Currently in: Naivasha, Kenya

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Adventures with Hana




So most of yall know my good friend Hana Lokey from Tech. I was basically her PL her freshman year, and looked to her as a little stooge. We just had passions for the same things: sports, Africa, people, underprivileged people, traveling, Jesus, outdoors, tackling people- you know, the normal things. In fact Hana got a kick out of telling people she was little me during her time at tech. 

Hana and I at tug her freshman year


We have always kept in good contact, never spending that much time together, but when I was back in Atlanta we made sure to grab a meal and talk about life and dreams. This past summer we were trying to plan an epic road trip/camping trip to celebrate her graduation from tech, sadly it never happened.  Well, about a month ago I got to fly Hana out to Kenya to live and come work for me on these projects that got to be too much for me to handle alone.

One would think that once you spend every waking and sleeping moment with the same person for a month you would get tired of them, praise the Lord that is just not how it has been for us. This is the first time that we have spent a lot of time together and it has been incredible. From the first day she arrived the adventures started. It was so nice to share the ridiculousness and the awesomeness of my life here with someone. Since she arrived we have been licked all over by giraffes, been on numerous motor bike spills, cooked up a storm in my little outdoor kitchen, been attacked by chickens & baboons, had a cat adopt us, build an incredible solar latrine in a village, mountain biked, kayaked, hiked, camped and seen some of the most incredible sun rises and sun sets. 
At the elephant orphanage in Nairobi


But this past weekend was so ridiculous, so African, it topped them all. Hana and I decided to go on a safari, by ourselves, in the 2nd most visited national park in Kenya. We rented a cheap little car, we named him Kobi due to him being an all-star and due to the upside down Lakers sticker on his window and decided to pack up and drive up to Nakuru National Park, camp and see some REAL African animals.

It has been so long since I have been on a good ol’ fashion car road trip (being that no one really has cars in Kenya) so we made a great play list, bought so many nom-noms, and hit the road Friday afternoon with huge grins on our faces. As if driving on very precarious roads, with ridiculous Kenyan drivers, and on the left side of the road wasn’t enough to handle, FYI Nakuru National Park- 2nd most popular in all of Kenya, attracting Millions of visitors a year from all over the world- doesn’t have ANY signs leading the way to the park. Hana and I kept stopping to ask for directions and ended up in a random slum on the outskirts of town. When we stopped to ask directions our response was filled with plenty of “I love you”s and “let me hop in and show you”s till we finally got this, our best answer “follow this road, then in a bit turn right, then you will want to turn left, but don’t stay straight, pass the tarmac road, then later turn right, follow that road and you are there.” I kid you not. That was the BEST directions we could get. Don’t believe me? Watch this video of later when we asked a guy and he confessed his love for Hana. Note the “road” we are driving on.


Somehow we finally make it to the park. We got there 10 min before the gate closes! And apparently only moments pass when a lion was right by the gate just hanging out. But we did make it in, and we had passes to camp on the furthest point of the park by a huge waterfall. Because it was already so late most of our drive to our campsite started at twilight and we saw hippos in the lake, lots of buffalo, weird giant reindeer looking things and just jammed to our music loving the fact of being in nature. It got REAL dark really fast. At one point in our headlights on the side of the road was a hyena! I don’t think I have ever seen one in real life and boy are they ugly- and BIG. Surprisingly big. We kept driving, chatting, singing, seeing random animals ever now and then and then on our play list that super epic song from Lion king – you know when Simba finds out who he really is and decides to go back to face Scar came on. We got really excited because we were in the perfect setting for such a song and then, I kid you not, we came over a hill and BAM! An entire pride of lions just strolling down the road. It was about 13 female and 1 full grown male. They were the most majestic thing I have ever seen, slowly sauntering down the road. We got to follow them for about half a mile, they were not more than 10 ft from our car, huge, beautiful, shinning in our headlights. Wow. And with that Lion King song playing, it was nothing short of magical.

Our campsite ended up being only a mile or so away from that, with slight hesitation we headed to the only campfire in the camp site field and decided to stay near other people. The couple we met at the campfire where Mazungu Kenyans (white Kenyans who generations ago colonized this area) who owned and operated Crescent Island, a small island and animal preserve out on Lake Naivasha. They were delightful company and told us about growing up in Kenya while we made our dinner and sipped on good ol’ Safari Whiskey (cheap Kenyan whiskey). After dinner we were just sitting around the camp fire when the couple across form us said “oh my, look at that cat!” Hana and I thinking some super large wild cat had snuck up behind us started looking off in the distance kind of scared of the possibility, and then we finally looked right in front of us- inches from Hana’s foot, licking our leftover pasta off the plate was a Gente Cat! This weird looking creatures is a small cat, with both cheetah print and stripes. It was so weird, I have never send something like it before. Hana and I spent a large chunk of the night chatting, looking at the incredible stars, and gazing at the waterfall in the moonlight.

The next morning we got up well before sunrise to make it up to Baboon Cliffs for an incredible panorama view of the park during sunrise. It’s hard driving around such wilderness because not only are there very few signs, if any, but random roads are blocked by fallen tress, flooded plains, dead buffalo, so you have to find your way around and we spent most of the day on washed out dirt trails where we pushed Kobi to his limits and had us very worried at times. Sunrise was spent at “out of Africa’ lookout point and was incredible. We lunched in the middle of a savannah plane on top of our car. With giraffes, zebra, gazelles, warthogs, and so many other amazing animals all around us. We saw flocks of flamingos down by the lake, a couple more lions throughout the day, 1 rhino, and some of the most incredible scenery you can imajine. It was quite the safari.

We had been given the name and number of an ex-pat in Nakuru doing water and sanitation development work. When we left the park we had scheduled to meet up with him. He took us up to Menigi Crater, the largest crater in East Africa. Formed only about 400 years ago the cliff down into the crater is about 500m drop, and the area of the blow crater stretches for  miles. Menigi is Massi for grave, apparently when the volcano blew thousands of Massi were killed and barred in the volcano flow and rocks in the explosion. Sad story, but incredible view. And we got to learn a lot about Massi history in the area. We also got to see a public school near by that our new friend and his non-profit FAB: Food, Aid, and Building had put in a rain water collection and huge water tank for. We got invited to have dinner with him and his Kenyan fiancĂ© and then found a random campsite on the high way to pass out early.

Early the next morning Hana and I donned our cutest picnic attire (sun dresses & flip flops) and headed into Nairboi for Blankets and Wine. This monthly outdoor concert has become one of my favorite events in Kenya. Every time I go I meet more and more incredible people, so being my 4th time I already knew so many people there from so many different times here in Kenya. Its like a reunion every month. So I just jump around from group to group, catching up, drinking plenty of wine and non stop picnic food. The music is always great, and there is always a bunch of dancing (this is Africa), and so many laughs your belly hurts by the end. We only got lost in Nairobi a couple of times before we found our way back to Naivasha late Sunday night after 1 amazing weekend.

I love my life here!

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Coolest Couple ever and Shamless Pitch



My apologies for the ubber long delay with out updating. Life, mainly work, kinda took off here in Naivasha. It’s always hard deciding what to update on and in what order.

So for once, I am actually going to start with all the work I have been doing here in Kenya (yes I do work).

So you know how my dream has always been to live in a village in Africa and learn from people and then work with people to just try out new ideas to help right? Because there is no “silver bullet” no 1 answer to solve a problem in every situation around the world, but if you live with people and work with them to make solutions you can try and try again till you get what fits that problem in that situation. Well that is exactly what I am doing right now here in Kenya.

Meet Nancy and Francis. 


Coolest couple I have ever met. Both are over 60 and both have been working endlessly to make a change in their village of Mirera for ages. Nancy is a community health worker, as in works for the DPHO voluntarily to help push anything from people’s right, to sanitation, to women’s groups. Francis is a Fundi (or carpenter/mason) and an elder in the village. They have a small “shamba” where they take care of their mentally disabled daughter, 1 young son and about 6 grand children. Also on there plot is a small garden where they try and grow vegetables for there home and a church. The church building was built by Francis and meets every night of the week in a small mud building near their house. This couple is all about progress, about helping the whole village, about making a lasting difference. When I barley mentioned the idea of Solar Toilets in a community meeting Nancy immediately jumped on saying that she loves experiments and we can use her plot and any way she can help should would love to. I went to visit her at her Shamba and found that the entire church (50 people every night) uses Nancy’s 1 latrine (that her and Francis built themselves) and that she would love more than anything to have a toilet just for the church. She loved the idea of our solar toilets so she could use the treated waste in her garden where the soil is basically sand. She got very excited, and thanks to GIZ- Hana and I working here as Sanivation had funds to be able to build and test our solar toilet for this church.

Designs began, of how to build a shared toilet and urinal that the church could use that would allow the waste to be treated on a solar concentrator, then composted, and re-used in the garden. We also wanted this toilet to be used long after we are gone weather solar treatment catches on or not. So we designed a solar shared latrine that also has a pit below it as an out strategy if all else fails. We found Chris, another Mason, to help finalize our designs and begin the material purchase. We told Nancy and Francis the dimensions of the pit (4ft diameter, 20 ft deep) and by 9am the next day this older couple, just the 2 of them were almost done digging the pit!

We told them the tree in their garden might be a problem for the solar concentrator and their immediate response was – “we will cut it down if it stands in the way of progress!” We told them we needed to collect some human feces in which to test and they opened up their old pit and started loading waste into the steel drum. We told them we wanted some kitchen scraps (organic waste) to begin compost and the NEXT day she had I giant drum full! Apparently she went around to all the vegetable stalls in the village to collect organic waste. I showed Nancy a picture of a cheap hand washing station called a Tippy Tap and the next day she had one 5 times better built and running next to her toilet!

Any time I mention any idea, both of them are ready and willing to do anything to help try it. We have since then sent up an incinerator for testing on their plot, we are now setting up a solar shower, and solar cookers- all ideas that they are helping me make and test into reality. And it is so much fun! I barley mentioned the idea of Eco-Bricks- these use trashed plastic bottles stuffed with other trash as building blocks and the 2 of them were ready to have 100 Eco-Blocks ready by the weekend for testing. And because of who they are, all the villagers listen to them. We are constantly having locals come by to see what all is going on, and they sit there and explain to people all these new ideas and about the experiments we are doing. It is the best testing site EVER. Both Hana and I LOVE when we get to go to their plot because we know it is going to be so productive and be a total blast.

So here is our solar toilet, still being finished. And here is our solar concentrator used to heat the waste over 70°C in just a couple hours.



All of that has been paid for by GIZ. Then other prototypes such as the solar shower, incinerators, solar cookers, are just coming out of our pockets and I love giving that to these people, but if we want to scale, if we want to do multiple iterations and then teach others how to make these so that it can become a business of its own here, we do need more capital.

Now here is my shameless pitch: if you would like to donate to such an incredible cause here is your chance. Incinerators cost about $50 and can help so much with the trash problems here. Solar showers cost about the same about and so do private solar cookers. All need to be developed till we get it just right and at the right price, then it needs to be taught, then some initial capital to help start a business. We will have locals, currently unemployed, trained in making these and selling them at prices people can afford and work toward new sustainable technologies made by people here in Naivasha for the people of Naivasha.

Let me know if you need/want more details, I am currently working on a way that donations could be made directly to an official non-profit company for tax purposes.