kikuism – Page 10 – Kikuyumoja

le fabuleux destin….

Kikuyumoja’s Realm, my blog, has in the past greatly been influenced by this particular love of one fine woman out there: Mbuzimoja.
A great deal of this passion included the frequent and very intensive exchange of ideas, thoughts, feelings and findings. It were these things that made this relationship so very special and different from others.

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Mbuzimoja, that little goat from the slopes of Kikwaru, is with another herdsman now, who btw also blogs. And although I don’t know much about him, I tend to respect and trust him, and I think she’s in good hands.

I haven’t been blogging anything lately – but not because there wasn’t anything to write about. Instead, it’s this joy of sharing my worlds with others that has somehow vanished. A joy that had been nutured by intellectual, creative and interesting input from those that inspired me the most.

Love sure is the driving force behind many actions in my life. The difficulty is to keep on doing things once these driving forces have changed their directions.

How to make…a water filter

Almost all supermarkets in Kenya sell bottled water, and many also sell special water filters with about 1-3 filter candles inside. These filters are available in different sizes, often made out of stainless steel and will cost about Ksh. 1800/= (~ US-$ 25,- // EUR 20,-). To filter the water, all you have to do is put a litre of it on the top container and wait for it to percolate through the ceramic filter element into the container below which of course takes some time.

I also wanted to have such a filter system to filter the tap water, but I wasn’t willing to invest so much money. Also, I’ve seen this alternative filter system in use at our office – so it became clear that I had to build my own and see that I don’t spend too much money on this DIY project. Many households all over the country use these water filter systems these days – which is good!

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All you’ll need for the water filter are two containers with flat covers (so that they can be stacked), a ceramic water filter element and a sharp knife to drill the two holes. A tap should actually be fixed to the bottom of the bigger container to easily drain the filtered water, but isn’t needed per se for the functioning of this filter. I will add a tap within the next few days, though.

Costs:

– two containers at different sizes @ Ksh. 99 and Ksh. 89 (~ EUR 1,- each)
– ceramic water filter element @ Ksh. 179 (~ EUR 2,-)
– a small tap @ Ksh. 90 (~ EUR 1,-)

…which sums up to about Ksh. 400 /= or EUR 4,40 / US-$ 5,60 …and considering that a litre of bottled water costs around Ksh. 40 /=, this filter element makes sense after the tenth litre of filtered water. After all, every litre that doesn’t come in a PET bottle is better, as it helps to preserve the environment.

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1. take a sharp knife and drill a small hole at the bottom of the top container

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2. screw the ceramic filter element through the hole and make sure the rubber washers are in place

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3. drill a hole into the lid of the lower container

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4. fix the lid to the top container & the filter element – make sure to really tighten the nut

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5. et voil? – the finished water filter in use.

Our tap water here is a bit brownish – the other day I was refiiling my water heater and found a cockroach leg in the sieve. Also, this low budget filter should be used for harvested rain and borehole water only, as the filter doesn’t remove fine traces of chemical substances.

UPDATE: I’ve meanwhile fixed a small tap – which doesn’t work that well, though. Make sure to clean any new candle before fixing it for the first time.

UPDATE #2: Tom of Aid Workers Net advised me to include a disclaimer as someone “is just waiting to replicate the steps incorrectly, make themselves ill and blame you”. True! THX!!

In a world of hot coffee pots, sharp knives and suffocating plastic bags, please be advised THAT YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE RESULTING FROM YOUR OWN ACTIONS. EVERYTHING YOU DO WITH THE INFORMATION OBTAINED THROUGH THIS ARTICLE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

UPDATE #3: There are of course different types of filtering candles. The one i used is rather cheap and only consists of ceramic and some silver lining inside, although of course of questionable quality. Hence the low price.
An alternative would be to buy bettter candles with higher filtering rates, an anticolloidal silver lining inside and activated carbon. However, such candles cost around Ksh. 1200/= (~ EUR 13,-) which is a bit too much. Also, good (plastic) taps as used on the buckets are expensive and hard to obtain in rural areas.

UPDATE #4: New filter candle + new tap!

So…

…may I consider myself a journalist now? :-)

Seriously, dear Kenya Times, I am not really upset about this 1:1 copying of my words on the Kenya Spotlight Vol 2 event. After all, if this helps to promote some fine Kenyan music – basi.
Lakini, what I don’t like is, if you just copy my words without telling me. There’s a contact form on my website, you could have left a comment or “manual trackback” or even just google for my name. I am here, I have nothing to hide and I won’t bite. Sawa?

Again, thx Barbara, for the paper edition of the Kenya Times from Oct 20th! Now this is something I can cut and glue into one of my sketchbooks…

UPDATE: Mzeecedric advised me to have a look at the CreativeCommons licensing options which I’ve now implemented for this website. Thx!

How to…make a saltshaker….

..out of an old bottle (when there’s a power failure and only candles to illuminate the room):

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1. take a used bottle & cut it into three pieces. throw away the middle part.

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2. drill some holes into the lid with the knife of your choice

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3. fill it up with some salt…

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4. add rice to avoid moisture within the salt…

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5. close the shaker by fixing the bottom piece of the bottle

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6. ready! (you may want to add some adhesive tape to enhance stability)

Wachira

Thx for everyone’s comments so far + all the good wishes. I really appreciate that.

First impressions:

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literature & cooking @ Sarit Centre Saturday morning
(they were playing Ukoo Fl. as background tune…hoho…cool)

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Michael Jackson (top) look-alike competition @ a local kinyozi…scary!

Now, upon arrival, I was extremely lucky enough that Madame Mbuzimoja offered me her “new” car for use while I am in Nbo (this week and next). However, the word “new” stands for a really worn out, old, ******* up pre-1990s Suzuki Sierra/Samurai (1.3l) that first of all needs to experience lots of tender, loving care (TLC) before it could be send back on the road for longer duties. The deal was that I get the car and pay for the repairs. A fair deal, I think.

I went to Westlands on Sato asubuhi and tried to find some good shops where I would get spare parts (“hello, do you have spare parts?” – “yes, we do – what do you need?” – “well, I am looking for a new head lamp, a sealed beam for my Suzuki…” – “Oh, I am sorry, we don’t have car accessories…” (lamp is not a spare part??)). Anyways, Westlands tends to suck from time to time and the traffic jams were horriboooool so I continued driving off to KANGEMI.

Behind Kangemi there is an area called Mountain View. When I left Nairobi 10 years ago, there was nothing there, only stalls and 600/= rooms. Now the area has developed (looks great), and with lots of GoK ppl living there, I was told it is a nice place, electricity + water are available. Plus, it takes you about 20 min to get to the city centre from there. I really digg that area for its convenient location. Anyways, behind Mountain View there’s a small garage run by an old friend I hadn’t seen since 10 years. Things change, but some remain the same even after such a long time. The garage is still there and upon arrival, I asked for Wachira and he quickly rushed out from underneath a car.

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Wachira of Mountain View Garage
(the Peugeot 504 in the background is used as a locker)

Seeing him again after all these years was great and after we exchanged some memories of the times back then, I explained my probs with the Suzuki (head lamp, thermostat, holes and dents that needed some welding, etc.) and he quickly called all his specialized fundis (the electrician, the welder, the colour guy) to fix this and that. 2hrs later and we were done. Perfect!

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identifiying the earthing-mmprrobbbreeemmm with a simpoool lamp

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welding the ramshackled door

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welding a hole in the floor underneath the drivers seat…

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The funniest thing was the “colour-guy” – a young “trainee” had been sent to organize white paint to repaint the welded spots and he returned with a crown cap full of white paint (=origin of Crown Paints?! :-). About 1ml of paint! ROFL!! Well, it worked so why worry? :-)

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The thermostat wasn’t in stock so we went back to the bridge/flyover in Kangemi where a shop sells spare parts & accessory for Matatus.

Lesson learned: some things might take some time but if you know what you want and where to get it, you can save a lot of time, money and pain. Thx, Wachira!

Btw, did you know that they have been trying to install new street lights on the highway?

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Wachira told me that the company maintaining these lamps had been too greedy to invest some money into a decent crane. Well, this solution works but given that they will always need to fix some lamps, they should really look out for an alternative solution.

AOB: Yeah, why not??

(Cool – blogdesk seems to be working. Blogdesk = offline blog editor that helps to upload everything at once while providing a WYSIWYG editor that’s even better than the internal wordpress editor.)

As for blogging from the road – I am 100% with you, Mental! Java House is one of the most expensive, yet also most comfy ways to get things online in Nbo unless of course you are enjoying Inet @ work (what I hopefully will by next week :-). Oh, did I already mention their wlan access also works from the parking lot? ^^

@Hash: does this qualify as afrigadget material? I even shot a short clip with my phone which still needs some editing…

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!).

the cost scheme

I am about to sell my old ’89 Volkswagen Golf II on sunday afternoon and just completed the excel sheet I have been maintaining over the last 5 years to keep track of car-related expenses. A cost overview where I would enter amounts spent on insurance, tax, repairs (maintenance) and – most importantly – petrol costs.

Different friends have been laughing about this to some extent, as I always noted down the mileage whenever I refueled the car and collected the bills. To their understanding, there would be no need in having an overview what the overall car costs are, also since the car is too old. It has been my first car though, which is why I wanted to have an overview of what I have repaired during the years and how much I’ve spent on this and that. Also, knowing how much petrol the car consumes indicates up-coming problems with the sparks, carburetor, petrol pump, etc. – just think of it as a regular, passive medical check-up.

Well, turns out I’ve driven the car for a total of ~ 71.000 kms during Feb. 2001 and Sept. 2006 (68 months), spent ~ EUR 895,- on tax costs, ~ EUR 2063,- on insurance costs, ~ EUR 2.892,- on repairs (cheap!) and ~ EUR 4.687,- on petrol – which generates a total of ~ EUR 10.537,-. And please be reminded – I bought the car for ~ EUR 1.636,- EUR in Feb. 2001 ( DEM 3.200,-).

Now, I did a lot of minor repairs by myself and have a friend who runs a garage and we had this deal that I would help him out with some computer stuff and he would repair my car whenever professional work would be needed. I bought spare parts at a wholesale price level and even ordered a new exhaust system via Ebay one day for a very jua kali price. Tax costs could have been lower by installing a different engine starter which would have lowered the tax classification from Euro1 to Euro2 – but it didn’t make sense for such an old car. Insurance costs where relatively cheap as I had registered the car on my Mzee’s name who got a huge discount. Petrol costs in Germany have risen for at least 27% during 2001 and 2006, which also explains why I’ve travelled even less kilometres with the car during the last two years (2005: 7.000km, 2006: 4.000km).

I think it’s interesting to know that you can buy a car for a small price but are forced to spend huge amounts on maintaining it. Also, when I look at unavoidable costs like insurance, tax and petrol (average consumption ~ 8l/100km), it seems that I did the right thing by buying an old (very old) car instead of leasing a new one. After all, I spent an average of about EUR 0,17 per driven kilometre – which is cheaper than what I would have spent on a new Toyota or so.

Now what is needed is to compare these expenses with others in Kenya and the US (for instance). Anyone?

The Rucksack Story

Oh my…instead of finishing this one paper on sewage sludge treatment procedures, I just can’t stop thinking about my new backpack (!) and how great it is that I’ve eventually settled for the right thing. Reasons for blogging this are a) no notebook deal would be complete without mentioning other accessories (like pcmcia tv cards, yeah!!) and the proper notebook case, and b) I had spent about three weeks in August searching for a really good, reliable, spacious bag / case which would be good enough for my notebook & other items. Something that needs to be a handy all-in-one solution and come with me wherever I go. Something that looks good, but doesn’t look like a notebook case. Searching took a long time + I tortured most of my closer friends with constant asking about what they think about this and that model. To make it short: I was obsessed with looking for the perfect bag.

I’ve found it.

Well, actually I didn’t do that – it’s MB who I had sent over the Atlantic, flying to the US and spying for interesting deals which aren’t availaboooool over here in Europe. She called me the other day from IL and said: “Look, we’ve spent a whole week searching for a decent laptop backpack that matches your criterias, bought two, returned both of them after some time and ended up with a simpooool Dicota neopren sheath. You are busy with something else now and I’ve just found a very nice bag for you which costs US-$ 49,99 plus IL-taxes. Shall I buy it for you?” – “Hell, yeah, of course!”.

She bought the High Sierra “Access”, carried it from the US to DE and forwarded it to me. Ohhhhh, nice. You see, it isn’t THE most perfect backpack, but it matches the following important criterias that I couldn’t find with available models over in DE and these are points which aren’t mentioned in product descriptions:

With 20″ x 15″ x 9,5″ it’s LONG enough to fit my back. I am 6.3 feet tall and don’t want to carry a brick on my back, but instead something long and slim which doesn’t make me look like one of those retarded & fat 30something still-living-at-home nerds (damn it, i am as picky as Paris when it comes to such issues)
2743 cubic inches equal something around 45 liters. Now THAT’s much more than what I’d found over here. The only competing model from German manufacturer Deuter, aptly named “Giga Office“, only offers 32 liters, is shorter and looks like a brick (see above).
It has many small pockets with double zippers = can be locked to prevent theft e.g. when someone is walking behind you and trying to open the zips without you noticing it
It has a rain cover which also works as a padding for valuabe items like the notebook.
Up to 17″ (or 15,4″ wide screen) notebooks fit inside a padded computer sleeve
Comes with the usual padded back and tuck-away waist belts which most modern backpacks have. However, this one has good padding – not too thick (= prevents sweating) and massive. It also doesn’t come with a stiff back like most other alternative models have (the one I had bought before was very nice with a massiv plate in the back but couldn’t securely protect the computer inside).
When you are carrying this model on only one – the right – shoulder, there are moments you just want to pull it forward to access some pockets. Now this one has a zippered side water bottle pocket and another side zipper which makes it quite easy to actually use this backpack efficiently. That’s one of those points you only notice once you are actually using it and are forced to live with the provided backpack design. Good!
It has a zipper close to the back side which allows you to vertically enter the notebook without pushing or even forcing it inside. Most backpacks are nice and blablabla but lack this very simple zipper – the user is forced to make room first of all until he can put the machine inside his backpack. With the zipper in the back, there is direct access to the computer sleeve.
It’s small enough to fit into any cabin luggage compartment (important!) but still bigger than my previous BREE hand luggage bag which has served me since 1993.

Anyways, nice backpack, good choice, great price and big up to MB for saidianing mimi on this matter!