Map update

• the map has been updated, check it out on the right hand side
• Andrew and I walked 15 mi (24 km) to map out the boundary of the area we work in
• many new markers have been added with pictures, click on the markers to see them

(Note: Sorry for the delay, I've been overloaded with work as I try to finish up some of our projects before we head out of Kenya for a month, more on that in my next post. I did get the content of what I was going to post up on time, just not my post. Check out the map on the side.)

Last week I spent most of my time roaming around the area with GPS and camera in hand to map and photograph as much of the area as possible. The original map I made didn't have much in the way of location information and no pictures to associate with any of the structures. This time, I've filled out the map with just about every interesting place there is to see along with pictures of most of them.

On Tuesday of last week, Andrew, the agriculture field manager (like Lucas for w+s) walked all over creation with me to map out the boundary of the Nyametaburo and Nyangiti sub-locations that we work in. Andrew and Jake had walked the boundary before but the data was lost to a virus.

It was a pretty amazing walk, taking about 5 hours and covering 15 mi or a little more than 24 km. We walked through swamps and marshlands, crossed rivers countless times, went up and down huge grades, and pretty much wore each other out. The views were amazing the entire time as the boundary is out in the middle of nowhere for most of the time. A good portion of the boundary follows rivers so we got to see some of the beautiful valleys in the area. Unfortunately, because we have just finished the rainy season, all of the rivers are swollen to the brim making every time we crossed the river quite an adventure.

The perimeter walk was probably the most involved and biggest day of my mapping efforts simply due to the sheer effort required to walk every foot of the perimeter. I can't thank Andrew enough for being willing to take the time to spend a day hiking with me. I definitely got him a few cold ones and dinner in return for his selflessness.

The rest of the week I spent walking and driving the motorcycle (piki piki as you learned in a previous post) with the GPS in my backpack and camera on my hip. I added quite a few features to the map including schools, churches, meeting places, and some points of interest (like Taragwiti hills and a picture of a typical path I drive on).

I've also included some important infrastructure such as the many bridges we use to get to and from Nyametaburo, our central hub for most of our work. The bridges are really important to Nuru and we are considering some projects to improve a few because they are so vital to the people we work with. One of the main bridges, on Nyametaburo road, floods when it rains hard. It makes the river impassable and can make people have to wait hours at a time. If we were able to work with the local government and possibly another non-governmental organization (NGO) like Nuru, we may be able to raise the surface of the bridge by adding a structure on top of the existing bridge and provide more drainage to prevent flooding.

Please check out the map on the right hand side and the pictures associated with it. I haven't posted any pictures to my album because all of them that I have taken this week have gone to the map. To see them, just click the place markers and the pictures will pop up.

Enjoy the map and leave any comments, suggestions, or questions you may have about the map. We're trying to improve it every day to not only use it as a tool for our work but also to give people like you the chance to follow what we do.

Funny side note, Sammy, Sally's (the salamander that's not a salamander, see pictures in previous post) younger brother, was hanging out in Aerie's pants the other day. Aerie was walking around complaining about some insect being in his pants, up on his thigh, biting him. At first he wasn't sure what it was or if there was actually anything in his pants. Eventually, he realized he wasn't crazy and shook the leg of his pants and Sammy popped out on Aerie's shoe.

Attendance

• Nuru works in six to seven month shifts for each foundation team, like Aerie, Meghan, and me
• with such a brief period on the ground, our time is incredibly valuable
• African time is a problem, making it acceptable for Africans to be incredibly late to meetings
• we fight against African time everyday, and we're making progress

One of the battles we fight everyday is with one of the worst kinds of enemies, time. Nuru's strategy is to enter a community, work at an incredible pace for five years, and then leave the community on the upswing, having escaped the grasp of extreme poverty with the future looking bright. Five years is a short time for a community wide growth project, especially when fighting against extreme poverty. Even so, five years is a good limit as it avoids creating dependance, a problem many non-governmental organizations (NGO) face.

With such a short supply of time, every minute of everyday is incredibly valuable. If we're awake (and it's not Sunday), we're either working or thinking about work. We'll even discuss projects over dinner. Our time is a precious resource that we have a limited quantity of, a mere six to seven months per foundation team. Unfortunately, we use a different time convention than that of the area we work. We don't use African time.

African time has many definitions but the definition I am using is the time keeping of farmers in rural Kenya. It's a problem of punctuality. African time affects our meetings, functions, and farm supply distributions. If only a small portion of the w+s representatives are present when the meeting is supposed to start, we can't start on time, forcing us to wait around for a half an hour or more to let the masses trickle in.

It's not a problem of laziness or lack of respect but a different approach to time. We're working with farmers that don't notice a few hours lost here or there because they are waiting months for crops either way. For us, African time is a frustration, but more importantly a challenge to be overcome.

Ever since Nuru has been on the ground, before I arrived, we have been instilling a sense of punctuality in the members of the community we work with. Our CDC, including Lucas, has been doing exceptionally well with keeping time but it is still an issue with the general community. Even within the w+s program, our meetings are delayed because not all of the w+s representatives arrive on time.

The w+s representatives have an important role in the community to attend the bi-weekly w+s meetings with Lucas and me to get new information about the w+s program. If the w+s representatives don't arrive on time, or don't arrive at all, then they will be missing part of the information. This information is not only for the w+s representatives but also for the group of ten other farmers who elected them to the position. So if they are not getting this information and passing it on, they are not doing their job.

So how are we approaching this battle with African time? There are three ways, one of which is by not wasting anyone's time if they do arrive on time. There is nothing worse than a meeting that drags on about something unimportant so Lucas and I work hard to make every meeting efficient and relevant. We make the meetings worth coming to.

The second way to work towards punctuality is to make it part of the job description. The w+s representatives are not paid for their work but they do enjoy benefits. They are the first to receive projects from the w+s program such as our most recent, the rainwater catchment program. In fact, for the rainwater catchment program, the w+s representatives (all 48 including our six leaders), will be receiving the rainwater catchments for free in return for their work in spreading information and letting their homes be used as construction examples when we roll the program out to the rest of the community. But, I have explained to the w+s representatives, if they are not doing their job by not showing up on time, why should I distinguish them from the general community. If they aren't willing to come on time and pass on the information we give out every two weeks, Nuru won't be willing to give them a rainwater catchment for free.

The final way we get w+s representatives to arrive on time is to make their attendance the responsibility of the six leaders. Each leader has six to eight w+s representatives they lead and we have now incorporated their average scores into the leaders scores. The leader's scores will determine the order and amount of benefit the leaders receive in the future. It's a tough job but the leaders are already enjoying their catchments and all of them have been willing to work hard. I reviewed the scoring system with the leaders and Lucas before putting it in place and all of them agree it's fair.

Our plan has been working very well. We take attendance at every meeting and function, assigning different values depending on the arrival time of the w+s representatives. When the attendance sheet began, before I arrived, only 32% the first week and 22% the second week of the w+s representatives arrived on time. Now that the w+s representatives understand our system, we're sitting at 85% two weeks ago and 72% last week and will be improving that next week as we replace leaders that don't come or always come late. Below are the up to date attendance sheets if you want to see how we score and how the system works. Click on the sheets for a larger image.

African time will soon be a thing of the past, at least in Kuria, Kenya.

3 new pictures