and so it goes...

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since I last blogged – I sincerely apologize to all five of my faithful readers. Life has been busy over here in Kenya! Who would have thought that starting an NGO would be so much work?

A lot has happened in the past week, though the best thing has been the arrival of Max and Elliot! Not only are they two extra (and eager) set of hands to help with all the work, but they have definitely brought a lot of energy and humor to the group. I went with Eric and his brother-in-law, Kyalo, to pick the boys up on Monday morning, and so far it’s been awesome having them here. They both seem to be settling in well – much better than the rest of us did, that’s for sure. They have been much better sports about the living arrangements than I would have been – they are not only content but GRATEFUL to be living in the middle of the sitting room. They have also really taken to the kids around here, and have spent the past two evenings playing soccer on the street and making tiny friends. Elliot has learned a significant amount of Swahili already and pretty much talks to everyone he sees, which is hilarious but also worrisome in that he made friends with some apparently “bad men” last night. Hopefully they haven’t figured out where we live yet! Max and Elliot have also really hit it off with Eric… last night we spent several hours sitting in the living room just talking and joking around. The evening ended with Eric wearing Max’s new sunglasses and walking around bow legged again. Tomorrow the boys will get to go meet our kids in Kibera for the first time and do the first of our home visits. Although they’ve seen a decent amount of Nairobi so far, I think they will be in for a shock when they get to the slums tomorrow. It’s one of those places that you have to see to believe.

On the work front, we have been doing a lot of networking of late. Yesterday we visited an NGO called the Children of Kibera Foundation (CoKF). I encourage all of you to google them and take a look at their website, as they are an incredibly impressive and different organization. CoKF was founding by a guy named Ken, who grew up in Kibera and has actually lived and taught in the U.S. over the past few years. Unlike most education focused NGO’s in Kibera (which focus on quantity - getting as many kids into school as possible), CoKF focuses more on quality of education for the best and brightest students. We were fortunate enough to actually get to meet Ken himself yesterday, and were able to talk to him for over an hour. I really liked him – he had one of those no bullshit personalities, and he shot us straight about the realities of Kibera – mainly that not every kid who receives an education is going to succeed, as there are so many traps and distractions in Kibera that can overpower a child’s judgment. To this end, Ken and CoKF have chosen to focus on the most promising kids rather than on every kid in the slums. While he said it was incredibly hard to pick and choose which kids get to come to their school, he said ultimately he’d rather see the 10 most promising kids SOAR than 60 kids get an education and never get anywhere.

One thing about Kenya that I find to be rather stupid is that high school is basically as competitive as college. During the 8^th grade year, students take exams in order to qualify for entry into high school. There are several tiers of high schools, national and provincial being the best schools. There are only 20 national schools in the entire country, so you can imagine how competitive these schools are. Not only are they competitive, but they are also incredibly expensive. Essentially then, only the kids at the very top of their classes get into good high schools and have any real shot at going on to university. Ken and CoKF are committed to providing every resource necessary (high school tuition, uniforms, tutors, computers, SAT training, resume/college essay work, exposure to arts/music, etc) to see their kids get into the top high schools and the best universities. Ken himself was awarded a scholarship to high school from Save the Children, and he really credits that opportunity and Save’s resources for allowing him to get out of Kibera and be successful. His hope is that in 10 years he will be seeing their students graduate from college and come give back to Kibera as he has done. Overall what they are doing is really interesting and really different from what most other NGO’s are doing, so it was awesome to be able to see that. Ken encouraged us to keep chucking, no matter how long it takes – he reminded us that he was in our shoes just a few years ago. He also said that we will have to learn to become shameless about asking people for money in order to help our organization and that we might have to knock on 100 doors before we get even 1 answer. Before we left for the day we got a tour of the school (CoKF doesn’t have its own school but rather sponsors and funds a school called the Red Rose School) and the kids were amazing! We got to meet every class, starting with baby class and going all the way up to the 8^th grade. It was really cool to meet some older kids for a change, and it was refreshing to see them so hard at work and studious!

Aside from meeting with CoKF yesterday, we’ve also had two meetings this week with website designers. We were toying around with the idea of just paying someone to make the website for us, but have since realized it will probably be too expensive. We did see some really impressive work yesterday from one company, and Matt and Elliot are both familiar with the program they use and feel confident that they can do it themselves. One of the biggest issues with any website we make is that it needs to be easy to use and update, as Eric will have to be updating it regularly once we go. It may take longer for us to do it ourselves, but it’s probably the most cost effective choice at this point. We’re hoping to have it up by the end of the month! In the meantime there is a ton of other work to be done – home visits, setting up a blog and twitter account, reworking our facebook page, getting a logo and doing some basic branding (getting Eric business cards), writing up all of the information that we will need on the website and designing a layout, creating a budget in Excel that will be easily updated, etc. There will be no shortage of work for the rest of the summer! In between all that work, we also plan to visit the greenhouse at least once a week. We went there today and had a great day in the sun, though we’re all sunburned now! We picked some tomatoes for ourselves and the kids, and also helped Lydia with moving some manure (ok, the boys did this). It’s always nice to see Lydia and spend time in Ruai and away from the city. 

So what else has been going on? Well, we got in our first matatu accident yesterday! Our matatu more or less slammed into the side of another matatu and shattered one of its windows. After some yelling, the conductor of the other matatu shoved our driver back into the bus and we continued on our way without exchanging information or anything. It was quite exciting at the time, but I’m sure if we had been the ones hit it I wouldn’t have been laughing. I did think it was perfect that it happened on Max and Elliot’s first day though – what a welcoming! In other exciting news, we are going to be booking our safari and vacation this week! We will be going on safari to Masai Mara National Park for 3 days starting June 18^th and I am so excited. Masai Mara is supposed to be the best game park in the country, so we are guaranteed to see all the big animals! It’s a camping safari so we will be sleeping in two person tents at night and then doing game drives during the day in a private car (thank god, no matatus). Masai Mara is also the home of the Masai tribe, who are generally very open to meeting foreign travelers and discussing their lifestyle, so hopefully we’ll get to meet some cool Masai warriors! After the safari, we will be back in Nairobi for a week and then we will be leaving for Tanzania and Mombasa for a 9-day vacation. We are going to be traveling to Moshi, Tanzania to see Mt. Kilimanjaro for a few days and then will make our way to Diani Beach in Mombasa. Diani is supposed to be absolutely beautiful… crystal clear water and white sand beaches. We have rented a cottage right on the beach for six nights, at a cost of only $75 per person! I think all of the traveling will be a welcome timeout from life here in Nairobi and from work in the slums.

Alright time for some dinner… waa and rice tonight, my favorite! The food is really growing on me – I’m hoping to learn how to cook a few of my favorites so that I can introduce the family and Frank to African cuisine when I get home J Hope everyone at home is doing well! Thinking of and missing you all <3