When it rains it pours
I’m in Nairobi now with some time to kill before our In Service Training (IST) begins tonight. I took a night bus (meaning very little sleep last night) because I’ve got meetings scheduled later today with the FAO and with Benson, my wheelchair contact, before IST begins. Anyway, here’s a quick recap of the last week, there’s been plenty of frustrations.
Work is pretty much the same. I’ve been working with Rhoda on setting up a sweet potato value addition training class, and it looks like we’ll be conducting training from May 1st through 6th in three different districts. There’s lot of preparation involved for this and I left it to Habakkuk to help me get everything squared away while I’m gone. I’m really hoping things will work out because Rhoda is extremely difficult to get ahold of and I don’t want to miss this opportunity. Rhoda is the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) expert on Sweet Potato processing and once she has trained our farmers to her standards she will also be a very good connection for finding markets to sell through.
I also had a chance to send out an email to the primary benefactor for Sally Orphanage, a guy named David from Belgium. He replied with a lengthy discussion of how Molly, the caretaker at the orphanage, is a liar and cannot be trusted. He says that his contact in Nairobi is very trustworthy and that it is Molly that is the problem. David tells me he is going to pull funding from this orphanage because he’s tired of Molly, and so the effort I put into assisting really didn’t amount to much, except possibly helping to shut down an orphanage, which is not something to feel particularly good about. I’m sure there’s a grey area between Molly’s story and David’s, but what bothers me is the kids that will be unable to finished school, or may even be back out on the streets, because of bickering between people and issues they have no control over.
So with the Sally Orphanage disaster on my mind, I attended an Easter party on Saturday for my own Orphan’s project, the Wake up Women’s group in Kakamega. I had a chance to talk with Agnetta, the caretaker for Brenda who has AIDS, and it appears Brenda will begin ARV’s to treat the virus this week. I also listened to the caretakers discuss how badly their organisation needs an orphanage, as the kids are currently disbursed and living with distant relatives or neighbors. I suggested they start with some income generating activities, such as a poultry project, that can be used for nutrition and income before thinking as far ahead as the expenses and time involved to start an orphan’s home. However, this group is determined to get one. I had to listen to every women in the group pray that God will work through me to assist them in getting an Orphan’s home, and then even the kids started saying the same thing. It really made me feel uncomfortable because I don’t see how, with everything else I’m supposed to be doing, I will be able to set up an orphan’s home in Kakamega for these kids. While in IST this week we should be covering various possibilities for grants and funding so we’ll see what happens.
So on to the wheelchair project. I found a private donor through Peace Corps friends to cover the $5500 clearance/storage costs to get the container of 550 wheelchairs released and sent to Nairobi. I was even sent a text message confirming it was taken care of. Then, after telling so many disabled people wheelchairs were coming, I get another text message. It turns out customs wants an additional $2500, which seems to just be a random number they are throwing out to see how much they can milk us. It’s frustrating to me how much the Port of Mombasa is going out of their way to prevent this from happening. I told Benson there was no way I would throw an addition $2500 in or help him find somebody who would. The cost is to the point now that it’s almost better to start over than to try and clear these. I met with Benson over Easter and he agreed to make his way to Mombasa, which he did yesterday, to try to straighten everything out. I’ll be meeting him in his office today to see where things stand.
So on top of all this I’ve had a nasty vomiting/dysentery/fever thing and I had to be hospitalized and rehydrated Sunday night. They haven’t been able to identify what’s causing it but I think I’m slowly starting to recover. When it rains it pours but I’m confident things will start looking up again soon.
Work is pretty much the same. I’ve been working with Rhoda on setting up a sweet potato value addition training class, and it looks like we’ll be conducting training from May 1st through 6th in three different districts. There’s lot of preparation involved for this and I left it to Habakkuk to help me get everything squared away while I’m gone. I’m really hoping things will work out because Rhoda is extremely difficult to get ahold of and I don’t want to miss this opportunity. Rhoda is the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) expert on Sweet Potato processing and once she has trained our farmers to her standards she will also be a very good connection for finding markets to sell through.
I also had a chance to send out an email to the primary benefactor for Sally Orphanage, a guy named David from Belgium. He replied with a lengthy discussion of how Molly, the caretaker at the orphanage, is a liar and cannot be trusted. He says that his contact in Nairobi is very trustworthy and that it is Molly that is the problem. David tells me he is going to pull funding from this orphanage because he’s tired of Molly, and so the effort I put into assisting really didn’t amount to much, except possibly helping to shut down an orphanage, which is not something to feel particularly good about. I’m sure there’s a grey area between Molly’s story and David’s, but what bothers me is the kids that will be unable to finished school, or may even be back out on the streets, because of bickering between people and issues they have no control over.
So with the Sally Orphanage disaster on my mind, I attended an Easter party on Saturday for my own Orphan’s project, the Wake up Women’s group in Kakamega. I had a chance to talk with Agnetta, the caretaker for Brenda who has AIDS, and it appears Brenda will begin ARV’s to treat the virus this week. I also listened to the caretakers discuss how badly their organisation needs an orphanage, as the kids are currently disbursed and living with distant relatives or neighbors. I suggested they start with some income generating activities, such as a poultry project, that can be used for nutrition and income before thinking as far ahead as the expenses and time involved to start an orphan’s home. However, this group is determined to get one. I had to listen to every women in the group pray that God will work through me to assist them in getting an Orphan’s home, and then even the kids started saying the same thing. It really made me feel uncomfortable because I don’t see how, with everything else I’m supposed to be doing, I will be able to set up an orphan’s home in Kakamega for these kids. While in IST this week we should be covering various possibilities for grants and funding so we’ll see what happens.
So on to the wheelchair project. I found a private donor through Peace Corps friends to cover the $5500 clearance/storage costs to get the container of 550 wheelchairs released and sent to Nairobi. I was even sent a text message confirming it was taken care of. Then, after telling so many disabled people wheelchairs were coming, I get another text message. It turns out customs wants an additional $2500, which seems to just be a random number they are throwing out to see how much they can milk us. It’s frustrating to me how much the Port of Mombasa is going out of their way to prevent this from happening. I told Benson there was no way I would throw an addition $2500 in or help him find somebody who would. The cost is to the point now that it’s almost better to start over than to try and clear these. I met with Benson over Easter and he agreed to make his way to Mombasa, which he did yesterday, to try to straighten everything out. I’ll be meeting him in his office today to see where things stand.
So on top of all this I’ve had a nasty vomiting/dysentery/fever thing and I had to be hospitalized and rehydrated Sunday night. They haven’t been able to identify what’s causing it but I think I’m slowly starting to recover. When it rains it pours but I’m confident things will start looking up again soon.
posted by KenyaJoe at 11:53 PM
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