. No longer is it the exclusive domain of the rich, and according to the taxi driver the rich are extremely rich, but now the country is in the hands of it’s people. The powerful politician’s no longer wield all of the power … they now are accountable and the power is in the hands of the people.

As I look forward to my e-Voting assignment I also reflect on what I have in Canada and wish all Canadians all over the world a Happy Canada Day!

Prelude to my IBM Corporate Service Corps (CSC) Kenya experiences

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I’ve been in country in Kenya a few days early to get acclimatized to the time differences and jet lag and finally relented and decided to start a blog 🙂

My CSC experience all starts about 2 years ago, when a former manager of mine went on an IBM Corporate Service Corps assignment to Malaysia.  As she went through the pre work, when she was in country and even when she came back, her discussions around all of her experiences made me want to apply.  I applied and was absolutely thrilled when I heard I was accepted!

In early March this year the team started to come together …  12 people from 11 different countries as diverse as Finland and Japan as well as Germany and South Korea.  The UK , China and Australia.  India and Spain.  Then there is the diversity from Canada and the US 🙂  Hey, I had to find a way to mention Canada!

April, May and June are just a blur now … they were 3 months of pre-work that the 12 of us were very heavily involved in.  Pre-work is like a fun kind of school homework!  We all did the pre-work activities in addition to our day to day jobs.  The topics ranged from team building, to cultural learning specifically on Kenya, to Issue Based Consulting, to getting vaccinations (ouchie!), to learning about international development, to Corporate Social Responsibility.  A lot of really interesting and neat topics.  We didn’t just read about all of this, we talked, we presented, we debated our own perspectives on these and a number of other topics in many cases late into the night for many of us!  I found myself going over the material a number of times as I wanted to pick up on various nuances and reflect on what I had learned.  None of us thought of this as something that had to be done so let’s just get it done.  It was all so interesting to all of us.

 

Then in mid May, The Email came.  Not just any email mind you, it was The Email we had all been waiting for …. our Statements of Work (SOWs).  Our SOWs are what we will be working on in July, so we were anxiously waiting word on what they would be.  They did not disappoint!

We are subdived into 3 subteams of 4 people each to work on one of the 3 SOWs.

Each one of the SOWs directly supports the Kenyan Vision 2030.  The Vision 2030 is a far reaching framework to change the way of life for every Kenyan.  It does this through programs and initiatives in three key areas of Political, Economic and Social.  In talking through how our SOWs support the Vision 2030 with my US CSC friend, I certainly came away with the view that what Kenya is doing is something quite transformative.

The first SOW is to transform the Kenyan universities and researchers to be collaborative and globally innovative. Not only is through strengthening Internet infrastructure but also fostering community, association and  collaboration among the researchers within as well as out of Kenya.

The second SOW is an e-Government program that builds upon previous work to create a portal framework that enables the Kenyan people to actively participate in all levels and in all areas of government.  Things as straightforward as applying for a passport to areas as complex as the judiciary.

The third and my sub-team’s SOW is an e-Voting Masterplan.  Now this excites me!  To think I am part of a team of 4 people that will submit recommendations to the Kenyan government and civil service that will change the way Kenyans vote is astounding … and scary at the same time!

There are high expectations from all three sub-teams

Our team formally starts our CSC Kenya3 experiences tomorrow (Friday July 1, 2011) when most of the rest of my team joins me in Nairobi!  It’ll be quite the experience seeing them in person for the first time and seeing how we build on the dynamics of the past three months of pre-work, team building, and learning about each other.

The fun starts NOW!