Wrapping up in western Kenya

August 23, 2009

Last Sunday marked the end of my time in Western Kenya. It was with great sadness that I bid farewell to the many friends I made over the course of the summer (including Bryan, pictured above, who was the evaluator I worked with on the profit-sharing study), and with particular sadness that I left Rowland, Judy, and the rest of the family whom I had spent 2+ months with. In my next post, I’ll write about some of the big-picture things that I learned from my experience this summer. Here, I’ll sum up the last week of the profit sharing study.

As I wrote last week, I had a great day in Bukura visiting Father Williams’ businesses and interviewing them for the profit-sharing study. That day in Bukura was the 3rd day of the study. As I became more familiar with the types of responses I was receiving to the questions, I was better able to ask them in a way that would yield accurate answers (in that I was no longer interviewing people who claimed that each business member was making 10 KSH per day ($0.13) and living on that money alone). I also talked with Rowland who helped give me an idea of what a normal vegetable selling business or a normal farming business should earn.

I had planned to do follow-up work in the study (i.e. making sure to interview at least two people from each business group separately), and that plan was made even more urgent by my realization that the data from the first two days of the study was definitely incomplete or inaccurate.

The second time around, the interviews took much longer because I decided that the best way to get a real picture of how the business was doing was to go back to the beginning. After discussing how the members used the grant, the tasks that each member was responsible for, how the business operates, and what constitutes normal revenue and expenses for a week of business (or, in some cases, I would ask them to describe their last week of work), I would finally get to the topic of how the business members share profits. Furthermore, I would request to see their record books to get a more accurate idea of the normal expenses and revenue. This roundabout approach to figure out the ways in which the members shared profits enabled me to get much more accurate data because I was able to ask particularly incisive questions if things didn’t seem to make sense. When all the numbers from the first series of questions matched up, getting an accurate answer for the important question of how profits were shared was a cinch.

Another great day in Bukura/Lufumbo

August 15, 2009

About a month ago, I wrote an entry about the day I spent visiting businesses started by the VEF business mentor named Father William Musando in a town called Bukura. I went back to Bukura today to interview businesses for the profit sharing study, and I was just as blown away by the success of the businesses there as I was the first time I went.

Last time, the main focus of my visit was to see whether or not the businesses I interviewed were still in operation or not. I found that the vast majority of them still were, and of that majority almost all of them were extremely successful. Today, in conducting the profit sharing study, I gained a new appreciation for just how successful these businesses are. Not only are they still in operation and not only are they doing well, but I found that almost every business had diversified and spun off one or more new businesses. I also found out how the group members use savings systems and diversification to aid each other and cushion the group in case of emergencies or unforeseen problems.

One of the best examples of this complexity was the “Jerusalem Group.” The group members received the grant in 2005, and all five initially worked together selling clothes. Over time, however, they saved profits from the clothing business and, one by one, opened up businesses that each member took over individually. So now, in addition to the clothing business, the members are running a bookshop, a vegetable stand in the market, a clothing shop separate from the group’s shop, and two household goods kiosks. The members spend the majority of their time at their individual businesses, but they also take turns running the group’s clothing business. The members keep their individual profits, but every month they each bring 275 shillings to pool as a group (1,375 KSH total). 1,000 of that pool goes toward increasing the stock of the clothing business, and 375 is given to a different member each month on a rotating basis (called a merry-go-round system). Finally, every five months the group takes a percentage of the accumulated profits from the group clothing business and splits it among the five members.

As you might imagine, that interview took awhile to get through because the system was so intricate! Many of Father William’s other groups had similar systems. In addition to keeping each member occupied full-time, this diversification is an excellent way for a group to survive the types of seasonal fluctuations that many businesses in the area face. If one of the businesses is in a down season (say, for example, that the maize harvest just happened and the price of maize is low), the group will still have revenue coming in from a number of streams, and in that way it will be able to absorb the lack of money coming in from maize.

I think that, in addition to Father William’s excellent mentoring skills, the VEF grants, and the business training, there is just something in the water in Bukura and Lufumbo that enables these entrepreneurs to turn fledgling businesses into mature, thriving enterprises. Each business that we visited had an inspiring story to tell about its success and the way the members worked together. Hearing those stories never gets old.

Looking for needles in a haystack - and finding a few

August 15, 2009

I spent Wednesday working on the profit-sharing study in Chavakali Market. Chavakali is the closest town to where I am living in Eregi, and on Wednesdays there is quite a large crowd present for market day. Even so, it is still a pretty small place – if you want access to the internet or a bank you will have to go about 20 minutes down the road to either Mbale or Kakamega.

VEF business mentor Margaret Embalabala has helped to start a number of businesses in Chavakali, so I went there with a long list of businesses hoping to find at least a few to interview. I was also interested in comparing businesses working in Chavakali to the businesses I had interviewed earlier, all of which were in the villages and operating on a relatively small scale.

What I didn’t realize was that looking for businesses in a town is much different than looking for them in a village. In the village, if you bring a list of group members to someone that person will usually know at least one or two of those people. Thus, we were able to find businesses in the longevity study with relative ease (because we were working exclusively in the villages). In Chavakali, however, it was a different ballgame. Amidst the hustle and bustle of market day, we were only able to find two businesses. What brightened up the day, however, was the fact that both of these businesses were doing very well.

One of the businesses, Upendo (love in Swahili) Auto Garage, was an excellent example of how a VEF grant given to a business that is already in operation can make a huge difference. Bernard, the head mechanic and owner of the shop, had already been running the shop before the grant, but it was on a very small-scale. When he learned of VEF’s proram, he grouped together with four other men who had auto repair skills, applied for the grant, underwent training, and ultimately received the $100 grant. Those other four group members are still working at the shop, and Bernard pays them based on the work that they do (they get 20% of the cost of the work they do, and the other 80% goes toward paying for the operational expenses for the shop). Bernard himself doesn’t take a portion of the profits. Instead, he reinvests them in the business. He gets money for his daily needs from money paid to him by two apprentices he has hired, and also from a towing service that he runs on the side. So overall, the $100 from VEF provided new employment opportunities for six people (including the two apprentices) and enabled Bernard to expand his business, too. It’s amazing how much a small amount of money can do around here.

Profit Sharing Study

August 5, 2009

I have been working on a new task for the past week and a half: designing and implementing a study of how VEF beneficiaries share profits from their business. To collect the data, I have again enlisted the evaluators from the longevity study to visit businesses included in the study.

A quick reminder on how VEF businesses are set up: before receiving the $150 grant, five people must form themselves into a group and come up with a business idea and plan. The group then attends business trainings together, and after completing all the preparation they receive the grant and begin (or, in some cases, continue) their business.

The goal of this study is to determine how many of those five actually end up benefitting directly as a result of their involvement in the business. We also want to get some data on the different ways in which businesses share profits among the members and pool profits for group investments. On a broader scale, the study is attempting to gauge the true impact of VEF’s grant. If you know the number of households that benefit (in this case, if a husband and wife were in the same group they would count as just one beneficiary) you can extrapolate that to assume that all the dependents in the household benefit as well.

There are a number of challenges in implementing the study. First and foremost, talking about income and business profits is just as touchy a subject here in Kenya as it is in the United States. I have tried to minimize talk of “money” and “profits” in the survey as much as possible. Instead, much of the interview focuses on discussing the different tasks that each active member performs. In doing so, we are able to gauge how much each member contributes to the business; that contribution should have a correlation to the share of profits that that member receives. After getting that information, there are questions that address profits specifically. I have told the evaluators to phrase the questions in ways that will get the point across but are not be as direct as simply asking “what percentage of the profits do you get?” We are also interviewing at least two members of each group to ensure that we are getting reliable data.

Secondly, trying to gauge what constitutes a “household” poses a tough problem. Almost everyone who lives in each village is related to each other either by blood or by marriage, so simply asking whether a member has any family members in the group does not yield accurate data. Compounding the problem was that some group members live in the same compound but in different houses. To classify them as one unit would be misleading because they each provided for their own families separately. So the question I came up with was “how many group members eat food from the same kitchen?” If you share a kitchen with someone, the two of you share the burden of buying and preparing food that is prepared in that kitchen. Thus, the incomes that both people got from the business would go towards caring for the same dependents. Under the theory that each household has “x” number of dependents, it is possible to calculate the total number of people that benefit from the VEF program. So if there are two people in a group who share the same kitchen, they should only count as one household for purposes of multiplying the number of households in the group by the number of dependents in each.

I hope that complicated explanation made sense. I’ll be back out in the field tomorrow collecting more data.

Longevity Study: Meeting with the Business Mentors

August 1, 2009

Over the past week and a half, I met with four of the business mentors (BMs) who had businesses in the pilot longevity study that I had previously conducted. The BMs are a core part of VEF’s program: they live in areas that VEF works in, and they spread the word about VEF at the village level. They help people form groups, lead them through business training, and, if the group qualifies for the grant, provide advice and mentoring to the business as it is getting started.

As I described in earlier posts, I trained independent evaluators to collect the data firsthand on the 65 businesses included in the study. We managed to reach 59 in the week we spent out in the field. I wanted to speak with the BMs, however, to see if their knowledge of the businesses could shed any new light on the data that we had collected.

As you might imagine, it was a tough task for the BMs to remember how a random sampling of their businesses started between 2 to 4 years ago were doing. There were some cases where the BM had not visited the business in some time. This happened for a variety of reasons: in Father William’s case, for example, he had been transferred to a different parish and didn’t have many chances to go back to his old parish. The most common answer was that the BM simply did not have time to visit all of them. The BMs help start as many as 40 businesses each year, and so they have plenty of work to do in just keeping an eye on the businesses that are in their first year. This does not mean that they neglect the others. For one thing, the businesses that the BM helps to start are usually run by a group of people that the BM knows because, as I’ve quickly learned, in these villages everyone seems to know everyone. So the BM doesn’t have to make a point of going to inquire specifically about each business; he or she will most likely just see the beneficiaries on the road or in the market or at church. Also, because word travels so fast around here, the BM probably would be able to get a sense of how the business is doing without even visiting it!

So even though there were some cases where the BM said that he or she didn’t know how the business was doing, most of the time the BM was able to provide at least some insight into the current state of the business. More often than not, the BM’s answer matched what we found in the field. There were a few cases, however, where I learned new information about the business from the BM. For example, in cases where the business was no longer in operation the BMs were usually able to provide their opinion about why it failed (which sometimes differed from the explanation we heard in the field). Also, there were a few cases where the BM’s insight led us to follow up again with the business and ask more pointed questions that helped us to establish clearly whether or not the business was operating.

In the big picture, getting the BMs’ input into how the business was doing solidified my confidence in the data even more, and helped me to identify places where a follow-up interview with the business group was necessary. Gathering reliable data is very challenging out here. There are many variables (especially with groups of 5), and it is hard to reach some of the people and businesses you are trying to visit. I think that the survey data we gathered, however, is as strong as we can realistically hope for. In the end, we drew on the institutional knowledge in the villages (for help finding the beneficiaries), the firsthand description of how the business was doing given by the group members, and then finally the BM’s third person perspective on the business. I am optimistic that we can scale up this methodology to cover all the regions where VEF works in Kenya.

A Kenyan Funeral

July 27, 2009

Last Saturday I attended my first funeral since I’ve been in Kenya. As I wrote about before, I attended a wedding and absolutely loved it – the whole community was included and there was lots of dancing and singing involved. I was interested to see if these same themes would appear at the funeral.

Mathew, one of the most educated and respected men in the community passed away two weekends ago (I hadn’t met him, although I had passed by his house many times). The funeral preparations began immediately. His relatives and friends from all over the country were informed of his death and I am sure that more than 100 came to Eregi. The whole community also knew of the death (information spreads here like wildfire), and because this man was especially respected and revered there was sure to be a huge crowd.

The funeral proceedings actually stretched out over several days. On Thursday there was a memorial service at the church and as I was walking on the main road in Eregi I saw a motorcade of about 15 cars and dozens of motorbikes roll by with hundreds of people seated inside or hanging onto the sides. On Friday, I was told that thousands of people turned out at Mathew’s house for an overnight vigil.

The burial was on Saturday, and I would estimate that there were at least 2,500 people in attendance. People were seated on chairs with a tarp strung above them to provide shade, some were seated on the grass, and some stood in the open or in the shade. The church choir was there (those women can sing!), the Catholic priests were there, and of course there were many family members, friends, his work associates, and other community members.

As expected, there were many sad moments at the funeral. But the majority of the time was not spent lamenting the loss; instead, everyone who spoke focused on celebrating his accomplishments in life. Unlike Western funerals, almost no one wore black. The close female family members wore white, but everyone else (the women especially) wore all different types of colorful clothing. It wasn’t a “festive” atmosphere, but I would call it more of a “celebration” than a “funeral.” There was plenty of singing, and, after the eulogies when the casket was being prepared for burial, dancing as well.

Like the wedding, the funeral was a community event. At one point people were invited to come forward and give a donation to help the family with the funeral costs. People contributed what they could – in the donation bucket I saw everything from the equivalent of a nickel to a $20 bill. There was plenty of food available after the burial, and the hum of conversation continued throughout the day. Funerals and weddings are truly magnets for drawing people in the community together. I am sure that everyone in the area knew of the funeral, and most if not all probably knew the man who died by face or on a personal level.

Maybe these sort of community gatherings occur in small towns in the US, but as a lifetime city-dweller the idea of a whole area coming together for social events like weddings and funerals is quite foreign to me. People living here in Eregi and the Kakamega region as a whole certainly face more than their fair share of daily challenges, but I think that the close ties people have with their fellow community members play a key role in helping everyone get by. I witnessed the ways the ties manifest themselves at the wedding, and at the funeral I saw more of the same.

Recap of last week’s events

July 27, 2009

It’s been awhile since I last posted, so I’ll give a little recap of what I’ve been doing for the past week or so.

I spent the first part of last week working on a non-VEF-related study focused on how much money people in the area spend on lighting at night. I conducted the study in conjunction with a friend of mine who lives in the area. The study was part of some market research that my friend is doing because she is looking into opening up a business selling solar flashlights in the area.

I went around for three days with the evaluators that I worked with on the longevity study interviewing businesses and shoppers in the area. Electricity is scarce around here – usually only the permanent buildings near the road have it. So even in the big shopping areas, a majority of shops still do not have electricity because most of them are outdoor “kiosks” (basically just some sticks strung together with a small tarp on top). For lighting at night, people generally use kerosene lanterns, battery-powered flashlights, and “koroboi” (paraffin lamps).

Although each of these items is relatively cheap to buy (the kerosene lantern is the most expensive at about $3.50 per), people spend an unbelievably high percentage of their income on fuel / batteries! I don’t have the exact data in front of me, but it wasn’t surprising to hear that someone would spend between 500 and 1000 shillings ($6.50-$13) per month or more on just kerosene and batteries. That amount might seem small by U.S. standards, but for a Kenyan living in a rural village it is a lot of money. People tend not to realize how much they spend, however, because they buy the fuel in small installments. Safety is another issue – many people had either personally had or knew someone who had a fire in their house or business that was started by the kerosene lamp or koroboi.

People loved the solar flashlight because of its durability, long-term cost savings compared to regular flashlights (no need for new batteries!), and strong light. The only problem was cost. We projected that the flashlight will cost around 1,000 shillings, which almost no one said they could afford to pay all at once. People said they would be interested, however, if there were an installment plan in which they could save up a little bit of money each week until they had enough to buy it. Almost everyone we talked to realized that the flashlight was a sound economic investment in the long run (assuming that it lasts for at least a few years). People were eager to modify it as well, suggesting that we add a radio and an outlet for cell-phone charging to the flashlight.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see how people receive the flashlight when it actually becomes available on the market. Although almost everyone we talked to expressed interest, but it is hard to tell, when push comes to shove, how many people will actually be able to stick to the installment plan and save up enough money to buy it. One of the major themes that I’ve noticed in many different contexts is the conflict between short-term and long-term interest that people face around here. The solar flashlight is, of course, a solid long-term investment, but short-term needs might end up overwhelming peoples’ desire to save up enough money – money that might be needed in the short-term for a medical cost or just to put food on the table – to buy and subsequently reap the benefits of the solar flashlight.

A Kenyan Wedding

After a long but fun week of visiting VEF-sponsored businesses with the evaluators, I finally had a chance to catch up on some much needed rest on Friday night. The relaxation period, however, didn’t last long. I spent the majority of the day on Saturday attending my first Kenyan wedding! Rowland is friends with either the bride’s or groom’s family – or maybe both (everybody knows everybody around here). The wedding took place at the Eregi Catholic Church. I was planning to just sit quietly in the back and watch, but Rowland called to tell me that the person who was hired to shoot video of the wedding was nowhere to be found. He asked me to take over video duties, so this ended up being both my first Kenyan wedding and my first experience as a wedding videographer! I already stuck out like a sore thumb as the one mzungu in a church full of Kenyans, and I’m sure I seemed even more out of place as the one person in the church with a video camera.

The wedding itself was a true celebration with nonstop dancing and singing and general jubilation. Even in the short church service beforehand, people were singing and dancing in the aisles. After the vows were exchanged the whole place went wild. The attendees danced out of the church and into the street and accompanied the bride and groom and their families as they were driven a short distance to the wedding reception. I would guess that half of the people in the crowd dancing and singing in the street were invited guests, and the others were just community members along for the ride. The idea of “wedding crashing” is non-existent here; weddings are truly community events. At the reception, after a number of toasts and short speeches, the bride and groom were presented with a variety of gifts. The most notable gift was a live sheep that was escorted into the hall to much fanfare! After that, huge pots of ugali, beef, beans, rice, and sukuma wiki (kale) were brought out and the feast started.

The family members and some special guests sat in one part of the room, but it was clear that the food was meant to feed anyone and everyone who wanted to eat. There were lots of kids dressed in tattered clothes in the back of the room, and a number of young mothers present as well. This time of year is very hard in the community because the corn harvest is not until next month. Many people have little or nothing to eat, so you can imagine the allure of a wedding meal that is open to all. As far as I could tell, no one was turned away from the food. As opposed to weddings in the US which tend to be mostly private events, the wedding and subsequent reception were clearly intended as both family and community events. It was sobering to see so many people so desperately in need, but at the same time it was inspiring to see the ways that the community members come together to help each other.

Profile: The Grocery Group

July 7, 2009

As I mentioned in the last post, I had lunch with a VEF entrepreneur yesterday named Joseph Murunga (pictured above in his shop being interviewed by Sylviah). Joseph and his four partners (two male, two female) received the VEF grant for their business, christened “The Grocery Group,” in 2005. The business has grown from a market stall to a permanent shop in the Bukura market where they sell different types of vegetables, beans, lentils, maize, and milk. The group started off selling just veggies, but as the business grew they expanded to the other goods, and the group invested some profits in a dairy cow that provides them with milk to sell, too. The group members grow some of the products at home, and they buy others and resell them at their shop. I would have liked to meet with all five members, but because they take turns manning the shop we were only able to meet Joseph when we visited. He accompanied us to lunch and told us his story, which I am willing to bet is very similar to the stories of the rest of the group members, too.

Before receiving the grant, Joseph was just a small-scale, subsistence farmer. He has a shamba outside of Bukura, and, like most subsistence farmers around here, was very poor and reliant on a good season of rain to put food on the table. Money for school fees, much less any discretionary spending, was non-existent. He said that he had wanted to start a business for some time, but that before VEF’s grant he had absolutely no way to access any sort of capital that he would need to start. Luckily for Joseph, he heard Father William’s description of VEF’s program. Joseph and his four other group members applied for the grant, underwent business training, and then received the first grant installment in June, 2005. Since then, as I have described, their business has blossomed. The group pools the profits, and each member is entitled to a share (the group also reinvests some of the profits in the business, as demonstrated by their purchase of the dairy cow). With his personal share of the profits, Joseph has singlehandedly lifted up his family from extreme poverty. He told us that he has seven children. The oldest two had to drop out of school early on (before Joseph had started with the business) because they couldn’t pay the fees. He then smiled with great pride as he told us that his youngest five children, however, are all enrolled in school and all doing very well. The profits have also been able to put food on the table and given the family a safety net to fall back to if unforeseen expenses come up. Because each member of the group takes turns running the shop, Joseph is still able to farm, too. He said that he and the group are continuing to work well together, and they were all eager to look for new ways to expand the business.

It’s hard to think of a story that more encapsulates what VEF is all about. $100 or $150 is not all that much money, but it can provide the push that groups like Joseph’s need to get off the ground and onto the first rung of the ladder out of poverty. Once they’re on the ladder, the group members gain control of their own destinies, and their hard work and determination is what really makes the business succeed and their lives improve. I have heard stories like Joseph’s from many entrepreneurs that I have met, but hearing new ones never gets old.

An Exciting Day in the Field

July 7, 2009

For the past three days, the evaluators and I have been out in the field finding businesses and interviewing entrepreneurs for the longevity study. The study here in the Kakamega region is essentially a pilot study – we are very interested to find out how feasible it is to have independent evaluators go out into the field and find businesses by themselves, we are looking to get a sense of the cost involved, and, most importantly, we are trying to gather data that is as reliable as possible. I would say that the first few days have been great! Out of 66 businesses in the study, we have found 38 which puts us well on track to finish by early next week. It’s not always easy – sometimes searching for a business feels like trying to find a needle in a haystack – but the evaluators have done a really good job of going to different communities and persisting in asking everyone they see where a certain business or person is until they find what they are looking for.

I have gone out with an evaluator each day, too. Yesterday (Tuesday) was a particularly great day. I accompanied Sylviah (pictured above interviewing Joseph Murunga in his group's vegetable shop), our only female evaluator, to a village called Bukura. Transport was a hassle to say the least, but we finally reached the village at about noon. We rode in on a gaudily decorated bus that was packed to the brim with passengers and even more packed with cargo on the roof. The touts on the bus would periodically climb up to the roof -- while the bus was still moving -- to make sure that the load on top didn’t tip over!

The business mentor in Bukura was named Father William, who was posted to a church just down the road in a small village called Lufumbo. He is still affiliated with VEF, but he was transferred to a church in another location a year or two ago. Nevertheless, Father William’s businesses were alive and well! We visited three in Bukura that were doing amazing things. Many of the VEF businesses I have seen so far are very small scale. Some sell items in small kiosks and some sell from their homes. The businesses in Bukura, however, were operating in big shops that were filled to the brim with all sorts of items. One business we visited had started off selling second hand clothes and was now operating a shop with clothes, glass for sale, and, most impressively, two computers and a printer whose services they rented out! Another business we met in Bukura was a fully stocked food shop with everything from cooking oil to brown bread. It was the Kenyan equivalent of an American “corner store.” I bought two “Mandazi” (Kenyan donuts that are absolutely delicious) from the store and thoroughly enjoyed eating them. As Sylviah and I were walking through the middle of town toward the third business, she turned to me and exclaimed, “these guys are serious!” The third business we visited was a vegetable shop in the market area. That business was doing well, too. It was much more modest in scale and inventory than the first two, but when you consider that it all started with just $100 having a fully stocked shop in a prime location at the market is impressive in and of itself. We met Joseph Murunga, one of the group members, at the shop. He then accompanied us to lunch, and his group’s story is worthy of its own post (which will follow this one).

After a lunch of chapati and beef stew, we headed down the road to Lufumbo. There we visited three more businesses that he helped to start. Two of them were flourishing, but one had unfortunately ceased operating. The latter group had specialized in baking and had been doing quite well for themselves for three years. Trouble started when the group member at whose house the group did the baking moved away, and the group wasn’t able to recover from that loss. When you consider, however, that for three years these women had a steady income that they could use for food, school fees, and other needs, it would be a mistake to think of the business as a “failure” just because it is no longer operating.

We returned to Lufumbo, and after buying another Mandazi from the VEF-sponsored food shop Sylviah and I took a motorbike taxi back to Eregi. What a day! Seeing so many thriving businesses made the day itself really exhilarating. Just as heartening, however, was the fact that although Father William is no longer physically in Lufumbo, his impact will continue to be felt for many years to come. I am really looking forward to meeting him at some point during my stay.

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)!

A Nice Visit to the Field

Written on May 1, 2008 from Kakamega, Kenya
By Anne Olson

These last few days in the office went by very fast. I feel good about what we were able to accomplish and how much Linnet has learned. I also got some documentation done so that I can more easily set up for the other two countries. They won't be so "trial and error" like Kenya was. We have reconciled checking and savings accounts for the first quarter of 2008, petty cash has been reconciled with an adjustment (I knew that would be the case) and some receipt tracking processes have been put in place. A lot of money goes out the door as cash so receipts are very important. When I come back to Kenya in June I will do some spot checks to see if receipts are in place.

Today I went to the field with Catherine, one of the Village Business Mentors (VBMs), and Wilson the country director. We visited some of Catherine's businesses. I love to do that. Some were selling vegetables and cereals (maize, beans, etc), one was selling paraffin and kerosene, one was selling cooked beans and chapatti for lunch. Beautiful strong Kenyan women who are making a difference in the lives of their families and the community at large. I love going to the field and seeing the people that are being helped by VEF. They all ask me to take greetings and thanks back to the US office and the donors. They are very grateful for the chance they were given to move out of poverty and want others to have the same chance. Very inspiring.

Tomorrow Linnet and I will take the bus to Nairobi where I will spend the weekend. I will meet with a woman that I met at a conference in California. She runs an NGO (non-governmental organization) and I want to talk with her about her organization and how she tracks expenses. Should be interesting. I will also get to spend some time with Jackie who used to be the VEF Country Director; she and I became friends when I have visited Kenya in the past. When she lived in Kakamega, I would stay at her house when I was there. I am excited to see her. Her husband helped me deal with the hotel in Nairobi when my computer was stolen. And NO, I am not staying at the same place and NO I will not be leaving my computer in my room when I go out!

On Monday, May 5, I fly to Dodoma Tanzania to work in the VEF office there. I can't believe I have already been here for a month. The time is going by very fast.

Sunburn and Cocoa Butter, Fruit and Yogurt

Written on April 26, 2008 from Kakamega, Kenya
By Anne Olson

My sunburned arms are now peeling! The locals find it interesting; guess they don't experience this. Bought some lotion with cocoa butter and that is helping to keep my skin moist. Haven't been sunburned like this for years and years but guess it is to be expected when spending a day on the water at the equator. I DID use 30 weight sunscreen and applied it a number of times during the day. Now I wear a long-sleeved shirt when I go out to protect that tender new skin that is being exposed.

I went in to the office today to get some quiet time for working on QuickBooks, the accounting program that I am training someone to use. The fact is that I am figuring it out as I go and had a few more things to figure out. Now I need to train on the new things and document what I know. I also got my bills paid for May. The good news was that the internet was working and there was electricity (neither can be taken for granted here!). I will probably go back tomorrow for a few hours again.

After my time in the office, I went to town to the market to buy some fruit to have in my room – little sweet bananas (I call them baby bananas because they are about the size of my thumb) and mangos. We usually have a late lunch (2 or 3pm) so I'm not hungry for dinner. So I just have some fruit and some yogurt in the evening. It works well for me. I also found someone selling roasted ground nuts (like peanuts) on my walk home from the market so I got some of them for a snack this afternoon.

Laundry and Office Work

Written on April 24, 2008 from Kakamega, Kenya
By Anne Olson

I discovered that almost all of my clothes were dirty so I had a pile of laundry to be done today. Luckily the sun was shining so my clothes would dry. Everything is washed by hand and hung on the line. They charged me 320 Kenya Shillings (about $5) to wash 16 articles of clothing! Now I have lots of clean clothes.

Back to the office today. So good to see everyone again. Linnet, the office manager, got all of the expenses entered into QuickBooks so today we could start looking at reporting. We need to review the data to make sure we've coded things right but that won't take very long. I was so excited to be able to produce a sample quarterly income/expense report that I could send to Lyndsay in the US Office to get her opinion on the format. Tomorrow we will get the savings account data in for Jan-Mar 2008. Progress is being made!!!

Long Day of Travel

Written on April 23, 2008 from Kakamega, Kenya
By Anne Olson

Another travel day – Soroti Uganda to Kakamega Kenya. It took 2 buses, 3 matatus (vans that locals use and travel when the van is full), 2 bodabodas (bicycle taxis; actually needed 2 each time – one for me and one for my suitcase). I left Soroti at about 9:45am and got to Kakamega at about 6pm. I was tired, hungry and dirty – so shower and dinner were high on the list of priorities.

Electricity Problems, Rain and Vacation Time

Written on April 10, 2008 in Kakamega, Kenya

By Anne Olson

We were without internet on Tuesday and without electricity and internet yesterday. Electricity came back on about 5:30pm. All of Kakamega was affected. Also, there is a shortage of water in all of Kakamega. The good news is that the land line phone and 2 internet connections were installed in the office yesterday (not Monday as expected). We are so happy to have internet connection here in the office. It was okay to walk over to another office on the site but much better to be able to work here. It was interesting to watch the internet installation – trenches were dug from the main building to our building, coax cable was pulled through a plastic pipe, all was laid in the trench and covered. Then the cable was brought into the office through the various cracks and holes that are found in the construction. Things here do not always “match up” leaving lots of small openings for cables.

Two days without internet left a lot of time on my hands. I helped Linnet by writing all of the checks to the VBMs with their grant money. Now they can do the training and disburse the grants in the next couple of weeks. I also helped sort paperwork so that it would be ready for the part-time help (casual worker as they say in Kenya) to enter into the grant database. So many pieces of paper to keep track of and store.

It is planting season here so everyone is waiting for rain. It hasn’t rained since the first Sunday I was here (March 30). Yesterday it clouded up and this morning it rained very hard from 8:30 to 9:00 am, the time I am usually walking to the office. I just waited it out at the hotel and when it stopped I threw on my coat and backpack and took off. Luckily I arrived with no more rain. There’s been a few sprinkles since then but not much. This rain will make the local farmers very happy.

It’s evening now and it is raining very hard again. I like the sound of the rain and am VERY happy not to be out in it. The rain this morning was good to settle the dust. This rain will make mud again.

Tomorrow I will leave my computer at the office as I am going on vacation in Uganda next week and don’t want to carry it. I will leave Sunday morning to go to the border using local transport called matatu (it’s a small van and travels when full, stopping whenever someone wants on or off). Michael, the VEF Country Director in Uganda, will meet me at the border as I have a box of things for Uganda that I don’t want to take with me on vacation. I will then take another matatu or a bus to Jinja which is where I will start my vacation. My friend Sharae will meet me there Sunday night. On Monday we leave for Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the mountain gorillas there. I am very excited about that. When we return to Jinja, we will go river rafting on the Nile, visit the Source of the Nile, and visit a local village. It will be a fun time. Hopefully it won’t rain the whole time but if it does, we’ll deal with it.

A New Office

Written on April 10, 2008 from Kakamega, Kenya

By Anne Olson

We were without internet on Tuesday and without electricity and internet yesterday. Electricity came back on about 5:30pm. All of Kakamega was affected. Also, there is a shortage of water in all of Kakamega. The good news is that the landline phone and 2 internet connections were installed in the office yesterday (not Monday as expected). We are so happy to have internet connection here in the office. It was okay to walk over to another office on the site but much better to be able to work here. It was interesting to watch the internet installation – trenches were dug from the main building to our building, coax cable was pulled through a plastic pipe, all was laid in the trench and covered. Then the cable was brought into the office through the various cracks and holes that are found in the construction. Things here do not always “match up” leaving lots of small openings for cables.

Two days without internet left a lot of time on my hands. I helped Linnet by writing all of the checks to the VFCs with their grant money. Now they can do the training and disburse the grants in the next couple of weeks. I also helped sort paperwork so that it would be ready for the part-time help (casual worker as they say in Kenya) to enter into the grant database. So many pieces of paper to keep track of and store.

It is planting season here so everyone is waiting for rain. It hasn’t rained since the first Sunday I was here (March 30). Yesterday it clouded up and this morning it rained very hard from 8:30 to 9:00 am, the time I am usually walking to the office. I just waited it out at the hotel and when it stopped I threw on my coat and backpack and took off. Luckily I arrived with no more rain. There’s been a few sprinkles since then but not much. This rain will make the local farmers very happy.

It’s evening now and it is raining very hard again. I like the sound of the rain and am VERY happy not to be out in it. The rain this morning was good to settle the dust. This rain will make mud again.

Tomorrow I will leave my computer at the office as I am going on vacation in Uganda next week and don’t want to carry it. I will leave Sunday morning to go to the border using local transport called matatu (it’s a small van and travels when full stopping whenever someone wants on or off). Michael, the VEF Country Director in Uganda, will meet me at the border as I have a box of things for Uganda that I don’t want to take with me on vacation. I will then take another matatu or a bus to Jinja which is where I will start my vacation. My friend Sharae will meet me there Sunday night. On Monday we leave for Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to see the mountain gorillas there. I am very excited about that. When we return to Jinja, we will go river rafting on the Nile, visit the Source of the Nile, and visit a local village. It will be a fun time. Hopefully it won’t rain the whole time but if it does, we’ll deal with it.