Leaving Africa, Final Thoughts

Tomorrow I jump on a plane to head back to NYC. I have grown fond of Addis Ababa and made some good friends here. Staying on in Addis (I never made it to Tigray as the project vehicle was wrecked and thus I had no wheels) gave me more time to think about what I originally came to Africa for -- to consider the role of technology, educational or otherwise, in a developing world context. Though I think I'm less convinced there is a role, I now have a first hand experience informing that perspective. Further studies and consideration will hopefully lead my thoughts in a more optimistic direction.
Africa (I'll generalize, based only on my travels in Kenya and Ethiopia) has a lot of available and willing human labor and some natural resources to offer the "global market". Yet, the developed world or rather the trans-national companies that create opportunity in this market are obsessed with realizing increased efficiencies (via software and re-engineering) that reduce labor and raw material as inputs (or substitute natural resources [what the developing world has] with synthetic resources [what the developed world can make]). So, in a way it seems that technological innovation might in fact be at odds with the idea that technology can improve lives in the developing world.
But, maybe these same efficiencies can be leveraged to deliver low-cost or public domain educational resources to help people get an education that otherwise would be unavailable. Education might be the most effective catapult out of this disparate situation for individuals. Then again, maybe not; after all good education is driven by good teaching not the materials used to teach with. And what incentives exist today for educated people to teach in Africa?
From what I have read, the past 40 years of aid to Africa has not resulted in a better situation for Africans. However, if Jeff Sachs is right and people in extreme poverty can at least be upgraded to just being poor with the foreign aid dollars already committed and almost on the table, then I think we (the developed world) have an obligation to try. Probably no efforts will be revolutionary in the short term and with our collective short attention span, may be hard to sustain, but this growing global disparity has to be unacceptable even to the most callous capitalists around. We'll see.
My public ruminations and this blog are now done. Thanks for following along; I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Progress in Addis

Amir and I have just finished 2 of the 3 surveys (rather the data entry worksheets and their corresponding databases). Amir is very computer savvy, so we're making great progress and have even thought up a couple of improvements that will hopefully decrease the amount of time needed to enter data as well as the chance for errors.

Yesterday, I spent what might be my last day at Ethiopian Immigration. I have a visa! I'm going to miss those folks (having visited them every business day since arriving in the country). Though the derg ended in, what 1991?, I can confidently report that communist protocols are alive and well at the immigration office. It's a great routine. Go to room 89, desk 1 desk 2 desk 3 desk 4 desk 5, come back tomorrow and begin in room 91 ... come back tomorrow. If I didn't know better I would think they just enoyed my company. Though I personally conversed with no fewer than a dozen people to get my visa, they only charged me $20. Since there's very few communist vestiges left in the world I consider myself lucky to have gotten to experience one.

Seriously, Ethiopia has been great. The food is fantastic and unbelievably cheap. Today 4 of us had lunch for about $5 total! Beer is less than $1 per bottle and the coffee is outstanding. This weekend I will hopefully (assuming there is no necessary trip to immigration) go north to Mekele/Koraro. Not seeing anything but Addis (and that's only been the Earth Institute Office and Immigration) would be a shame.

I'll close with a fabulous African adage I read recently:

When the old lady disappears, the hyenas start shitting gray hair.

That's a good one. ;-) Deuhna seunbetu.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

I have been in Addis now for 2 days. My first day went nowhere but down. My hotel was just awful -- and I have stayed in some awful hotels but not at $50/night. Thinking I had few options I went out to see the town and was basically overwhelmed by the beggars; it is very tough to see such young children, homeless and scrounging for money or food. Once you get past the young children, you can expect to be worked over by the college-age kids who shower you with conversational niceties, before asking for money. I now have enough experience with them to truly appreciate their ability to segue into the part about asking for money; it's impressive and I am taking notes so you better hold tight to your dollars when I return. Actually it is pain, but one can't hold grudge. They're doing the best they can and there seems to be a pervassive impression that all Europeans and Americans have endless amounts of money (which relatively speaking, I suppose we do). From here, it's just a matter of figuring out how to creatively separate the traveler from his cash. It seems to me that the best benefit of being Western is the opportunity to improve one's lot. Without some hope that things can get better tomorrow, today can be pretty damn bleak.

But for me, I found a much better hotel (and it is cheaper), and I ran into my friend Ben Okumu, who also is at Columbia and works on the MVP (responsible for statistical analysis and data modeling). I also found a great (cheap) Ethiopian resturant so my belly convinced me that things are not so bad afterall (how is it that an intolerable hotel costs $50 and an all-you-can-eat delicious buffet costs about $1.25?).

Ben has just returned from Koraro and convinced that I have to make it there, so I will try. I was told there isn't enough time, but I think I am going to have to make the time to see the fabled stone-hewn churches. I hope to get there somehow.

The work here is going well. The data manager that I am working with is already well-versed in MS Access and so after only a half a day's instruction he was off creating the templates and database tables for the first survey on Malaria.
I would like to include some pictures but with the speed of my Internet connection that probably will not happen.

Will post again soon. I am 4.5 weeks into 6 weeks of traveling and still no illness. I think it's time to move to tap water. ;-) CYA.

Old Town, Mombasa

It's Wednesday; I am in Nairobi and I just spent the better part of the day being sent between 6 different offices to make an airline ticket change (I had changed my flight to Ethiopia by phone, but I still needed to get a new ticket issued). Ultimately, I just bought a new ticket since it was only slightly more than the cost to update, which NO ONE could figure out how to do. And, I just couldn't bear being sent to one more office. So I leave for Addis Ababa in the morning.

This entry is from Old Town in Mombasa. Kristen and I had a great few days of relaxing in a very nice beach side resort, but I'll try to post photos of that place later (I can only post 5 pics with each post). These are more interesting though.




It was Sunday while we were here, so there was very little going on. Normally, this area is a bustling street market. There was some of it going on, but only a fraction of what one would find during the week. Narrow, winding streets characterize this part of town, but that is shown very well here. We got a tour from a local guy (everyone in Kenya wants to sell you something) that was very interesting, and I'm sure we wouldn't have wondered off in these neighborhoods without him.



I liked this scene. The tangle of old electric wires was everywhere and so were the mosques. This tower contains the loudspeakers where the call to prayer is announced 5 times per day.



This is a very old door. Many have been sold or have disintegrated, but now there is a government effort to maintain them (for what that's worth). These doors were very elaborately designed and were built solidly to, as I read somewhere, "protect the modesty of the woman who kept the home". Old Mombasa is mostly Muslim and there must have been 7 mosques in a relatively small neighborhood. The doors were of 3 different designs: Portuguese, Indian or Arab. I believe the one here is Indian.



Matatu! We rode them all around Mombasa. They're actually cheap, very efficient and the driver/money collectors were all very friendly and helpful. I'm a Matatu convert now. I may get one when I return to NYC and start a new trend.

Leaving Kisumu

It's Saturday at almost noon; Kristen and I have just picked up our tickets for travel to Mombasa (they did not arrive yesterday as scheduled and I was beginning to get concerned). Today is my last day in Kisumu, so I will include a few pictures from around town. My stay here has been very nice, but I am ready to move on. It's a small town and starting feel like it now.

Here is a small area where people peddle their wares (actually that happens everywhere but this is near the Barclay's Bank so I go near it often). The main strip through town is off to the right.

This is looking up the main strip; I believe the road is called Oginga Odinga and Kenyatta Highway runs perpendicular just under the green sign in the middle which is Kenya Central Bank. Nearly all of the businesses you see pictured are owned by Indians. For some reason few businesses are actually African owned.

This is an abandoned building, being torn down I guess. But, the 2 small vans are called Matatus which race around like mad with stereo blasting and guys hanging out the sliding door recruiting passengers. One can travel nearly anywhere in them, but I haven't worked up the courage yet. The seat next to the driver is referred to as the death seat. No thanks.

This is a side street in Kisumu of a couple places to eat. You're thinking, not very appetizing, huh? Some of them are actually pretty good. There is one I have been to a couple times called the Hangover Hotel. Hotel means place to eat around here. At Hangover, you can get chicken or talapia cooked over coals with oogali (a flour concoction very similar to polenta, but made with wheat flour) and a tomato/pea sauce.

Finally, this a picture I took of a woman walking with her shopping bag balance on her head. Women balance all sorts of things on their heads as they walk from place to place. I have seen young women carrying about 5 gallons of water atop their head, which must weigh about 35/40 pounds. Amazing.

Data Management Process Documentation

It's Thursday and I am just wrapping up the documentation of the data management process here at the ICRAF facilities where the Millennium Village Project is based for Sauri (see picture below). Unpacking the process was a bit confounding at first, but eventually I caught on. The biggest obstacle was learning MS Access, which like all MS software is a bit convoluted. Nevertheless, Eliud (the data manager here in Kisumu) has done a good job of putting together a process that should work quite well here and at future sites. Peter, out of the ICRAF office in Nairobi, developed some software called Logbook which acts as a kind of middle-ware to facilitate the transfer of data and metadata entered into specially formatted Excel worksheets into an Access database. Typically, one would use the standard database that Peter assembled which dynamically creates the internal structure depending on how the data is documented in the Excel spreadsheet. However, to simplify the process, Eliud developed a couple of simpler databases. On Aug 4, I will take this documentation as well as what I have learned about the process to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to teach Amir (the data manager for the Koraro site in NE Ethiopia).

On Saturday, I will head off to Mombasa to check out coastal Kenya. I've heard the diving there is good, and I'm looking forward to checking out the beach. If I can locate an Internet connection I'll add some nice tropical beach scenery to this blog. Later.

Classroom Electrified!

I just spoke with Kristen (who is spending the week in Sauri training teachers) and she reported that electricity has reached the classroom where the teacher training is being held! Yesterday Prof Vijay Modi (Columbia Engineering School) and I decided what was necessary, I spent the better part of the morning trying to locate the materials to make an outdoor electrical extension between the clinic's generator and the classroom (run along a barbed wire fence in a semi-permanent installation). I was able to get what we needed at an electrical shop here in Kisumu and send them out on the next vehicle. The Electrical Committee (there are committiees responsible for managing each of the various MVP efforts in Kisumu) took charge immediately and installed the extension. Kristen reported today that she was able to teach this morning with the projector that we brought over, allowing everyone to see much better what was on the screen (you'll recall those pictures earlier of everyone crowding around the laptop ;-).

Kakamega Rain Forrest

Sunday, July 24, we made a trip to the Kakamega rain forrest about 90 minutes north of Kisumu. Dan, the owner of the safari company we used for our trip to Masai Mara, offered us this trip for free after the various fiascos we endured on that trip--I may not have written about this earlier, so that will have to wait for a face to face storytelling. Either way, Kakamega is a tiny remnant of a rain forrest that at one time stretched all the way to the west coast of Africa. There are some 300+ species of birds and 33 species of snakes in the forrest. We saw no snakes, a few monkeys and lots of bird. We also ventured into a cave (originally dug to prospect for coal) where we saw some bats. We had no flashlight with us, so the bats were whizzing by our ears in the dark. Among the pictures below, you will see an enormous tree. Our guide told us that offspring from this tree has been planted throughout the forrest as it is such a hearty example of the species (which species it is, I don't recall).

This week I am mostly working on documenting the data management process in preparation for my trip to Ethiopia on the 4th. It isn't really blog-worthy material so my postings this week might taper off. We'll see. However, if we can arrange it, a few of us intend to travel to Mombasa this weekend. It is the peak of the tourist season so we're having difficulty arranging the travel. With some luck though we'll be swimming in the Indian Ocean this weekend!

Teacher Training Begins

On Friday, Kristen began the teacher training program so I spent the day in Sauri to assist. It went quite well though we had to conduct the training without the benefit of electricity so I swapped the laptop computers (we have 2) between the classroom and the medical clinic, where they could be recharged. It was not ideal, but as you will see by the pictures below, our students were very eager learners and greatly appreciated our efforts.
I just left Punjani Electrical where I purchased 100 meters of cable with the necessary plug and receptacle so we should now be able to extend electricity to the building we are using for the training. That will make it possible to use the projector we brought so students will not need to crowd around a single computer.
I am presently at Kenshop in Kisumu (an Internet Cafe) as we had a major lighting storm on Saturday and the Internet access has been down at ICRAF ever since. We have had several electrical outages and a couple of water outages while I have been here the past 10 days. On so many levels, it is obvious that I am no longer in the US.
You may notice in the pictures, in addition to their excitement, people are remarkably well dressed and clean--after 1 day in the village my clothes and skin were covered in the ever-present red dirt. I am not sure how everyone remains so clean. One thing is for sure, these folks are able to maintain an amazing level of dignity considering the poverty they face.

ps., I am now posting larger versions of the pictures that can be accessed by clicking the small versions shown below. Enjoy.

Sauri Harvest Festival

Thursday, July 21 was the harvest festival celebration in Sauri. Because of the agricultural interventions by the MVP, the villages have a bumper maize harvest this year! There were many speakers and each of the schools performed dances. Before the festival began, Kristen and I visited the schools again; I took many pictures that day, but here are just a few good ones of the children.

Sauri Schools

Yesterday, Kristen and I visited the villages in the Sauri sublocation in the Siaya district of Nyanza Province (about 44 Kilometers from Kisumu). There are 3 schools located there; Kristen will be teaching teachers some basic computer skills. In these pictures, you will see the room where these classes will be held (the villagers shown represent the education committee) and a few pictures of some of the children. Finally, the last 2 are related to the difficulty of there being sufficient food to eat for all school children. The pile of beans in the corner of the room was donated by parents who had a small surplus so that those children who had nothing to eat, could have something. In another, a boy is roasting an ear of maize in the school kitchen for his lunch. This year each school has a maize field located nearby that the students maintain as a part of their agriculture education. The harvest looks promising, and their goal is that the schools can provide sufficient food for all students to eat at school. Many of the students walk miles home to eat utilizing valuable energy and taking up significant time to travel there and back. Ideally they could spend that additional time on their studies, with food in their bellies.

Masai Mara

The following pictures were taken while I was on a safari in Masai Mara wildlife preserve. It is situated just north of the Tanzania border in southwest Kenya where many Masai people live. The Masai people are very recognizable as they appear often in African photos. They wear bright red blankets and often have elongated earlobes. Two Masai children are pictured below. Within the preserve animals were plentiful (I took over 250 photos in all). Most beautiful, however, was the scenery across the plains. In some of my photos you will see parts of the Serengetti which is in Tanzania. Breathtaking beauty!

Making progress on the data management process

I have been working with Peter and Eliud to better understand the data management process. Now that I am pretty comfortable with it, I am producing documentation on the entire process so that I can bring something for Eliud's counterpart in Ethiopia, Amir, will have something to follow. Additionally, I will be helping Eliud to create the new customized worksheets and databases for the new surveys now coming in. It is pretty interesting work and proving to be pretty complicated. So much so, that I have recently modified my itinerary so that I will now be staying in Kisumu until Aug 4. That will give me an extra week and a half in Kenya. Here are a few pictures of the people here in Kisumu working on the data collection and management. You will see the office at the ICRAF office, Eliud and Peter working on the database, and several people who are responsible for the data entry.

Nairobi for the night

I have made it safely to my hotel in Nairobi; it's apparent one doesn't go touristing at 10:30pm here. There's heightened sense of security overall, possibly a left over from the embassy bombing here or more recent events. Either way, I have no time for sight seeing until I get back here in a couple weeks. I am catching an early morning flight to Kisumu and so must turn in.
Over the Sahara, about 1900 miles NW of Nairobi, I saw the strangest thing, pictured below. Apparently these are crop circles, so to speak. Farmers drill down into an aquifer and use animals to turn the pump, pumping the water up, out and use it for irrigation. Wow.

Half way there

8hrs down 8hrs to go. Will arrive in Nairobi tonight then off to Kisumu first thing in the morning. Was able to get some Kenya Shillings here in Amsterdam, once less thing to do upon arrival.

African Travels for the Millennium Village Project

Soon I will travel from NYC > Kenya (Nairobi & Kisumu) > Ethipoia (Addis Ababa, Mekele and Koraro) > Amsterdam > NYC. While in Africa, I will be working primarily on a number of data entry templates to be used for Columbia University Earth Institute's Millennium Village Project. See the announcement of the first village included in this effort as well as the nature of the data collected in the 10/19/04 Earth Institute News.

My current itinerary is:
July 11-12, 2005 New York City to Nairobi, Kenya
July 13-22, 2005 Kisumu, Kenya
July 23, 2005 Nairobi, Kenya to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
July 23-August 18, 2005 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (with yet to be scheduled travels to Mekele and Koraro in Tigray Province).

mobile picture post

This is a test post from my mobile phone. Not knowing what my Internet access will be like, I may be relying on my phone...