Hongera!

This is a hongera light:

We have one on every wall of our living room. We’re pretty sure the house plans only included the one normal light bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the ceiling, but somehow we also ended up with the hongera lights. When turned on, they alternately flash lavender, turquoise, purple, yellow, red, and green. At night our living room looks like an empty discotheque.

Mind you, the cabinet doors don’t close, the bathroom light switch turns on the light in the room next to it, and the back door was installed with a 4-inch gap at the bottom – but the hongera lights work perfectly. Priorities, priorities.

Mid-July marked the 12th week of our Savings Clubs. Members can now apply for loans from their group’s savings. The groups whose members have met their savings goal every week during the 12 weeks qualify to have Nuru match their loan amount, doubling the principal they have to loan from. This is Mkombozi, one of our best groups, signing their loan contracts.

I’m realizing how much infrastructure I took for granted when I was working with Pro Mujer. All of the paperwork, accounting, and information management systems were in place. Now I am building all those elements from scratch, trying to figure out what applies or is necessary. Thus far, Savings Club deposits are issued a receipt which is then recorded in a journal. The addition used in said journal is questionable, as is the accuracy of the group name under which the transaction was recorded (does the deposit recorded under “Vision Group” belong to Vision Farming or Nyaihungurumo Vision Group??). Apparently, receipts weren’t issued for withdrawals so we have no formal record of these, just notes scribbled in the margins of the Office Manager’s notebook. The loan contracts we’re using were written the night before we issued the loans.

The beauty of Savings Clubs is that many of the management tasks (such as how much each member contributes and when) are the responsibility of the group representatives. But we are going to need to establish more formal and detailed procedures for the program. It feels inappropriate to push for electronic record keeping when the Nuru office in Nyametaburo is operating off a solar panel and gets invaded periodically by chickens or goats, but we’re growing so quickly that the volume and complexity of transactions is going to require it soon. Besides, Nuru is responsible for this money and we take that seriously. A lot of our members have never saved before, and we owe it to them to have every detail in place to keep it safe. So I can be as OCD as I want! Perfect.

Never Drop a Muzungu

Week 3, starting to settle into a routine. We spend most days in the field, then come back in the evening to do computer work, depending on if the electricity is working.

We live in a town about 7 km from the villages we work in, and take piki piki (motorcycle) taxis to work. It has to be the best morning commute in the world: good Kenyan coffee and zipping to work on a motorcycle down a dirt road surrounded by rolling green hills, golden maize fields, giant boulders, bright banana trees and thatched huts. Children near the roadside wave enthusiastically, screaming “muzungu!!” (it means white man, but works for all foreigners). The first few minutes after I get off a piki piki my face always tickles. I think it’s from my hair whipping around during the drive; I call it the motorcycle fuzzies.

It’s the last week of our transition with Foundation Team 2. Jesse, our imported media guru, arrived to tape episode 6, which focuses on the CDC (Community Development Committee, the Kenyan counterparts of the Foundation Teams). Their official titles are field managers and they are amazing, selfless community leaders. Philip Mohochi, the Chairman, is technically the field manager of my program but we are searching for a replacement because Philip is quickly becoming too busy to be both chairman and field manager.

My program is Community Economic Development (CED), started last season by Aerie. During our transition we’ve been working on a 5-year plan for the program, focusing on a ground-up, community-driven approach to economic development. This is what we’d like to do:

* Train Nuru members to save, budget, and plan.
* Provide skills training and small business development programs.
* Start a community development fund which will be the basis for a village savings and loan program, as well as make sure all Nuru program operations are able to sustain themselves.

I’m lucky to be here at a time when we start implementing a lot of the ideas that have been developed. It’s exciting and intimidating; we have ideas but I don’t want to assume anything. So far, the communities we work with have been incredibly welcoming, so I want to deserve that trust.

My Swahili is pretty pitiful because most of my co-workers speak English and I’m using that as a crutch. I have some stock phrases I’m using for now, which usually makes the Kenyans laugh. It’s like when the kids greet me yelling ‘Bye! Bye!’ (I’m not exactly sure why they know ‘bye’ but not ‘hello’) and I laugh and greet them back with ‘Bye! Bye!’. Not correct, but for now we understand each other.

“Never drop a muzungu! They are very fragile!” – shouted at Aerie and his piki piki driver by a passing motorcyclist