High Five

 It’s been a very rewarding couple of days for our team, and hopefully we’ve even got room to improve from here. Before the reveal, maybe it’s worth giving a little bit of insight into what our daily schedule has been like over the last few weeks that we’ve been researching and drafting our report. We’ve typically been getting up around 6 or 7 AM, joining together for breakfast at 8 AM, starting work at 9 AM, working until 1, breaking for an hour for lunch, resuming at 2 PM until it’s time for dinner at 7 PM, dining for an hour, then heading to the bar, laptops in hand, to work from about 8 PM until midnight or later, then going to bed for a few hours until we get up and do it all over again. Our team recognized early on that we had a massive body of research to tackle and a lot of report drafting to do, and we grabbed on with both hands from day one.

That hard work got put to the test on Tuesday as we gave our government sponsor a preview via phone conference of the draft report that we intended to present to her extended staff the next day. Although all of us were quite confident in the quality of our work, I think the shared fear was that we were not going to tell Dr. Katherine Getao anything that the head of the e-Government wouldn’t already know, and that she would look at us and say, “Right. So?”

Far from the case, she was attentive and inquisitive from the first substantive slide. One of my teammates believes she counted 20 “Fantastic”s over the course of the call. She gave us a couple of additional areas for investigation, followed up to clarify a few points that were new news to her, and expressed her excitement to see the final report. Though it was very gratifying to hear it, we soon shuffled off to bed, as we had another 5:30 sortie to Nairobi the next morning to present our preliminary report to the CIOs of Kenya’s 42 government ministries. Since I have already had a chance to present on numerous occasions, I left this one to my teammates, which meant I got to sleep the whole car ride. We arrived at the conference center at the Kenya Institute of Education, and heard Katherine give a heartfelt, humorous and very ambitious presentation on the e-Government strategy for the next year. Her staff reviewed some of the subtopics in the strategy, and then it was our turn. Anna had created a visually stunning presentation, and Nimeesh and Luan both did a great job sharing it with the assembled ICT officers. The questions came fast and furious, substantive and on point, and I used my perch in the center of the seating area to clarify our key principles and outline the opportunities that Kenya has to “leapfrog” a number of stages of technological development, and learn enough from the world’s experience with e-Government to “cheat” and start on the last page of the book, as it were. The reception to our points was very warm with both Dr. Getao and her staff immediately integrating some of our points into their responses to crowd questions. At lunch, I was able to sit with Katherine, together with one of the architects of the Kenya Vision 2030 plan and a gentleman from the Ministry of Information and Communication who has been instrumental in drafting and passing many of Kenya’s laws pre- and post-constitution. I will admit to a thrill when during the somewhat heated lunch discussion regarding whether these principles were better promulgated as new legislative authority or simple regulatory edicts, and what position they would occupy vis a vis some of the laws already in process, Dr. Getao at one point said “Yes, but are you listening to what IBM is telling us???”

The conference was a bit eye-opening hearing that the status of some of the projects that our legislative proposals will legitimize was more rudimentary that we had hoped, and we will need to adjust some of our included timelines accordingly. And we did get ambushed by some laws in draft form that no one had bothered to circulate to anyone in e-Government but that will directly affect our outputs, but by Thursday morning we had already tamped those down and were working them into our final report. Overall, it was extraordinarily gratifying to have many hours of hard work pay off with an eager and engaged reception and a very satisfied client. The next few days we’ll spend ensuring that the final full-length report if of similar quality and contains the few tweaks that Dr. Getao requested.

We celebrated this milestone with some boisterous alcohol-fueled card games, neither of whose names are of a quality to be published in this blog, in the bar with the extended team. This weekend, most of the team will head to Lake Nakuru, while I hitch a matatu ride to Nairobi for one more crack at the Nairobi Hebrew Congregation, a long-awaited meet up with my dear college friend Ellen who works in the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, and some frantic souvenir shopping for what seems like an endless list of deserving recipients. One week from now, we’ll have finished our final client presentation and I’ll be on a plane to Kinshasa… how the time has flown.

The News You Refuse

I'm fortunate to count numerous journalists among my friends, so many that it's drastically skewed my perception to the positive. It occurs to me only in retrospect that all of them without exception are print journalists... and my infrequent exposure to the clowns on cable TV never even met the definitional criteria by which to affect the average. I have learned my lesson.
Our early morning meeting with the reporter started amiably enough with introductions, and random recollections from each other's respective hometowns manufactured from the mists of history playing the role of international travelers' small talk. "Ah, Rotterdam, I remember it well" and such.
We then dug in to what exactly he wanted to report on. We briefly detailed our respective projects, and he requested whether there were any "human interest" stories among us. I stammered and try to convey that the human interest stories were not the CSC participants, but the CSC beneficiaries, the citizens persevering while their country simultaneously experiences the birth pangs of democracy, attempts to modernize their economy, government and civil society, and teeters on the edge of chaos and violence, in a neighborhood too well accustomed to both. He persisted in inquiring about human interest stories on the team, but relented in the face of our blank stares and agape mouths. He then asked what we would be doing over the course of the day. As it so happened, we had a meeting scheduled with the district commissioner (an appointed mayor for the larger region - a frank, competent lady in charge of coordinating the efforts of 42 different government agencies in her location, and the first woman ever to hold her slot), but that didn't catch this newsman's fancy. The other teams were going to be working on their reports, debating ideas for innovation, and distilling them down into presentations - also nothing that raised his eyebrow.
He then literally said "Will anyone be doing anything with a screwdriver?" My already dumbfounded expression hit the pavement. "One of the unique aspects of the IBM program," I said, "is that rather than digging ditches or building houses - and trust me no one would want to live in any house I built - we're using our professional skills and honed expertise to bring more value to Kenyan society than we could by turning screwdrivers." I may as well have said it in Yiddish for the impact it had.
John, our teammate from marketing, quickly took control of the situation, clearly more accustomed to dealing with this type of vapid kabuki than any of us. He suggested a return visit to the school for the mentally disabled or the orphanage that we had just visited the prior Thursday, a proposal which immediately hit paydirt. I gagged a little bit, and turned off like a lightswitch. As Luan's boyfriend put it, "If he wanted a show, we could have sent him to the theater."
Are we really so facile as to demand only news which looks good? I will admit to not being an unbiased observer, but I actually think the problems we are working on (and dare I say some of the solutions we've come up with) are quite compelling. Our stories are counterintuitive to many Western notions about what is afoot in Africa, and represent the best chance for an emerging market country to pull itself up by the bootstraps out of a backdrop of plentiful basket cases into a somewhat prosperous, largely functional state. In Africa! Go know.
Our subteam ignored our newsman visitor for the rest of his foray here, which saved me the trouble of telling him where he could put his screwdriver. Instead, we had a very productive visit with the DC, and set up our presentation for the e-Government conference in Nairobi on Wednesday. On Tuesday, we'll give our client Dr. Getao a sneak peak, and then get up at the crack of dawn to trudge down the Thika Road. Once more, into the breach, dear friends, once more...

Dave != Mountain Climber

Today’s diversion was a quick jaunt up the 2^nd largest mountain in Africa and the largest in Kenya – the aptly named Mount Kenya. The six of us who opted out of the weekend in Mombasa, geared up at 7 AM and loaded into what may have been the rickiest excuse for Kenyan transport ever conceived. If it were a building, it would have been condemned. Our hour-plus commute to the gate of Mount Kenya National Park included what we’ve come to refer to as the “African Massage”, namely the laborious journey over poorly maintained infrastructure in vehicles notable not only for their complete lack of shock absorbers but the deafening din that their apparently loosely coupled parts make while ambling down the rocky roads.

We set off with a modest goal of making it to the first base camp, since we had a day to spend on the mountain instead of the five days necessary to summit. The vistas were gorgeous, but after an hour and as the incline increased, doubts began to set in.

Been there. Climbed that.

By hour two, I was left with two questions: Mah Rabu Maasecha Hashem? and What The Hell Was I Thinking? My feet hurt, the dust off the mountain was choking me, the sun was beating down even though the climate was temperate, and the path seemed interminable. But no one suggested we quit, and on we trudged until we made it up to Met’s Camp at 10,000 feet and immediately collapsed. An accomplishment, but not enough to justify me taking up a new hobby. Our hikemate John is heading immediately to Kilimanjaro after our CSC assignment to attempt to summit it in 5 days. Good luck, kemosabe, I’ll be stateside with my feet in Epsom salts in solidarity.

The way back down was much easier and more leisurely, which allowed us to enjoy the views, birdsong and flowers.

Back at the gate, the DeathMobile threatened not to start up until the driver fiddled with EXPOSED WIRES underneath the dashboard, took out the battery and shook it, and had our guide physically push our Matatu Minus out of its parking space. Being in a different seat on the way home, I was able to identify the literal hole in the floor through which I could see the road whizzing by beneath us. On the way home, we were tempted to recommend turning on the air conditioner to see if the engine would immediately catch fire.

We will be very, very sore in the morning, but at least we’re not the latest traffic statistics.

Supposedly, a crew from CNBC is arriving in the morning to chat with us, so I decided to hit the barber to see about reducing the extent of my Jewfro. I was unceremoniously declined as soon as I entered as the hairdresser said “I can cut hair, but I cannot cut your hair. It is very complicated.” Sigh.

Taking a break from the grind

Today we took a break from our work schedules to spend some time in the communitiy of Nyeri. We spend time at the Allemanos Special School for mentally disabled children, and the Mweiga Orphanage, both of which are only a few kilometers from our hotel.

The conditions we met may have been shocking from an American perspective, but they were in line with much of what we have seen around Kenya, and the kids all seemed happy and well cared for. Once one reorients their vision to a country without building codes (at least outside the major cities) and with minimal material possessions (allowing that most of what we stock up on in the States is without regard for a need/want/just to have it distinction), you begin to absorb the actual experience of the people instead of their superficial surroundings. And in both cases, the first person experience of the kids seemed superb.

At Allemanos, we were prepared to not really have any interaction with the kids since so few of them are capable of communication. But from the moment we arrived, it was clear that standard verbal communication was not going to be required. We parked the cars, and walked down to the sports fields where the students were having Physical Education. Immediately a wave of at least 100 kids of all ages, identically dressed in gray jumpers FLOODED towards screaming at the top of their lungs. Within moments, there were multiple kids leading us around by the hands, kicking soccer balls, dancing, and just generally making clear their unrestrained glee at our presence. In some ways, it was the least foreign experience that I’ve had since I’ve been here. These kids, deprived of speech, were like similar kids anywhere in the world – unburdened by the knowledge of their own limitation, and absolutely satisfied, even ecstatic, within the boundaries defined for them.

We started up an IBMers vs. Allemanos soccer game, which basically consisted of the 6 male IBMers versus about 30 mixed-gender Allemanos students. They had seemingly boundless energy, but we had precision. After giving up an early goal in part due to amazement, I took a perfect feed from John and tied it up with an open goal. Rami would have been so proud. Alex, our DOT liaison, joined us and scored the next goal despite his inappropriate alligator shoes. And Francesco put us ahead for good. I let up a late goal, but we triumphed 3-2… our hosts did not seem put out.

After the kids had some lunch and we some tea with the school administrators and teachers, we got a short tour of the facility – a simple kitchen where the aptly named Charity cooks the 400 meals per day that the school requires, a nicely outfitted physical therapy gym, a garden that the more able kids help maintain, a cow pen where the half dozen oxen provide milk for the school again with assistance from the pre-vocationally functional students, the laundry, the dormitories and the classrooms. Most of the buildings were donated from societies in Europe, though all of the staff is constituted of government employees.

My colleague Francesco brought an extra laptop and provided Sister Jane, the school administrator, with the school’s first computer, complete with a USB modem which will outfit them with internet connectivity.

The kids put on a lovely presentation singing and dancing with full vigor, and most of the IBM team joined in the fun. All in all, an extraordinarily rewarding visit.

Our next stop was an orphanage in Mweiga. I was creeped out by the welcome we received, which consisted of well-rehearsed songs, dance numbers and a (weak) comedy routine. My allergy increased as the time went on as I asked myself “Is this another safari?” I got suspicious that maybe this was the donor shpiel that the administrators had the kids put on in order to extract more foreign money from visiting pockets, and I withdrew from the crowd to talk to some of the kids around the periphery. Fortunately, my impression seems to have been inaccurate, and the kids I spoke with were very well adjusted and not at all put upon by the proprietors to gussy up to visitors. I spoke with Theresa, a 13 year old girl who was caring for their newest orphan – pudgy 9 month old. She was self-confident, articulate and pleasant, talking to me about her desires to go to the University of Nairobi and study accounting, her satisfaction with her local school, the big-sisterly role that she plays with some of the other girls in the orphanage and the general litany of teen stuff. She was decked out in a High School Musical t-shirt, naturally, though I never got to ask her if she actually knew what that was.

I played some soccer (poorly) here as well, and then broke out some of the gifts we had brought, specifically the construction paper and massive bin of crayons that Bianica had brought. Immediately the kids converged on me and I was awash in children showing off how well they could write their names or draw a flower. It was adorable. I broke out my rusty origami skills and started doling out paper cranes and fortune tellers to much acclaim. Reka then graced the kids with some salsa dance instruction which they seemed to catch onto quickly (certainly relative to me). I got some face time with the 9-month-old who was initially quite shy, but the patented Sloan baby charm bore fruit and the international language of “Boop on the nose” was received with the requisite smiles and giggles. The skies opened and the rain started to call, which we took as a clear sign that our day was over.

The next day, we proceeded to Kimathi University, where I had the opportunity to address about 100 students on the general topic of why IBM is cool and why they should Think Big. I was bowled over by the reception, with some of my Swahili humor getting a rise and very positive views from students and teammates alike. I stayed after to talk Watson with a few of the more inquisitive students while most of the students went for an IBM career workshop and to do some hands on work building functional smartboards from about $22 of materials.

Half the team then departed to Mombasa for the weekend, but I stayed back for another restful, if largely solitary, Shabbat. Tomorrow, we’re off to hike a bit on Mount Kenya before returning to our productive grind.

The Gory Guts of Government

Our whirlwind day in Nairobi started in Nyeri at 5:30 AM followed by a three and a half trek south. It was a frantic sprint over poor roads and unmarked speed bumps for much of the journey with a few jar-rattling moments, with the last third of the trip spent staring at the bumper in front of us in a choking traffic jam from Thika into the capital which is apparently de rigeur. The massive road building projects in process seem to be targeted at exactly this migration pattern, but there seem to be enough cars transiting to fill the new road with plenty to spare.

We arrived at  Nyayo House (which still gives me chills) slightly late for our first meeting with the General Counsel of the Immigration Ministry the organization that has subsumed most of the government's Registration departments. We were shuttled up through the masses into the VIP elevator and whisked into his office. What followed was a frank discussion about which laws they respect and which they don't and how we can ensure that our legislation falls into the former camp. Government authorizing legislation is so vertical here, with empowering acts dedicated to each of the ministries, that cross-cutting rules are relatively rare. Success will depend as much on the political power of our sponsor as the quality of our report, but we'll do our part.
We then delved into the front lines of the processes we hope to reform, getting an all-access tour thanks to our backing from the President's office. We began with the head of Passport issuance, who held forth at length on the Somali threat, bragged - rightfully - about the degree to which IT automation in that process has squeezed out the opportunities for graft. Touring the floor was dizzying but not without some method behind the madness. The duplication and over-specialization within the step-by-step-by-step carousel of clerks was at least organized, publicly posted and ultimately effective (if not efficient) in that it can turn around a well-qualified passport request in 14 days (quicker than the US to my recollection). Our magnificent guide took us through the pre-check, the verifying clerk, the cashier, the photographer, the scanner, the indexer, the recommender and the adjudicator. Astoundingly, all of this is done without a whit of external validation or cross-checking unless there is a whiff of suspicion, despite the fact that they have the entire process automated and online access to perfectly good sources of validations. Not only that, but the din is undiminished as people from all over the country flock into this one of only five national processing centers for passports, both to file their application and pick up their finished passports - a daunting task as you can imagine for people coming from the sticks. We saw numerous people turned away for issues with their paperwork or improper materials for pickup. The notion of corruption was literally laughed away, blaming it on "blockers" outside who stand outside the offices posing as expediters who make off with hard-earned, unschooled shillings with no results. (Others have told us that the blockers are only still able to hang around because they kick up to the bosses within the Ministry.)

We took tea with the ministry CIO, Jane Otoko, who was quite blunt with what she hopes to get out of e-government and how we can best achieve it within our allotted time frame. We then proceeded to the low point, at least until that time, of the organization process at Makadera station deep in the neighborhoods of Nairobi. Gone were the gleaming computers, well ordered queues, clear processes, and pressed uniforms. These were ramshackle huts, literally sticks bound with twine at some points, populated by a listless group of unbusy bureaucrats whose chief duty appeared to be delaying the snaking line of humanity outside their door from getting their National ID cards.The administrator held forth in painful and painstaking detail about the finer points of each inane step of their process, proudly displaying "archives" of paper logbooks tenuously stacked in jury-rigged bookcases. No window was intact. No clerk strayed from their designated simple portion of the task. Their tools seemed plucked from the 18th century. No customers were served simultaneously, each one waiting for the one before to complete the full Model-T assembly line process. The opportunities for subjective evaluations, inexplicable delays, and corruption abounded. A single web-form could render all of them irrelevant and their customers served at a much higher level.

Those few of them who were working in a dilapidated concrete structure had an interesting cornerstone.

Given my experience yesterday, one would expect it to say "killed fighting FOR Mau Mau" especially on a building populated by the government that has now dedicated their national holiday to them. A fascinating dissonance.

We rushed back to Sheria House in the government complex and met with the Attorney General's CIO, who tried to give us a clearer idea of what we needed to provide the legislative drafters. In the course of the meeting he enlightened us to the 255 forms that they provide for corporate legislation, the five types of marriage they register (civil, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and African customary), and the hodgepodge of other functions their office serves.

On the ground floor, we then witnessed what was the most striking of all the processes we experienced today - the Birth Certificate registration office. Only 60% of Kenyan births are registered, since many still occur at home, especially outside of Nairobi. Many children are not registered until they need to sit for matriculation exams, and the administrator was telling us of cases where people don't register their birth until age 70, when they want a passport to leave the country. The process is completely manual, with the only computers involved being one set for printing the certificates, by manually typing them and then printing onto form paper, and calculating statistics, by manually typing collected numbers into an Excel spreadsheet with over 70 tabs and copying the numbers into a "report" in Microsoft Word. The actual records are stored in hundreds and hundreds of red backed books dating back decades and decades. These books are on shelves, on desks, strewn on the floor and, in at least one instance, being used as doorstops. Foot-high piles of applications rested on every spare surface, with some clerks unable to see over the pile in front of them. No process was apparent although the administrator assured us it existed. The dysfunction was dazzling, and I've provided a brief snippet below. This is one of those areas where someone concerned with e-Government throws up their hands and does not know where to begin, except maybe with a match and a jug of kerosene.

We finished off the day meeting with Vivian from IBM East Africa at a delightful repose called the Nairobi Java House, a Starbucks knock off which definitely smelled, felt and tasted like carefully calibrated corporate issue home. I'm not saying I miss it, but it's impossible to deny the draw.

Aberdares

I almost had nothing to write about today, as my iPod/Alarm Clock determined now was a good time to reset itself back to Eastern time. The same rooster that I threatened with bodily harm yesterday, today I owe my timely arrival at the front desk to meet up with Isaac, my driver up to the Aberdares. A gorgeous ride, complete with swirling hills, gaping green valleys, every shape and size of kiosk and roadside market along the way and some of the worst infrastructure my rear end has ever had the misfortune to experience at highway speeds. The next NGO to grace Kenya should be Meineke, and they should bring shocks.

We arrived at the Aberdares around 8 AM and immediately started a game drive around very different environs than I had experienced outside of Nairobi. The wide open dusty plains were replaced with lush greenery, providing a much more scenic backdrop, but also a much more dense camouflage to shield the objects of our interest. Animals would often burst from the foliage and out across the plain into another shelter before I could even power up my camera. Nonetheless, we enjoyed seeing more zebras, eland, bushbuck, waterbuck, gazelles, warthogs, water buffalo, rabbits, wild horses, and a phenomenal assortment of birds their untamed plumage luxuriant in the early morning sunshine.

We saw a number of majestic reticulated giraffes, and my guide Martin, gave me the "book" on giraffes: "Magnificent in appearance, Colossal in height, Bizarre in form, Unique in gait and Inoffensive in character". 18 feet tall on a base of only 4 feet, raising both left legs, then both right legs when walking (try it sometime, you'll fall over within three steps), and as mellow as their neck is long. Though the inoffensive character has its limits, as the kick from a giraffe can kill a lion. After a 14 month gestation, the giraffe gives birth while standing, which leaves it's 4 foot tall progeny to fall 2 feet to the ground once it emerges. Quite a harsh way to start life, no?

The briefest but most fascinating part of the trip was to the Mau Mau cave, a hide out under a rock abutment overlooking a glorious valley. Here over 100 Mau Mau were stationed along with other caves dotting the Nyeri countryside. They live off game meat and wild plants. Their ranks consisted of commanders, warriors, transporters who would bring food from cooking sites (lest the column of smoke give away their location, and runners - young boys who would ferry messages between the various hiding spots. They stockpiled weapons by raiding police stations, and administered illegal loyalty oaths to as many of their countrymen as they could. My guide and driver

This particular hide-out met with an abrupt end when the British bombed it and buried the remains of the 114 Mau Mau based there in the debris. How could the British have identified this location in this vast land? There begins the real story.

The Mau Mau were not defeated by the British. Fighting on foreign lands against an agile force which had minimal supply needs and indiscriminate standards of warfare, the British did not stand a snowball's chance in hell. Even the Masai askari that the British were able to hire as mercenaries were on unfamiliar territory and could match the Mau Mau in ferocity but not in mastery of the land. However, the Mau Mau were so fierce even amongst the loyalty they demanded from their own people (the first high profile killing by the Mau Mau was of a Kikuyu police official) that they began to alienate other Kikuyu who joined the Home Guard, a British sponsored security force. More and more, the Home Guard became constituted of disaffected Mau Mau who would expose their former crews' location, tactics, supply chains, and identities. Eventually the threat of retribution by the Mau Mau became hollow, and people could cross them with impunity, and the Mau Mau were squashed by the British and the Home Guard.

The damage, however, was already done, and the wound to the British colony festered and would not heal. The myth that the vast majority of Kenyans preferred their British masters was dispelled and a decade after the genesis of the Mau Mau's campaign, Kenya was granted its independence.

But the story doesn't end here. For although the titular head of the new Kenyan state, Jomo Kenyatta, had been jailed in isolation for years as a Mau Mau organizer, many others in the power structure came right out of the Home Guard. In fact, what happened was unlike anything I've heard of in any other country. In most instances, the winners appoint their leaders the historical heroes. History is written by the victors and all that. But who were the victors here - the Mau Mau, without whom the British might still rule these lands, or the Home Guard, who effectively slaughtered the Mau Mau by betraying them to the British?

 Instead of a straightforward answer to this question, those in power played a sly double game. The Home Guard and their ilk maintained all the control and wealth, but passed on all the glory to the Mau Mau heroes. So today there are statues, universities and streets named for Kimathi (a homicidal loon by most accounts), but those who stood in solidarity with Kimathi are impoverished and underserved to this day, while those who turned him in are living quite well, praising him at every opportunity. In fact, the Mau Mau's illegal status was recently revoked, and the new Constitution even transforms the previous national holiday from Kenyatta Day to Mashujaa Day - literally Heroes Day - which celebrates the Mau Mau warriors. On this day, the Mau Mau and their descendants are paraded around and feted, only to be returned to their fetid environments as soon as the fireworks dim. Whether this historical deception will pass without redress is a fascinating topic for a Kenyan PhD sociology thesis at some point in the future, but it's known by everyday Kenyans, who seem to adopt the same attitude that has baffled me all this time - the past is past, focus on the future.

I ended the morning with a leisurely row in a small boat around a natural lake in the shadow of Mount Kenya, and then headed back to Nyeri to take up our project again... no rest for the weary.

We returned to the main roads passing through the 6,500 acre ranch of an eccentric German who demands complete silence on his lands, but flies his helicopter back and forth from here to Nairobi.

Back to work...

All clear

I have no idea if this is even making news in the States, but Mandera is about 1000 km and over a day's travel from where we are in Nyeri, i.e. trouble for Kenya, not trouble for us. Hakuma Matata.

Fighting on Northeastern Kenya - Somali boarder

Shabbat Nyeri

With the rest of the group enjoying a Safari in Samburu,  a Shabbat of solitude was in the offing.






I set up my little Shabbat corner of my room, and jumped in, lighting candles (something I’m certain I haven’t done in at least 13 years if not longer). Knowing that all of the rooms surrounding me were assigned to my colleagues and therefore empty, I let loose, serenading the unperturbed trees outside my window with a full volume Carlebach Kabbalat Shabbat, something I haven’t really done since my last Friday night at Kesher back in October. About halfway through, I could hear the muezzin from the local mosque behind the treeline and across the highway joining in, something that recalled davening in certain locations in Jerusalem.

Emotionally, it was a mix of the transcendence of davening apart, away, and in complete isolation and longing for the top shelf family time that normally constitutes a Shabbat evening. But having made my solitary bed, I aimed to sleep with gusto, pacing my prayers according to me own whim, lingering on tunes that felt right, and singing every Shabbat zemer published in the Koren siddur. My Shabbat meal constituted of a mini-Kedem grape juice, 2 whole wheat matzot, a tin of tuna fish, a packet of RJ’s Kosher Beef Jerky and an orange – basar v’dagim v’chol matamim – and I was off to bed.

Since all my timepieces are electronic, I can’t tell you what zmanim I observed, but I can tell you precisely when I woke up, as the rooster who has made himself a home just out of view but not out of earshot from our bank of rooms has been quite punctual all week. He has no snooze button, and his repeated crowing is quite impossible to sleep through. I hope to kill that bird.

Praying in the morning was similar to the previous night, although layning the parasha to myself alerted me to how rusty I’ve become, gotta work on that before Rami’s bar mitzvah. Before lunch, I caught myself pausing a second time after “Savri” in Kiddush, which brough a smile to my face - as if I expected one of my avian audience to reply “L’Chaim”.

I leisurely strolled around the town and the Green Hills campus for some of the day, indulged myself a long Shabbat afternoon nap, and enjoyed a few selections from the Mitoch HaOhel collection of drashot from YU that the Rosenbaums presented to me as a going away present. The frenetic pace of our work during the week and the full stop of this Shabbat put the conceit of progress and the humility of rest in lovely contrast, and I thought for a while about the proper frame of reference for our work here. Though I hope that all of us are able to make substantive contributions during our brief stay, Shabbat brought home the notion that Kenya was here long before us and will be here long after us, and our fondest wish can only be that its progress, whose success will be determined by factors indubitably far out of our control, is ever so slightly buoyed by our efforts.

Tomorrow I rise early to head out into the Mau Mau caves, fortunately long since abandoned.

Shavua tov!

Some background on Nyeri

A very productive morning, after which my colleagues headed out "into the bush" to spend some time on safari in Samburu. Samburu is not particularly Shabbat-friendly (not that Nyeri is significantly better, but at least I have the span of the Green Hills to roam), so I opted to stay alone. My Sunday free, I signed up for an early morning excursion into the Aberdares, the nearest National Park to the area, and a hike to tour the Mau Mau caves.

I haven't written much about our home base of Nyeri, but it is Kikuyu Central. The Kikuyu are the largest of Kenya's 42 communities, yet hold power, wealth and influence even in excess of their numbers. In fact, President Mwai Kibaki is from this town. Nyeri now is indistinguishable from many other towns its size in Kenya, but during the dying days of the British Protectorate, this area served as the home base for the Mau Mau Rebellion, a bloody and vicious time prior to Kenyan independence. The myth and history of the Mau Mau have become indistinguishable in many cases, but it is likely that they were driven to revolt by the typical excesses of colonialism - shortage of land devoted to the natives, outrages visited upon the local communities, a complete stripping of their political rights - and it is undisputed that they dwelled in the forests around Mount Kenya, stockpiling captured weapons to add to their signature Panga long machetes, and unleashed violent attacks ostensibly in the hopes of driving out the British and other white Europeans.

At this point, the accounts veer into the gory and easily exaggerated, but hyperbole or no, they were trying times for Kenya. Tens of thousands of Kenyans died (a significant number due to internecine violence) and another 70,000 were imprisoned over the course of a conflict which killed less than 100 Europeans but made the case that the British protectorate was failing and likely led to Kenyan Independence in 1963. All this within a small radius of our current home. In fact, the local university where I'll be speaking at the end of next week is called Kimathi College, named after Dedan Kimathi, a Mau Mau freedom fighter/terrorist (your pick) who is currently hailed in Kenya, but was known at the time for strangling to death those who he suspected of treason until his alienated followers joined up with the British, captured him, held him less than a mile from our hotel, and then executed him by hanging after a court decision in absentia. I'm hoping for a knowledgeable guide who will be able to provide some first hand or close second hand knowledge of those times for me.

In the meantime, I've got my own Shabbas Safari planned that consist of pray, eat, walk, read, sleep, repeat. Shabbat Salama.

Reaching out

Today we spent much of our time reaching out to a variety of local and national government officials. Since our project spans the gap between e-Government and its constitutional, legislative and regulatory underpinnings, we have a broad range of technical and legal within the government who we need to interview in order to ensure that our recommendations are relevant and actionable. Given our short time frame, it's already remarkable how many meetings we've been able to coordinate at relatively high levels. I know that if the tables were turned, I'd be deleting emails and sending calls to voice mail left and right. Fortunately, that hasn't been the case here.

In parallel, we're developing detailed interview documents that spell out exactly what information we need to get from each stakeholder, and doing our own research via the web to determine what some of the answers are likely to be, and what other answers can be brought from outside the country as global best practices to benefit Kenya. It's massive, but fascinating reading for my inner geek as we compare e-government legislation in Norway, the U.K., Finland, Australia, the U.S., South Korea and others.

OK, enough work talk, here's another piece of local color. Luan, Nimeesh and I had lunch in Nyeri again today, at another second story cafe, this one open air. The heat of the day and omnipresent dust was not enough to erase the enjoyment of drinking in the sights and sounds of this bustling small town. I'm confident that there's no corner like it in the US anywhere - bumper to bumper cars, people milling about, in front of storescape that is devoid of brand names, each one hand painted with the proprietors name above it, none of them busy, but all of them eking out a living. Below the balcony was a man tending a small, crowded coop of chickens, and an even more crowded cardboard box of chickens, which led me to jibe that my colleagues lunch would at the very least be fresh.

A trip to a bank to make the deposit for the group's weekend safari led to an experience with the always flexible closing time. 3:10 can become 3:00 with a kind word, and we walked into an ultra-modern Barclay's Bank which seemed to defy the space and time around it, as if it was a portal to a first world country.

The negotiations at the bank took longer than we expected, we had already taken a leisurely lunch, and it was hot, so we decided to grab a cab back instead of walking. For 200 shillings (about $2.50), it seemed a reasonable luxury. My rudimentary Swahili was enough to identify and procure a vehicle (cabs are not marked anywhere in Kenya that I can tell, but certainly not in Nyeri). Fortunately the cardboard on the passenger side floor was sturdy enough to keep my feet from touching the street. As we drove up the main road, I was dismayed to see the driver pull into the Koboil gas station on the corner. I questioned the customer service wisdom of fueling up with a car full of passengers until I glanced over at the driver's side dashboard and realized that it was amazing that we had made it to the gas station, given that the needle was firmly on "E". Sure enough, the driver asked for his fare at this point. He took 100 shillings and put it in his pocket, and gave me back the other 100 shillings to give to the service attendant, enough to buy 1 litre of gasoline. His fuel gauge ever so slightly buoyed by the stop, he ferried us back to the Green Hills front gate. And here's the good part. He then gave me his cell phone number in case I ever needed a cab again in Nyeri. This is to say, that this guy who sits around the center of town waiting for the rarest rarity of a cab fare, so much so that his means of livelihood and transportation stands on the verge of uselessness with vapors so evanescent that the kilometer each way to our hotel would stand a fighting chance of exhausting them, who can spare only one quarter of a gallon of gas at a fill-up, nonetheless has a CELLULAR PHONE which he will fund and maintain even at the risk of disabling his only apparent source of income. I have nothing more to add.

We returned immediately to work upon our return, this time choosing the grassy plaza as our "office". A sudden rain forced us inside, and the rhythmic patter of the rapid drops on the corrugated tin roof made the passing shower sound more like a typhoon. It mostly drowned out the noise of the absurdly sonorous aerobics class though, and provided a steady soundtrack to our furious work efforts, which carried over to a brief dinner and then back to the bar for a few more productive hours.

Next will be my first Shabbat in isolation in Nyeri... more to come.