October 21, 2011 - The Kibera Incident

I went to Kibera last week, which is the largest slum in Nairobi if not all of East Africa. Over the last four years I must have gone there at least 30 times for project monitoring and project implementation purposes. Lately I mostly go there during donor visits; like recently we took Vice President Joe Biden’s son there and a few other visitors. For this visit we had like 6-8 Secret Service Agents.

Last week it was a Chinese delegation and we were just visiting one school in the inner Kibera. During the visit the children had prepared an impressive performance and everything was going quite well. The visitors saw the kitchen where our school meals are prepared and my manager took them to the food store, which was a small dark room. Most of us were standing outside as there was no space for all of us in that little room. I noticed several young men entering the school compound looking around. Suddenly two of them had guns out and came directly for us. We have been trained for these types of situations so we did exactly what they asked us to, which was to lay down and hand over our money, cameras and cell phones; I also had to part with my wedding ring. At no point was a gun pointed directly at me and the whole thing took 2-3 minutes; then they where gone. My manager had managed to hide the highest-level delegates in the storeroom: she just stood in the door blocking the entry. I think the robbers were too scared to move inside the rooms so that went well.

Afterwards everything was reported to the police and UN security and I think we will go with a lot of (armed) security next time.

The day after I attended a group counseling session at the UN and a quick 20- question survey indicated that I was between normal and mildly stressed by the situation. The following days I have been very tired and unmotivated but that should be a normal reaction. A wife has proven to be particularly helpful in this situation : )

I plan not to go back to Kibera and now that Kenya is at war with Al Shabab (terrorists in Somalia), we basically just stay home and avoid malls, cafes, and any place that a lot of people might be.  

Looking forward to a Christmas holiday.

KW

October 1, 2011 - Thank You, Followers for Food

In less than a full month's time, the number of people publicly following our blog went from 16 to 82!  I also know of at least four people who are following the blog privately.  If we're at 86 followers at least, we gained 70 followers in September.  

We will double that number and donate $140 towards famine relief in the Horn of Africa this month - thank you for your vote of confidence in our blog and for helping those who need it most.

LMW

September 28, 2011 - Dadaab

Two weeks ago I went to the Dadaab Refugee Camp on the border of Somalia. The Dadaab Refugee camp is the largest in the world, with more than 450,000 refugees. From May to July this year we experienced the most extreme influx of refugees to date: up to about 1,400 new arrivals per day. A few years ago I remember colleagues raising their eyebrows when we reached 200 per day.

During my recent trip I spent three days there and although it is still an emergency situation of course, everything seems calmer now, and things are under control with about 400 refugees per day and the numbers seem to be coming down.

I think this was my fourth time to Dadaab Camp since it is not a part of my usual responsibilities. But I am responsible for climate change activities in WFP Kenya and over the years have specialized in energy-saving stoves, which I know a lot about now.

A few months ago we received some seed funding (less than USD 100,000) and I decided to run a larger pilot for a new type of energy-saving stove in the camp. The stoves use firewood but reduce the consumption by around 50% and provide for more complete combustion, which means a cleaner air for the cook. For the last 20 years a mud stove production in the refugee camps has provided good quality stoves to the refugees. The stove technology has improved immensely over the last 10 years and it is time to try to introduce a new type of stove; not everyone agrees with me on this, but I have fought for it and due to the famine emergency and the lack of stoves in the camp, there is now willingness to accept new stoves.

We plan to purchase and distribute about 6,000 stoves over the next few months. Acceptance by the Somali ladies is key; they might choose to sell the stoves or not use them because they are something completely new to them. Luckily I have found a great NGO to extensively train all of the beneficiaries on how to use the stoves and understand their benefits. If we succeed we will have taken a big leap in the right direction.

We have more funding if the pilot proves itself successful so wish me luck.

KW 

September 23, 2011 - Reminder: Followers for Food

We started September with 16 followers of our blog and are now up to 66: great job!  

Kristoffer doesn't think we can get to 100 followers in the next week, but I am still hopeful.  If you, or someone you know who likes our blog, have not yet become an official follower, now is your chance!  For every new follower we have by the end of September we will donate $1 towards WFP's famine relief here in East Africa.  

AND...if we hit the magic number of 100 followers, we'll donate $2 each!! 

So, either click on the word Follow in the upper left corner of the screen OR click to the right where it says Join this Site. 

Help us make a difference, today!

LMW

September 12, 2011 - Remembering a Hungry Childhood

This opinion piece, reposted below from The New York Times, is written by a Kenyan man who comes from Charles' tribe and his region of Kenya.  It is a reminder to us of how serious things are in this part of Africa right now.  It is a reminder that we all must do what we can to stop hunger, what Kimeu calls the "unforgiveable disease".    LMW

OPINION

Remembering a Hungry Childhood

By PETER KIMEU

Published: September 10, 2011

• 
  

Peter Kimeu is a small-scale farmer in Machakos, Kenya, and a technical adviser for Catholic Relief Services, a humanitarian organization.

Enlarge This Image

Matt Rota

Machakos, Kenya

DROUGHTS are cyclical in Kenya. Before, they came every 10 years, but now they seem to be hitting us more often and for longer periods of time. My community remembers events and birthdays by times of hunger. We give the droughts names: “longoza” was the drought when many animals died; there was the drought of the “planes” because food was dropped from the air by planes, and one particularly bad drought was called “man who dies with money in his fist,” because, even if there was money, there was simply no food to purchase.

I was born in 1951 in Machakos. From what my mother tells me, that year there was a serious drought. My sister was born in 1961, and I clearly remember the terrible weather and the prevailing hunger throughout the region. I can’t tell you how many times I went to bed without eating. “I slept like that,” is how we described it, which means we went to bed with nothing to eat. I can’t count the number of days when “I slept like that,” or describe the feeling of going to sleep hungry knowing I’d wake up and there would still be no food for breakfast.

Hunger is an unforgivable disease because it is the easiest one to cure. It is devastating to wake up in the morning and look east, west, south and north and see that there is nothing green that you can chew. During a drought everything goes yellow and dry. I would walk the roads and search the ground to see if someone had spat out a bit of chewed-up sugar cane. I am not ashamed to say that I would re-chew what I would find.

Hunger is dehumanizing. It gets to a level where you do not know how you will survive and you will do anything for a simple kernel of corn.

The thing about drought is that it does not just affect farmers and their crops; it affects everyone. If you think about it, during harvest time farmers hire local farmhands to help with their crops. But when there are no crops to harvest, not only does the farmer lose his or her income, so do the laborers the farmer would have hired. There is a ripple effect that affects the whole community. Few have food and even fewer have money to buy food.

My parents did everything they could to feed us. My father would leave early in the morning carrying a little basket to beg for food or ask for food on credit. Each night he would return home around 10 p.m. My mother, after a fruitless day attempting to find food, would try to encourage us by telling me to keep the water in our pot boiling so that when my father arrived we could quickly cook any food he brought in the already prepared water.

I would keep the fire burning and the water boiling. As the hours passed I would watch the water level slowly go down, along with the hopes that we would eat that night. More often than not, however, my father would arrive frustrated and empty-handed. And I would sleep like that.

It is a traumatizing situation as a young child to be without food. You see the fear in the faces of your mother and father, despairing that they cannot feed their children. You feel afraid, too, because your parents can’t provide for you. Your stomach is so empty that even when you are thirsty and you take water it makes you dizzy. You get so nauseated your body wants to vomit, but you haven’t eaten. I think about this now as East Africa faces another drought. I think about all the children who are suffering as I did. We see terrible images of hunger, but I fear that we have not yet seen the worst.

We are experiencing really serious stress. At the moment, the magnitude of the hunger facing Kenya is not well known.

It is incumbent on all of us to band together and fight this very curable disease. No child on earth should ever have to sleep like that.

September 7, 2011 - Followers for Food

In an effort to enhance my status as a blogger, as well as the possibility of pursuing external writing opportunities in the future, I am asking something of YOU, person-reading-the-blog-right-now:

If you like Life in Nairobi enough to read it somewhat regularly, would you please be so kind as to officially become a Follower of this blog?

All you have to do is click to the right where it says Join This Site.  You need to have a Google, Twitter or Yahoo account to do it...but you have that, right?  It will give you these options:

I would appreciate it if you would publicly follow the blog - that's like telling the world: this blog is not lame and I am not ashamed to read it! - but if you would prefer to keep it to yourself, it's OK to follow us privately too.  I don't think there is any pain, cost or annoying harrassment related to being a Follower, so please do it!  


AND....as an extra incentive...for every new Follower the blog has by the end of September we will make a donation to WFP for famine relief in the Horn of Africa*.  So you can follow our blog AND do something good for the world.  Get to it!

Also stay tuned for some new elements coming to the blog as I try to update and improve it!

Thank you for your readership!

LMW


*there are currently 16 followers, so anything over that will add to the donation we give WFP.  We will hope to donate at least $1 per follower.

August 23, 2011 - Drew (take two)

LMW

August 17, 2011 - Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore is a WFP Ambassador Against Hunger and over the last several years had donated $1 million to the School Meals Programme at WFP Kenya, where Kristoffer is a Programme Officer.  It has been his job over the last few years to actually spend Drew’s donation and she wanted her money to go for more than just food, but also to improve infrastructure and the school communities.  So Kristoffer became an expert on various things that are not typically in WFP’s mandate, such as building schools, classrooms, latrines, kitchens, boreholes and, his pride and joy – providing energy-saving stoves. 

Drew came to Kenya for her second or third time this past May, and because Kristoffer implemented and managed her projects he was tasked with showing them off to her during a three-day trip in the field.  Drew also brought a team from the Conde Nast Traveler Magazine, in which she is featured this month.  In addition to her cover shoot, the article inside in the magazine – which you can find here – highlights the work Drew’s money has done in Kenya.  It is particularly timely, given the crisis here now, and Kristoffer is also pleased to be quoted in the article.  We hope that her advocacy increases donations to WFP at this time. 

Kristoffer’s overall impressions of Drew Barrymore were that she was very down-to-earth and really passionate about helping make a difference in Kenya. She was easy to talk to and asked a lot of questions about her projects. The Kenyan children in the schools she has helped have no idea how much money she has and have never seen one of her movies, but she is famous to them for even more important reasons. It sounded to me like she was very impressed with the work Kristoffer did with her money; she hugged him many times to say thank you (which did make him blush, yes.  She was in ET after all!). 

I think Kristoffer felt rewarded to show her his work and to introduce her to his colleagues in the field.  In the village where they built a revolutionary new borehole, not only did the Samburu people honor Drew in a meaningful way (see the pictures below, where the woman painted her face and put her in traditional clothes to dance from the school to the borehole), but they also honored Kristoffer.  Because he fought so hard to bring them water and didn’t give up when it looked impossible, he was given the tail of a wildebeest, which is an honor usually reserved for tribal chiefs.  I can tell you, it is an honor that he will never forgot.

So even though we’ve had to keep it a secret since May (until the magazine came out), please enjoy a few of the (hundreds of) pictures from Kristoffer’s days with Drew.  And, remember, if you haven’t made a donation yet but would like to help alleviate hunger in the Horn of Africa, it is not too late to visit here.

LMW

July 27, 2011 - Another Day at the Office

I was thinking today that it may not be very clear to people what a WFP Programme Officer does on a normal day, so let me share what I did at work today:

§  Yesterday the Ministry of Education confirmed that we can go ahead with a school meals emergency response by providing food to all drought affected primary schools during the August holiday. This means that there will be no teaching at school but the students can show up and get a meal at noon. Today I followed up with logistics; they had already moved around 50% of the food (Yay for WFP Logistics! But I told them to move even faster; over 7,000 tons -  let’s do it in two weeks), I called the Ministry to push them to do their part which they are doing very well (their part is moving a lot of food - Let’s hear it for the Ministry of Education!); I called a few field offices to see what action they had taken a day after the intervention was approved officially; quite a lot J

§  I am Project Manager on an energy-saving stove project in the Dadaab refugee camp. We are buying between 5,000-10,000 stoves for the refugees. One of the suppliers sent us a sample today. We hope to select a supplier by end of next week but 6 things need to happen: official opening of the tender box, technical evaluation, financial evaluation, presentation to the tender committee, award the contract and maybe release of an advance payment.

§  A large purchase order of institutional stoves was placed today which means that my other project for stoves in schools will reach 1,000 schools by the end of the year and that all deadlines will be met. I recently trained 350 head teachers on the project; it took 3 days, and we got very positive responses; this was mainly due to the prep work of our field offices (well done them).

§  We received an urgent request for our regional office today; they wanted to know how much fortified porridge (called “corn-soya-blend”) we could loan out to our Somali operation. I did a simple calculation, called our warehouse guys in Mombasa just to double check our stock levels, and sent it off.

§  I coordinated some other payments for our projects, released about a 100 payments in finance (took 45 minutes) and signed a few checks for staff that were travelling.

§  I texted with a Danish Journalist in Dadaab refugee camp and gave her some practical advice. It also seems that another Danish paper wants an interview with me later this week and then I found out later in the day that I was mentioned in an article about Kenya in the second largest newspaper in Denmark. Had a meeting with them on Monday but didn’t know they would put me in the paper!

§  Gave some data for our monthly report, did some pre-work for some upcoming projects, wrote a recommendation.

§  Got a call from a contractor in the evening. He wanted me to come to the school he is building for us in the slums and see the progress he had made. I’ll go there tomorrow morning, so we can plan for his next payment, I don’t want him to run out of money again…

§  I also learned today that a 6 month-old baby can sit up in a small tub by himself…but only for 12 seconds, after which he will subsequently lose his balance and hit his head on the plastic edge. 

KW

July 23, 2011 - The "F" Word

Three years and almost eight months after moving to Kenya, Life in Nairobi is now officially 500 blogs old. 500 blogs!  Wow!  I thought it most appropriate for our 500th blog to take Life in Nairobi back to its roots and write a bit about what's going on in East Africa right now, particularly because it is so relevant in Kristoffer's work, which is the reason we live in Kenya in the first place.*

Unfortunately, the news isn't good.  The past two rainy seasons in Kenya have failed, leading to a devastating lack of crops which provide food throughout the Horn of Africa (HOA consists of Kenya, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia), in addition to those countries also having a severe drought of their own.  The drought facing HOA is thought to be the worst in 60 years, and comes just after recovery from a drought in 2008, which followed the post-election crisis in Kenya.  Let's face it, times have been tough in Kenya since we got here.  There are 11.3 million affected by hunger in HOA right now.  

The food crisis in Somalia is so dire, in fact, that the UN officially declared a famine in two parts of the war-torn country (believed by many to be the least stable country in the world).  For the word famine to be used, there have to  be three criteria present:

• acute malnutrition rates among children exceed 30%
• more than 2 people per 10,000 die per day
• people are not able to access food and other basic necessities

Because the situation is so severe in Somalia, Somalis are walking over the border into Kenya to the Dadaab refugee camp (the largest refugee camp in the world).  These people are fleeing some combination of high oil and food prices, lack of water and political conflict/violence.  When we arrived in Kenya there were 200 people crossing the border into Kenya which was a record high at the time; the latest numbers from the UN indicate that now 1,400 people walk into Kenya from Somalia everyday.  Of course Kenya is also facing the drought and high food prices/lack of food...but the refugee camp offers some hope for basic assistance and so the Somalis keep coming.

Here is a bit of an overview, if you care to watch:

In the ways that matter most, our daily life is not that affected.  We do sometimes get rain in Nairobi; our altitude helps us there. And, of course, we can afford to buy food, even if prices have gone up, and we drink bottled water so we are not relying on the water that falls from the sky to meet our basic, immediate needs.  But our household staff feel rising costs deeply; the maize flour they buy to make ugali (a staple Kenyan food) has doubled.  Because 80% of Kenya's electricity is hydropower we are having more frequent power cuts now.  There is a "run" on sugar, because a Kenyan diet consists of so much sugar that Kenyans started buying it all up out of fear that prices will go up too high or that the supply will disappear altogether.  Mostly, we feel the desperation in the country.  When people are desperate there tends to be rising crime, which holds true here as well.  As a result, we are extra cautious when we are out and about, and we really don't go out much at night (when we do, we don't go far).

Kristoffer does not work in the emergency section of the World Food Programme (obviously, emergency is their biggest mandate as the largest humanitarian aid agency in the world), but the entire country office is very busy trying to provide aid.  Kristoffer works in school feeding and usually children are not fed during school holiday breaks.  To help fight the effects of the hunger crisis, school feeding will now take place in targeted areas during the holiday (end July-early September), so even though he is not "in" emergency, his development unit is still called to help in some way.  

Kristoffer was actually contacted by the very small WFP office in Copenhagen and asked if he could be the "eyes and ears" for Denmark in terms of the situation on the ground here.  He gave a live interview on the Danish national news about 10 days ago which, we have heard from some family and friends, made quite an impact.  

I am not trying to make a shameless pitch for WFP, but right now they are facing a 40% shortfall in their ability to meet the needs of the people most severely affected by this food crisis and donating to WFP is actually the fastest way possible that you can help make a difference.  If you would like to donate and are in a position to do so, please visit here to donate funds which will help get food to HOA as soon as possible.

When facing one "f" word (famine), it is appropriate to rely a bit on another "f" word (faith) to get through the crisis.  In addition to dollars for food, affected people in the Horn of Africa need prayers to help them deal with extreme conditions and suffering that have no end in sight.  It is also, once again, time to count our own blessings.  

LMW

*I know this blog started out being about our daily life in Nairobi, the interesting situations and challenges we faced upon moving here.  That it has become almost entirely about our family - specifically the ins and outs of Grace and Noah - was completely unplanned (remember: when we moved here we had no intention of having children while we lived here!).  While Kristoffer has access to the real Kenya and has travelled throughout the country, my entire life as a stay at home mom here takes place in a 10 mile radius around our house (if that).  If he had time, he could write really interesting blogs about the work he does, the people he meets, and the things he sees.  But since he doesn't have that time, I can really only write about what I know, and what I know is motherhood.  Sorry if that came (or comes) as a disappointment to anyone following the blog.  Writing about the kids is both a survival mechanism and hobby for me, and I don't think that will change any time soon.  But, at 500 blogs old I think I will try a little bit harder to share more of "Kenya" when the chances arise.  

December 17, 2010 - Cooking Stones

It is evening in a simple home in Kenya. Four children have had light tea for breakfast and no lunch, but are now waiting for dinner, the only substantial meal they get in a day. Their father died of AIDS many years ago and they now live with their mother who is HIV-positive.

“Mum mum is the food ready soon?” they ask.

“In a little bit,” replies the mother as she adds more firewood under the boiling cooking pot. This was the fifth time she was asked about food being ready that evening. Her youngest child has already fallen asleep on an empty stomach. And sure enough, one by one they each fell asleep as they waited for the food to cook. The last question about dinner was from the oldest girl who eventually gave in and fell asleep too.

After having ensured that all of her children are sleeping, the mother puts out the fire, takes the lid off of the cooking pot, and removes the warm water and few stones she had put in there when the children were outside playing. There was never any food in the pot or in the house for that matter, but she has learned from experience that it is the easiest way for the family to cope with days like these; days without food.

This is not only a true story, but actually a coping strategy that some of our poorest beneficiaries have shared with us. This was often their reality prior to the food assistance that WFP provides to HIV/AIDS patients in Kenya. You don’t often hear these true stories, but it is important that they are told.

KW

Decembe 9, 2010 - The Old Masai Way

Yesterday, I was driven to a meeting outside of town by WFP Kenya’s oldest employee, a Masai called Stephen. I have driven with him before but I have to share the following with you.

Stephen must be well into his sixties; his father who is still alive had 8 wives, of which 4 have passed away. Between his 8 wives, the children numbered 20 girls and 30 boys. This year the whole family got together including the grandchildren: they were 320 people and ate an entire cow in one sitting.

As a boy Stephen left home after his circumcision. He didn’t want to follow the tradition and kill a lion; many Masai die doing this. He went to Tanzania and got a job with a white man and many years later got a job with WFP.

Stephen was reunited with his father many years ago, but only married one wife and also has a house. The Masai don’t normally buy houses and they normally marry many wives...or at least that is how it used to be.

Stephen’s father calls him a motorcycle, meaning that if one light fails he will be driving in the dark. This analogy refers to the fact that Stephen only took one wife which his father finds foolish.

Stephen has brought his mother to his house near Nairobi where she can easily get medical attention. She is 110 years old. As I have written earlier (maybe over a year ago now) Masai give children names after what happened the year they were born. You can be named after a big drought or flood or even “English” meaning that you were born when the British came to Kenya. One of Stephen’s mother’s names is “one shilling” because she was born when the British introduced the one shilling coin.

It is days like this - driving around with someone from a culture so different from mine - that I really appreciate what I learn from living in Kenya.

KW

October 23, 2010 - Minor Detail

I've recently received a few emails from people indicating some confusion about our life here: isn't Kristoffer's contract ending in November? aren't we moving? what is going on?

So it occurred to me that even though we've had a revised set of plans since the end of August, I never officially told the world. Sorry, world!

Kristoffer's contract at the UN World Food Programme in Kenya does end at the end of November. BUT he was offered a one-year extension to stay in Nairobi and continue his work, and a lack of other opportunities within WFP right now made us jump at the opportunity. Needless to say that it would not be convenient to be moving either to a brand new country or in with either of our families at 7+ months pregnant with a toddler in tow. So we are staying in Nairobi for now and hope that will allow for both the smoothest transition from "Family of 3" to "Family of 4" and the exploration of more and different career opportunities for Kristoffer. We are grateful that the Danish government (who for 3 years has footed our bill entirely) and WFP were able to reach a 50/50 agreement to allow us to stay for a 4th year, which is pretty unprecedented in the JPO world (JPO = Junior Professional Officer, the program that many governments have to recruit young professionals into international development organizations).

Sorry for not sharing that information sooner, and please consider this an invitation to come visit sometime in the next 13 months!

LMW

August 30, 2010 - A Kikuyu, a Luo, a Borana and a Mzungu

Sometimes a WFP vehicle has a good mixture of culture and diversity. On my last trip to Garissa we stopped in Kamba land (Kenyan tribe located between Nairobi and the Coast) for lunch and received some odd looks from the other guests at the restaurant and people on the street. It was then that I realized what a strange mix the four of us were. A guy from Western Province, a guy from Central Province, a guy from Northern Kenya and then me, the Mzungu.

We picked up our security escort two hours before Garissa and the landscape changed significantly. Trees were reduced to bushes, houses to huts, and grass to sand. Camels and goats, the most drought resistant animals, where now seen in increasing numbers. The ride was quite smooth and the security concerns I remember having two years ago were gone. It is safe here as long as we travel with a security escort. It is normally the UN vehicle that can be a target, a highly valued commodity, which I actually like too. Not fancy at all, but it seems to have been built for this terrain.

This was the first time since my very first field trip with WFP that I would go back to Garissa, which I wrote a blog about over two years ago. This time around I was facilitating a workshop with a senior staff from the Ministry of Education, a person with whom, I must say, I have established a good working relationship over the years. And we made a good pair, a young guy from WFP and a senior representative from the Ministry. It was a one-day workshop and then we used the opportunity to stay around Garissa district to monitor something called mobile schools. It is a fairly new concept, which our School Meals Programme has yet to fully embrace. That was the plan.

The workshop went fine: 13 districts were represented and the Provincial Educational Officer, so we were talking to the people in charge of education in the whole region.

The following days we were carrying out an assessment on mobile schools. The question was whether WFP should target mobile school under the School Meals Programme.

The School Meals Programme has been operational in Garissa district for more than two decades, during which time it has successfully increased school enrolment and stabilized attendance. Currently the enrolment is approximately 30 percent in Garissa, which shows that 70 percent of school-going aged children are not enrolled in school.

The rural communities in Garissa district are nomadic. They move to find water and pasture for their animals. The nature of this living pattern makes it virtually impossible for the children to enrol in school. The mobile school concept was introduced in Garissa in 2006 with support from the Ministry of Education and Unicef. The idea of the mobile school is to target nomadic communities by allowing one teacher to live and move with the community while teaching children from the Early Childhood Development Centre (from age 3-5) to Standard (class) three. After Standard three the children can then transition to a nearby boarding school. In 2006 the first mobile schools were established in Kenya and over the last two years many more have been established. Some schools are currently receiving school meals through a mother school while others operate without direct food support.

This mission was very different from other monitor missions I have been on. Normally we go to schools and never really meet the communities. As the mobile schools are operating in the community we went really far out this time. All the communities we visited were virtually illiterate. I remember one visit very clearly. We were trying to establish why these communities are interested in having a mobile school: after all these years why do they now want to learn how to read and write? There are many reasons for this, one of which is that this community has had someone within the locality who went to school and is now doing very, very well many years later. Anyway, so we are at this school talking to the oldest man, I think, in the community. See a picture of him further down. He has a six-year old son who has attended classes at the mobile school. Through translation (he doesn’t speak Kiswahili or English) he told us about drought, animals, water scarcity and education. We are unclear whether any teaching has been going on so we ask the son to write numbers 1-10 in the sand. The son does that. We ask him to write his name in the sand. He spells O S MA (N) and after the A I say “Osman” and the farther watching closely can see that we could say his son’s name by reading what he wrote in the sand. We smiled and clapped, well done, well done. I tell you, I have never seen a father so proud of his son. The father didn’t say anything but you could just tell how proud his was. It was an amazing experience. GO educationJ

We came to another mobile school, or so we thought. The community must have left just a few days earlier. There where clear signs of a school and a community living there and it was obvious why they had left. The water pan next to the school had dried up. They had moved in search of a new water point and so we could not find them.

A water pan is not a lake, a spring or a river it is a lower area where water is collected when it rains.

So Kenya is changing…in every corner….slowly by slowly. The people we met were very interesting. They wanted education. “We want a permanent school,” said some adult community members, who were also attending classes at night (at the mobile school).

And, by the way, WFP probably can't provide school meals to mobile schools at this time, because there is not sufficient food storage or accountability for the food, but we do hope that some new systems can be devised to change this in the future.

The school teacher and his tent.

Osman's father.

The mobile school.

One of the ways children learn to read and write.

KW

July 13, 2010 - WFP "news"

Please read this story on the WFP website today about a project that Kristoffer is working really hard on. It will give you a bit more of an idea about some of the important work he does here. You can also see some of his photography from his trips to "the field". He doesn't like to brag, but I am really proud of him and recognize that not all of WFP's work ends up on their front web page. It is a big accomplishment for him!

LMW

February 15, 2010 - WFP Drivers

I don’t write on this blog very much even though there is a lot to say; I am afraid to share work related issues as this is a public forum. However, there is one thing that I have wanted to write about for quite some time.

At WFP we are always on the move. Everything seems to be an emergency and sometimes remembering to do one small thing during the workday can make a difference for thousands of people. This is very satisfying and can also be very stressful.

Anyway, I think this is one of the reasons WFP has a number of drivers: to allow us to work as we move through the country. We have many drivers in our Nairobi office and in every sub-office around the country. The drivers make sure vehicles are ready to drive all the time in terms of maintenance and fuel, and often they also coordinate our security escorts and report over the radio our position every hour for security purposes when we are in the field. They deliver messages/letters and drive throughout the day. It sounds easy, but it is not; it is actually a tough job. It entails driving where there is often no road, always feeling pressure from the staff to be at a certain place in time, coming in the morning before everybody else and often leaving after everybody has gone home. Just sitting in the car for 5 days will make you completely exhausted as you are continuously hoping up and down and shaken from side to side.

When I travel to the field I spend 5 days with the driver almost 24 hours every day. I have tremendous respect for our drivers who manage somehow to drive fast but only to the point where it is safe. They can drive over 80km per hour on a dirt road and get through rivers and rocky terrain. When I travel in town or outside town I always ask them a lot of questions and they give me a good picture Kenya from a Kenyan’s perspective.

In terms of vehicles, WFP swears by the basic Toyota Landcruiser. As a WFP staff member I have grown to love this vehicle. Many years ago WFP also used the Landrover Defender (Landcruisers and Defenders are the toughest, most serious 4x4 vehicles in the world); however, the Toyota proved to be more durable so now we only have Landcruisers. I remember going on a field visit with two World Bank officers some time back. They had a huge Toyota luxus SUV with every option imaginable. The cool looking World Bank driver was doing great until we hit the rough road. Our vehicle with WFP staff was in front leading the way and I was in the World Bank vehicle explaining our programs to the officers. We were short of time as usual and the WFP Landcruisier flew through the terrain like a fish through water. The World Bank driver struggled to keep up in this huge luxus vehicle and almost slid of the road one time. The WFP vehicle would continuously stop and wait as we were moving along. During this experience I realized how crucial our drivers are and what a difference they make every day.

On the way back when we hit the paved road I switched to the WFP vehicle and the World Bank Driver, who must have been embarrassed, rushed back to Nairobi. We only saw the tail of their car for the first 2 minutes of the trip and then they were gone. He was driving irresponsibly fast ,which I have never seen our drivers do. Needless to say I am very proud of our drivers and our entire “transport unit”.

I am also proud to say that WFP has the largest percentage of female drivers in any UN organization in Kenya and they are all excellent. Unfortunately, one of our long time drivers (10 years with WFP) passed away last week. She had a short-term illness and went to the hospital, “where she lost the battle for her life”, as our Country Director put it. Her parents are also deceased, she was not married but had some siblings in the rural areas, who I am sure she was supporting though her UN salary. She left behind two children. We had a prayer ceremony for her at work on Friday and I realized how much it hurts when WFP loses a family member.

KW

January 17, 2010 - Help for Haiti

There are no words to appropriately or sufficiently describe the situation in Haiti right now, and goodness knows there is enough media out there trying anyway. Besides crying at every word I read and every image I see, there are only two things that I know how to do for Haiti: the first is to pray and the second is to lend whatever financial support I can muster.

If you haven't donated to a charitable organization of your choice yet and you are looking for an organization through which you can make a donation, please consider the World Food Programme: https://www.wfp.org/donate/haiti

WFP is the largest humanitarian organization in the world and is among the top agencies on providing emergency disaster relief. No amount is too small. Donate once if you can, and please keep praying.

LMW

December 1, 2009 - Kristoffer's Field Pictures

These pictures were taken on my field visits in October.

Roof rain water harvesting at a rural school.

"Deforestation" caused by elephants at a primary school.

Common view from WFP Landcruiser in Laikipia (a semi-arid area).

Inefficient stoves used for cooking WFP school meals.

Entrance to a primary school.

This is a school kitchen; the women is the cook. Note that every child brings 3 liters of water to school every day because the school has no access to water.

The biggest tree Kristoffer has ever seen. It is a baobab tree, very common here.

Children outside of a primary school (staring at the Mzungu).

Drying rack for students' bowls after lunch.

After a long drought, the first drops of rain.

A hydropower dam...but very little water.

Chalkboard outside of a primary school, displaying the school's spending.

This is a household energy-saving stove that I am working on getting distributed to refugees in Kenya. I was testing it at home to see how much wood it used and how much time it took to boil water: the results showed that it used about 70% less wood than a traditional stove (1/2 pound of firewood to bring 2 liters of water to boil in 17 minutes).

KW