Stones into Choos

Ok, I haven't read Stones into Schools, but I have read Three Cups of Tea, and I shared some of Greg Mortenson's frustrations yesterday. Thankfully, I did not share the experience of being held hostage or having to deal with anti-American sentiment. Doing business here in Kenya, however, is never a cake walk. Our organization receives funding from OFDC to do a number of projects, one being providing choos (latrines) for schools around the district. Imagine being in elementary school and not having a place to go to the bathroom (well, other than the bush)? The issue is compounded even more for girls, who, once they get towards the end of elementary school really need a place to go to the bathroom. We have been budgeting for six locations and the first location has been rife with difficulties. Shady contractors, lazy builders, difficult oversight- it's hard to keep an eye on a project 100km away. Also, being the first project, there were many lessons to be learned about cost, efficiency, and motivation. Yesterday we went to purchase the materials for the second latrine project, about 2 hours north of Narok.

The Plan:
Purchase materials, hire a truck, pick up materials, take them and drop them off at the site, take before pictures, arrive home.

What really happened:

My supervisor and I left to purchase materials in town around 10AM. Lesson learned #1 from the first project is find a hardware store that has ALL of the supplies you need. Check. I checked the materials against the list of things we needed (lesson #2: Builders never tell you all the materials you need on the first project. Keep a list so the next time you have everything you need before they start building). After checking around following the first project, we were able to save a bit of money on some of the materials. So far so good.

Next on the list was to buy timber, which meant a trip to the other side of this dusty town and get pelted by woodchips from the carpenters working. Oh, did I mention I was wearing my contacts for the first time at site? Good choice Meg. We need to find 3 types of timber and one type we can only see at the bottom of a stack of tons of lumber. Hmmm... We keep looking and find some. After agreeing on a price (3600 shillings), my supervisor gives her 4000 shillings and she brings back the receipt for me. I ask, "Wapi changi?' (where's the change?). She says there is no change; we must have heard her wrong, the lumber is 4000 shillings, not 3600. Yea, those sound soooo similar. I begin to see my supervisor's heart rate climb and me, being a "that's not fair" American start to protest. Why should we get ripped off here? We'll just take our business elsewhere. But, having dealt with these things his whole life, my supervisor tells me that there's nothing we can do because, "That's how things are done in Kenya." If you go somewhere else, you will likely get ripped off there as well. Humph.So that's what happened to the budget last time. Lesson #3: Always carry small bills so you can give exact change.

By now it's noon and the sun is blazing- even my supervisor is complaining about the heat. I'm famished and am elated when he suggests we eat lunch while waiting for the wood to be sanded. In the meantime, he has been trying to get in touch with the truck driver all morning. While at lunch, he finally gets him on the line and they agree to meet after lunch. We eat and then go to meet the owner of the truck, which has a flat. They claim it's not a puncture, just the air pressure because the nozzle wasn't on tight enough. Mmmmhmmm. They fill it with air and off we go to the quarry. Oh yea, it's still hot and dusty and we are riding down a buuummmmpppppyyy road in the interior to the quarry to get ballast. When we left town, the workers said they would load the ballast into the back of the lorry for 500 shillings. When we get to the quarry, that figure has magically jumped up to 800 shillings. And, the woman working in the quarry tells us that, even though we asked for 2 tonnes of ballast, she has set aside 3 tonnes, so we need to pay for three tons. I try to crack jokes to calm my supervisor down even though I fear he just might fall out in the sun any moment. Those fears are allayed since it's now 2PM and the sky is darkening. Oh, afternoon rain shower, hello! It takes the workers an hour to load the ballast (now we are 3:30pm) and I'm wondering how we are possibly going to make it to this school today??? My supervisor is hopeful. We leave the quarry but not before the police stop us because you have to pay 200 shillings to the government whenever you remove something from the quarry. Even though the receipt just says 200 shillings, they claim it's supposed to be 200 shillings per ton
. Really? We have three tonnes so we should pay 600 shillings but, if we just give them 50 shillings they'll call it even. Woo-saa!!!!

It's approaching 5PM and we are just getting back to town. And it's pouring. We load the timber first and then go to get the cement and the rest of the materials but the truck is open on top so we need a cover. We go back to the hardware store and count and check off each item that is going on the truck. It's still raining and the roads become impassable outside of town when it rains so we decide to park the truck overnight and take it at 6AM. My supervisor could tell I had had my fill of Kenyan economics so he said he would go alone today. When I called him at 9:30, they still had not reached the schools. It was raining all night and I'm sure the roads are bad. Pole bwana. We are in for a long road ahead. This was only purchasing the materials- we still have to stay on the workers and make sure they complete the latrine in a timely fashion and produce quality work. And then learn more lessons and apply them to projects 3, 4, 5, and 6.



Want to help provide latrines for children? Consider donating to OFDC for A Mission with a Vision and we'll do the heavy lifting :-)


THANK YOU TO MOM, DAD, TRACY, JR, TALIBAH AND MELANIE! Judging by my smile, the people at the post office probably thought I was picking up liquid gold out of the PO Box. Well, candy, magazines and a sweatshirt are like gold to me :-) Also, you are totally promoting goals 2&3 of Peace Corps (cross-cultural exchange). Example: While looking through Lucky, my supervisor's wife, Josephine, pointed to a GAP ad showing ripped jeans and asked, "Who would buy these ripped?" Just one more reason they think Americans are crazy. It was also great for them to see Essence and Ebony as proof that there are black Americans- we have whole magazines dedicated to them!