Category: east africa

things related to EA

JKE in NBO

For those who have been looking for news: I’ve arrived safely and am staying at a very good place. Just a short note to let you know I am still alive + maybe stories like this one will proove that it was a good deciscion to come back. It is a good feeling to see how certain things change, while others remain the same till…..?

Will be back in blogging when I have more pics to share (and there’s a lot!).

Koigi’s analogies (verdict: comprehensive)

“Recently, the Kenya Football Federation kicked out our national team, Harambee Stars, out of the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, and invited the better-known Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions to practise at Kenya’s best stadium.

Instead, the national team was taken to Ruaraka, a field not as good as Kasarani. It mattered little that at the time, Harambee Stars was preparing for a match with Eritrea. In the end, Kenya lost to a team that had been dismissed as minnows.”

Koigi’s recent comment on the Mzungu/Obama/adoring-problem (“Our people have a long history of self-hatred”) …now, although I am not willing or able to dive deeper into this matter and although I don’t want to openly wonder about his continued efforts to entertain readers with his views on various matters (seems to me he has an opinion on almost anything – anyone remember JJ?), I find it quite entertaining how he puts in this vivid example from the Fussballwelt.

(note to myself: learn the names of your local football/soccer team and be prepared to talk about this subject more often to enhance business opportunities in Kenya :-)

being around…

I just realized it’s only four (4) more weeks for me over here in Germany. Jessas! How time goes by these days….four more weeks of working on some papers and studying for an exam in hydromechanics. Four weeks left to vacate my current flat, to pack my stuff up again (relocation No.11), to give away half of the stuff that has been accumulating here and has never really been used (so why keep it?) and to repaint the flat. Four weeks that will get me away from here and back on the road again into UHURU – freedom and independance. A lovely, scary feeling!
And then?

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Embu, Kenya. For at least 3 months until some time in January 2007. Doing an internship @ a state office on behalf of a German Agency. Will keep you updated on this as blogable content comes up – I am really dying to cover this on my blog as it involves some form of nation building, something with a meaning and hopefully a win-win situation for both sides involved: Kenya & Germany. For my partners at the office, and for me as a student.

The Tana river in Kenya has the biggest catchment area – and Kenya being a country of various landscapes, it will be particulary interesting to see how strategies for integrated water resource management can be implemented in reality and how to scale these complex and sometimes also confusing dimensions on a local level. Consequently, my approach on this isn’t the “mzungu coming to Aaaaafrika to change everything” attitude, but to listen and learn and help where I know an answer.

Now, for others wazungu that have come to Kenya (~you are prolly aware of the stereotyped pic), this might just be a single step on their career, but as for me – I really tried hard to convince the involved agency in placing me to Kenya (and not somwhere else) as I would like to take this opportunity to contribute something from me to the place where I grew up. And let me be honest – the “Kenyan part” in me of course asks why I should leave my comfy nest with 24/7/365 electricity, warm water and broadband inet for such a job. Well, why? Because I can. Because I was given this chance to learn more. And I think that’s reason enough.

Now, enough turgid words – let me go back to my papers and see how this adventure turns out…(yes, I am a bit scared :-)

(Ati, four weeks? Haiyaaaa…..*gulp*)

Google Maps Mashup NBO?

Mental‘s and Hash (recent) stay in Nairobi inspired me to check out Google’s Map API and how it could be implemented on a simple website in order to get a detailed overview of internet cafés / cybercafés in Nairobi.

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The idea is to get an updated, accessible online resource that lists all internet cafés in Kenya and user-based input/rating of the offered services.
Unfortunately, there’s no real map available from Google for the City of Nairobi – only a cloudy satellite image. And of course, downloading images takes time – especially if you’re connected via a lame modem connection that keeps on hanging up. So, Google’s Map service doesn’t seem to be a good option for this at the moment…

Ok, to make it short, here are my questions:

  • Did anyone come across an updated list of something like “best internet cafés in town” for e.g. Nairobi?
  • If it doesn’t exist yet – wouldn’t it be nice to have something like that – maybe just a simple list / page that could also be accessed via mobile phones (WAP 1.x) and/or printed out for fast reference?

Whenever someone blogs or speaks about internet cafés in Nairobi, ppl start dropping in their 2cents on where they regularly surf the web and we end up getting lots of useful hints. I think it would be nice to compile all these (dynamic, of course, as quality & services change) informations on a single page.
Maybe on kenyaunlimited.com?

(Pls don’t hit me if this already exists on places like Mashada or so :-)

Mzunguwear™

My brothers-in-passion Mzeecedric and Hash – owners of m.zung.us, zungu.net and zungu.com – might like this shirt I just made for fun:

It might also be perfect for various stressed touaaarrrists being confronted with “Mzunguuu! weka shillingi mia moja…” requests by uninformed kids or – even worse – uneducated wananchi who still (!) have this simple “mzungu=pesa” equation in their heads.

Baobab Family Project

Ich muss das jetzt einfach mal posten hier…. ein Videomitschnitt der ARTE Tracks Sendung vom 06. April 2006 über das Baobab Family Project in Mombasa, Kenia, welches im April bei YouTube.com hochgeladen wurde.

This video is about the Baobab Family Project in Mombasa, Kenya, someone recorded from the french/german tv channel ARTE and uploaded to YouTube. Andreas Triebel, the founder of this NGO at the coast, came to Kenya the other day, fell in love with the country and its people and saw a need to actually do someting about these many orphans and homeless young mothers. He consequently invested all his money and built a children’s home that aims to give the children a perspective, shelter and lots of love. Kudos and respect to him for this great task!

The reasons I posted this here is because a) Jahcoustix, one of the musicians in the video who contributed his earnings of a concert in Bremen earlier this year to the Baobab Family Project, is an old friend with whom we have been schooling back in the days, b) I would like to see even MORE of these projects being pulled up by ordinary wanainchii who could equally create something like this (just think of Wangari – a lonesome fighter during all those years) and c) I would still like to see the GoK ease up their daily bureaucratic hassle of NGOs and their work.
While I agree that some NGOs are heavily overfunded and wasting a lot of mbeca on overhead expenses (which has spoilt the general opinion on their work), others are struggling hard to be acknowleged for their work and are doing this purely on humanitarian grounds without asking for any allowances or the typical “what’s in it for me?” questions (and you know I could endlessly elaborate rant on this inherited cultural phenomenon where people put “money first, work later” and wealth-accumulating-schemes in the foreground which is SO counterproductive for the mutual growth of a nation… just like those Agwambos talking politics on Mashada & Co. – what a waste of intellectual capacity!).