The Changing Kenya Coast

We took some time off a while back for a short but well needed break at the coast. Driving through Tsavo and beyond Voi, we were shocked at how dry everything was. We’d heard that many animals were dying in the park and it was not hard to believe when you saw how little grass there was beside the road.

The road to Mombasa

A few places we saw dik dik congregating under trees right beside the road where they might find a few remaining blades of green grass from a long forgotten shower. Usually you see only one or two dik dik, but this time we saw many under certain trees. At one we counted over 20 of the small antelope, all standing together under the shade of a scraggily tree right beside the road, oblivious to the passing lorries. I’ve have never heard of dik dik congregating together in such numbers.

No grass without rain

At the coast we stayed at a place which has been made into a conservancy. The local village had expressed their desire to save the remaining marine life in order to attract tourists. That was the intention in theory. However, the practice was very different. You see very little if any attempt to save the what is left from destruction.

Each morning we watched as local fishermen went out on the reef to collect anything they could find to feed their families. With so many going out all the time, it’s hard to imagine that anything might survive!

Shells for sale in Malindi
Can anything be left in the ocean?

We watched as they proudly pulled a beautiful manta ray onto the beach and then proceeded to butcher it. Many in the village probably ate well that night. However, it is sad to see such a beautiful fish being killed. Much will have to change if there is any hope for the community based conservancy!

Manta Ray to feed the village

Even the head is prepared for the cooking pot

The reef too is a real disappointment. Long gone are all the colours I remember seeing in my youth! Back then everything was red, yellow, blue, green! Everything was so alive. Now you have to struggle to find anything which is still alive, besides sea urchins.

Little life left on the reefs of Kenya

Have things truly changed so much? Or do I have it wrong in memory? Now everything is dead. It’s like walking through a cemetery, all the pieces of dead and bleached coral lying about your feet. A real tragedy.

On the way back home we stopped off for a short stop under some thorn trees which struggled to provide the minimum of shade. I was shocked at the size of the thorns! You sure wouldn't want to drive over those.

Thorns the size of nails

The Highs and Lows of Stairway Construction

How do you build stairs? It shouldn’t be that difficult, as long as you keep a few basic principles in mind. For one, all stairs should be equal in height, and length. Then there are some standards which are worth adhering to in order to ensure that people will be able to climb the thing once it’s completed. But as long as you abide by these basic points, it should be relatively straight forward.
 
Or so you would think.

Alternative Stairs

Building stairs in Kenya is a different matter. And Naivasha has some of the best examples of how NOT to build stairs! Take the "Diplomat House," for example.

The Diplomat House

One level, stairs wide, next level narrow
Top stair very short to help you pay attention

Or how about the building where the NHIF (National Hospital Insurance Fund) used to be located? Today you'd never know how shoddy the stairs are. You can't even get in to see! In fact, the whole building looks different. It has now been converted to a bank and with a new facade on the building, it looks like an amazing building. But I'm sure the stairs are the same as they were before: all over the place!

An entire new look!

I must hasten to add that I am no expert stair builder, never having built anything remotely looking like a staircase before. But I was able to design a structure which would get us onto the next level of the house using Adobe Illustrator and some criteria I was able to find on the web.
 
The first problem we encountered was when the “fundi,” the building expert, accidentally laid an extra layer of stones for the ground floor. As we didn’t have much room for the stairs in the first place, this was a disaster! It meant we had to make the stairs much steeper than they should have been. I still managed to get them to come within the maximum standard limit, but just barely.
 
And then the time came to build the wooden stair frame in preparation for the concrete work. What a catastrophe that was! First one fundi tried his hand at it. When he made each stair a different shape (rectangle? What’s that?) I had him redo the whole thing. After his third attempt I realised the futility of it and got another fundi on the job. He didn’t fare much better. I finally got the carpenter onto the job and after two tries on his part, I realised we were getting nowhere. By this time over three weeks had passed. Everything was ready for the concrete work to proceed, except the stairs.
 
Finally I called the welder over and asked him to take a look. Walter has an eye for things being equal and for knowing how to measure accurately. So we finally managed to get something mostly sorted. The final problem was that the top stair was 5cm too tall: our solution? We added an extra cm to each of the top stairs to get the height of the top stair down.
 
After weeks on the job we were finally able to get to the concrete work. The stairs were all ready and, although they were much steeper than I would have liked, they were acceptable, and mostly equal in length and height.
 
But then…disaster, again! We were finally able to pour the concrete for the slab. Unfortunately the fundi in charge was just not up to the job. But we didn't know that at the time. We’d contracted the work out to a team of builders in Naivasha as they had access to the necessary building equipment – both the hoist and the cement mixer. All we needed to contribute to the job was the supplies and the supervisor.
 
So what did the supervisor do? He had no idea how to ensure that things were level, no water pipe, no rope, nothing. He just eyeballed it. The slab looked like the surface of the ocean - in storm - when they were done! And the stairs? After all our effort the top stair is now 5cm taller than all the rest. I was furious! Now how are we ever going to correct the problem? And after all that effort and all those weeks of ensuring that the stairs would end up well. I wonder how much extra that mistake has cost us?

I then got another fundi to help start building the walls. He used a plum line and string to ensure things were straight. He was the one who noticed that the opening to the stairs was all crooked.

I was beginning to feel like the crooked little man who lived in the crooked little house.

No wonder they had problems getting the stairs straight. Now when you look down you can clearly see how wrong everything is. I wonder how we are going to fix it? Maybe when we put tiles on that will help. As they say here in Naivasha, tiles hide a multitude of sins.

Making Nairobi a World Class Capital

The municipal council in Nairobi is bringing in a number of by-laws which are to help Nairobi reach world capital status. At least that is their expressed intention. But when you read the list you have to wonder how well the new laws have been thought through.

Some make a great deal of sense. For example, they want to ban the use of a mkokoteni (a handcart) in the capital. I can’t remember how many times I have been stuck in a big traffic jam only to discover it was because someone was pushing a handcart down the main thoroughfare making it nigh to impossible for vehicles to pass! Getting rid of such obstacles should help keep the traffic flowing. A good move.

Other new laws are downright strange. It will now be an offence for your dog to impregnate someone else’s dog without the owner’s consent. So how will the city regulate that? How will they ever determine the guilty party?

The Standard on the 19th June, 2009 also reported that pedestrians walking on the zebra crossing must walk on the white-stripes and keep to the left. Perhaps it might be safer to cross the road where there are no zebra crossings (though that’s probably banned now too) rather than forget and cross on the right. A 2,000/ Ksh fine for such an oversight would not be a happy outcome!

The city will also ban any loading and unloading within the city centre during the day. Shops will therefore have to bring in all their supplies at night. Will the city offer the needed security to ensure the store owners aren’t robbed blind? Somehow I doubt it. To prevent problems, shops will have to provide their own security. This will surely have an impact on the price of goods.

The Town Clerk, Philip Kisia, was quoted as saying that the Nairobi City Council was going to implement hourly parking “in response to motorist requests.” I wonder which motorists they surveyed. I can’t imagine anybody asking for what will become an increase in the parking rate.

He also claims that Nairobi has some of the lowest parking costs in the world, making the point that parking in Europe and Asia is five to six times what it is in Nairobi. The City Council will therefore look at both land value and the cost of parking in other world cities to determine what the new rates should be. But Nairobi isn’t in Europe and Asia. The question is, where would Nairobi stand in comparison to other capitals in Africa? How much does parking cost in Kampala? Dodoma? Kigali? Pretoria? Accra? Khartoum? Adis Ababa?

Why is there such a need to compare things to the West and Asia all the time? Where does the myth come from that everything is better in the West? And why do some MPs seem to always encourage such a view? Is it perhaps that they spend too much time in the West and Asia rather than in their own constituencies? One can only wonder.

If the Nairobi City Council insists on comparing the city with the West, then why not look at safety and security, whether or not water and electricity are adequately supplied for, or at public transport facilities? Or perhaps one could just look at the state of the sidewalks. How many gaping holes can you find in either the sidewalk or the road? In Nairobi, some are large enough for a person to fully disappear into! Or what about other obstacles which pedestrians have to negotiate around, pipes or steel bars sticking out of the street, for example? Does that make any sense? Of course, to fix these things costs money, unlike parking fees which bring in the money.

Considering the state of the sidewalks, and even many roads, it’s hard to believe that the new by-laws also ban roller skating or skate boarding. The obstacles themselves are probably enough deterrent to stop anyone from even trying such modes of mobility. But perhaps the government is optimistic and they anticipate a great improvement in the infrastructure in the near future which will enable such activities.

Philip Kisia claims that Nairobians have “a habit of driving up to the doorsteps.” Sure you can drive up to “the doorsteps.” The only question is, which doorsteps? They sure won’t be the ones you need. You’re more likely to find the first free parking spot clear on the other side of town! It does make one wonder when Mr Kisia last drove into town himself.

The Capital News tried to clarify some of the nuances of the new laws: “The by-laws make it an offence for motorists to cross roads outside designated zebra crossings.” I can’t imagine how they expect that to work. So where do they propose motorists should drive? And what happens to the pedestrians? And, more to the point, who edits such news reports?

The Standard (19.Jun.09) too tried to make some of the new laws clear regarding the new “parking positions:” “For drivers wishing to change car-parking position would be committing an offense unless an interval of 30 minutes elapses, and should not be within a distance of 22.9 metres.” Can someone please explain what that means?

Corruption in Death

[Warning: This account include some graphic details.]

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.” (Isa 10:1-2 NIV)

The committee arranging for the funeral of Baba Rebecca came by the centre today to see if we could assist them. They shared with us what had happened. On Friday Baba Rebecca informed his wife that he was returning home from Murang'a. But he never arrived. The following day a few men went out from Njabini, a small farming community on the foothills of the Aberdare mountain range, to see if they could find him.

They finally found his body on Sunday morning. It appears he had unexpectedly come across an elephant and had tried to run away. The elephant caught up with him and trampled him to death. After the police were informed, the body was transferred to the morgue here in Naivasha.

The Aberdares - Elephant Country

As we were discussing the plans made to transport the body back to Murang'a for burial, I was shocked to discover that the hospital had informed the family that a post-mortem needed to be carried out. Why?! What did they think killed Baba Rebecca? The cause was plain. After all, it's hard to miss an elephant, especially when he stops to trample and crush a human body! Surely a post-mortem was superfluous.

When Teacher Josephine died last year so unexpectedly at the age of 36, a post-mortem would have made sense. But the family had decided not to have one done. Finding out what killed her would not have brought her back. Besides, 6,000/ Ksh is much more than a month's salary for many here! It is a great expense for people who have so little.

Yet in this case, the family is being told they must pay for the procedure. They feel powerless and therefore have given the authorities 1,500/ Ksh already to cover the expenses. Another 4,500/ Ksh are still outstanding. That is much more than this family makes in a month! Yet the authorities insist it must be done so the family has no recourse. If they refuse, the hospital would not allow the release of the body for burial and daily expenses would be incurred as long as the body remained in the morgue.

Some of the people in the planning committee suggested the money would never actually be used to perform a post-mortem. Instead, they would probably just return the intestines back into the body and clean up a bit of the damage done by the elephant, then claim the procedure had been completed.

What can be done about such corruption? If they refuse to pay they will be left without the body of their loved one. And eventually they would have to pay. So they have no option.

The story reminds me of the situation which existed during the clashes following the elections at the beginning of last year (2008). There were too many bodies for the morgue refrigerators. But family members - desperate to have their loved ones preserved until the violence settled down enough to allow for a burial - paid for their family member's body to be kept cold. The money was taken, allegedly 1,000/ Ksh, and a body was removed from the refrigerated unit to make room for the new occupant. Then when someone else came along able to pay for their loved one, the process was repeated.

Whether or not you paid for a refrigerated unit was irrelevant. If someone came after you and also paid, you had no guarantee that your loved one wouldn't be taken out to make room for someone else.

It's no wonder that the bodies began to decompose in the heat despite having spent some time in the refrigeration. When we went to the mortuary to look for Bwana Ndege, the man who had lost his whole family after his house was deliberately set on fire, the smell of death around the place was too much to bear. It took all our will power not to run from the place, retching.

How is such a thing possible? People in authority who demand money from others suffering from grief and pain - that must be corruption at its worst!

“A poor man’s field may produce abundant food,
but injustice sweeps it away.” (Pr 13:23 NIV)

Killed by an Elephant

We received the shocking news this morning that one of our students lost her father in a tragic accident. He was out in the bush close to the Aberdare Mountains and suddenly came across an elephant. The elephant apparently trampled him to death. That is as much as we know at the moment. His body is currently being held at the mortuary while the family makes the preparations for the funeral.

Historically stories of people killed by elephants and other wildlife almost seemed part of everyday life in Kenya. But today? Other than a hippo attack, a number of which seem to happen every year, we don't hear of other animal attacks. What a freak accident!

Our heart goes out to Rebecca at the loss of her father.

Elephants - beautiful but dangerous

Quality is Left Wanting

Kenya has changed tremendously in the last few years. If you are willing to take the time to look in Nairobi, and are willing to pay top prices, you can find almost anything you need. People from overseas are often amazed at the shopping malls which we now have in the capital city. Friends visiting from Uganda and Tanzania have had a shock when they walked into some of our shopping centres, stocked full of whatever the heart may desire.

Of course, there are still some things which are virtually impossible to find. I have been looking for a half ton hoist for the last few months, traipsing from one end of the industrial area to the other, but so far without success. We desperately need something to haul the building supplies up to the top floor of the administration block. I’m resigned to the fact that we’ll eventually have to build something to do the job. But even there I have been unable to find someone who feels they are up to the task. So in the mean time I keep looking.

Construction slowed due to lack of proper equipment

Scaffolding Kenya Style
Look Ma, no safety line!

Although we can now buy most of what we need in Nairobi, the quality leaves much to be desired. Most people prefer to buy things based on price rather than quality. It seems they don’t worry about having to replace a lock every six months because the Chinese made material wears down so quickly. That is a preferred option to giving out more money on something that will last for years. When you go into the hardware shop they will usually have two options available for sale: cheap Chinese imports or more expensive products imported from the UK or America. If you’re tempted to give out less money on the Chinese products, invariably it ends up costing much more in the end because the poor quality just is not made to last.

Unfortunately sometimes you just don’t have an option. We have one electrical extension cord which we have used virtually every day bar Sundays for the last five years. It was made in the UK and has never let us down. When we needed another one I was able to find one for sale in Nakumatt department store in Nairobi. The new cable lasted three months when it suddenly stopped working. A quick check of the fuse showed that wasn’t the problem. There was something wrong with the wire itself though no external damage could be seen.

So we were forced to buy another one. The second one lasted even less than three months before it too stopped working. And a third also stopped working for the same reason. Returning the used products is not an option despite shoddy workmanship so we are left with three useless extension cords. Meanwhile the UK extension cable keeps going, and going, and going…!

One fully functional UK extension cord, three useless Chinese products

Most people in Kenya make their purchasing decisions based on price. That means it’s in the store’s best interest to carry cheap goods. But when things continue to break down, it leaves you wondering if something else isn’t going on. Are companies perhaps dumping their useless products here in the country because they cannot sell them elsewhere?

I heard a few years ago that Nigeria rejected a whole consignment of toilets because they were faulty. These were then exported to Kenya. Whether or not the story is true I have no way of knowing. But I do know that the toilets we have bought over the years where hopeless! Firstly the exit pipe is often not round so you’re left having to figure out how to connect a round pipe to an oval toilet outlet. Then once you finally have them connected you discover that they do not flush. There is insufficient water allowed through the system. So we have taken to grinding the holes larger. That does make it possible to get a good flush but you have to do that with great care as the porcelain toilets easily crack while you’re grinding the holes larger. Needless to say, a cracked toilet is a useless toilet.

Plumbing work, always a challenge

Kenya is not unique in the poor quality which you often get from the shops. A few weeks ago I put a Trent router table together which was made in Australia. We’d just had problems with a power saw breaking due to poor quality workmanship, so I was enjoying the opportunity to assemble something which was clearly of a much higher standard than most of the things you can buy here in Kenya.

Or so I thought. I suddenly hit a snag and was unable to continue the assembly process. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get the table together. As it turned out, whoever put the table together had riveted two of the parts on the wrong way around! I couldn’t believe it. Even in Australia.

Bad quality even from Australia
The two red connectors assembled the wrong way around

Using my Kenyan acquired ingenuity, I was finally able to get this high quality Australian product into full working condition. Maybe I should write the company a letter and tell them about my experience. Surely they need to watch their quality control a bit more. For the price, I would have expected better.
And those are just some of the challenges we have to overcome. Finding solutions is not always easy, but if you want to move forward, you have no option.

Raining Bugs

The rains have finally arrived. A week ago we suddenly had 28mm on one day, followed by 38mm the next. But it is still a very unusual rainy season. After two days of rain we then had sunny weather again. We had to wait another week before the rains returned and yesterday we had close to 32mm. But as it so often is here in Kenya, one place can have floods and right next door things are still dusty and dry. On the other side of the lake by the mountains of Melili we saw big storm clouds with flashing lighting a number of evenings. They are definitely getting more than their share of rain! Meanwhile 20 minutes drive away they have only had 3mm of rainfall and the grass is still as yellow as ever!

Storm Clouds over Lake Naivasha

We were doing the cement roof for the administration block and, although we desperately wanted and needed rain, we also could have done without as it damaged a lot of the work that had just been completed. In the end, the only way we could finish the work was by building a tent with plastic to protect the cement from the downpours.

Protecting the Work from the Rain

With the start of the rain we have suddenly been inundated by beetles. We haven’t seen that many beetles for years! By the next morning the ants were having a feast on those who had been unable to get away during the night.

It starts with one beetle…

and soon you have a beetle infestation!

Despite all the beetles we are seeing at the moment, it amazes me how few insects we have in Kenya. It was completely different when I was a child. We used to have hundreds of moths flying around the lights, sausage flies, and many different kinds of beetles.

Colours of the Rainbow

I can remember huge moths with big eyes on their wings, or the tiger moths. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of them. Even the small moths were amazing if you took the time to admire the microscopic detail on them, the wide variety of wing formations, the different colours, the diverse antennae.

But those days are long gone. Even when we drive in the evening, rarely does an insect splatter on the windscreen. It used to be like an entomologist’s dream, looking at all the different bugs plastered onto the grill of the car. But now, nothing!

Powerful Mandibles!

I wonder what has caused the decrease in the insect population. Is it the pesticide that people use on the farms? I remember visiting Romania in the twilight years of Cauchescu’s reign. Western Europe was much like Kenya is today. Lights in the garden attracted few insects. But in Romania it was different. They may not have had many lights in the cities due to the lack of electricity or people’s inability to pay for such a luxury. But bugs, there was no lack of them! There were millions of them: big ones, small ones, some that made a great racket in flight, some drab, others with different colours, some with vicious looking mandibles, others so small you could hardly see them.

At the time I thought Romania may have still had all the insects because Cauchescu had impoverished his nation so much that people could hardly afford to farm, let alone pay for fertilizers and pesticides – completely different from the way things were in Western Europe. Perhaps that gives a clue to the changes here in Kenya.