This weekend Jamee and I found a little piece of heaven right here in Nairobi. It’s called the Westlands, and it’s the ex-pat community to the west of City Center. Having read all about this magical place in our guidebook, the two of us set out Saturday morning to see if it lived up to its hype (which, rest assured, it did). There are three malls in the Westlands, the newest of which is known as the Westgate Mall and which is comparable, if not nicer, than some American malls I’ve seen. It was at Westgate Mall that we found a lovely little American-style restaurant called Art Café, which was chock full of wealthy foreigners. The menu was simple – mostly pizza, salads, and sandwiches, but all of it sounded delicious after two weeks of Kenyan food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Jamee and I treated ourselves to some wine, hamburgers, and salads, which were delicious and filling! While it was no Tessaro’s hamburger, it was nonetheless a welcome change. I honestly could have been content sitting in Art Café with a glass of wine or a coffee all day – it was so nice to be away from the slums and the loud, dirty streets of Nairobi. To make it even better, lunch cost less than $12 USD! After lunch, we wandered around the mall and did some shopping. There are tons of stores in Westgate and nearby Sarit Center that sell beautiful African art, jewelry, and clothing – a far cry from the second hand crap you find at the markets. I already started buying some gifts for everyone at home. Overall, our visit to the Westland’s proved to be a delightful respite and it’s definitely going to be our Saturday go-to from now on – we’re already counting down the days until this weekend!
I will say that I think part of what made Saturday great was getting out of the house by ourselves. It felt good to navigate the city on our own. The matatu system really isn’t as complicated as it appears at times, as long as you know the name of the area you’re headed to. All of our matatu conductors were incredibly helpful and friendly, and overall the experience was positive. I know Eric has been extra cautious with all of us for the past few weeks, but I think we proved to him on Saturday that we’re ok on our own during the day. I’m confident that he enjoyed having some time and space to himself on Saturday as well - this apartment can be stifling at times.
Oh! I forgot to mention the meeting we had last Friday. As I alluded to in my previous post, we met with a representative from Vision-Africa on Friday, a woman named Kirsty. Kirsty, who has been living in Nairobi for the past 3 years, is the social media director for Vision-Africa, which is a medium-sized NGO working on about 14 different projects in Nairobi and Kibera. She shared with us some Vision-Africa’s experience with networking and fundraising in Kenya. A lot of it was pretty straightforward, but she did mention some things I never would have really thought about. For example, I think thus far we’ve been really focused on getting the sponsorship program off the ground with the help of international donors. Something Kirsty made clear was that there are plenty of Kenyan’s who have the financial resources to help as well. Moreover, she warned us about possible NGO dependency – she said that often times, the big NGO’s come in and do their work without really involving the community. Because of this, the beneficiaries tend to see these projects as just a means to an end. She encouraged us to involve the community in our work. This means asking community members beyond the child beneficiaries (particularly the PARENTS) to participate in various ways. This could be anything from having parents sew school uniforms, to tasking some of them with coaching an extracurricular activity or teaching a music/art class. In doing this, the hope is to foster a sense of community involvement and responsibility for the success of the project.
We talked with Kirsty for about an hour on Friday, and she agreed to put us in touch with two of Vision-Africa’s Kibera-specific projects, one of which is a school/feeding program much like the one Eric is trying to get off the ground. Hopefully we will be able to visit these projects sometime this week to get an even better idea of how things are running on the ground. Overall though, I thought the meeting with Kirsty was really important, and I really appreciate that she took the time to chat with us. Networking really is as big here as it is in the U.S., and I think she was the perfect place to start! She also told us that much of the NGO community in Nairobi networks via Twitter, which I thought was ironic considering how spotty the internet is here. We’ve been in touch with other projects as well and will likely try to visit as many of them as we can while we’re here. This sort of resource building will be imperative for Eric in the long term.
Aside from the networking, which will be an ongoing process this summer, this week is going to be dedicated to a lot of administrative work. As of now, Lisha Mtoto Initiative is registered as a Community Based Organization (CBO). In order to apply for NGO status, we have to provide a Constitution (complete with mission and vision statements, organization structure and roles, governance information, etc), an annual budget, and meeting minutes. We also have to have a number of forms filled out by various Board members, and we have to open a separate bank account for Lisha Mtoto. It seems like a lot of busy work, but it’s actually really critical that we get it all done before we can do anything else. Today we banged out the mission and vision statements, and started coming up with an organizational structure. The issue of a Board of Director’s is a little muddled at this point, as Eric has a separate Board that has been running the microsavings program (the greenhouse) and just doesn’t generally have too many expert resources to pool. Overall, this sort of clerical work is more for the sake of the organization than the officials who will grant us NGO status. It’s hard to work out of the apartment where there is no constant internet, so we are going to try to find a coffee shop with free wi-fi tomorrow where we can pow-wow for the majority of the day and hopefully get most of this stuff done.
So that’s where we are in terms of work. Progress will likely be slow, as none of us really have any hands-on experience with building an organization from the ground up, which is essentially what we’re doing. I definitely think I’m going to learn a lot through this process! Hopefully we’ll all have a leg up as we complete our GSPIA coursework and look for jobs in the next year.
Overall, things have been looking up lately. We’ve only had one matatu incident this week (a strike, which caused a 2+ hour delay as Jamee and I were sitting on a matatu trying to go home yesterday), so in general the good has outweighed the bad. My birthday ending up being very enjoyable. We all got a little drunk and talked late into the evening, which is rare here as we’re usually very tired by 9 pm. I’m really looking forward to Max and Elliot’s arrival in a few weeks! I think they will bring some much needed humor to the sometimes frustrating days here. I am also looking forward to watching them struggle a bit, as it’s kind of an initiation at this point J I’m also looking forward to planning some travel with them and Jamee for later this summer – we’re thinking safari at Masai Mara, a visit to Mt. Kilimanjaro, and then a few days on the beach in Mombasa. Sounds pretty perfect right about now!
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