Just wrapped up Day 2 of the project, and Day 4 in Nairobi, and off to a great start!
Saturday was a day of contradiction as we played both tourists and residents of Nairobi. Started off by visiting the Elephant Orphanage (David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust). They rescue and rehabilitate orphan-elephants that are victim to ivory poaching, loss of habitat due to human population pressures and conflict, deforestation and drought. For Christmas a few years ago Katie adopted an elephant for me (Murera) from this exact place, so it was great to see my baby elephant and the great work they are doing to help the elephants (#whereskatie). The pictures say it all, clearly I fell in love with all the baby eles, and I may or may not bring one back to NYC with me. #HowDoIGetAnElephantInMySuitcase #CanElephantsDoA4thFloorWalkUp
After attempting to bring an elephant back with me, we headed to a nearby shopping mall for lunch and grocery shopping. Given historical terrorist attacks on shopping malls in Nairobi, it wasn't surprising to see a lot of security to enter the parking lot as well as the mall itself - guards searching trunks and under the vehicles,, boarding the bus and looking under seats, metal detectors and bag searches as the entrance. Very much precautionary and I haven't felt unsafe, but regardless a reality in public places and office buildings here in Nairobi.
Grocery shopping is one of my favorite things to do in other countries - check out local products, similar products, prices, people. I love it. We all just had time to grab the bare essentials (e.g. Pepsi, pasta, cheese, wine) before getting back to the apartments, but I am anxious to go back when I can spend more time browsing the isles.
That evening, DOT organized a welcome dinner for us at Zen Gardens which was absolutely lovely. We had a cocktail reception where we continued to get to know each other by introducing ourselves in another language and making someone else translate (you should have heard the translation when Stanislaw spoke in Polish and Anshul spoke in Hindi - it was a lot easier for those speaking in Spanish or Portuguese!). Dinner was delicious and a lot of fun getting to know one another, but were all exhausted between a busy day and jet lag.
Sunday was an early morning as Bob (also on my water project), Jessica and I went with Muriuki to Catholic Mass - beautiful Mass, amazing singing, and a great way to start the week.
After our program introduction, we had a break to visit the Bomas Cultural Center. At Bomas we walked around various types of Kenyan villages and attended a cultural show with local drums, singing, and dancing. Even got a few IBMers out on the dance floor!
Before we could dive into prepping for our kick-off scheduled for early the next morning, we had a security briefing with the head of IBM Security for Africa, Lucky. He has been most helpful in preparing us and making himself available for anything at all. My team pulled him aside to discuss a potential visit to Isiolo County - one of our primary clients.
Isiolo, located in the north east part of Kenya, is one of the first counties in Kenya to be developed as part of the Kenya Vision 2030 program. It is a mix of Muslims and Christians and the scarcity of arable land and pasture is a daily challenge for the people of Isiolo, resulting in constant community conflicts that plague the county. Security is obviously a concern and we were initially denied the opportunity to visit the county, but after talking with Lucky, we have been able to arrange a one day visit to Isiolo (~5 hour drive each way) in order for us to meet key stakeholders, develop a relationship, share the goals of the program and how they can help, as well as get a better understanding of the challenges the county faces related to water. Lucky is personally escorting us, so we are in good hands.
This little victory proved to be a great way to meet our clients for the first time Monday morning. 8:30AM we were scheduled to kick-off our project, with members from Millennium Water Alliance, IBM Research, CARE, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, and our fellow IBM team. In true Kenyan fashion, we did't get started until 9:15, and even then people were tricking in, but we had a great initial meeting. They were thrilled to hear we got permission to go to Isiolo and are scheduling our agenda for Thursday. It was difficult for MWA to tell Isiolo, "IBM is here to help us, but they can't actually go to Isiolo or meet any of the people." So this hopefully will go a long way in the relationship between MWA and Isiolo and help to accelerate the adoption of the program.
The rest of Monday we spent meeting with some fellow IBMers, including Nick Nesbitt, the IBM Country Manager for Africa. Great to get some feedback on our project and know we have a group of IBMers supporting us throughout our assignment. After a delicious lunch of local Kenyan cuisine, we accompanied two other teams on their project kick-offs with their client.
Today was our first opportunity to really dig in with our clients from MWA. They met us at Catholic Relief Services, where they have allocated us office space for the duration of our stay in Nairobi, and we had a great open dialogue to get on the same page around our expectations and goals and finalize our plan for the next four weeks. A lot to do, but it became apparent that while we are all prepared to sprint, we need to treat it much more like a marathon and make sure we are all moving forward together and staying on the same page.
A few poolside beers to catch up with the other teams on their day, and ready for bed. Almost on a regular sleeping pattern, so maybe tonight is the night!
Tomorrow we head to IBM Research, one of the partners in our program, and Thursday on to Isiolo!
Molly
#ibm #ibmcsc #csc #kenya #kenyeah #LivinLaVidaVannucci