Kenya Dig It?

Random Updates

2006-04-24T06:15:00.000+03:00

Just posting a periodic update about AITI. This summer, they will be sending teams to Kenya and Ethiopia. I helped review the applicants and am confident that they will do a great job.

Unfortunately, funding is tight this year and AITI was unable to send a third team. Ideally, they would have sent teams to Ghana and Zambia as well. This is the downside of being a student-run program. They will be able to raise money next year and return to Ghana and Zambia.

Incidentally, online tax-deductible donations can be made through the MIT Giving website. Search for "AITI" of "Africa", or enter fund #2720970. Employer matching information is available through the web site.

In personal news, I am completing my PhD this spring and have taken a job at Google in California in the fall.

Cheers.

Course Materials

2005-09-04T20:43:00.000+03:00

I've posted the AITI course materials from Kenya 2005 on my personal website. These will probably be put on OCW sometime in the future.

Strathmore Article

2005-08-13T03:21:00.000+03:00

This article about AITI was posted on Strathmore's web site.

Dwindling Blog

2005-07-28T07:18:00.000+03:00

Mr. Chepkurgor needs to talk to the Masai warrior we met at the mara. That will set his head straight about Chelsea.

Anyway, since I'm done with teaching AITI, there's not much to post on here anymore. I might post a Kenya or AITI related link once in a while. Thanks for reading.

Strathmore Group Photo

2005-07-26T11:26:00.000+03:00

This was taken after our graduation ceremony at Strathmore.

Last Day

2005-07-25T09:43:00.000+03:00

Today's my last day in Africa. I'm in Zanzibar waiting to make a connection through Nairobi, back to Boston via London. I might take a layover in Europe for a few days but am still on the wait list for a later London-Boston flight.

It's been a great time. Teaching was both challenging and rewarding. I've really enjoyed living in another country for a longer period of time, rather than just visiting. I'd like to thank a few people who made it a pleasurable experience: Manish Gaudi, the AITI president, Mr. Khaemba and Mr. Mwanga from Alliance High School, Bett Benjamin and Catherine Ngugi from AVU, Farnaz Haghseta from OCW, Tobias from Strathmore, Eric Mibauri from AITI and Eric's family in Meru, Jack Costanza and Frank Tilley from CSAIL for donating computers, Matt Papi for helping configure Linux on the donated machines, the Stanford MBAs who sent us sample business plans for our entrepreneurship component, Timbuk2 for donating bags to our team, and everyone else I forgot to mention.

Also a big thank you to all the donors to MIT-AITI who made this possible and to the AITI officers.

Congratulations and thanks to all of our students at both Strathmore and Alliance.

Finally, thanks to the AITI-Kenya team: Bilha Nyambura Ndirangu, Curtis van der Puije, Robert Leke, Zahir Dossa, and Marta Luczynska.

Zanzibar

2005-07-23T11:00:00.000+03:00

I made it to the beach in Zanzibar. It's amazing. There's no water or indoor bathrooms where I'm staying, but they have an internet connection. Last night I went to the full moon party and had a blast. I'll be here for another night before I go to Zanzibar town, and then back to Boston.

Graduation

2005-07-19T14:40:00.000+03:00

We finished our courses at both Strathmore and Alliance and held graduation ceremonies. It was a lot of fun, and we goofed around with a lot of students afterwards. Team Meja won the business plan competition with their Kenya Creations business plan. Their idea is to export high-quality Kenyan crafts to the American and European markets, while guaranteeing fair compensation for the craftsmen. They won a cash prize of $200 dollars that we hope they'll use as seed money.

We couldn't agree on a second place team, so split it between the Home Boyz and Conscociatus. The Home Boyz had a plan for building clean pay bathrooms in Nairobi. Their presentation was hilarious, especially when they discussed their two-tiered pricing structure for "long haul" and "short haul" visits. Conscociatus planned an online directory specializing in Kenyan businesses. It is very hard to find any information on Kenyan businesses on the internet, as most don't have web sites. Even just basic information like phone numbers or addresses is hard to find online. Each team received a $65 cash prize.

The OCW students also presented their final projects. They were given an open-ended design project and encouraged to build on existing open source software projects. One group came up with a nice GUI network chat room combined with a media player. Another group designed an MP3 player capable of mixing tracks. There were also some database projects, other media browsers, and a statistical simulation package.

Zahir gave a great, funny graduation speech about some of our episodes around Nairobi. Prof. David Sperling also gave a fantastic speech about the impact of the MIT-AITI program and how its self-empowering philosophy should be a model for other development programs. Strathmore's Dean Clementine gave a short speech poking fun at each of the MIT lecturers. I was "always composed" and "very serious", but "would relax when you gave him a Tusker Beer".

We took a lot of pictures with the Strathmore students which I'll post when I get a decent internet connection.

We also installed an OCW mirror at Alliance high school. Zahir installed another one at Aga Khan university earlier in the week. I think the Alliance students will make good use of it, especially since they can work through almost all of MIT's first year courses.

We're all going back to Mombasa for the rest of the week. I'm going to go on to Zanzibar and will likely spend the weekend there. It should be very fun and relaxing.

Homeboyz, Longombas, and Kleptomaniax

2005-07-17T16:41:00.000+03:00

We tried to get one of the Homeboyz to be a guest entrepreneurship speaker on the last day of class, but it fell through at the last minute. He said he didn't want to deal with Strathmore's dress code, but that was probably just an excuse to back out. It was a bit of a longshot to try to get Kenya's biggest rap producers to come speak at a university that sells Opus Dei books at the front desk.

That night, we had dinner at the Carnivore. I'm not sure how many types of animals I ate. I know there was some ostrich, camel, and warthog in there. There may have been some giraffe, zebra, or other game as well. It was tasty stuff.

Afterwards we went to a record release party for the Longombas and the Kleptomaniax that was being held at Carnivore's club. The Kleptomaniax have a hit song called "Swing" that we've heard about two billion times since being here. We invited our Strathmore students to join us, and subsidized part of their cover charge. It was a blast. Apparently, the place was packed with Kenyan hip-hop celebrities. Of course, I wouldn't have recognized any of them, but we've heard some of their songs.

Last night, the Alliance students came over to our apartment for Kenchic chicken and to watch some movies on our LCD projector. We played them some American music videos and showed pictures of MIT and Boston. They sang us the school fight song before leaving.

Lunchtime

2005-07-15T11:22:00.000+03:00

Here's a lioness and half a gnu from Maasi Mara. I posted a few other lion pictures below.

Shorties got my back

2005-07-15T11:14:00.000+03:00

These kids go to school at the Laare catholic church in Meru that houses the community computing center. They weren't as serious as they look.

Social Events

2005-07-14T16:57:00.000+03:00

We've invited the Strathmore students to the infamous Carnivore night club tomorrow night for a strictly non-university-sanctioned event. We're also having the Alliance students over to our apartments on Saturday night for Kenchic chicken, swimming, and movies. We hired one of the Strathmore business plan teams, Veritas, to organize the event.

We also have a secret guest lecturer coming to speak at Strathmore tomorrow. If all works out, I think the students will greatly enjoy it.

Business Plan Ideas

2005-07-14T16:50:00.000+03:00

Here are a few of the business plan ideas that the Strathmore students came up with:

Meja - Exporting fine Kenyan crafts. Directs a portion of profits to community development.
Mtu Tano - Outsourcing agricultural workers. Provides stable income for workers and simplifies the managament of large farms.
Homeboyz - Providing clean, public bathrooms in Nairobi for a low cost.
Veritas - Event planning.
Incredibles - IT consulting.
Alpha Bizna - Day care provider.

Team Meja and the Homeboyz received the highest investment from their classmates. Combined, they received about a third of the market investment capital. Students who invested in the winning business plan will receive a proportional amount of extra credit. The winning team will receive a cash prize.

Elephant Wins

2005-07-13T16:11:00.000+03:00

Marta and I went to Meru the last couple of days to offer technical support for the Laare Community Computer Center, which was set up by another MIT student and AITI member, Eric Mibauri. Meru is the center of miraa production. Miraa, also known as qat is a mild stimulant that is chewed mostly around the mideast. It is especially popular in Somalia, where despite not having a government, they still manage to fly in daily shipments of fresh miraa. It comes in twigs that you have to chew. I tried a little bit when I was in Mombasa, but it tasted so bitter than I was only able to chew a couple of them and didn't feel any effect.

The Laare center is run by a Catholic church. They have since branched out and donated some computers to two girls' secondary schools in the area. Marta and I visited all three and helped service their computers. Unfortunately, power is only available at night, so we basically hung out all day on Tuesday, played with some of the nursery school students, and visited Meru national park with two Fathers.

While at the park, we were driving around a sharp corner and nearly ran into an elephant. We must of surprised it, because it turned around and started to charge the car. The priest who was driving the car quickly threw it into reverse and drove us backwards up the trail until we escaped. It's a good thing, because we were in a little Subaru and in the game of Subaru versus Elephant, Elephant wins.

A hard, hard, hard, hard life

2005-07-13T15:41:00.000+03:00

We went to the Maasai Mara last weekend, which is a large national park in on the border of Kenya and Tanzania. There is an annual migration of over a million gnu. They usually reach the mara this month. To keep tourists going to Tanzania, they light big fires on their side of the border that delay the animals from migrating. Regardless, we still saw a lot of buffalo, gazelle, impala, topi, giraffe, elephants and lions.

At night we were sitting around a fire with one of the Maasai warriors. We had been joking with Marta throughout the trip that we were going to trade her with the Maasai and get some cattle as a dowry. (Actually, one person told us Marta's dowry would be worth three cattle, two goats, and a sheep. Bilha was worth a large pot of honey.) Bilha translated our proposition to the Maasai for us and he simply shook his head.

"Marry a white woman? That's a hard, hard, hard, hard life. I would have to go to America and then who would take care of my cows? Besides, she would have to get circumsized."

Ouch.

Maasai Mara

2005-07-08T13:28:00.000+03:00

We're going to the Maasai Mara this weekend for a safari.

We wrapped up lectures this week and have posted the final project for Strathmore. They'll be working on it for the next week. They also did they business plan pitches today. It was very lively and interactive, as students were asking each other tough questions on their business plans.

Alliance Parade

2005-07-07T10:04:00.000+03:00

We were formally introduced at Alliance yesterday to the entire student body during their parade (assembly). They have this crazy idea of actually letting us work (for four weeks) before going through the formal protocol of presenting us to the student body.

Biz Plans

2005-07-05T16:28:00.000+03:00

The Strathmore students submitted their draft business plans today and they look pretty impressive. Each team will do a short "elevator pitch" for their plans on Friday, then will present a longer presentation and submit a final business plan at the end of the course. We are going to have a business plan competition with cash prizes based on these presentations and plans.

As an experiment, we're going to have each student simulate investing among the other teams' companies. The peformance of the company will be based on their performance in the business plan competition. The students who invest in the winning companies will recieve a proportional amount of extra credit in the class (but no cash). Teams won't get any extra points for the amount of investment they receive -- otherwise they could game the system. Of course, teams confident in their own ability can invest in their own plan and get even more credit if they win.

Arrested

2005-07-05T13:56:00.000+03:00

We went out on Friday with Tobias, who is on the IT staff at Alliance. We were meeting up with him in downtown Nairobi before he took us out to an African restaurant. While all six of us were walking down there in the evening, a cop yelled at me and asked what I was doing there. I said that we were walking to town and he said that we shouldn't walk by the park after dark.

At this point, he noticed Bilha, who is Kenyan, and started yelling at her in Swahili, saying something to the effect of "What are you doing bringing walking these stupid tourists by here at night?" In the time he spent yelling at us, he could have easily watched us walk to the edge of downtown, since it was only about 200 yards away. Instead, he made us take a matatu. It was probably good advice, but he also sounded drunk and was carrying a machine gun, so I wasn't going to argue.

We met up with Tobias and he ushered us onto another matatu to take us to the restaurant. All six of us got on and took a seat. Then we noticed Tobias was not on board. He had disappeared, and before the matatu drove away we jumped off to look for him. The conductor said that he had been arrested.

Apparently as he was hanging on the side of the van helping us on, the police mistook him for a n unliscensed conductor. A few years ago, the government cracked down on matatus and made the drivers and conductors wear uniforms, install seat belts, and turn down their loud music. Now they fine drivers and publish violations in the newspaper with offenses like "Rude and Arrogant Crew" or "Drunken Conductor".

We found some police and asked where to find our friend. They said to go to the central police station. Fortunately, Tobias called us and said that he was free. He paid the cops off 500 shillings (about 7 bucks) to let him go. It was absurd that they picked him up in the first place, because he was dressed to go out to a restaurant and looked nothing like a matatu conductor.

The cops were just grabbing anyone they could, throwing them in a truck, and trying to extort bribes. It's a sellers market because the alternative is to spend a night in a Nairobi jail. I couldn't believe how fast they got Tobias, though becauase none of us even saw the cops nab him.

We made it to dinner safely and ate fresh roasted tilapia with our bare hands while listening to live music. Including bribing the cops, transportation, and entertainment, dinner for 7 cost about $20.

OCW Demo

2005-07-05T13:40:00.000+03:00

Marta and I demonstrated the OCW site at the University of Nairobi, Kikuyu yesterday. The IT staff had failed to install Adobe and RealMedia on most of the machines like they were supposed to. The hadn't even connected most of them. There was also a power outage for about an hour.

We also had to wait for the principal to show up. At least that gave us time to get all the computers working and sit through the power outage. The way it works is that nothing happens without the principal's approval. It would have been a major breech of protocol if, say, we actually started on time and didn't keep 30 professors waiting for three hours.

He finally showed up with an entourage of underlings. Each person made a flowery speech introducing the next up the chain of command. Finally, the principal made his speech and promptly left with his crew before Marta even started the demo. It was pretty ridiculous.

Haircut

2005-07-01T08:38:00.000+03:00

I had my hair cut yesterday at a barbershop inside a converted shipping container. It was hooked up with bootleg power and the barber filled a bucket of water to use for each customer. I got a decent haircut while listening to good reggae and being gawked at. I paid about $2.50. That's the mzungu (whitey) price too.

U of N - Kikuyu OCW Installed

2005-06-30T16:44:00.000+03:00

I installed a mirror site of MIT's OpenCourseWare at the University of Nairobi - Kikuyu campus today. It mostly went off without a hitch. We lucked out because a gang of armed robbers broke in last week and stole 30 computers. Apparently, they backed a truck up to the fence, sent in seven people to beat up the guard and then nabbed 30 computers in a matter of minutes. This has to be the single most impressive display of coordination and efficiency that I have seen since being in Kenya.

You may wonder why this was a good thing. By some miracle, the Kikuyu campus managed to get brand new replacement computers procured and installed in three days. They now have the nicest equipment I've seen in Kenya. Normally, the procurement process takes months. Getting 30 Pentium 4 machines with flat panel displays to rural Kenya in three days is akin to parting the Red Sea.

Yesterday, Marta and I went with several African Virtual University (AVU) staff members to meet the Kikuyu dean. AVU has been acting as a liaison between MIT's OCW and the U of N. Essentially, all we wanted to do is copy some files to their local computers. However, nothing gets done unless the dean okays it. So, we met with about 10 people in his office before we could set foot in the computer lab. It made us feel like he was the one doing us the favor.

Anyway, they've got a copy of the entire OCW site on their local machines now. The idea was that Kikuyu would then act as a local site where other African universities could connect to better than they could connect to MIT. However, Kikuyu doesn't even have any servers at its campus and has a slow, microwave radio connection to another U of N campus. It's also a liberal arts campus, so they don't have much use for MIT's course material. There is a different campus named (something like) Cheroma that is for IT and computer science students.

We're going to look into installing an OCW mirror there. Unfortunately, each campus has its own bureaucracy, so we'll have to go through the whole business of formally getting the dean's permission to enter his fiefdom.

Octopus

2005-06-28T12:38:00.000+03:00

Mombasa
Originally uploaded by sweis.

We stayed at an amazing apartment on Nyali beach in Mombasa for a long weekend. I woke up and ran barefoot the first morning we were there. The hawkers were already lined up outside, willing to stand there the whole day for the chance to sell us a trinket worth 80 cents. On one end of the beach there were six or seven camels standing around waiting to give rides to children and tourists.

The beach was on a bay surrounded by a reef that broke most of the tide. Behind the reef was calm and shallow, but full of seaweed and sea urchins. There was what looked like a large rock out by the reef and I decided to swim out to it.

The water was shallow enough that I could walk part of the way, but the distance was a lot longer than I thought. I swam for a while and had to stop to rest a few times. Closer to the reef, it became shallow enough to walk again.

It was low-tide, and the reef was exposed. There were starfish trapped in tide pools. There was another man on the reef hunting something with a spear and putting it in a sack. I asked him what he was looking for. He reached in the bag to show me. I expected a starfish or a crab, but he pulled out a huge octopus instead.

I could see the rock wasn't really a rock and was actually made of metal. The octopus hunter told me it was the engine block of a Singaporean freighter that ran aground thirty years ago. He asked me how I got to the reef. I said that I swam. He clicked his tongue and said "is good", then went back to hunting octopi.

Mombasa

2005-06-28T12:26:00.000+03:00

We went to Mombasa last weekend. The Alliance principal Mr. Khaemba hooked us up with an amazing place on the beach. Pictures are forthcoming.

AITI Ethiopia

2005-06-28T12:23:00.000+03:00

It looks like the AITI team will not be going to Ethiopia because of the student riots there. Some of the people killed were actually going to be enrolled in the AITI class. The Ethiopia team might end up going to start a pilot program in Zambia or will come to Kenya after us. I hope they're able to still go teach somewhere this summer.

iLabs

2005-06-23T08:58:00.000+03:00

We met Prof. Jesus del Alamo last night and had nyama choma again. Prof. del Alamo is a MIT EECS professor and is part of the MIT iLabs project. He is en route to Uganda, where there is an iLabs pilot project. Basically, iLabs lets you operate real, physical laboratory equipment over the internet. Prof. del Alamo will be visiting us at Strathmore today and meeting with some students.

Earlier in the week, we met with members of the African Virtual University. We are working with AVU, MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW), to install an OCW mirror site at the University of Nairobi. Reaching the MIT via satellite link is very slow, so the idea is to install a local copy. The text and PDF content of the current OCW site is probably usable over a slow internet connection, but the multimedia content is not. Local mirror sites will be able to offer the audio and video of MIT lectures.

Kenyan Blogs

2005-06-21T15:59:00.000+03:00

This site has been getting hits from some other Kenya-related blogs and from random countries like Rwanda.

Thinking in Java

2005-06-21T15:56:00.000+03:00

Bruce Eckel's "Thinking in Java" is a free HTML book with example source code that we've been using. We installed local copies of his book on the Alliance machines and on Strathmore's LAN.

Last Seen Entering Hell's Gate

2005-06-21T13:57:00.000+03:00

Backpackers
Originally uploaded by sweis.

We took this in case we disappeared and someone had to post missing posters. Fortunately, we didn't need them and made it back alive.

Buffalo

2005-06-21T13:56:00.000+03:00

Buffalo
Originally uploaded by sweis.

We saw a herd of buffalo near a watering hole. They stared at us for a while and we thought they might charge. Instead, they ran away from us. Good thing we didn't run, because a masai guide later told us that you're never supposed to run away or else they'll charge.

Hell's Gate

2005-06-21T13:53:00.000+03:00

Hell's Gate
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is steam rising from near the volcano at Hell's Gate. They built a power plant here to harvest geothermal energy.

Overlook

2005-06-21T13:50:00.000+03:00

Overlook
Originally uploaded by sweis.

Zahir, Bilha, Mr. Mwanga, and I at an overlook in Uplands, north of Nairobi, en route to Hell's Gate. Mr. Mwanga is the computer teacher at Alliance has driven us all over the place.

Zebra

2005-06-21T13:49:00.000+03:00

Zebra
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is a zebra at Hell's gate. We saw a lot of herds, but they didn't let you get too close. There are a couple gazelle in the background too.

Homeboyz

2005-06-21T11:49:00.000+03:00

We had the class break up into entrepreneurship teams and present entrepreneurs they respected. On team discussed Homeboyz, which is a production company and DJ school started by three brothers. We're going to try to get them to come give a guest lecture on entrepreneurship. Our liaison Maryanne happens to know them personally and is going to try to make contact for us.

Hell's Gate

2005-06-21T11:40:00.000+03:00

We went camping in Hell's Gate park this weekend and it was fantastic. We did some great hiking and saw wild zebra, gazelle, eland, warthogs, baboons, and buffalo. The entire park is geologically active and has a volcano and geothermal power station. A masai guide took us on a tour of a gorge with hot springs. I will post some pictures soon.

Next week, Mr. Khaemba hooked us up with a place to stay in Mombasa. We're going to take a long weekend on the beach. The rest of our team will arrive on Thursday or Fridays, so will get a nice vacation when they step off the plane. It should be a great weekend.

Midnight Run

2005-06-21T11:17:00.000+03:00

We went to the movies last Friday. It's interesting to see the subtle differences. First, you have reserved seating. You pick which seat you want to sit in when you buy your ticket. Second, they have two start times: one for the previews and one for the feature. The movie wasn't on Kenyan time, either. It actually started at the designated time.

They also showed a grainy, circa-1960's clip of the Kenyan flag and national anthem before the movie. Everyone stood at attention while it played. We told some students about it and they said that they had once refused to stand and were kicked out of the theater.

After the movie, we went to catch a cab home. A driver said that he'd take us, but failed to mention that he already had two Kenyan girls as passengers. Regardless, the six of us packed into his car. We were also carrying groceries that we had just bought for our upcoming camping trip.

On the way home, the car started to sputter and eventually died. The driver hopped out, fixed something, and got the car running again. We weren't very worried because it was on a busy, well-lit street in a nicer neighborhood, except the entire car filed with gas vapors and we had to open the windows.

After we turned off the main road the car died again; this time next to an unlit park. The two girls immediately became hysterical and said we were on the worst road in Nairobi. Zahir and I nervously joked about getting stuck there and that at least there were seven of us with the driver. The girls replied "It's not funny! We live here. It does not matter if there are 10 of you. They rape even the men." That shut us up pretty quickly.

We decided to make a run for the nearest building with a guardhouse rather than sitting there in the dark. I grabbed the nearest blunt object, which happened to be a can of beans we bought for camping, and took most of the money and credit cards out of my wallet and distributed it to my pockets. I'm not sure what I intended to do with the can of beans but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Before we left, the driver had the audacity to ask us to pay him for the service of suffocating us with gas fumes and stranding us on the worst street in Nairobi. We told him to go to hell and ran off. We were only about 100 yards from a main road, and made it to safety without further incident.

Computers Arrive

2005-06-21T10:59:00.000+03:00

The linux machines we shipped arrived at Alliance high school last Friday. One of the monitors was broken in transit because I didn't pack it well enough. It might be repairable, though. The rest of the shipment arrived intact, except one computer's power supply appears to be DOA. I also blew out another power supply by forgetting to switch it to 230 volt input. It scared the hell out of me when it blew. Fortunately, the computer itself was unharmed and we were able to swap in a new power supply.

I'm glad to get the linux machines in the lab, because their Win98 machines are awful to use. They take a few minutes to compile a "Hello World" program. I especially dislike Win98 because some of the Alliance students know it better than I do and keep locking everyone out of computers or deleting Java. To throw salt in my wounds, a couple of them leave taunting messages like "Don't be messin' with my computer -- Lord-X". These kids are too smart for their own good. At least we can contain their damage better in Linux than Windows.

Good News

2005-06-17T09:16:00.000+03:00

We found out that after two months of hassling embassy workers, Robert finally got his visa approved. He'll be here next week. Marta is also likely to return from the states, so we'll have our full team of six people for the rest of the summer.

We're wrapping up the second week of class. Strathmore had its first quiz and has started object-oriented programming. Alliance has covered all of functional programming and will be starting OOP next week.

We've also started the entrepreneurship part of the course at Strathmore. We the students formed into groups and gave a short presentation about an entrepreneur they admired. We learned a lot about local entrepreneurs. We're going to try to get some local speakers to talk to the class.

We also had a very interesting discussion on the entrepreneurial mindset and some of the attitudes and policies that encourage entrepreneurship in America. The students were very interested and asked a lot of good questions.

Alliance Students

2005-06-15T11:03:00.000+03:00

Alliance Students
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is our Alliance class. We've gotten enough machines working that most kids either have their own or are doubled-up.

Mmmmmm. Back.

2005-06-15T11:01:00.000+03:00

Mmmmmm. Back.
Originally uploaded by sweis.

Nothing quite hits the spot like a sheep's spine.

Nyama Choma

2005-06-15T11:00:00.000+03:00

Nyama Choma
Originally uploaded by sweis.

As requested, here's a picture of myama choma, the national dish of Kenya.

T-Shirt Stand

2005-06-15T10:49:00.000+03:00

Curtis and I rode a matatu back home from Strathmore on Tuesday. On the way back, I stopped by a street vendor to buy a cheap t-shirt (for about US$1.30). I was carrying a backpack, my laptop, and a LCD projector for our lectures. While I was looking for my size, someone walking on the sidewalk bumped into my bag. I was carrying so much stuff, it threw me off balance and I grabbed the vendor's table to catch my balance.

Unfortunately, his table was made out of cardboard. I ended up collapsing his entire stand and landing on top of his inventory. After helping him pick up his stand, three guys appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the shirts, folded up the stand, and took off in different directions. I was still holding one of the shirts, but managed to throw it back to one of the guys as he was running away.

Either the white guy crashing into their stand really spooked the vendors or a cop may have simultaneously walked around the corner. The matatu drivers do the same thing and turn down their music when driving by cops.

Hustlers

2005-06-15T10:48:00.000+03:00

I am rarely hustled while walking around on the street. I expected to be hassled more by hawkers, scam artists, beggars, and prostitutes. When walking around Nairobi, I am rarely approached by anyone. When I am, it's usually just someone curious about where I'm from.

I met one guy named Martin from Somalia that way and had some tea with him. He was a writer for an opposition newspaper and had to leave Somalia with the rest of the staff when the government cracked down. They fled the country on a spice boat that took a week to get from Mogadishu to Mombasa.

Martin was studying to be a veterinarian and was trying to go to grad school at UCLA, where he had a brother. He had some funny questions about America. He was worried about skinheads and wanted to know if he'd be safe in California. I assured him that Westwood was probably safer than Mogadishu.

He also wanted to know what our national dish was, why each state had its own flag, and what our biggest animals were. He had never heard of bears and I had a hard time explaining what they were. I tried to draw a picture and he asked me if it was a pig.

He was even more confused when I told him that bears were omnivorous, caught fish, sometimes attacked people, and could stand on their back legs. I didn't mention that California is famous for its bears, because then he'd probably worry about being attacked by bears while at UCLA.

Taco Carnivore

2005-06-15T10:47:00.000+03:00

We went to a bar/club Friday night named Tacos. They actually ripped off the name and logo of the Taco Bell club, probably not knowing that the Taco Bell club ripped off theirs from the fast food chain. We had a good time dancing to Kenyan music and ran into some of our Strathmore students. As one of them put it, "Java by day. Party by night."

On Saturday, we went to the infamous Carnivore. It's a nyama choma restaurant during the day, and turns into a nightclub at night. The cover is 300 KSh, which is about 4 bucks and makes it one of the most expensive clubs in Nairobi. It was a more touristy/ex-pat crowd.

Giraffe Center

2005-06-13T10:29:00.000+03:00

giraffes
Originally uploaded by sweis.

The Giraffe Center is a non-profit reserve for the endangered Rothschild Giraffe. They have a platform that you can feed and pet the giraffes from.

Hello There

2005-06-13T10:28:00.000+03:00

hello_there
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is a friend I made at the Giraffe Center. You have to be careful, because she will headbutt you if she wants food.

Ain't she pretty

2005-06-13T10:26:00.000+03:00

warthog
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is a warthog at the Giraffe Center.

Emergency Door

2005-06-10T17:16:00.000+03:00

breakglass
Originally uploaded by sweis.

Someone does not understand the concept of an emergency door.

Dinner

2005-06-10T17:15:00.000+03:00

dinner
Originally uploaded by sweis.

Zahir, Bilha, Marta, and myself with Mr. Mwanga, the Alliance computer teacher, and Mr. Khaemba, the Alliance principal.

Hair Salon

2005-06-10T17:14:00.000+03:00

hair
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is a shipping container that someone has turned into a hair salon. These types of kiosks are all over the place.

Roadside

2005-06-10T17:13:00.000+03:00

roadside
Originally uploaded by sweis.

Roadside on the way to Alliance.

Phonebooth

2005-06-10T14:13:00.000+03:00

phonebooth
Originally uploaded by sweis.

Crammed in a British phone booth. (A little out of order.)

First Week

2005-06-09T12:35:00.000+03:00

We've been here for a week now. Marta took off last night, and Curtis arrived this morning. We're still a little understaffed. I taught at Alliance last night and today. It's tough because they have 3-5 people per computer and we dealt with power fluctuations.

They have UPS backup systems, but they all beep loudly whenever the power went out. So, every 30 seconds, 30 UPSs would start beeping at once. We just had to lecture through it.

The kids at Alliance are very motivated and are spending their only free time in our class. It's tough because there are so many people in the class and they have a lot of questions. The machines we shipped should be arriving soon, which will relieve some of the computer issues.

We ate nyama choma last night, with is basically just grilled meat that you order by the animal part. We had a mutton hip and a leg. They slice it into bite-size pieces on your table and you can dip it with your hands in salt or tomato sauce. It was excellent with a local Tusker beer.

First Day of Teaching

2005-06-07T16:14:00.000+03:00

We started teaching at Strathmore today and things went well. We made it through three Java lectures and finished the first lab. At this pace, our worry is that we won't be able to prepare the course material fast enough to fill the day. However, the lab assignments may start backing up soon.

Unfortunately, Marta is urgently needed in the US and will be flying back as soon as possible. We all hope she is able to come back later. Curtis is now arriving on Thursday, and Robert is still battling the Kenyan embassy to get his visa approved.

Alliance went well yesterday and we were able to get several more computers up and running. We had to pull out every hack in the book to do it. The lab technician Walter helped us out big time.

Backyard

2005-06-05T17:12:00.000+03:00

backyard
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is our apartment's backyard. The trees are hiding the electric fence.

Matatus

2005-06-05T17:10:00.000+03:00

matatu
Originally uploaded by sweis.

This is a matatu, which is like a private bus. They run along designated routes and usually have names. (This one is "Thimba".) I haven't ridden one yet, but they're dirt cheap.

Wheels

2005-06-05T17:03:00.000+03:00

After dinner, we all went out to a bar called Wheels. It had a roadhouse atmosphere with pool tables and an outdoor patio. It was pretty much a locals hangout and that played a lot of Kenyan music. We all had a good time dancing. Predictably, Marta and Bilha had to deal with some pushy guys trying to dance with them, while Zahir and I had to politely decline some unsolicited business offers.

Half-liters of beer ran about 100 Kenyan shillings (nicknamed "bobs"), which is about $1.33. That's actually pretty expensive. For perspective, you can buy a large bag of sweet potatoes for 50 bob, or a full cooked meal with drink for 70 bob. Internet access costs a shilling a minute. Cabs have been the biggest expense -- costing about 1000 bob for 20-40 minute rides. Fortunately, most of our rides will be provided by Strathmore and Alliance. I think the average wage here is about 10,000 Ksh a month, which is about $133. That's a bit misleading, because the income distribution is heavily skewed. A few people make a huge amount of money, while the vast majority are extremely poor.

Chinese Dinner

2005-06-05T17:02:00.000+03:00

After work today, the Alliance principal Mr. Khaemba took the four of us out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Nairobi. He's an extremely nice man and has a can-do attitude. Zahir spoke with him about extending the hours that we're teaching at Alliance, and he was very open to the idea.

A side-note about Alliance: It was the first high school in Kenya for Africans. Before that, all the high schools were only for white colonists. We're teaching at the boys' school, but there is also an Alliance for girls, which is where Bilha went to high school. Alliance gets about 50,000 applicants each year and only has 700 students ages 13-18. This year, the two schools are sending 4 students to MIT. The students' entire day is structured from about 6am to 9pm at night. They have two hours of "free time" for sports, which is when we're teaching our class. These kids are taking their only free time of the day and voluntarily using it to take more classes. Even then, we only took about half the kids who applied.

Second Day of Work

2005-06-05T16:54:00.000+03:00

We started the morning with an early meeting at Strathmore. We were met by an administrative assistant named Rose, who introduced us to the dean of the IT department. Strathmore was founded as a christian school, and the dean stressed that we were expected to abide by their dresscode and that we stay out of the newspaper's scandal page. We had a hard time keeping a straight face.

We were able to use their lab facilities to download some software to use at Alliance. We managed to get a copy of the latest JDK and some anti-spyware software. Zahir and I went to Alliance and worked for the afternoon.

The biggest problem was that some machines simply had no working input devices. Either they had no USB port, or no CD drive, or had no drivers for the USB port. Luckily, we found one machine with some working USB drivers and were able to install the JDK on it. We also copied the driver files onto a floppy disk and figured out how tomanually install them on other computers.

The problem is that the floppy disk got infected with a boot-sector virus. None of their virus scanners were able to remove it, so we just had to ignore it. Unfortunately, this meant that every individual file copied from the floppy triggered each computer's anti-virus monitor (which we couldn't disable). It was very frustrating, but we managed to get it to work.

With the help of a technician named Walter, we started moving aworking CD drive from computer to computer and started installing the JDK on a few machines. This was pretty effective and we were able to get about 12 machines up and running by the end of the day. They're moving some more machines into the lab, we've got two laptops, and 5 linux boxes en route, so I'm pretty confident we can get at least 20-25 machines up with the JDK installed.

It should be noted that the Alliance kids had really hacked the hell out of all these computers. We had to open some machines to reset BIOS passwords and format a few disks because they had hijacked the machines so badly.

Starting Work

2005-06-05T16:51:00.000+03:00

We went and visited both Strathmore University and Alliance Highschool today. Strathmore was holding some sort of function, so we weren't able to meet any of the faculty. The facilities looked good and they had a decent internet connection. Plus, their IT staff said that we'd be able to hook up our own laptops to their network, making our job much easier.

Alliance is another story. They have about 30 computers in one lab, but only about half will boot up. Every computer we looked at had driver problems, was infected with viruses, or was riddled with spyware. I have no clue how these machines have spyware on them without being connected to the net.

Zahir and I worked on getting Java and our course material installed on them. The majority have USB ports, so we were using a USB drive toc opy file over. There are several with neither USB ports nor CD drives. None of our laptops has a disk drive, either. We ended up using one of their machines as an intermediary. Unfortunately, our version of the JDK wouldn't install on the only machine we were able to copy it over on.

We're going to go to an internet cafe tomorrow to download different JDK versions, anti-spyware software, USB drivers, and windows bootdisks. Then we're going to try to salvage as many Alliance machines as we can and try to get Java working as many as we can for next week. We shipped five Linux boxes out before we left, but they may not arrive any time soon. We've also got a couple laptops that students can use in the meantime. Alliance is also moving several machines over from another lab, but we don't know the state they're in. We have 45 students and no working machines, so have our work cut out for us before class starts on Tuesday.

Alliance is also a ways outside of the city and we ended up waiting for a cab for a while. Tomorrow we're probably going to try catching amatatu, which is basiscally a private mini-van that runs along set routes. They cost about a tenth of a cab. I'm also going to try to get my cell phone unlocked so that I can use SIM cards for different cellular networks.

Security

2005-06-05T16:44:00.000+03:00

Our apartment complex has a 24 hour guard detail, three "guard dogs"who we've named Guinness, Mr. T, and Sadie, and is surrounded by a large wall topped with broken glass and electrified wire. One of the guards named Yousblat (no idea how it's really spelled) is a nice guy.

The other guard looks like a serial killer. He only works at night and neither wears a hooded rain slicker or ski mask, despite it being about 50F degrees out. I half expected him to have a meat hook or severed head in his hand when he came to check out our taxi before letting us in the gate.

Veggie Rebels

2005-06-05T16:43:00.000+03:00

We arrived in Kenya after an uneventful flight from London whose onlydistinction was that we shared it with the Nigerian national football team, en route to a game against Rwanda. Fortunately, the Nigerian football team was late getting on the plane, which allowed our ownlate team member Zahir to make the flight after being stuck on aLondon subway. Unfortunately, our Kenyan liasion did not meet us onthe ground and we had to figure out where our apartment was on our own.

We managed without any problems and moved into our two apartments. Each has a nice living room, a kitchen, and a balcony that overlooks the pool. We're in a nice neighborhood close to the Ethopian and Serbian embassies, and not far from the President's house.

Zahir and I went for a run in the area. There's a large park nearbythat was teeming with people. In fact, there are people walking around everywhere at all hours of the day. We came across a crowd of about100 people circled around a man giving a speech on a traffic island. We moved in to get a closer look.

Lined up on the ground, spaced about two or three feet apart, wereseveral varieties of vegetables. Although I didn't understand any ofthe Swahili, it appeared to be a very intense and animated speechabout the merits of vegetables or vegetable products. I'd guess it was a vendor, but no transactions were taking place, sofigured it was some new religious movement based on vegetableparables. Zahir speculated that he was in fact a rebel leader and thatthe vegetables represented different dissident factions. In the eventof a police crackdown, they could simply eat the evidence.

Still Alive Ping

2005-06-04T13:02:00.000+03:00

We made it alive and started work. Internet connectivity has been a problem. I
have a few posts and pictures cached and hope to get them up by Monday.

Departure

2005-05-31T20:16:00.000+03:00

Four of us are leaving this evening, including myself. Curtis is scheduled to depart next week. Robert was supposed to depart with the rest of us, but is still waiting for his visa. He's originally from Cameroon and I believe had to send his paperwork to the Kenyan consulate there. That was over six weeks ago. In fact, the rest of us only received our visas last Thursday.

Zahir, Bilha, Marta, and I have a layover in London for about 12 hours. We're planning on going into the city for the day. But again, there might be an issue because Bilha can't just get a entry visa on the spot because she's from Kenya. I can't believe England doesn't have more
streamlined visa process with members of its own commonwealth. She might be able to get a transit visa, though.

I think we're on a code shared British Airways flight. Both legs will take about 15 hours combined. My last international flight was on Singapore Air. They had a pretty great on-demand movie, music, and video game console in each seat, good food, and of course have a famous throwback policy of strictly hiring attractive stewardesses.

I've got plenty of reading material for the flight. My sister gave me a good book called "The Shadow of the Sun" by Ryszard Kapuscinski, about a Polish journalist who has traveled in Africa since the 1950's. It's good so far. I also made some Swahili flashcards to practice with. For bonus entertainment, Marta is turning 21 while we're mid-air. It might be a moot point, though, since the plane might technically be British soil, where the drinking age is 18.

External Drive Housings

2005-05-29T23:36:00.000+03:00

I found a useful product for travelers or people who've upgraded laptops recently. You can buy an external hard drive housing for about $20-30 and convert any internal IDE drive to an external USB hard drive. It's much cheaper than buying a dedicated external drive, and it's a real convenient way to keep data around from an old computer. Plus, you can always put the drive back into a laptop later on. It took about five minutes to pull the old drive and install it in the casing.

This will be useful for backing up and transferring data where power and network outages are common, or where bandwidth is limited or non-existent. We also have a nice little 1gig flash thumb drive for the same purpose, but it was quite expensive.

I18N Tutorial

2005-05-29T23:12:00.000+03:00

I created a tutorial on code internationalization, including PowerPoint slides, sample code, and a lab. It could be useful for students to know how to localize existing software into Swahili or other dialects.

African Virtual University

2005-05-28T01:31:00.000+03:00

I found out we'll be working with the African Virtual University in Nairobi. This is the organization we will be delivering the OCW curriculum to.

Local Entrepreneurship

2005-05-26T01:13:00.000+03:00

I like the Water Hippo Roller as an example of local innovation and entrepeneurship. It's basically a water barrel on its side with a handle like a lawnmower. People use hippo rollers instead of carrying regular barrels by hand (or more frequently, on their head). It's a simple design that is cheap to build with locally produced or scavanged materials.

My friend Mathias Craig's company BlueEnergy operates on similar principles. They build small-scale windmills in rural parts of third-world countries using parts that can be manufactured locally. They can be built by a skilled team in under a week. The only parts that need to be imported are the magnets for the generator. They're still working out a pay-per-use system to make these windmills economically viable.

I came acrosse the Village Enterprise Fund, which is one organization that trains and funds microenterprise. They operate in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

A note on OCW

2005-05-25T20:33:00.000+03:00

All the course material we will be teaching in Africa is available on MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW). Several advanced students will participate in AITI's self-learning program by using OCW. Unfortunately, a big constraint in East Africa is bandwidth.

There are currently no fiber optic undersea cables serving the East African coast. As a result, most outgoing internet connections are through satellite links. A country like Uganda has a total outgoing bandwidth of about 10Mbps, shared by a population of 27 million. Downloading PDF files or video lectures from MIT is not going to be feasible.

Instead, we are tentatively planning on copying the entire OCW site onto a hard disk and installing it at a Kenyan university. Local students will be able to access it without going over slow satellite connections.

Howdy

2005-05-25T07:11:00.000+03:00

In lieu of sending out periodic e-mails, I'm going to post pictures and stories of my upcoming summer teaching in Kenya to this blog. I am part of a six-person team that will be teaching Java, internet technology, and entrepreneurship at a Kenyan high school and university as part of the MIT Africa Internet Technology Initiative (AITI). My teammates are Marta Luczynska, Curtis Van der Puije, Bilha Ndirangu, Zahir Dossa, and Robert Leke. (I'm sure I'll post some pictures of everyone soon enough.) Other teams will be teaching in Ghana and Ethiopia.

Right now I am in the midst of arranging for DHL to pick up several computers for the computer lab at Alliance High School, which is one of the schools we'll be teaching at. We'll also be teaching at Strathmore University. Alliance's lab has original Pentium computers that have been in constant use for over a decade. Past AITI teams have had some major issues with getting them to work.

So, we decided to collect some donated machines, refurbish them, and ship them to Alliance. We collected decomissioned Pentium III machines from MIT, salvaged as much as we could, and installed Linux on them. We're also sending a few iMacs to a community computing center in Laare. I'd like to thank MIT's equipment exchange and the CSAIL Infrastructure group for their donations. I'd also like to thank Matt Papi for installing and configuring Linux on the machines. (FYI, Partimage worked quite well if you ever need to do this kind of installation.)

While I'm at it, I'd like to thank Mark Dwight, CEO of Timbuk2 bags, for his donation to our team. We're teaching an entrepreneurship component to the course that includes a business plan competition. I asked my friend Chris Gorog, a Stanford GSB alumni, if he had any good sample plans. Mark responded to a solicitation that Chris sent to a GSB mailing list and also gave us a generous donation of Timbuk2 bags for our trip. These bags are great and I highly recommend them. By the way, thanks to the many other people who responded to Chris' request -- it was overwhelming and will be quite useful.

digit
Originally uploaded by sweis.