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.
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