November 14, 2006: Wazungu Wengi!

I made it back to Nairobi, but I learned an important lesson along the journey: never sit in the far back of the bus. I took an overnight bus from the coastal town of Malindi to Nairobi. I was able to fall asleep right around the time we hit the really bad stretch of road between Mombassa and Nairobi. When we did hit the bad part I found my self waking up sort of hovering about two feet above my seat. Seems that the further back you go in the bus the harder you get hit by the bumps. There were a few big ones that managed to shoot all of us in the back out of our seats and into the air.

Young kids playing football near the beach in Malindi.

In Nairobi, I took a quick shower at the guest house and headed straight to the headquaters of the United Nations Environmental Program. The group I’m working with – Energy for Sustainable Development – was part of a Carbon Finance event going on in parallel to the annual Council of Parties (COP) meeting for the Kyoto Protocol, the Climate Change treaty. Unfortunately any shmo off the street can’t get into the COP meeting, but I did get to meet a lot of people that were involved in the meeting.

I was taken aback at all of the Wazungu suddenly congregating in Kenya. I got a good laugh from Isaac’s cousin Mary asking me once in Lamu if I new of any of “my country men” whenever we would see a group of wazungu. But sure enough there were so many of them at once at the COP meeting that I happened to already know one of the one’s I met in the evening. It was Rob Balis, an ERG student that graduated with his PhD at the same time that I graduated from ERG. He did his research in Kenya and is now a professor at the Yale School of Forestry. He had also come to Kenya as a Peace Corp volunteer so we spent the entire evening comparing notes. He also took me out to a fantastic Ethiopian restaurant that is very close to the ESD offices. Anyone that makes it out here should remind me to take them to it.

Ths scene sort of captures what I have seen in Nairobi: beautiful scenery with an underlying sense of fear that forces people to put up some of the scarriest fences I have ever seen. this one is your standard razorwire others go with electrcit fences or shards of sharp glass cemeneted onto the top of the fence.

And in a few days Sam will be here. We will take a week to get from Nairobi to Mombassa through two big national parks. I ran around downtown Nairobi today looking at tour packages. There is a lot to see in this country! We’ll get just a little snippet of it. It looks like you need at least two weeks to see all of the highlights, but with luck we’ll get to see a lion or two along the trip.

November 11, 2006: Zen and the Art of Generator Maintenance

Not much going on these days, as I have been a bit cooped up writing the expansion plan for MEC. I also holed up in my room during any free time for a few days to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the third time. I think this is the first time I actually got the point of the book. I also think that it is good that I had to head to Nairobi again and got some fresh air…

The students during the Community Based Organization Training on Finanancial Management

I saw a bit of what the author of the book talks about at a Community Based Organization (CBO) training that was put on with funds left behind by GTZ. It was a financial management training specifically for shareholders, staff, and board members of the CBO’s like the Mpeketoni Electricity Project and the Lake Kenyatta Water Users Association. For the most part the people there were farmers. But when we were going over topics like budgeting, bookkeeping, and internal controls these guys were totally into it. The third day got off to a late start due to a discussion that was sparked off about the rights of shareholders to inspect the books at LAKWA. Nearly half the room had a chance to give a short fiery speech about what they see needing to change to prevent the LAKWA organization from going under. I too was thinking about how to advise MEP about generator maintenance.

The first thing that is required when maintaining your generator is peace of mind.

Each day we were led in songs to keep us from becoming to restless. This day's song leader was a retired techer from Mpeketoni

According to the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the current situation arose because the big 150kVA generator reacted to the state of mind of MEP. The generator failed because the Board planned on it failing. In the financial management training we were hammered with the phrase: “A failure to plan is planning to fail.” When the big generator was back at 17,000 hours of operation an advisor to the board noted that the generator would require an overhaul at 20,000 hours according to standard practice. At around 23,000 hours the generator started belching lots of black smoke and the oil consumption shot through the roof. The technicians informed the Board and shortened the interval for oil changes, but no other action was taken. Within a few months the generator broke down and now cannot run without the overhaul. The Board now has zero resources to purchase the parts for the overhaul. They did not plan to raise and set aside funds for the overhaul of the generator but they continued to run it each day. The generator, it can be said, reacted to the state of mind of the board.

The whole group at the CBO training

Step 1 it seems is to help get the Board into the state of mind that they want these generators to function. In order to do that they need to get into the practice of seeking advice from the technicians and outside advisors on the resources required to properly maintain the generator. If those resources aren’t available they need to start planning through the budgeting process how they will raise those funds and set them aside so that when the time comes they will be in a position to carry out the required maintenance. Everyone in MEP has now been through the financial management training and while most of the recommended practices are followed, the planning part is distinctly missing.

Generator Riddler #3: How does one get the Board to have peace of mind?