I'm back! Malawi

I was scheduled to arrive in Lilongwe, Malawi on Monday afternoon, but due to some prior flight’s problems, they ended up rebooking me onto a flight for Tuesday and put me up in Nairobi’s Stanley Hotel. Yeah, I could have just as easily stayed at my apartment for the night, but why go back to an apartment with no food, when I was offered three free meals and a room at Nairobi’s most historical hotel, where men in top hats fetch your bags and Ernest Hemingway used to rest his head? Don’t mind if I do hole up for the day here:

Especially when what I was escaping is as chaotic as the street right below my hotel room:

The luxury was short-lived, however. I was back into the thick of that chaos by 6am Tuesday morning, fighting through airport security and check-in lines before finally boarding my flight to Lilongwe. It was a long trip, touching down in Lusaka for one hour and arriving in Lilongwe in the late afternoon. Lilongwe, with its relatively empty streets and small town feel was a welcome change of pace to Nairobi, and I actually felt pretty good (maybe arrogant?) getting into the city center – like I had come a long way since the last time I was here and am no longer just some amateur. I now know what I’m doing, how to navigate the country, who I need to work with, how much I should be spending. I’ve got the phone numbers of taxi drivers in both major cities and know exactly where to stay. I even know how to drive a hard bargain – cash is king here and USD is God...my offer for $60/night paid in USD cash was accepted at a hotel with $85/night rooms!

I’ll be here for the next two weeks. Whereas the last visit to Malawi was about research and learning, this visit is all about implementing and should be a lot of fun, even if all that has to be done is a bit daunting. I’ll be interviewing and hiring for two data collectors, setting up field work for the data collectors so that they can interview close to 400 farmers using our pumps, and starting a distributor incentive program to encourage better pump sale tracking. And of course I’ll be strutting around like it’s nobody’s business with a gangsta’ roll of Malawian Kwacha. Wish me luck. 

A Stroll Through Uhuru Park

Nairobi's downtown park, Uhuru Park, sits just outside the central business district and as I found it last week, is a pretty pleasant place to kill some time. It was packed with families and had some sort of carnival type feel to it with photographers, balloon artists, and face painters all doing quick business with the largely under 12 year old crowd.



But the park hasn't always had such a festive existence. It's open space and key location has made the park the central gathering place for many protests during its history. And maybe because of the parks propensity to attract protesters and the government's desire to rid themselves of this annoyingly convenient gathering point, in late 1989 there was a plan to construct a 60 story building in Uhuru Park. In fact, ground had been broken on the project but foreign investment pulled out after the protests of Wangari Maathai, the founder of the Green Belt Movement and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. By defending the park and seeking to block the construction of the building, she was labeled "a crazy woman" by Kenya's then-president, arap Moi, while suggesting that she be a proper woman in the African tradition.

The park today, free of 60 story buildings, continues to be a central gathering place for Kenyan civic life. As recently as this past June, during a rally against a constitutional referendum, a bomb exploded in the park and killed 6 people while injuring hundreds of others.

My visit, thankfully, didn't offer any protests or any danger, but if you were brave enough to ride the human powered ferris wheel, all bets were off.

Oil Libya

Forget the gas tax. America could quickly ween itself off of foreign oil if gas stations were named like this chain of stations I've seen in Nairobi.



Imagine every time you went to the pump you were greeted with a big sign that said "Oil" followed by the origin of the gas. Oil Libya, Oil Venezuela, Oil Iraq. I'd probably think twice. Better yet, we should not only require all gas stations to change their name to state the origin country of the gas but to also include a picture of the country's ruling leader. Especially when that ruler looks as crazy as this wax doll.

Note: After having this idea, I did some googling to see where the US gets its oil. Turns out, nearly 20% of our oil comes from Canada and 49% comes from the Western Hemisphere. Oil Canada doesn't sound too menacing, and Stephen Harper looks way too wholesome for this to work. Oil Venezuela might.

Kenyan Construction Methods

On my way into work I pass several buildings that are under construction. I've mentioned before that the construction sites I've seen in Nairobi always have many more workers than I'm accustomed to seeing on construction sites in the States. For the most part, machines haven't replaced men. Today, I noticed a vertical assembly line of workers passing up rebar to the top floor of this office building. It has to get up there somehow. And I'm no expert, but I think I could come up with no less than 50 OSHA violations.

Man Power