Yellow House

The blog -- I just haven't gotten around to deleting this far back yet. So here is remains and of minor interest in the world 9/09


September 18, 2007

I have been a moody grouch this week. I don’t know what happened.. well I do and I’ll tell you.. basically I have been despondent about the state of the world, and the way money runs everything etc etc.. I started classroom visits on top of this, and a consideration of the unsurmountable problems in the education world just about put me over the top. It was a pretty bad low to be honest. I wanted to dial back my life a couple of years and wake up in my bed on Wood Street. But as I was explaining to Jase on the phone this morning I have felt much cheerier since my humungous vomiting bout at midnight past. He thought throwing up depression was a good idea, and so now I am beginning to think part of the reason I was in such a slump was I was actually ill. I just hope it hasn’t put me off ndengue and rice for life.

Today I had a meeting with my program manager from VSO and I outlined all the project limitations from the top down. A really tight research study, both manageable and logistically feasible then emerged from the debris. Dinner followed and I had the pleasure of some pretty interesting company, and actually this is what has led me to write.

Sometimes I wonder why anyone bothers coming to Kenya or anywhere to do anything. It’s like wading through mud and to what end? In my work there are 400 classrooms involved in a project that sits on certain basic assumptions. Ideas like: head teachers support classroom teachers, and the Ministry of Education supports the schools. Like: children will attend school for more than 4 hours a day and approximately 6 months a year. Perhaps: children have pencils and papers and that the teaching is individualized to meet the needs of the learners. So when you go to a classroom and realize that speech concerns are like pimples on a warthog.. well.. there are only two solutions that come to me.. 1. an extended nap or 2. a good stiff drink. Anyway.. there’s my response and then there are people who take a project and turn it into something AMAZING. So I’ll write about that instead.

Kamlesh is a volunteer, and for the life of me I have no idea what organization he is with, a university? polytechnic? Who knows.. anyway he was given the job of increasing revenue (NGO speak: enterprise development). I am sure this position also has 609 constraints, and yet this is what he did. He worked at improving the cafeteria to generate income and increase business so that the people who produced the vegetables and other food stuffs got used to consistently supplying the goods. Farmers are often locked out of the market, but with the cafeteria buying products, farmers incomes have gone from around 400 kenyan shillings per month (~$6) to 1700 kenyan shillings per month ($25). He also expanded what was available by using the now highly successful cafeteria as a testing ground. Once he got his suppliers up and running he started going outside the organization to other businesses. For example, they buy 1 day old chicks and rear then for 8 weeks and sell them to restaurants and supermarkets. They make 50-100 Kenyan shillings per hen. When he arrived they sold 300 chickens a month. They are now selling something like 6000 a week. This surge of money is truly improving the quality of people’s lives. Suppliers are actually able to make a living.

So. This may seem like a stupid blog entry, but I’m feeling better. In summary. Good can be done. There is hope..