November blog number 2

We have stopped, for a moment, in our small red raft about 30 yards from a grade 4 rapid on the source of the Nile, Uganda, to listen carefully to the life saving instructions of our guide Peter, a small youngish Ugandan with a fantastically dry sense of humour, on how to tackle this next watery beast.

“So" he says slowly looking toward a point where the river disappears down a small cliff, clouds of water rising from a point where the impressive cacophony of noise erupts "this next rapid is called fifty fifty……It is called that because 50% of the time we flip…”  he pauses to make a quick calculation “…and...yeah, ha ha,  we will probably go over this time too!”.

Great! This will be, what? Our third time flipping? 

The idea is, as Peter sits at the back of the raft steering us into the jaws of calamity, we row forward and then when we are on the cusp of disaster, he shouts down and we squat into the pathetic shelter of the rubber dingy gripping with all our might the rope and our oar.  

On ‘50-50’ I am determined to hang on and keep my eyes open. 

Eyes Open, Hang on. Determined.

 “If we flip, hang on to the raft.  If you leave go, remember to swim right. Ok? Lets go – Forward” he shouts and we begin to edge ourselves nervously closer to the cauldron of violent river making a hell of  a who-ha ahead of us.

The water slips quickly downward on a smooth tongue shaped slope that rises slightly at the tip before tossing us into volcanic avalanche of apoplectic white water. The brutish noise fills our every pour as the first specks of water hit us then, for too late for my liking, Peter screams - 

“DOWN!!!”

Arrrggghhhh! DOWN! Arrgghhh!  

Quick check. Left hand -  oar, tight. Right hand - rope, tighter.

Splashes of water immediately leap aggressively into our boat followed quickly by a huge, white cliff of water ambushing us like an American footballer rushing a 5 year old girl.

SMACK! FLIP! WALLOP! KABOOM!

The boat bucks skyward like a wild horse and then it all goes dark, No wait, that my eyes closing, gravity cancels all bets and the world turns to water and for a moment silent.

Upside down, I try to rip..to rip a grip…to get a grip,  check on my status, my predicament, to assess my imperious control of my environment.

Left hand - oar, tight. Right hand - empty.

Left hand - oar, tight. Right hand…definitely empty.

FUCK!! FUCK!! FUCK!!  

Don’t panic. Fuck that, I'm drowning here. 

FUCK!! FUCK!! FU.

Before complete nervous break-down, I pop back into the world to be greeted by a smack in the face from another wave and swallow 27 and half litres of the Nile River. 

Get a grip for petes sake man, think what did Peter say?

1. “If we flip, hold on.” Yeah we already discussed that numb nuts.
2. “If you leave go, swim right."

So I swim like a panicked cat through the rushing water throwing me down stream and toward a safety kayak who comes to rescue me.

“Are you ok?” he asks

Ah! a joker is it?  ‘Ok?’ Did you not just see what I went through man!

“Yeah I’m ok.” I manage to spit out. What a soldier.

So I take a firm grip of his kayak and he pumps his ‘kayak stick’ through the white waves to drag me back to my raft.

“Ok quick, get back into the raft, we have another one coming up” Peter shouts. 

The rest of the crew are in a similar state of disrepair as I flop back into the boat like a fish out of water.  

Inventory: 

Arms: 2, check

Legs: 2, check

Head: 1, check

Torso: 1, check

(A glance despairingly at my right hand. 'Cant believe you let me down, after all the good times we shared together')

Back in the boat, oars in the water:

“Fuck that was fun!” 

 “Yeah whats next Peter?”

Tut, tut. How quick we forget.

The last ten days have been a great success. One of the real perks about working in Kenya is its proximity to some of the most wonderful places in the world.  A 14 hour bus journey through western Kenya brings you into Uganda and a completely different country. 

Deep, rich and vibrant green rolling hills draped in romantic layers of misty grey clouds.  Soil that is so red and dark its almost burgundy. Mysterious musty smells mixed with the burning embers of charcoal warms our senses. 

My journey, with Chris, Kelly and Rochelle fellow VSO’ers, was to Jinja the infamous source of the Nile, the longest river in the world and one of the best homes for White River Rafting. The Nile treats these rafts as a gale treats a leaf. But it is really is incredible fun.

As well as all that tomfoolery in Uganda,  back in Kenya and at work Thursday two weeks ago we started to successfully train a big group of local business women with the aim of getting them finance and it continues to go well. Then last week we welcomed a batch of new VSO volunteers who arrived into Nairobi for their in-country training before they head to their placements.

8 months since I arrived into Kenya like this new batch. How I wish to be back at my desk in the bank managing the Tax and Pensions mailing, an abundance of wet grey rain outside, recession, depression or repossession in the air.

What would I’d give for all that? I could afford to give you a litre or two of Nile River water. I still have oodles of that in my system if anyone fancies it? It appears to contain a lot of de-stressing nutrients with immense well-being benefits - not of course, that I'd need any of that if I was back in Ireland!

Take care.

P.S. Chris, Mike – you’ll be missed. To the next step…

Ocampo comes tomorrow

You may have read recently the Popes speech at the end of the Vatican’s 3-week love-in on Africa about the continent still suffering from the materialism of colonialism.  You may also have read Kevin Myers, a journalist and historian with a regular opinion piece in the Irish Independent,  who wrote an article headlined Africa's real problem today is it does not have enough of the 'colonial' values of materialism.

Further to this piece Myers said on Today FM – Drivetime 21/10/09 -  that Africa has failed to create a culture of materialism and entrepreneurship.

Working in SCOPE provides an alternative reality. On Monday, we got a call from a group of 24 small micro/small business women who wanted finance and business training.  On Wednesday we started training a group of 14 business people and  this week we had 5 groups of between 9 and 21 people seeking business training.

Indeed, SCOPE are one of several groups offering business training to groups and individuals and there is an ever increasing number of Micro-Finance organisations offering finance to small businesses.

These customers or beneficiaries of these products and services are essentially entrepreneurs – individual people trying to earn income through setting up their businesses. The reason for this is that the Kilifi Division has only 4% of the labor force in waged employment.  Therefore, setting up and running your own business is the only way to earn money. 

So from my 7 months I would say Kenya, and Africa by a reckless general-ism, is far from short on willing entrepreneurs.  The more prudent question I think, from my experiences, is that are these willing individuals capable of becoming successful entrepreneurs? And again from my experience, the key determent in finding a positive answer to this question is education. 

Kenya is trying to improve education; it currently provides free primary school education that is partly funded from foreign development aid budgets.  However, the equivalent amount of aid for education and indeed more, goes missing from the from government coffers.   This government is run by those who more or less stole the 2007 election.  Rampant institutional corruption and powerful impunity erode a lot of efforts to attract private investment and improve education levels.

If there’s one thing that has held Africa back – and Kenya to be specific – is the impunity of rule from behind protected piles of corrupt money its not the lack of entrepreneurial spirit of the majority.

As Richard Dowden, a hugely respected journalist with 30 years plus experience working in Africa explains in telling the story of when the colonialists were in charge, the locals saw them from outside the walls of secured mansions from where they ruled with reckless impunity serving their own needs.  The push for independence was to take down those walls and open ‘the house’ to the greater public.  However, when independence came and the elected leaders took charge, they then took over the secured mansions and kept the walls up. 

The point is that Kenya/Africa did grasp the materialistic society as presented to them my the Colonialists i.e. a selected minority of the powerful elite who have big houses, fast cars and designers clothes.

And it’s this materialism that remains from the imperial days and not that of which the Pope speaks. Perhaps Africa needs a democratic, market driven educated society to allow existing and future entrepreneurs flourish. Then there will be more than just 4% of the Kilifi population in wage employment.  

For Kenya, a major step in achieving this hopefully arrives tomorrow.