Last Day of Work

Today is my last day of work with Vipani, and it's my last day in Nairobi for this summer.

I finished my deliverables yesterday so there's not much to do on my final day. Looking back, it's been an extremely fulfilling month. I need some more time to reflect on my experience, but for the work, I have a few key takeaways -

1. People with pure nonprofit experience and those previously in for-profit sector but having switched to nonprofit are very different. The former appear very passionate about what they are doing. They often experienced poverty or the problem they are trying to help solve by themselves. They have tons of observations from the field and insights of the 'real world' problem. The latter, they are probably as passionate but they don't talk as passionately as the former. They are rational, analytical, and result-driven. They don't see the real world problem as much but they have insights too and can often deliver in a concise speech that I'd easily register with. For that matter, I think I'd like to work with the latter.
2. I am more into the idea of social entrepreneurship than before, i.e. concept of finding ways for the private sector to support the poor and make money at the same time (e.g. sustainable sourcing, marketing products needed by the poor, etc.). During my time at Vipani, I had interactions with people from KickStart, an NGO that develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes pumps for poor farmers. It's more of a social enterprise than a pure nonprofit organization. Their pump could help farmers increase their annual income by tenfold or even more. This encouraging result has made me believe in their vision/model, and social enterprise at large.
3. I am still interested in working in the civil sector but if I ever to join the nonprofit world right after school, I need to work with a group of people with business background. This is related to point #1. What I found out throughout the internship was that I love passionate people with pure nonprofit background but I am just too impatient to be a great listener of long, endless, (sometimes pointless), repetitive talk.

Safety in Nairobi

"Is it safe there?" - typical reaction from friends who get to know that I am in Africa. "Is it true that there are many many mosquitoes?" – another FAQ from my friends.

Well, malaria is less of a problem than I expected, at least in Nairobi. There are few mosquitoes in the city, especially when now it's dry winter here. I have been here for almost 5 weeks but have had only a couple of mosquito bites. For that reason, I am not taking any anti-malaria medications as all the pills have bad side effects. I am using insect repellent and net to protect myself during evenings though.

On the contrary, security is a much more serious problem than expected. I thought it was just some occasional stories that have been amplified by the western news media. Not until I talked to people who live here for a while, did I realize it is a real concern for the city.

Story 1 – TG, my GMIX boss, lost his laptop a year ago when he was taking a taxi. He was sitting on the front seat of the car and the car was stopped by the bad traffic. The thief somehow opened the locked rear door of the car, grabbed his computer bag which was sitting on the back seat, and ran away.

Story 2 – The house of Ed, our friend from KickStart, was broken into two weeks ago. The burglar took away all the valuable stuff, including his fancy camera kit. It was told that the burglar had to break four guarded/locked doors to get there. And he succeeded.

Story 3 – Yuri's friend, a girl working for Japanese government in Nairobi, ran into some burglars when she went downstairs in her house. Luckily, they didn't kill her; they just roped her, took money, and ran away.

Story 4 – If you think the only robbery targets are 'wealthy' expats, you are wrong. Samuel, one of the unit managers of Vipani and a strongly built local African guy, got beaten down on the street in day light and robbed of his cash.

Fair enough. No wonder people call the city "Nairobery"!

This coming weekend, I am going to escape this dangerous town and heading to Lamu, another coast city in Kenya.

Carnivore

Today TG, Ziad and I went to this famous meat specialty restaurant, Carnivore. Right before Ziad's ramadan - good timing!

Carnivore has become a standard stop for tourists in Nairobi. It's an open-air restaurant that's supposed to have very type of meat imaginable, including all kinds of wild animals. The meat is roasted on traditional Maasai swords (skewers) over a huge, visually spectacular charcoal pit that dominates the entrance of the restaurant.The waiters then carry these swords around the restaurant, carving unlimited amounts of the prime meats onto sizzling, cast iron plates in front of you. A wide selection of salads, vegetable side dishes, and a variety of exotic sauces come with the meat feast. Dessert and coffee follow this. The full meal including a soup course and desert, is Ksh1900.

We didn't get to eat the variety of meats as imagined. The only rare categories we ate were ostrich and crocodile. The others are just common things like beef, port, chicken, turkey, etc. A waiter told us that most of the rare kinds are protected animals and they are banned by the government. But they are hoping the new government tobe elected this coming December may loosen the policy. I hope they won't - it'd too bad to see people eating zebras in the restaurant.

Nairobi - second impression

Yesterday after work, Ziad and I went to the expats shopping mall in Nairobi - the Village Market. It is located near the UN headquarter complex (Nairobi has a huge population of UN staff as their base for Africa) and US Embassy.

The area is on a small hill and quite nice. There are many big fancy houses and villas. Passing by here reminded me of a Beverly Hill drive, except that palm trees get replaced by acacia trees. This, combined with the MCK meeting I joined Tuesday night, gives me a better sense of how expats' life here could be.

The mall itself is an open-air, three-story complex. Country-side style building, exotic. There's no Gucci, LV, or Nike stores here - except Rado, Mango, and a couple of others, I didn't see any other world-class branded retail stores. But there are some interesting boutique stores selling souvenirs and there is a food court. There is a supermarket in the mall as well, Nakumatt, that belongs to a local supermarket chain. Stuffs they are selling are nice - either global brand or home-grown ones that are well-packaged in English. I bought one Colgate toothpaste and one bottle of Dettol shower gel (it comes with a free bath loofah) and they cost 335 shillings (about 5 US dollars). Not cheap by local standard I guess.

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant called Ro Ro in the mall. The owner is actually a Chinese couple from Inner Mongolia and they have been here for eight years. The food was not bad - in fact, a beef dish I ordered was even close to authentic Chinese food. I was quite content.

Tonight, Ziad, Abby, and I are taking an overnight train to Mombasa, a Kenya coast city overlooking the Indian Ocean. I am looking forward to seeing some of the culture clash described in the book I am reading, The Shadow of the Sun - cultures ranging from local African to British colonial, to Indian.