Typical Day

Thought I would write about my typical day here in Kenya

I wake up at 7 or earlier because it gets light at 6.30. First thing I do is feed Purrsistence the rescued stray cat as she is always waiting for her breakfast. There is not really ‘hot’ water as such in the house for a shower but the temperature is fine because it’s normally 25 degrees Celsius or higher here. You can get most western foods here easily so I have weetabix or marmite on toast for breakfast, though the frequent power cuts mean there is not always fresh milk!

We have a large water filter in the house which we fill up with tap water. I don’t have to any washing as Janet, the office cleaner, comes to the house twice a week to do all our washing by hand in the bath. With 4 girls in the house I really don’t envy her.

I can never forget my keys here as there are 2 padlocks to unlock to get out of the house. We live in the nice area of town – Section 9 – and there are lots of trees. This is where the better off Indian immigrants live and there is a Sikh, Hindu and Jain temple in Thika.

If I go to the supermarket I’ll go before work as it’s only a 5 minute walk away and I have time in the mornings because I don’t have keys to the office, which has even more padlocks.

I tend to walk the 15 minutes to work together with the other volunteers and we go right through the centre of town. Its always busy in the mornings and lots of people say "hello, how are you" to us in a very high pitched voice (because weirdly that is how they think we speak) or just shout mzungu (white person) as we pass.
We get to work for 9am. The office is on the 3^rd floor of an office block shared with KIM (Kenya Institute of Management) so there are always lots of students around and it gets very noisy in between classes, even though we are on the floor with the library! The office has 2 rooms (the main office and the KCLAW legal aid office) which are at the front of the building accessed via another iron gate and with a balcony between them so its nice to stand outside and watch Thika street life from there.

Nancy, the administrator, and I spend the day together updating the current year’s accounts or working on next year’s budget. There are frequent visitors to the office (clients for legal aid, students / parents asking for help with school fees or street kids). Nancy acts as interpreter from Swahili or Kikuyu the local language if needed.

Nancy

For lunch we’ll either go out to a restaurant (which everybody does here) or to the Interim Care Centre to eat with the boys. Restaurants are cheap (£1-£2 for a full meal) so I’ll have tilapia fish with rice or beef stew and chapati for lunch. If we go to the ICC Jane the House Mother will have cooked a massive pot of beans, rice or ugali (maize cooked in water – fills you up!) and if we are lucky chapati. I’ll buy my veg at the market from Veronica who runs the stall we go to. We always go for a fresh juice too. 20 bob (15p) for fresh mango, passion fruit or avocado juice. This has replaced my coffee fix which is just as well because coffee here is a sachet of Nescafe and hot milk (not the same as a skinny latte).

At 4pm I go to ICC for reading club with the boys. All secondary school lessons are taught in English in Kenya so they need to be able to read and write.

The boys are a very mixed standard but they all enjoy the individual attention. It’s my favourite part of the day.

I go back to the office and most days Eleanor & I are joined by two school girls who like to come by and say hello after school. Their older sister works on the street so Eleanor wants to encourage them to say and school so they sit and draw pictures for an hour while we work.

I leave work between 5.30 and 8 depending on whether I am trying to get things done. Some nights I will go to the gym for aerobics. The gym is called Pole Pole which means Slowly, Slowly – ironic as the classes are really fast and unlike the UK full of very co-ordinated men. On Thursday Eleanor hosts a film night at her flat as an AfCiC fundraiser and we watch a pirate DVD (readily available here for 40p) on a projector. Other nights we might go out for dinner for an Indian or to a bar for chicken & chapati or we may just stay at home and watch endless episodes of Sex in the City on DVD (we have every single episode).

Joseph the security guard arrives when it gets dark and is outside the house all night. It’s not really safe to go out on your own after dark (or rather it’s best not to) so we’ll take a tuk tuk or Joseph will walk us where ever we need to go.

There are a lot of mosquitoes in the house so I have a mossie net over my bed, which is always entertaining for the cat. I go to sleep earlier then at home – probably because I get home from work earlier!

 

 

Transport in Kenya

I thought I would write a post on the transport here in Kenya as it is so different to home

Boda Boda
This is a bicycle with a padded seat on the back. Thy are surprisingly comfortable but I haven’t yet worked out if ladies are supposed to go side-saddle or not.
They cost 20 bob to go anywhere in Thika and can be used for goods as well. I even saw a sofa on the back of one once.

Tuk Tuk
More enclosed than the Thai or Indian versions, these cost 50 bob to go anywhere in Thika. We use these as taxis.

Matatu
These people carriers are the buses of Kenya. They have 12 seats but they fit 16+ in (and chickens and luggage). If you bum doesn’t fit over the gap in the aisle between seats you sit on a plank. They only leave when full so sometimes you wait for an hour before it leaves. There are also ‘pimped up’ versions with flashing lights, playboy stickers and very loud music – best avoided!

Mount Kenya

This weekend I spent 4 days climbing the 4,985m trekking peak of Mount Kenya. It’s the second highest mountain in Africa but it’s supposed to be a harder climb than Kili because you have to scramble at the top. Plus far fewer people climb it so you are mostly on your own which is really nice.

 

I had been recommended a guide and was supposed to be joining a group, but the others didn’t turn up for some reason so it was just me, Ibrahim the guide, the cook and a porter. We started at the gate at 2,200m and took 3 days to reach the top. We stayed in mountain huts which were basically wooden sheds with dorm rooms. They had no heating and were freezing! Luckily I had a good sleeping bag unlike a lot of people who seemed to be shivering in all their clothes in some thin sack.

Peak Lenane, the peak I climbed

Although I wasn’t in a group I met some interesting people. Nick, an Australian who was climbing the technical peak (i.e. requires proper climbing with ropes), seemed to have climbed everywhere and gave me Diamox (a drug which helps acclimatisation) which I’m sure is the reason I felt fine ascending 3000m in 3 days. Kyle, an American who had been working in Ethiopia with the Peace Corps for 2 years, was cycling from Lake Assal in Djibouti the lowest point on the African continent to Kili in Tanzania, the highest point. There was also a group from the British army there for training who were camping. They told me it had got down to –20 at night in their tents.

We went up to the peak at 3am to be there for sunrise. It was freezing (the water in my bottle froze) and exhausting but worth it.

 

At the summit with Ibrahim

Tiwi Beach

Last weekend Sarah, Eleanor and I went to Tiwi beach, south of Mombasa. It was a 12 hour overnight bus journey to get there on a very dilapidated bus but it was worth it for the beautiful empty beach we found when we arrived.

We camped on the beach which was great, except it was very windy and I thought the tent might blow away at one point. At least it was cool at night though. The sea was really warm and we ate fresh coconuts and mangos.

On Saturday night we went out to a few bars at the next beach along which was much more of a resort. We went to a beach bar for gin and tonics, white wine and bacon and camembert salad - felt like we were on a proper holiday! The next bar was more interesting though. It was a club full of middle aged western men sitting on their own and young Kenyan girls dressed up to the nines, looking stunning who were attempting to pick them up. More interesting were the middle aged western couples who were each looking for a young Kenyan. I wish I could have taken photos for my blog because I couldn't stop staring!

Sunday night was more relaxed - a fish bbq on the beach and a camp fire.

Finally the power cut is over...

My blog posting has been thwarted today by a power cut which means I cannot connect to the internet or get on with work. These happen everyday here, though often only for a few minutes. Hopefully this one won’t last long and I’ll be able to upload this……

This week I’ve been having meetings every afternoon with each department to set the budgets for next financial year. It’s been contracted process as the charity is being restructured next year and some departments have been merged or split. Each meeting takes hours here as there is always lots of discussion in any case.

I also spent a morning with Anne, one of the social workers, visiting her outreach cases in a nearby town called Ruiru. We first met a single mother who has 3 daughters and who has been kicked out of her in-laws home after her husband died. This is quite common in Kenya. Anne is trying to get her two eldest daughters into school so we went to meet a local head teacher to arrange an interview for the girls. I was quite a celebrity in the playground. In one classroom all the children wanted to hug me.

We then went to visit a landlord of one of the boys that AfCiC help. He’s 16 and since his elder brother moved away hasn’t been able to pay the rent. The Landlord has been holding off but can no longer afford to, so Anne arranged for AfCiC to pay the rent so he can stay in school.

Our last visit of the day was to the Outreach clinic where homeless children can come and play one day a week and get lunch. It’s from these boys that AfCiC will get their bi-annual intakes for the residential programme at the ICC. A lot of them are under pressure to join gangs so it’s good to keep them occupied one day if possible. A mother and grandmother also brought their 2 daughters to meet Anne to see if she could help getting them into work. They want to train as hairdressers. Even though every women seems to get her hair restyled every second day here the set up costs are really high so Anne suggested they train as tailors instead. The family will need to find someone that can train them and ideally pay for the machine, but AfCiC will help with contacts and advice. It was an interesting morning.

The power is now back! I am going to the beach at Mombassa this weekend so will write more next week.

Masai Mara

At the weekend Ann-Katrina and I went to the Masai Mara. We saw lions, rhinos, a cheetah, hippos, crocodiles, buffalo, zebra, eland, wildebeest, gazelle, giraffe, zebra, warthogs and a tortoise.
Here are a few pictures taken with my small digital camera, so the ones from my SLR should be really good.

Glue

This is the glue that the boys sniff. They buy it from the shoe sellers in old plastic bottles. About half our intake of boys at the ICC are addicted and a few have run away because it is banned at the centre. It absolutely reeks.

Ann Katrina with the boys at the ICC

The boys at the ICC are very interested by our hair. Luckily they have pulled out all my white ones.
I think the most entertainment we gave them this week however was when Ann Katrina took out a contact lens to clean it - there was shock and horror all round!

My week at work

It’s been another productive week on the accounts front. Nancy and I have focused on the Income and how this is allocated across the projects. A proportion of income is received from the UK charity and one of our tasks next week is to produce a form that makes it easier for both the UK and Kenyan charity to allocate the income.

I also had a meeting with the two managers Florence & Evans to discuss the issues they have with the current system and how we can make it better. I need to come up with a timetable to try and get everyone to submit their finance forms on time, which the Managers need to submit their accounts to Nancy and give training to the staff on how to complete the forms.

On Tuesday night I also went to the Trustees meeting to ask what financial information they would like to see and how regularly. I’m going to build this into the budget templates I am putting together next week.
So there is still a lot to do but we are slowly getting there.

A good day

On Sunday Sarah & I went to 14 falls with Njenga, one of the Youth Workers from the ICC and 2 of his friends, an accountancy student and a footballer. We had a really fun day. The falls were beautiful and we had a picnic. Everyone tries to cross the river by jumping from stone to stone. Guides help you across because the current is fast but we still got soaking wet and Njenga fell in. It was very funny and we took the easy option of a boat back. We got a lift back to the main road on the back of a Del Monte pick up truck which was very dusty and also good fun. The boys then took us to a local open-air pool which was lovely as we have been dreaming about swimming because it is so hot. We never would have found it without them because it was in the middle of nowhere. All in all, a really good day.

　

First week with Nancy

It’s been a relatively productive week on the accounts front. Nancy, the Administrator, came back from leave on Monday. She is lovely and has been at AfCiC for 4 years.

We spent quite a bit of time with her showing me what she does and getting the accounting records up to date. Each of the project managers is given a float every 2 weeks (or whenever they need it) and they then complete a sheet by hand to track how it’s been spent. They return this to Nancy with all the receipts and Nancy enters this on a spreadsheet. There are 8 separate budgets for the projects and Nancy herself is also responsible for the Office Petty cash and the Office cashbook. Nancy is then supposed to transfer these numbers onto the Actuals v Budget spreadsheet which is effectively the General Ledger. Unfortunately there is normally quite a delay in this process (as in months) and as the numbers are typed into each spreadsheet and not linked there is lots of room for mistakes.

I showed Nancy how to do reconciliation between the 2 sheets to check that they agreed. This was a revelation to her. I don’t think anybody had explained how or why to do a rec to her before.
Next thing to work on is reconciling the cash each time the Project Managers return their receipts and get a new float. But we are making progress…
　
　

New Boys

This week we had a new intake of boys at the Interim Care Centre. 22 in total arrived on Monday & Tuesday from Thika and nearby towns.
The first few days are spent getting them clean, into new clothes and settled in. Next week they will start lessons and counselling sessions. A number will have been sexually abused on the streets as well as all the other issues they’ve had to deal with. I’ll be reading with them as all secondary exams are in English they need to be able to read and write. By the end of 9 – 12 weeks they’ll be ready to go to school.
They seem very small but most are older than they look because of years of malnourishment. Quite a few of this intake are addicted to glue which they get from the shoe repair men and by the end of the week we’d lost 3, probably because they’ve left to get their fix.

They seem very happy to be here though and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they change. They are very different to the boys I took to school last week who were the last of the previous intake. Now I just have to learn all their names!

Power strikes

Tuesday night at 8pm we had a power strike which lasted until I woke up this morning (Thursday). These are common in Kenya apparently, though normally there is notice given in the newspapers (not this time). It affected the whole of Thika to Nairobi and part of Nairobi too.

Yesterday was a bit frusutating in the office so I talked Nancy through the accounts in detail i.e. the meaning of 'true and fair', Directors responsibilities and the audit report. I'm sure it was fascinating! Then we did a LOT of filing.

Last night by head torch light we defrosted the freezer (which needed doing) and made an amazing thai chicken curry to use up our defrosting chicken. So it wasn't all bad :-)

First weekend in Kenya.

Friday night the girls and I went out to Porkies Garden Bar. Its sports bar with a large screen showing the news at extremely loud volume. We waited 1 ½ hours for our food, which is pretty normal in Kenya. Chicken, chapati and tomato & onion salad. It was delicious when it finally arrived.
Saturday Eleanor took Sarah & I to Nairobi to stay with one of her friends. The journey should take a hour but there was an accident on the highway. It looked like a tanker had fallen over and a crane was trying to get it upright again. One of the carriageways had been shut, so the Kenyan drivers had done was comes naturally to them – just driven on the other carriageway going the wrong way. So on a carriageway of 2 lanes heading to Nairobi we ended up with approx 5 lanes of traffic going in both directions. We left the road to go cross country with numerous other vehicles who were attempting to cut back in later, over potholes, through hedges etc. When we got to the end there was a huge ditch with a car stuck in it. So while we were queuing behind that car, everyone behind us just tried to overtake. It was chaos. 3 hours later we made it, glad I wasn’t driving.
We stayed with Eleanor’s friend Anick who lived in a lovely big house in a nice area with 2 very friendly dogs, a cat, a rabbit and a tortoise. We had a campfire in the garden, which was great.
Sunday we got up early to drive to Nairobi National Park. It’s right on the edge of Nairobi but you would never know it when in there. We saw giraffe, zebra, eland, gazelle, vultures, wart hogs, baboons and a hippo. Most of my photos are on my film SLR, so there are only a couple to show you.

Eleanor, Anick, Sarah & me

The house where I am living

The accounts :-(

Today I have spent a whole day getting to grips with the accounts. It has been a tiring day...

Everything is on excel, on numerous spreadsheets which aren't linked and which require manual input on each. It is a cash accounting system, but there are no bank recs or petty cash recs to ensure cash ties up. Cash is given to managers of each budget as needed but it is mingled with their own money and relies on them returning paper receipts for ever transaction.

Eleanor the Director also introduced me to the Auditor also. The March 2010 accounts are due to be signed shortly and they have taken this long to prepare. One of the reasons is that the auditors need to enter everything into an Accounting package to produce a TB first. AfCiC do not use a TB, their concern is that cash inflow exceeds cash outflow, but at the moment I'm not sure that can be accurately proved.

From what I have read on other Afid blogs this is very common in NGOs in Africa. Eleanor is very switched on and knows if a number is incorrect, however she isn't an accountant and it isn't easy to see how her cash accounting spreadsheets agree to the P&L and Balance Sheet in a set of accounts.

I'm also not sure that she should be spending her precious time this closely involved with the accounting.

I think the next 5 weeks are going to very busy but I can see how much I can improve very quickly so at least I won't be bored!

Finally internet connection at home!

As you may have gathered with this influx of posts - don't worry I am unlikely to keep it up.
I finally got a SIM card today that I need for the dongle to plug into my laptop. Luckily AnnKaterina one of the other girls is technically minded as I am not. I've spent the last few days having more inductions and also been on 2 school runs to drop the last 3 boys at school. Of the last intake only 3 were left and have all been taken to boarding school. They look very smart in their uniforms although they polished their shoes with one of thye volunteers while cardigans that she left lying around. It's a proud moment for the staff and emotional (not that they show it). The next intake of boys from the street starts on Monday so it will be interesting to see how different they are to these I've just met.

Nicholas at his new school - no uniform though

They've each been taken to different schools so that they make new friends and don't stick together and all are all 1 - 2 hours from Thika. It's very green here and we are in the hills, so it's tea plantation area. There are lots of women picking tea leaves with huge baskets on their backs

Today I also went to visit one of the micro finance groups who were given the next installment of their loan. There are 5 women in the group and they live in mud huts about an hour from Thika on a bus. They have to pay back each loan before they are given a new one and these women wre selling fruit from the wholesalers to the market. There are no white people here and a baby cried when she saw me - which was nice!

The buses are incredibly crowded and every time they stop sellers get on which pineaplle, tomatoes, corn, water, carrots etc It's a very conservative culture here in terms of dress sense (no showing knees) but the kenyans practically sit on each others laps on the bus - I don't get it.

It's been a good few days in terms of learning what AfCiC do, hopefully it will help a lot when I get to the accounts.

The view from the AfCiC office - other side

The view from the AfCiC office

 This square is called the Main Stage. It's the fruit & veg market and where the matatus (the minibuses and local form of transport) wait to pick up passengers. They only leave when they are full (VERY full)

What does AfCiC do?

First day and Eleanor has organised an induction for myself, Sarah a volunteer, a local volunteer Edna and a Dutch woman interested in NGOs. We spend the morning at the OPVC Outreach Programme for Vulnerable Children, the focus of which is to try to prevent children dropping onto the street in the first place. We meet the staff and hear about all the programmes that AfCiC runs.

First Day

Well I've finally arrived in Kenya. I'm here for 6 weeks to work as an Accountant for the charity Action for Children in Conflict in Thika, 1 hour north of Nairobi. AfCiC works with street children to try and get them into education and rehabilitate them with their families.

Eleanor, the Director, met me at the airport. She's English, about 30 and has been her for about 3 1/2 years. She has a curious mixture of a Yorkshire and African accent and is extremely chatty. It turns out that there are 4 other girls here volunteering at the charity at the moment and she took them all out for a night on the town in Nairobi last night. So my first meal in Kenya was breakfast at Eleanor's friends house: tea and marmite on toast. AfCiC has quite a few volunteers which it recruits through it's own website, but they have never attracted an accountant or worked with Afid, so hopefully my skills will come in handy. The other volunteers are a youth worker, a psychcologist, a fund raiser and an administrator.

We went to a market where I bought my first scarf of the trip (I think there will be many) and then for another western lunch - fajitas, burgers and chips. The others seem to crave westerm food - makes me wonder what the food in Thika is like.

Finally we got to the house. Its 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen and a living room with a yard about the front and back. We are locked in at all times by massive padlocks on the front and back door and gate and have a guard Joseph who sits outside through the night. Interesting... Luckily as I am cat lover there is also a house cat Purrsistence, so called because she begs for food a lot (maybe she has worms....I may have to find a vet). The only decoration on my walls are squashed mosquitos but it's actually quite nice and could be a lot worse! More soon....