Profile: Aggrey Taifa

Throughout the summer I am going to be meeting with many entrepreneurs as part of my work in facilitating the longevity study. Most of the businesses that I have seen so far seem to be plodding along, nothing too amazing but nothing too bad either, and a few clearly have not worked out very well. A few entrepreneurs, however, have really impressed me. I mentioned last week that I had met the proud owner of "Alfa and Omega Furniture" named Aggrey Taifa (pictured above and below at work with one of his employees). I saw him again today, and this time I had my camera with me so I was able to take some photos of him at work. Here’s a little bit about him…

The first thing that I noticed about Aggrey was his tremendous enthusiasm – I think joie de vivre is a good term to describe him. I visited his business last week and then again today, and both times he greeted me as if he was reuniting with a long-lost friend. In addition to his personality, his work and carpentry skills are quite impressive. He had been working in the trade for a while before he received the VEF grant in late 2007. After getting the grant, he was able to significantly expand his business, buy new tools, and he also diversified by deciding to go into selling firewood. His English skills are very good, and he described to me not only the difference that the grant money had made, but also the new business skills that he learned from VEF’s training. He was very proud of his new record-keeping skills, and he said that learning how to record expenses and revenue had dramatically changed the way he thought about his business. Now, he said that he carefully considers each purchase that he makes and faithfully records it in the ledger, and he has also been able to plan better for anticipated future expenses.

In an example of his work ethic and ambition, Aggrey still claims that there is much room for improvement. Because he works out of his home, which is far off the main road, most of his business comes to him through word-of-mouth. One of his long-term goals is to move his workspace closer to the main road, or to save up money to buy a small shop on the main road to be able to expand his customer base. He also had plans for buying better tools and building a better workspace with a solid roof that would enable him to work even during the torrential downpours that I have been a witness to over the past few days. I asked him if he had considered taking a loan, but he said that he was hesitant to go down that path right now because he was worried about high interest rates and strict payback periods. I recommended that he talk with Juvenalis, the business mentor in Aggrey’s area, about the different options for expanding the business.

Meeting Aggrey has definitely been one of the highlights of my stay in Kenya so far. His love for his trade, outgoing personality, and clear desire to keep working to improve his business made it impossible for me not to leave both meetings I have had with him feeling invigorated and optimistic. He is a prime example of the magic that can happen when capital and training are made available to people with determination and ambition who otherwise not have access to them. Aggrey’s business has lots of potential to grow even more than it already has, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see it fulfill that potential and more in the future.

Training Day

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, my main task this summer is to test different methodologies for a longevity study that VEF is going to conduct focused on its Kenyan businesses. One of the methodologies that I am most excited about is using local people with a high level of education and a good command of English to go out into the field, find businesses, and meet with the entrepreneur(s) personally to gather data on-site. As opposed to other proposed methodologies, these independent evaluators will enable us to gather firsthand data from every single business included in the study. Furthermore, because the evaluators have no vested interest in skewing the results one way or another, we can be sure that they will record and report the data as accurately as possible.

I have identified three promising candidates for this job (pictured above, l-r Sylvia, Philip, and Dennis). All of them live in the Eregi area (where I am living, too), and all three have just graduated high school and are planning to enter college next fall. Basically this is a Kenyan version of a summer job. Today was our first training day. We spent the day traipsing around the Eregi area with a list of businesses that we were looking for. We ended up visiting three businesses (including one that we found after a never-ending 45 minute walk that began on the main road, continued over some hills, went through fields of maize, and finally came to an end right near the banks of the River Yala – the biggest river in the area, and, apparently, a preferred home for hippopotami).

For a day of training, we saw a good mix of businesses that had varying degrees of success. One of them seemed to have gone sour from the start. From what we gathered, group dynamics were not good, motivation was low, and it ended with the group members scattering every which way. Another of the businesses was a great example of the determination that it takes to pull yourself up onto your feet. Originally, the group (one of the members, Margaret Mudanya, is pictured above) had planned to build a fish pond and sell the fish, but that didn’t work out (sounded like a case of something sounding easier in theory than it is in reality). They rebounded from that disappointment, however, and decided to devote the remaining grant money to planting plots of maize and vegetables to sell, buying a turkey and some chickens, and paying school fees for some of their children. They are currently selling the vegetables, the maize is growing and should be ready for the harvest, and the turkey and chickens are happily walking around the yard (clearly unaware that being the centerpiece of a delicious dinner is their ultimate destiny). The group’s remarkable “stick-to-it-iveness” was inspiring, and they clearly took great pride in their new business. This group provided proof that even though initial plans don’t always work out, the VEF grant is usually big enough to allow for second chances and can also be used productively to satisfy other pressing needs like school fees. Finally, we visited a brick maker named Wycliffe Mukhobero. His business was the most successful of the three we visited, and I think it deserves a separate post to describe it more in-depth (coming soon).

Tomorrow we are going back out into the field for more training. This time, however, I am going to be watching the trainees do the talking. And in other news, I killed my first chicken last weekend! When I ate it for dinner, the meat tasted as fresh as you would expect considering that the chicken was alive two hours before it was on the table. Killing, de-feathering, and breaking down a chicken is an experience that I think every meat-eater should have at least once. It’s good to know where your meal is really coming from. And no, the experience did not make me want to become a vegetarian. If anything I want to do it again because dinner was so good!

The work begins...

I’ve now been here in Chavakali for a week, although it feels much longer. Even though almost everything here is different than what I’m used to in the US, I have basically gotten used to the daily rhythms of life here -- notice the pictures above, where my friend Rick and I are milking the "ngombe imwamu" (black cow). There is no electricity here, so when darkness falls the only light we have comes from lanterns and flashlights. The house is not hooked up to a piped water system, but there are water tanks that fill when it rains so we can use sinks and showers. It hasn’t rained in awhile here though (which is quite irregular, I am told). The lack of rain will most likely mean that the harvest in August will not go well, and the people, who are already hungry now because it has been so long since the last harvest, will not get much relief from their current situation. Every afternoon there are a number of dark, ominous looking storm clouds that come overhead, but since I have been here it has not rained.

I have spent this week starting work on my main project for the summer: running a study of the longevity of VEF sponsored businesses. The first task that I have is to test different methodologies. In the past, VEF’s business mentors (respected community members who help people in places where VEF works set up business groups, receive business training, and apply for a VEF grant) have been given a list of businesses and asked to tell us when each business started, whether it is still in operation and, if not, when it ceased to operate. It has been hard, however, to gauge how reliable this method is because no one has gone out into the field to verify the information that the business mentors give us. Thus, my first goal is to set up a system in which I get data from the business mentors but then go out into the field to verify it. On Monday, I met with a local business mentor named Juvenalis and asked him to give me information about three businesses in the area that I had randomly selected. Then, yesterday, I went out into the field with two local boys to track down the businesses (easier said than done, as the idea of an “address” is not known around here). We managed to find the three businesses and spoke with the group leader for each one. After spending a few weeks in the VEF offices in San Carlos and then being in Kenya for a week and a half, it was great to finally see a VEF business and meet an entrepreneur in person. One of the businesses was having trouble because it was a family group and the mother had fallen sick, making it hard for the rest of family to stay focused on the business. Another one was a maize and napier grass selling business, and because the harvest is still a few months away there was not much to see besides the fields. The third business, however, was a quintessential example of how VEF’s program can help businesses to grow and flourish. Aggrey is a furniture maker, and he has quite an extensive operation in his compound, which is about a 20 minute walk from the house where I am staying. I forgot to bring my camera, however, so I am going to go back there tomorrow and take a picture of him at work and then include that picture in another post devoted to describing his business. He certainly deserves it.

I met with more businesses today, and now I am about to set up a chair under a nice shady tree and read my book. One of the nice things about not having instant access to either internet or TV is that I get a lot of reading done. There might be loud noises that distract me, but they will most likely be coming from cows instead of cars.

Village Life

I left Nairobi on Wednesday morning and traveled by bus up to Kakamega, a town not far from Lake Victoria in Western province. There, I met Rowland Amulyoto, VEF’s Regional Training Director in Kenya and my host for the next few months. Rowland’s house is in Chavakali, which is about 10 miles from Kakamega itself.

This is a predominantly Luhya area (one of the smaller to mid-sized ethnic groups in Kenya), and people generally speak KiLuhya, KiSwahili, and a little bit of English. As such, I am trying to soak up KiLuhya as fast as possible. Simple greetings "Malembe!" (hello) and "Kari?" (how are you) followed by "Malaye!" (doing well) always elicit a smile and response from passers-by. People think its quite funny to see a "mzungu" (white person) like me trying to speak to them in KiLuhya. In addition to greetings, I am learning how to say things in KiLuhya as I go about daily activities. For example, twice a day at Rowland’s house we "hoshera ngombe imwamu" (milk the black cow), yesterday we "hoshembera molusu nidjembe" (tilled the grass with a hoe), and we always "hora asukari moichai" (put sugar in tea).

I much prefer life here to life in the city. Nairobi was full of traffic, dirty, and a little bit overwhelming in general. Yesterday, however, when I walked through the town and "hochenda hoshokolo Eregi" (walked up Eregi hill) I was struck by the amazing sense of calm and peace in the area that comes when the sounds of daily life and human interaction overpower the sounds of the few cars that drive through every hour. The view from the top of the hill was absolutely beautiful. It was a clear blue day, and I had a 360-degree perspective of the surroundings. There are a lot of hills and valleys dotting the landscape, and everything is so green! I had no trouble learning the KiLuhya word for “green” because it is simply “green.” The entire area, both on the hills and in the valleys, is covered with fields of maize, with houses interspersed throughout. Everything is connected by a network of walking paths that people around here know like the back of their hand (and in which anyone like me who is not yet familiar with the area could become hopelessly lost). I am eager to learn my way around, though, because the paths are ideal for running. As for now, I am content to walk around with Rowland’s cousin who is my age. Everywhere we go, I am serenaded with the screams of young children as they peek out from within their yards or houses and shout “inzamama mzungu!” (Look mom, a white person!).

Today Rowland and I are going to chat about how to structure my work for VEF this summer, and hopefully on Monday the internship will begin in earnest.

Until next time, "kwa heri" (Good bye)!

Settling into Nairobi

After almost 20 hours of flying and 10 more hours lost because of the change in time zones, I finally arrived in Nairobi on Saturday night. I am staying with family friends (actually family of family friends, to be precise) who live a little bit outside the Nairobi city center.

In addition to getting over jetlag, I've had a chance to get somewhat of a sense of the city. Nairobi is actually much more green (in terms of plants and trees, not energy efficiency) and less polluted than I expected it to be. There are, of course, plenty of tall buildings and congested streets, but it is not entirely a concrete jungle. I took a nice walk through the neighborhood this morning. The sights, smells, and sounds were pretty similar to other African cities that I've been to, although it was interesting to see that the residents of the neighborhood that I am staying in are predominantly Indian.

Yesterday, I went to a new shopping mall in town to get a Kenyan cellphone. It was truly a "globalized" experience there. I bought the phone at a "Nakumatt," which is essentially the Kenyan version of Wal-Mart, and walking through the mall felt exactly like walking through any similar place in the US. The only clue that this shopping mall might be in Nairobi instead of San Francisco was that the shoppers were just as likely to speak Swahili or Hindi as English.

I'm off to Kakamega later this week!

Also, I saw this article in The Standard (a local newspaper)about a study by the Kenyan Ministry of Industrialisation that looked at issues that small businesses face. Its interesting to note that the article cites a lack of "relevant information, education, and skills that would enable [the proprietor] to run a business" as common obstacles that can be detrimental to small business owners -- business skills training and education are two of the main focuses of VEF's program.

Introduction and Departure

First off, hello! My name is Michael Kremer and I am going to be interning for VEF this summer in Kenya. I was born and raised in San Francisco, but I am now a junior at Tufts University in Medford, MA. I am majoring in International Relations with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to my interest in Africa, I am a huge baseball fan (particularly the San Francisco Giants) and I love traveling.

I leave tomorrow for Kenya, and I will get into Nairobi on Saturday night. I'll be spending a few days in Nairobi, and then I'll be heading out to Western Kenya in the middle of next week. I will be living for the majority of the summer in a town called Kakamega.

I am really looking forward to getting out into the field and starting work. Much more to come in the next few weeks!