This week we took an uber out to the giraffe centre with another UFV student. On our way we stopped at the mission home. Last year the mission home was in the building where we go to church, but now it moved far away and we needed to drop off a package for a missionary from Chilliwack that we brought. Luckily, it was on the way to the giraffe centre. The missionaries in the office seemed excited to see us and called the elder for us to talk to him...thing is, I don't actually know him. This call was the first time that I had ever spoken to him. There were some senior missionaries there that were talking to the reds about things to do in Nairobi. The big takeaway for us was that there is a place near Nairobi where you can go to ride ostriches. Really. So stay tuned for future entries because we definitely have to try this out.
The giraffe centre was fun. A tour bus arrived the same time as us, so it was a little crowded at first, but eventually the group dispersed and we got plenty of access to the giraffes. The giraffes have very long tongues that they stick out for you to place food on. If you are not careful, you will get slimed.
We tended to be too careful and dropped plenty of the food off their tongues. Some of the other tourists were unphased and stuck their fingers right into their mouths. One giraffe refused to take any food from us--I think it is because we missed too many.
 |
| How many giraffes can you spot? |
When we were done there, we went to lunch at a cafe that seems to only feed older wazungu women. I never saw any Africans or men there. Afterwards we took the long drive back to Mathare. On our way, we got stuck at a light for a long time. A huge group of motorcycles rode up on the other side of the road honking their horns, blowing whistles and revving their engines. I was a little worried that we had come upon a protest--there had been one the day before--but it turned out to be pretty tame other than blocking traffic.
At Mathare I conducted a focus group discussion for the project I am working on. This was my first time doing something like this. I thought my professor would conduct this discussion, but she left Kenya without getting it done, so it fell on me. We only had 4 participants and mostly only one girl spoke, but I learned so much from it. One thing that you might find interesting is that Mathare has its own kind of street food that you wouldn't find anywhere else. I asked for an example and she told me about moshiogi which is a stuffed chicken head. They stretch the neck out and fill it with potatoes and then boil it. Apparently it is quite good. I'll take their word for it.
After the focus group they took us to see the school that we will be helping out at. The reds were not impressed. They wanted to go home. But I thought seeing the programs they do at the school was really cool. They have a cooker there that they call taka taka zero. Taka is Swahili for garbage. This cooker operates on non-recyclable waste. They cook bread in it which they sell to raise funds for school programs. They also have a little farm there that they showed me. Right now it is only growing managu--some kind of leafy nightshade that they eat a lot of here. Apparently I will be working with them and helping to scale this program for other schools. It seems like the list of things I will be doing is getting longer.
This week I have been working on an application for a competition for innovative ideas that strengthen flood resilience. The applicant is supposed to be a youth and the project is supposed to be locally led...I don't fit either of those categories. I expected to at least be given the ideas they wanted to use, but no. I wasn't. My professor pointed out that this is one of the problems of development. I was asked to do the application because they are all too busy. It is competitive and difficult to get funding--especially for small grassroots organizations like the one I am working with. (In my focus group discussion I discovered they all work 13ish hour days 6 days a week!)
So how am I, a student of development, supposed to know what to do to improve a river corridor to make it less likely to harm the people that live near it in the event of a flood?! I had to do a lot of research, and talk with other UFV students that have been involved in river projects and also get some geo-tech ideas from Brent. I sent 4 possibilities to my supervisor from the organization and he said to do 3 of the ideas. I spent a couple days figuring out how to flesh those ideas out and what would be appropriate for this location and be representative of this organization. There has been some back and forth with my supervisor and professor trying to get it right and the way they want it. It has been tiring--I don't want to think about the Mathare river at all for a few weeks. I put all this effort into one application, and although they suit the requirements and focus very well, it is global and only 2 winners. Here's to hoping we are one of them. 🤞
1 comment:
Go Mathara !
Post a Comment