Engineers Without Borders at MSU

Tying Up Loose Ends

2011-09-02T12:42:00.000-07:00

Matt Smith

With this summer’s travel coming to a close, EWB-MSU has sent over 100 students to Khwisero since the project began in 2004. While each has had a wholly unique experience throughout their travels, a universal feeling seems to arise as each student’s time in Khwisero nears an end; they feel like they left quite a bit undone.

In recognition of the variety of cultural and environmental differences between America and Kenya, EWB-MSU tries to encourage travelers to come up with a myriad of project ideas to pursue while on the ground and to plan for each to not go according to plan. One of the challenges of being dynamic and adaptive, is that we each feel like we should have accomplished more. When one project slows, we pick another up. Then, when we watch the Khwisero countryside pick up speed through the windows of a country-bus, it is too late; our trip is over.

This is my third trip to Khwisero and now, in my second month in Kenya, I’ve seen three teams of students come through and I’ve ridden that country-bus with them. I’ve seen them torn between their home and its comforts and the new home that has invariably been created for them by the community of Khwisero. Each time I return to Khwisero with a “To-Do” list. “Review the EWB-Khwisero financial logs” and “pay the hardware invoices” are easy tasks; “Restructure the Board, work with everyone to create a new constitution” and “Save the world” seem to be a bit more difficult.

As the remaining EWB-MSU member, I will be responsible for ensuring that the summer’s projects are finished and are appropriately transitioned to community ownership. We have four composting latrines that are receiving their final plastering and will be outfitted with plumbing, water catchment, moving walls and incinerators for feminine products. The MEM pipeline, after its third-year of planning, has recently laid foundations for a water tower and the first phase of trench—over a mile—has been dug thanks to community contributions. The first phase of the pipeline will serve Mundeku Primary School and the community through two additional water points. The sum of all three phases will serve five primary schools, two health clinics and a large portion of the community through roadside water kiosks.

Our last project has been several years in the making as well: a water catchment system at Ekatsombero Primary School in the Eastern stretches of the District. The catchment system has undergone several redesigns throughout the summer, but our team in the States is working with local contractors to come up with a final design that is amenable to all involved.

In addition to the material projects, I’ve been tasked with finding ways to build the capacity of our local support organization: EWB-Khwisero. We’re developing a constitution that more clearly outlines roles and responsibilities, restructuring our local Board of Directors in order to match recent political reforms and making sure the team has the tools they need by enrolling them in computer training at the polytechnic school and finding other opportunities for further training.

One month lies ahead of me and I have a list of my own. Ultimately though, I’ve addressed one of the central tasks on my list, answering a critical question: “Can I do this kind of work in the long-term, is it worth it?” When I take my turn on the inevitable bus-ride back to Nairobi, I’ll have few regrets.

Project Update: Ekatsombero Rainwater Catchment System

2011-07-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

Above: Team member Matt Rine teaches schoolchildren American phrases.

Ryan Olff

Just a quick update on the rainwater catchment and filtration system at Ekatsombero primary school. After a month of hard work, problem solving, and minor issues with construction, I am glad to say that the rainwater catchment system is getting closer to completion. Watching the 16,000 liter tank lowered into a 15 foot deep hole in the ground was something else considering Kenyan construction and engineering techniques. The process took nearly five hours and was quite entertaining.

The last few parts and pieces were delivered yesterday by Haikal Investments, the contractor working with us on the project. The delivery included the last few PVC parts needed to finish up the plumbing from the 5000 Liter tanks into the sand filter, which will then filter the water into the 16,000 Liter holding tank. They also supplied us with PVC gutters and began to install the pump so that concrete can be poured.

It has been a challenge coming to a new place, getting used to “Kenyan time,” learning a whole new system for construction, and being thrown into a project manager position my first time here. It seems like the trip has been too short, and I can’t help feeling like I haven’t made enough progress while working here at Ekatsombero. There is still a lot to be accomplished, but over the last week of my stay, a lot of the remaining parts have been purchased and construction can resume. Currently, we’re hoping that the project can be finished by the end of August.

I wish I could have seen things finished personally, but with the inevitable minor setbacks, this being EWB’s first-ever rainwater catchment system, we’ve found ourselves forced to learn by making mistakes as we go. All I can do now is be positive and leave Matt Smith, who will be staying in Kenya into the fall, with the necessary information to complete the project on time.

Field Notes: Our Kenya Board and Fellowship Program

2011-07-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

Matt Smith

Editor's note: The following represents a portion of a piece written for kenyaconnections.com, a hub to facilitate networking between assorted EWB chapters and other development organizations working across Kenya.

It’s odd when good ideas emerge: usually at odd times in odder places. The idea for the EWB-MSU Fellows Program came up on a country-bus somewhere in between Nakuru and Kericho, Kenya. Our organization (Engineers Without Borders – Montana State University) had been working on water and sanitation projects in Khwisero District, Kenya for six years at that point and we had built a substantial network of Kenyan partners since we began. In fact, we established a Board of Directors in Khwisero in 2008 as a way to direct our projects to schools with the most critical sanitation and water needs as well as balance out project distribution across political boundaries. Our EWB-Khwisero Board is currently composed of school-teachers, government officials from the ministries of water, education and health as well as interested community members.
We found that the Board was a way that we would be able to navigate the political, familial and other cultural complexities of a region that was wholly unfamiliar to outsiders. We also had hopes that the Board would be a way to integrate more partners into active roles in our programs. In many ways, the Board has been a successful idea, though...

Finish reading here: http://kenyaconnections.com/2011/07/field-notes-ewb-kenya-board-and-fellowship-program/

The Work Continues

2011-07-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

A quick update on our projects. Things are getting fantastically busy:

Ryan Olf has taken over for Jeff Moss and Ben Carreon working on the rainwater catchment system at Ekatsombero Primary School. Ekatsombero has been waiting since 2009 for a water project, when plans to provide the school with a well were derailed by a tragic lack of accessible groundwater. On Monday, a 16,000 liter water storage tank was lowered into the ground to provide the school with a clean water source. The water will be collected off the school’s roof, draining into two above-ground 5,000 liters tanks before passing through a sand filter for storage in the larger tank underground.

Kendall Saboda and Kala Jaquet have worked to organize a series of eyeglass clinics at the primary schools on the MEM distribution pipeline route in western Khwisero. The first eyeglass clinic was held Friday; over the course of the summer we hope to distribute nearly 1500 eyeglasses to schoolchildren and community members.

Kendall is also busy testing springs around Emwiru Primary School to research water quality. Her sampling is tedious with the timings of the daily samples going in and out of an incubator running off a car battery, thermostat, and light bulb.

Autumn Labuff has worked nonstop on the 2400 household surveys we hope to conduct at around 14 primary schools looking into varying water usage, helping us gauge the impact our work has on the broader community. She is now working on taking GPS coordinates at all the households and training the Kenyan surveyors who will conduct the surveys

Matt Rhine (aka “Pony”) has scheduled several meetings with teachers at schools throughout the Khwisero district, looking to establish a network amongst them to analyze the problems of education at Kwhisero Primary Schools.

Justin Stewart has been wonderfully documenting all these various projects with his camera, working on a photobook for our organization. He is traveling to document all our old and new projects, quite the task as we have worked at 14 schools in Khwisero including this summer’s work.

Kiera McNelis has worked at both Mushikongolo and Emwiru Primary Schools on the composting latrine construction ordering materials, collaborating with the contractor Fredrick and awesome EWB-Kenyan Fellows, Patrick, John, and Raphael. Last week, the foundation excavation for the composting latrine began at Emwiru and Mushikongolo is preparing to pour the slab of the latrine floor.

Team Five is Alive—Passing Through Nairobi

2011-07-05T15:22:00.001-07:00

Matt Rine

We landed in Nairobi June 28(me coming in through Ethiopia, Zach Gartner through Amsterdam, and Justin Stewart, Kendall Saboda and Ryan Olff coming in after a week in Germany and Amsterdam). Navigating around the city was an exciting, if a bit scary, experience for everyone. The unspoken traffic rules took a while to catch on to; we likened it to a very intense live action game of frogger.

While waiting for Chris Maus, our Project Manager, and Kayla Jaquet to come in, we visited the city market. This was a wonderful experience during which vendors aggressively sell their wares and bartering is still a form of business s(I got a bracelet for a pen!). We spent the rest of the wonderful day wandering around the University of Nairobi and the national museum, while Joe (who graciously endured a day-long bus trip out from Khwisero to welcome us to East Africa) got to know some of the anthropology and sociology professors.

The hostel dinners were awesome, consisting of chapatti, lentil soup, rice and samosas. We breakfasted at the Nairobi Java House, which is definitely one of the nicer coffee shops I’ve been in (though its playlist is four songs long, and all four are practically identical James Taylor songs at that).

Unfortunately, Chris’s bag was misplaced during the transfer in Europe so he, Zach, and Kayla spent an extra day in Nairobi waiting for it while the rest of us struck out for Khwisero. The Easy-Coach (Kenya’s premier bus company) ride was long and hot, but the beauty of the changing Kenyan countryside as we traveled west made up for it. After a relatively stressful matatu (local bus) ride for the last leg of the journey from Kisumu, we finally arrived at Jackson’s compound—it was a great relief to be among such fine hosts.

We’ve got quite a series of tasks before us: Ryan will work on the rainwater catchment system at Ekastumbero, as well as a paper on the local construction industry. Kendal is troubleshootng the incubator we’ve used for microbial water testing, and Justin is taking the pictures for an EWB photobook. Personally, I’m researching how to quantitatively gauge the effect of humanitarian aid on education, though I’m not quite sure that’s possible.

Today I walked to Emwaniro to talk to Harriton, the school’s head-teacher, hoping to coordinate a meeting of educators from all around the area. I was lead by two great guys from Ebukwala named James and Josek, who spent a lot of time working with Thomas, Jonah, and. It was really great to talk to two people my own age. James is planning on working in wildlife management, and Josek is planning on teaching math and science (coincidently, my own career aspiration). We talked a little about the states of our own countries and our hopes for the future. As much as there may be cultural and economic gaps, it’s wonderful to find similarities here.

Education in Khwisero: Making the Most of Scarce Resources

2011-06-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

Above: EWBers and company partake in a football match at one of Khwisero's Primary Schools.

Thomas Wells

Greetings once again from Khwisero!

Since I (an education major) arrived in Kenya a few weeks ago, I have been surprised again and again by the resourcefulness of the school system and the educators present within it.

In 2003, the Kenyan government made public primary education free—since then, millions upon millions of students have shown up for primary school, many of them as old as 17 or 18.

Rather than rejecting students, schools have opened their arms wide to accept as many students as possible. The result is that every student has the opportunity to receive education in Math, Science, Religion, English and Kiswahili.

Unfortunately, the schools often do not have the resources to meet the needs of their student population. Malaha Primary School, in the Mumias district, for example, has 681 students in the school with only 13 teachers to teach them. That’s around 52 students per teacher.

As a result, most teachers must lecture rather than hold open discussions like we are more familiar with in the US. Further complicating matters, Malaha doesn’t have enough classrooms to support the student population: it has few sanitation facilities and water is a lengthy distance from the school. Needless to say, that’s a LOT of problems to be facing as a school administrator.

And while these conditions (I believe) are echoed throughout Khwisero and Kenya, many of the teachers I have met manage to educate students quite well (according to test scores, at least). Some teachers go above and beyond the call of duty, teaching groups of students on Saturdays to ensure as much retention as possible.

Head Teachers like Samson Kaka of Mwisena Primary and Harriton Mwakha of Emwaniro Primary work very hard to improve the lives and educations of their students on a daily basis. Both schools have benefited from a EWB well, and both headmasters taken full advantage of the opportunity, setting up a system of fees and maintenance for the wells so that they can continuously work. Both are always looking for ways to improve their schools through new technologies and feverish grant writing. [Editor’s note, a new block of classroom’s at Emwaniro was recently funded by OPEC]

Being such an outsider to the school system, it’s very difficult to get a good view, but from what I’ve seen, my perspective on education has been vastly changed.

The Adventures of the Mushikongolo Composting Latrine Committee

2011-06-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

Kiera McNelis, Project Manager

Today [Editor’s note—June 22nd; I’m a bit behind in posting] was the first training session for the Mushikongolo Composting Latrine Committee. The committee was formed to oversee the latrine’s long-term maintenance and is composed of seven members including school-teachers, community stakeholders, and school management representatives. Along with a couple of our local partners, we took its members to visit the latrine built last summer at Elwangale Primary School in eastern Khwisero.

Our adventure opens to a slow start after we wait an hour at Mushikongolo for our matatu’s unsuccessful search for petrol in the Khwisero market. Eventually, the bus ended up rolling on down the hill to Mushikongolo to pick us up, running nearly on empty. “We are lucky,” state the Kenyans as we eventually find fuel on the roadside.

Nevertheless, I had my doubts that we’d ever get to Elwangale when I saw how little the driver put in the tank. Then, I reminded myself that it is important to have faith in the transport system in Kenya. Otherwise, I would be constantly worried about reaching the destination and never enjoying the journey. We set out towards the zenith of Kwhisero, Misango hill.

Everyone was excited for the training, especially Texel, who is developing a composting handbook for primary schools this summer. Elwangale resides on a steep hillside. To reach Elwangale, which resides on a steep hillside, we had to navigate a narrow, rocky road. Seeing my face as the matatu swayed, our fellow John joked that “now, this is Africa.” Everybody laughed.

Fortunately, the training went as planned. The committee members and the EWB team broke up into small groups to investigate the composting collection chambers, stalls, and urine diversion. Together, we discussed the differences with the composting latrine design we are implementing this summer, the upsides and downsides of Elwangale’s maintenance efforts, and overall compost process.

The theme was explaining how the latrine takes all the waste and turns it into resources that can be utilized. Over a short lunch of steaming milk chai and Blueband [margarine] sandwiches, the committee discussed the few changes they would like to their latrine and asked question on usage.

By this time, we are running about two hours behind schedule; Autumn and one of Musikongolo’s teachers especially need to hurry back to Mushikongolo to conduct a Project Wet training. So we take off—until about 500 meters from the school, when a shrilling sound from underneath the matatu informs us that the vehicle has bottomed out in a ditch. The driver tries to turn the engine, but the harsh sound repeats itself. At this point, all the men pile out to assess the situation. No luck!

After coasting the matatu back down to the school, we walk up the hill for a few kilometers to the main road. At the intersection, we share sweets, bubblegum, and mangos amongst each other from the neighboring kiosk and, having no alternative, find motorcycles taxis to pick us up.

Once we reach the Khwisero market, my cell phone rings. It is Abraham, the composting committee chair, informing me that his motorcycle was in a minor accident. The stress begins to wear on me as I struggle to face yet another challenge.

We decide to bring sodas to Abraham and Benson, another committee member who was riding with him, at the clinic. Abraham thanks me for the soda while I ask him how he is feeling. “Fine. Fine. No problems. That is life you know. This is life. It can change in a second, one can be paralyzed or even die. This is just life—I am fine.”

I smiled, “Yes, you’re right, Abraham.”

The other day, a Kenyan told me this: “We are humans. Once we solve a problem, we always find another one.” Looking back at today, I can’t help but think how true that is. We certainly had our ups and down—literally, given the hills—but the successful training and the committee’s ability to come together and solve problem after problem with a positive attitude assures me that the project is in good hands.

Football at Mushikongolo

2011-06-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

Texel Feder

The hot Kenyan sun beats down on my head and shoulders. Sweat trickles down my neck and back. Ants crawl over the tops of my bare feet. I stand at the center-line of the field, waiting for the kick-off.

A hodgepodge of wazungu and Kenyans, including EWB-ers, primary school students, university students and several translators make up the teams. Within a few minutes of starting, the sidelines are filled with school children watching us intently. All sixteen of us fix our eyes on the ball as it bounces and rolls across the uneven field at Mushikongolo Primary School. We’re surrounded by rolling green cornfields; just below us is the Yala River.

A kick, a cheer, reflexive deflection by the goalie, oooohs and aaaaahs from the sidelines. A large crowd has gathered on the other side of the schoolyard fence, as well. Mamas with their babies tied to their backs cheer us on just as loudly as the kids. A number of piki-piki (motorcycle taxi) drivers watch the game unfold, although they remain more aloof than their fellow spectators.

Sitting with the cheering crowd, Autumn attempted to take photos of the game. She was quickly smothered by riotous giggling at the magic of technology. Who knew digital cameras could be the source of so much laughter? The stream of questions, answers and giggles seemed endless.

The girls also seemed to enjoy teaching Autumn Kiluhya phrases, particularly hearing her accented pronunciations. When I took a break from playing, they surrounded me as well, asking questions, teaching me words, and touching my hair. I couldn’t think of a reply when they asked why my hair was so soft, though.

Back on the field, the EWB-ers tried their hardest to keep up with our Kenyan team members, but it became clear that we hadn’t eaten enough ugali (cornmeal mush, the local staple) to make it happen. Despite all our hard-breathing and dripping sweat, we just couldn’t keep up. After an hour-and-a-half of nonstop play, the clouds heralding the afternoon rain began to cover the sun, forcing us to return home.

I left the field with a swollen bruise on my shin (the result of a collision with Josek, a translator at Ebukwala Primary), Jonah Barta’s left knee no longer had any skin, and Kiera Mcnelis suffered a mild twisted ankle; all-in-all we felt pretty rugged.

In my post-game excitement, though, I forgot to stretch—and regretted it deeply the following morning, when I awoke to discover that I could barely move and that every muscle in my body seemed to hurt. For the rest of the day (in all honesty, for the rest of the week) every step I took was a reminder of our match. And that was just fine with me.

Frogs, Soccer and a Rainforest Visit

2011-06-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Team Mushikongolo

Mulembe!

Team Mushikongolo’s exciting stay in Khwisero is coming to an end. Our team, composed of Autumn LaBuff, Texel Feder, Kiera McNelis, and John Rios, is constructing a girl’s composting latrine at Mushikongolo Primary School. After three weeks of meetings, daily walks to and from our EWB-Kenya office in the Khwisero Market, and endless cups of delicious Kenyan tea, the excavation of the latrine finally began Monday.

Over the course of the two past three weeks, we have had several visitors come to our mud compound near the Yala River. A frog, whom Texel named Jim, surprised us one evening. After much laughter, and a few too many shrieks, Autumn finally caught him in a large ziploc and released Jim back into the wild.

The neighboring children come over play soccer in the compound’s yard with the soccer ball we brought from Our Kid to Khwisero. Points were scored by the ball being kicked through the goal of our legs. Needless to say, we lost the game.

John Rios a recent graduate from Sociology at MSU is traveling to Kwhisero for his second time conducting household surveys. Autumn Labuff is a sociology student staying in Khwisero for two months, here working with John Rios on surveys and Project WET educational follow-up.

Texel Feder, a liberal studies and sustainable foods and bio-energy systems student is here as the vice-president of EWB, making sure s--- happens. Bam.

Last but not least, our ever-positive and musical genius, Kiera McNelis is the glue. She holds this fort together. Go Camp Counselor Kiera!

Two weekends ago, all our teams in Khwisero traveled to KEEP in the Kakamega Rainforest. Saturday evening, John valiantly conducted a delightful meal of pesto pasta and green beans. Early Sunday morning, we made pancakes with mangoes and honey for breakfast (skillfully using a Dorman’s coffee can lid to flip the flapjacks). Our guts were thankful for a break from ugali and skumawiki (indigenous green vegetables; think spinach with sketchier origins).

That morning, we got to go on a guided tour through the forest, seeing black and white monkeys with long, bushy white tails and marveling at the sheer grandeur of the trees. Vibrant butterflies followed in our wake; mushrooms and half-eaten guava fruit blanketed the forest floor.

Ebukwala welcomed all of the teams the following night – Karibu – where Jonah, Thomas, Joe and Dolan are currently staying. We made dinner on the wood stove, indulging in some tunes, jokes, and good conversation. In all, it was decidedly a relaxed and comfortable weekend.

As we write this blog back in Khwisero, raindrops play powerful percussive beats on the tin roof. It’s reaching crescendo as we cozy up with our books and journals in the hut before supper.

Exciting Times at Ebukwala

2011-06-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

Thomas Wells

Hello from Ebukwala!

Hanging out in Kenya has been an awesome experience for me thus far, in spite of my pasty white skin having been fried by the extra-strength Kenyan sun and my newly developed fear of giant beetles (apparently,I can scream at glass shattering frequencies).

So, Kenya is great, and we’re making great progress developing a composting latrine here at Ebukwala Primary School. We met with the teachers and school management board of the school on Monday and then took them on a tour of a past composting latrine on Tuesday. Everyone seems very positive (perhaps because they’re getting something), but we have also faced some tough questions about the maintenance of the latrine itself.

The idea of composting human waste is a very new one, both here and in the US, and selling people on that idea is no easy task. It seems that the community will take ownership of the project, as they all seemed interested, and the meeting with the parents today was PACKED. We plan to break ground on the project next week, so it is very exciting.

In other news, we’ve been hanging around with our Kenyan translators, Stella, James, Joseck, and Winnie. They’re a bunch of great people who we relate to very well (it’s nice to hang out with other 20 somethings, especially since all the people we work with at schools are older than us). James in particular started right off asking me questions about biblical allusion and The Merchant of Venice, which I read several years ago and was not expecting to field questions about outside of the classroom. I hope I represented my education well. [Editor's Note: Thomas is an English major.]

Maybe.

That’s all I really have for now, I need to go fall into a food coma after stuffing myself with chapatti.

A Chimney for Nellie

2011-06-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

Jeff Moss, EWB-MSU President

There are five of us, crouched in the dirt on the side of a dusty road in rural Kenya. The sun sits perfectly overhead, baking the rusty red dirt we’re drawing in. A few clouds hang overhead, but none venture close enough to block the sun's rays.

We’re in the middle of a row of shops patched together from corrugated tin roofs and hand cut wood, working with our John, one of our Fellows and the owner of a metal shop, to design a chimney for our host families’ cooking hut. Chad, Jonah and I (Jeff) are scratching in the dirt with sticks, trying to communicate our design with a man who speaks no English. Without John's help, there’s no way we could get this figured out. Even with him, I’m not sure if we’re all on the same page.

We’re hoping to fabricate a chimney to ventilate Nellie’s cooking hut so that she can cook each day without inhaling a great deal of smoke. All the cooking here, and in many other parts of the world, is done with fires, which cloud the cooking huts with a thick haze of smoke. Nellie and millions of other women breathe this smoke for hours each day, which leads to many respiratory problems. We’ve been helping with the cooking a bit, but we must step outside often to give out lungs some fresh air.

As a gift for hosting us, we’ve decided to build a chimney for the cooking area, which we hope will ventilate the cook hut and provide Nellie with cleaner air to breathe. It’s not as easy as a trip to Home Depot, but I think we’ve managed to communicate the design pretty well. We’re waiting now, doing some journaling and other work in our office in Khwisero market, and we’ll see in a few hours what the final product looks like.

Tomorrow or the next day, we’ll install the system and find out how well it works. All this will cost us around 25 US Dollars and a day’s worth of work, and we hope it will make a small but noticeable difference in the lives of the family that has been so gracious to us over the last two weeks.

Carrying Water

2011-06-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

Dolan Personke

Yesterday, I carried water. On my head.

Yesterday, about an hour or so before dinner, five of us headed down to the spring to get water with Jaquelline, a friend Nellie, our host mother. It was about a three-quarter of a mile walk downhill from the compound. About half-way down the trail, I realized I'd forgotten my camera, and ran back up to the hut where all of us guys were sleeping in to grab it. I dug my Canon out of my luggage, and headed back down the hill, not entirely sure where I was going.

As I ran down the trail to the spring, I realized that this was the first time in the four days I had that I had been completely alone in Kenya. It was a pretty exciting thought—I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Well shoot, if I can walk down this path with my camera all by myself, I could dang near do anything on my own!’

When I got down to the spring most of our barrels had been filled with water already. I took a couple shots of a few young local guys, (who were quite excited to see themselves on the camera screen) and then we started hauling the water back uphill. I started taking some photos of the other EWB-ers with the water on their heads, and started to think that I was in the clear on carrying water until, a mere 100 yards into the journey back up the hill, Jaquilline ordered me to give her the camera and take one of the jugs of water. It was clear I had no choice.

I started up the hill at a pretty solid clip. Partially because I wanted to show that I wasn’t a whimpy Mzungu (Swahili for a white person), but also because I wanted to spend as little time possible with the water jug on my head.

It’s one thing to hurry up a hill, it’s another thing entirely to hurry up a hill with a five-gallon barrel of water on your head, sloshing weight back and forth across you skull, dripping alarming amounts of water onto your shirt. I spent the first third of the hike thinking, “this is tough, but I can totally handle it.” The next third felt more an endurance test, as I had to constantly reassure myself: ‘Alright Dolan, you can do this. You’ve got to keep charging, buddy.’ By the last third of the journey I was pretty sure my head was going to fall off, my spine was going to collapse and my face was going to be pulled into the dirt by the weight of the barrel as I spilled water everywhere.

But I made it, and strode triumpantly into the Jackson’s compound. All of the kids started clapping and yelling, ‘Mzungu! Mzungu!’ I could not help but smile with pride. I walked confidently to the cooking hut and finally, finally, FINALLY was able to take the water off of my head.

I had made it.

I felt such a sense of relief and accomplishment. I wanted to throw my arms up to the sky like Rocky after climbing the steps to the Philidelphia Art Museum. Then I realized that this is what Kenyan women, young Kenyan girls do every day. Even now I’m a little unsure if I want to attempt that carry again, but this is their daily reality. It was a pretty sobering reminder about why we're involved here in Khwisero.

Sunsets over Khwisero

2011-05-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

Joe Thiel, Project Manager

It’s been a week of first experiences for all of team one.

Jonah, Jeff, John, and the most recent arrival, Chad, hauled water for the first time yesterday (their necks are still recovering). Jonah and Jeff played their first game of football with the children of Mushicongolo Primary School, and lost rather miserably. I also gave my first “keynote speech” at a barrazza, the Swahili term for a large community meeting, and we all failed to finish our first “big ugali”, much to the amusement of our hostess, Nellie.

More importantly, I think that we’ve all grown to love Khwisero, its people and their easygoing lifestyle.

Yesterday we met with the parents of Emwiru Primary School, where we hope to construct a composting latrine, and I saw firsthand why what we are trying to do is so important. Emwiru is a school of 367 students (although enrollment can sometimes surge to over 400). After meeting with the school’s management committee and discussing the proposed project, they took us to tour the facilities the composting latrine would help to replace, 8 stalls serving 180 boys.

In the words of John, one of our Kenyan volunteers, the latrines were “pathetic.” One structure was near to collapsing, while the other had a healthy infestation of maggots. Both were pit latrines, dug to a depth of nearly 40 feet risking fecal contamination of nearby groundwater sources. We hope that, by partnering with the community, sharing resources and information, we can bring latrines that can provide at least the start of an answer to these issues with latrines that last longer, protect groundwater sources and provide an additional benefit in the form of compost.

Today, we met with Mushikongolo Primary, another of the four schools at which we plan to implement composting latrines this summer. We found a similar situation, latrines that were in disrepair due largely to a simple lack of resources, but we also found a great example of Khwisero’s defining trait: relentless optimism. These are communities that have seen many promises and faced many disappointments, but still remain unbelievable welcoming to students like us that, to them, must seem all too similar to all of the aid groups that have come before. Amidst poverty that, to most of us, seems unimaginable, they exhibit a hopefulness that defies their perceived situation.

Meeting with the parents of these schools, listening to their children recite English poems, visiting with teachers and getting my butt kicked at soccer have taught me this: Khwisero is an amazing place with amazing people and unlimited potential.

As I sit here in a hut, sharing stories with Johnson and his eldest son, watching the sun set over this place and its beautiful, complex people, I can’t help but feel once again that we have much more to learn than we have to teach in Khwisero.

Team Member Intro - Jonah

2011-05-21T07:44:00.000-07:00

Jonah Barta

I'm new to Khwisero and am finding the experience not only humbling but also inspiring and highly educational. We're staying at the home of Jackson Nashitsakha (our local coordinator) for the time being, and the experience is quite pleasant.

The food is tasty and the kids are soooo funny! Jackson’s kids have gotten used to us after all these years, so they're willing to play. We put my pair of black T-Pain aviator glasses on one of Jackson’s sons today -- the kid walked around the compound puckering his lips and flashing peace signs.

We stick out like a sore thumb walking down the road, our skin practically glowing in contrast to the red earth. Other kids in the area point and yell Muzungo! (white person).

I cooked Chapati (fry bread) with Nelly, Jackson's wife, and some other women yesterday -- quite an experience! The hardest part is rolling the dough into a perfect circle, something I was very bad at. I was getting better, but then Joe spilt the flour (party foul!) so we had to use oil instead. I think Nelly should get a chimney in her cooking hut. It was so smoky that my eyes burned by the end of the cooking session. However, I am more concerned about her lungs. That smoke is rough!

On a more serious note, our projects are making significant progress. The MEM committee responsible for helping manage the distribution pipeline project seems effective and is ready to get things started. However, we seem to have a delay in the transfer of the 1 million Kenya shillings (KSH; $11,600) pledged by the Kenyan Government to support the project. The Kenyans all have faith it will come; our team will believe it when it is in our account. We are also worried about the additional 1.5 million KSH that were promised by the district's Member of Parliament last year. It sounds like we must re-apply for this money in July when the new financial year begins.

Fortunately, though, the group of Fellows we have working with us seem great! We are talking with John, welder who lives near the Khwisero market, right now about politics. I am excited to work with him Rafael, and Patrick. We are also getting to know the fundi (skilled worker) named Fredrick who Jackson has recommended to build our first composting latrine for the summer. Unfortunately, the rough quote for the latrine has come in high (750,000 KSH/$8,700 when we were hoping for 400,000KSH/$4,600). Right now we're waiting for a new quote while he re-evaluates some miscommunications about the design.

That's all for now -- I'm missing out with a good conversation with our fellows.

Returning to Khwisero

2011-05-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

Joe Thiel, Project Manager

It’s good to be almost back.

Our first travel team for the summer has officially touched ground in Nairobi, and the experience has left us excitedly looking forward to Khwisero.

Don’t get me wrong… Nairobi is a lovely place. Although not exactly therapeutic, this cataclysm of a city does carry a certain charm (I especially recommend the city market, the perfect place for remedial lessons in bartering). No, Nairobi is not the problem. Rather, I think we’re all chomping at the bit to start the work that for which we have spent the last year preparing.

Those preparations, I think, are going to pay off, as we are entering this summer better prepared for an increasingly ambitious array of projects than we have at any point in the past. We hope to construct four more composting latrines, conduct wide-ranging sociology research into Khwisero’s people, culture and daily life, develop a better understanding of past development efforts, research future development plans, run eye glass clinics and much, much more.

Most importantly, it appears that we might be able to finally, finally, finally begin construction of our first distribution pipeline, three years in the making, which will provide clean water to five schools, two health clinics and a market.

None of this, however, would be possible without the incredible dedication of a whole host of EWBers. I’d like to highlight just a couple, my teammates on this particular adventure. Return traveler John Rios, our group's token vegetarian, will head up the summer’s sociology research, including a new collaboration we’ve started with Project WET, a Bozeman based non-profit that creates education materials related to water use. Jonah Barta, the baby of the group, is also planning to use his time on the ground to research Khwisero culture. Jeff Moss, our chapter president, hopes to apply his education in bio-resources engineering as we construct composting latrines this summer. Rounding out the team is me, Joe Thiel, a chemical engineering student serving as one of our three project managers this summer.

Over the coming months, we are tasked with empowering communities, providing them with those resources that allow them to achieve their own needs. It’s not an easy thing to do; indeed, it’s a complex challenge that we’ve each put in countless hours trying to better understand. However, I think if we focus on how these communities change us, it simplifies a great deal.

Khwisero is composed of interwoven communities that contain many deeply beautiful people. Getting to know them, working with them, sharing our mutual interest in each other’s lives and culture is in itself a great time and an exercise that creates trust and friendship. In the end, that is our goal: to share with the people of Khwisero both our skills and our friendship so that we can both become better.

Holding Back

2010-08-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

At a baraza the other day, our team delivered a difficult message: "We came to Khwisero hoping to start construction on a water distribution pipeline," we told the assembled community, "but that's not going to be possible."

We went on to name our reasons: The contractor's bid for the project came in higher than we'd expected. Funding promised by Khwisero's Member of Parliament, Evans Akula, has yet to materialize. The social engineering work necessary to help the community develop the project's management structure has proved more challenging than we'd hoped.

Our American students and Kenyan partners have spent the past month-and-a-half working through those issues, making slow but precious progress. Nonetheless, with only two weeks left in our stay here, we've come to the painful decision that things simply aren't going to work out this summer, and have begun the more-painful process of explaining that decision to the community.

The disappointment at that meeting was tangible--dead silence, as the audience slumped in their seats. The conversation, earlier, where we broke the news to the locals who've poured heart and soul into advancing the project was one of the most difficult of my life. There's an incredible amount of hope in this community, and so many inspirational people who've sacrificed their time and energy to help make the project possible. Explaining that they'll, at best, have to wait another year to see construction begin is quite nearly heartbreaking.

Our team is disappointed as well, but thoroughly convinced that holding back is the best choice for the community. Khwisero's landscape is littered with the remnants of failed water projects, and we're all haunted by the fear that EWB's pipeline could join them. In due time, the project's pieces may well come together, but we realize that forcing them in place so we can rush forward will simply invite disaster through management failure or shoddy workmanship.

Instead, we'll wait, and hope that we can return next summer with a different message.

Eric Dietrich

World Cup

2010-07-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

Until recently, I wasn't much of a soccer fan. Spending time in Africa during the South African-hosted World Cup thispast month has changed that.

It's hard to understate how big a deal the World Cup is here, especially when it's hosted on the continent. Even out in the rural Khwisero district, there seems to be at least one TV tuned to every game anywhere there's access to power. We haven't yet had to plan meetings around games, but I suspect we'll need to as the tournment comes to a head.

I have to admit that I wasn't too disapointed when the US team lost to Ghana last weekend, advancing the latter as far in the tournament as an African team has ever gone. Watching pride build among Kenyans as an African nation competes with developed global powers has been nothing short of inspirational.

The excitement is contagious, from watching games with European tourists in our hostel to Kenyan locals in a social hall in Khwisero. During Ghana's heartbreaking penalty-kick loss to Uruguay last night (which we watched in Nairobi with out taxi-driver-turned-friend Godwin), everyone in the room was caught up in the drama--the silence after the sudden loss was nearly total.

If nothing else, that experience is a reminder that we're here in Africa to do more than simply build wells and latrines (not that that's necessarily something to call simple, of course). There's also a lesson to be learned in what it means to be part of a common human experience. Of which, perhaps, there are few better examples than the World Cup.

Eric

A Chief's Baraza

2010-07-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

The other day, I found myself accidentally witnessing Khwisero's legal system in action. Along with Patrick, a local farmer and EWB volunteer who translates for our team members when we speak in public, I was attending the local Chief's weekly public meeting in the hope of being given a chance to speak about our distribution pipeline project.

Kenya's chiefs are something halfway between being a vestigal position from the region's tribal past and western-style government officials. As I understand it, Kenya during its colonial period was administered by the British through tribal chiefs, and the system was absorbed by the fledgling Kenyan government upon its independence in 1963. But whatever the history, parts of Kenya like Khwisero are in large part administrated by figures who have the duties of mayor, polic chief and judge.

The chiefs and their assistants work through the village elders, each of whom is responsible for a small area, where they keep tabs on any crime or domestic disturbances, and transmit information to and from the residents. Patrick had suggested one of our team members speak about our project at a Chief's baraza, where the elders and chief meet each week.

While waiting for my chance, however, I unwittingly found myself part of the audience at what I'm pretty sure was a Kenyan trial. A young man who, near as I could tell from Patrick's whispered translations of the meeting's Swahili, was accused of mugging a schoolboy out after dark, was sat down on the grass in front of the Chief and given a stern tongue-lashing.

The assembled group then spent the next two hours trying to determine the guilt or innocence of several of the accused's friends, a process that seemed to revolve primarily around accusations of guilt-by-association and hearsay, as well as tearful testimony of good character delivered by at least one grandmother.

In hindsight, a couple things stand out. The first was the noticeable absence of police officers--despite years of western influence on Khwisero, it seemed like the Chief's authority alone was enough to keep the accused more-or-less in line without the use of physical restraint. I also can't help wondering how much the process was like the frontier justice delivered by Montana's pioneer founders.

In any case, Patrick and I ended up departing before the trial's close (the Chief decided to use a break in the proceedings as an opportunity for us to deliever our public service announcement). So, once again, I found myself with a too-brief glimpse into the inner workings of the culture EWB-MSU has spent the last half-decade learning to work with.

One of the most important lessons I've learned in Khwisero is how complicated its society is. When I first arrived here, I had a sort of idealized "huts in a circle" vision of the community, only to discover a region with at least the complexity and diversity of Bozeman. Which is why, even living through experiences like the Chief's baraza day after day, I still can't say I truly understand this place where we're trying to make a difference.

Eric

2010-06-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a while since our last blog post and a lot has being
happening here in Khwisero. I am Kalen Ramey, one of the project
managers here this summer and I have really been enjoying being back
in Khwisero. It has also been really awesome to see all of the new
travelers getting to know the area, and to see each of the teams doing
amazing work. My team is stationed near Mundeku primary school as we
continue to work on the distribution line project.

This project is proving to be very complex mainly for economic and
social reasons. After so much work on the technical aspects of the
project in Bozeman this last semester it has been quite the switch to
come here and really look at the social side of the project. Every
day I feel like we uncover a new complexity. Our work thus far has
been on trying to improve community involvement and strengthen the MEM
committee. The MEM committee was created over the winter trip to
manage the project and is composed of members from each of the
sublocations: MUlwanda, Emutsasa and Mundeku.

These past two weeks we have been working our way around the community
attending barazas (community meetings) at each of the schools along
the route. Today we attended a baraza at Ebuyonga primary school. We
toured the school and got to meet each class, at which time the
students grilled us with questions about the US. Then we got the
chance to see the students perform the dances that they have done in
regional competitions, the dances were amazing. Watching them dance
was definitely my favorite part of the day. Then we had a chance to
speak with parents to convey to them information about the project. I
was especially nervous today because it was my first time speaking at
a baraza, but everything went smoothly and I was assured that the
speech was perfect.

This past week we also met with a couple potential contractors and
have been looking at the bids that were submitted for the project.
Hopefully the MEM committee will be able to meet with the contractors
again this week and then make a selection, so that Justin (our
professional engineer team member) will be able to assist with the
contractor selection and help finalize the designs before leaving Khwisero.

Unfortunately we have been unable to pin down the Member of Parliament
and get the CDF money that was promised for the project. At the
barazas we have been telling the community that our ability to
continue going forward with the project depends on two things:
community preparedness, and the arrival of CDF money.

There is definitely much work do be done still this summer, and at
times I am skeptical about how everything is going to be able to come
together. A project with as many complexities as the distribution
line I want to be sure that everything is set up so that the project
can last for years to come. That said, being around the students and
getting to meet them it is impossible not to want to pour everything
we can into this project.

There's lots of work to do still, but we're feeling pretty optimistic
and having an awesome time here in Khwisero. Thanks for reading!

H2O for Hope: Helping Hands in Helena

2010-06-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

It’s not often that a pair of middle school girls decide to raise money for a non-profit. Far more rare is a pair that decides to raise $15,000, but that is exactly what Amanda Morrison and Eleanor Wintersteen have decided to do.

I know. Impressive.

After seeing an EWB presentation last year these two Helena Middle School students contacted EWB out of the blue and told us they wanted to raise enough money for a well. These two obviously have incredible determination, but what is more incredible is what they have accomplished since then, establishing H2O for Hope, an organization whose goals reach far beyond a single well in Khwisero. This group hopes to not only participate in our project, but also to convince other schools to aid EWB chapters and projects for years to come. Already another H2O for Hope group is forming at Helena High School, and together they will leverage community support in Helena for an organization based in Bozeman to bring clean water and sanitation to the people of Kenya. I’m pretty excited.

But, this group won’t accomplish their goals alone, so if you get a chance check out their blog at http://h2ogoals.blogspot.com/ or their facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/H2O-for-Hope/116598515050014?ref=ts. You can also contact them at h2oforhope@gmail.com.

It should be noted that this isn’t the only incredible group of people helping EWB-MSU around the state. Schools in Bozeman, Helena and Missoula have worked with us to hold fundraisers, work on projects and do pen-pal letters, and we are always glad to receive support from anyone young, old or in between. If you would like to get involved please e-mail us at ewbmsu@gmail.com.

Asante sana,

Joe

Education Day in Khwisero

2010-06-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

On our team's first full day in Khwisero, we found ourselves
at the largest gathering I've seen there. Over 500 people, ranging
from government officials to teachers to schoolchildren in
multi-colored uniforms gathered on the fields of the Khwisero Primary
School to celebrate what I was told was "Education Day."

As near as I could tell, the event was intended to recognize the
district's best students, teachers and schools, based on scores on the
national exams administered to graduating primary school students
(eigth-graders, by our rubric).

I should probably mention that Kenya's national exams make the SAT
look like child's play. Everyone seems to take them extraodinarily
seriously. Results, along with students' names, are posted in public,
and the scholarships awarded to high-achieving students are often the
only way they can afford to continue their education.

The event's secondary purpose, it seemed, was to give all manner of
local politicians a chance to speak. It's probably fair to say that
public officials give far more interesting speeches in Kenya than in
the US. One middle-aged woman in particular spent a good half an hour
ranting about female students being forced to drop out due to
pregnancy (sometimes caused by their male teachers).

Being educated makes you more beautiful, she said, which I thought
summed things up rather nicely.

It also nicely underscores how important education is to the people of
Khwisero, and the reason we were asked to bring our project there in
the first place. When it comes down to it, knowledge is the only thing
that can carry the child of a struggling subsistence farmer out of
poverty, the force that propels Africa's long, often-halting struggle
towards development, and the most effective way I've heard of to
empower women to take control of their lives.

And that, in essence, is why a bunch of college students from Montana
are here in Africa. Beyond and despite the cultural novelties,
day-to-day discomforts and new friends, we can only hope that, when we
return to America, it will be at least a bit easier for Khwisero's
children to obtain that education.

Eric

Returning to Khwisero

2010-05-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

ulembe--hello and welcome once again. For those of you who don't know
me, I was the project manager on our winter assessment trip and am
returning to Khwisero again this summer to, along with fellow returner
Kalen Ramey, manage our continuing work on the MEM water pipeline
project.

This is my third trip to Kenya, and it's amazes me to think about how
much I've learned since I first set foot on this continent just under
a year ago, how much this experience has taught me about everything
from engineering to teamwork to community development to simply
holding a conversation from someone who comes from a culture half-way
around the world from my own.

At the same time, though, I'm painfully aware of how much my fellow
teammates and I don't know, especially as we embark on a project as
socially and technically complex as the distribution pipeline. For one
thing, we don't whether the grant money promised to the project by
Khwisero's Member of Parliament, without which we cannot afford to
move forward, will come through this summer. For another, we're not at
all sure whether the community itself is ready for the project,
whether its members truly support the effort, and whether they will be
able to overcome the age-old tribal divisions that could tear the
management structure necessary for the project's long-term success
apart. All that, and so much more, remains to be seen.

As a result, we find ourselves returning to Khwisero with more
questions than answers. Which is perhaps for the best--far too many
past aid projects have entered Khwisero and communities like it with
set agendas and answers, carrying in detailed plans without being
ready enough to listen and learn. Within EWB-MSU, one of our goals is
to be different in that sense. Which means, if you ask, I can't tell
you right now whether we'll be able to help the community build the
pipeline we've planned this summer.

However, my teammates and I can and will take the time to tell the
story as it unfolds over the next several months. If you'd be so kind
as to follow us here, of course.

Asante,
Eric

Home Again!

2010-01-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

Home. Well home-ish. We arrived last Saturday evening to Bozeman after only three flights home: Nairobi to Brussels, Brussels to Chicago, Chicago to Bozeman. A seamless trip back to the states, though a bit miserable for me, as I was recovering from some interesting African bug that hit me like a sack of rocks when we arrived in Nairobi on the evening of the 13th. My energy has been up and down since getting back, but I feel rather good right now and am excited about it, mainly about having an appetite again.

After travelling to Africa for the first time last summer, I now have a vague familiarity with the burden of returning home with more than a fair share of emotional and intellectual dilemmas. I heard a remark yesterday that it’s great to return to a country that uses purified, potable water to flush its toilets. An enormously cynical remark, but one that is accurately indicative of the challenge that faces many: the assimilation back into a culture that we’ve been raised in for only two decades, but one that has permanently shaped us. A general response by many is a reassurance that we’ll “adjust,” but it’s hard to balance the fact that we do flush our toilets with the same water that we’re working to bring to thousands in Western Kenya, an issue that ultimately eclipses, though affirms, any personal dilemmas in priority or validity.

So with this in mind, I find myself, once again, sitting back in an attempt to take an objective look at what is going by. Class has already started, which is priority for nearly every one of my peers. I’m able to overhear how stressed everyone already is from two days of class which equates to a brand-new routine for many and how everyone’s break was “too short.” Agreed. Though after attempting to understand only sliver of what it means to live in a developing nation, and devoting a significant portion of waking hours to a project that attempts to create a better life for those who are purely less “lucky” than all of us, I am left with a deep concern for “those whose greatest expression of humanity is the newest cellphone,” as Nicholas Kristof put it last fall when he spoke to MSU.

What I’m left with is an affirmation that I’m on the track that I want to be on, one that might not be for everybody, though to some extent I think that everyone here is obliged to some level. Peter Singer, a famous contemporary philosopher put it pretty clearly, “if one can act without sacrificing something of equal of greater moral worth then one ought to.” I’ve been raised in food banks and helping with homeless feeds as my mother has devoted her life to helping the less fortunate in some way, as she understood what it meant to be poor in America. I don’t.

And in a more shallow sense, when it comes down to it, bouncing around in the back of a Kenyan matatu, avoiding police checkpoints (avoiding having to pay bribes/fines) is much more exciting for me than a night in Las Vegas or a 15’ cliff drop. Maybe I’m arrogant and self-righteous, I’ll take that, but I’ll defend the fact that there is more out there than the “newest cell phone.”

Thank you all for reading and following our trip. Apologies for not writing more (we had to walk about six miles for electricity), but I hope that if anything our writing helped to articulate what it is that we do: at the very least, providing clean water and sanitation at a few schools in another developing nation, at the most, catalyzing community development and offering a deserved opportunity for students to actualize their inordinate potential.

Until the summer,
-M

Catching Up

2010-01-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

1/11/10
My apologies—we’ve gotten a bit behind in our blog posts over the pastweek or so. Things have sped up enough on the ground here that we’vebeen keeping ourselves too busy to write as much as we’d hoped.

We’ve held two community listening sessions and managed to officiallyset up our management committee (which is calling itself the MEMUWater Pipeline Project—more on that later). We also completed ourGPS-based route surveys for the distribution system and visited everyschool we’ve worked at to check up on their management committees.

On Sunday, Joe, Hilary and I journeyed over to Eastern Khwisero andsurveyed around Ekatsombero Primary School, where geology kept us fromdrilling a well last summer. At present, we’re looking at twodifferent alternatives for providing water to the school—putting aborehole in at a nearby government office and piping water to theschool, wiring electricity down to the local spring and pumping waterup from it. Unfortunately, it looks like both options have some majordrawbacks, so we’re going to have some challenges to deal with there.

Beyond that, things are going well, though we’re finding (as weexpected) that we don’t have nearly enough time tomorrow (our last dayin Khwisero) to do everything we’d like to do. Joe and I did manage tomake time to have Nellie, Jackson’s wife, teach us how to cook, but wehad to give up plans to buy and slaughter a goat for a final meal.

The following few posts will be things I sketched out on paper in freemoments, but haven’t had the chance to type until now. Hopefully thesomewhat backward chronology isn’t too confusing.

Keshterre Bosei (Good afternoon to all),

Eric

A Tough Day, 1/5/10

I had one of my more frustrating days in Kenya today, or rather, thisafternoon. Things started out well enough, with a series of positive(if not particularly interesting) meetings with assorted localgovernment officials. However, things took a definite downhill swingafter we arrived at Emwaniro Primary School for what we thought wasgoing to be a meeting with the committee that would be overseeing theproject.

Unfortunately, for nearly two hours, almost no one showed up. Themeeting had been scheduled for 1 p.m., but, about 3 p.m., we foundourselves sitting around waiting for the remaining two-thirds of thecommittee, at which point we decided to start as best we could.

To make things worse, my communication skills seemed to be on hiatus,as well. As I tried to communicate our plans for deciding where tobuild water distribution points along the pipeline route, it seemedlike I wasn’t getting anything in response except blank stares fromthe community members. I tried asking Jackson to explain things inSwahili and resorted to drawing a picture on a chalkboard in anattempt to clarify things, but seemed to have no luck.

I eventually gave up and tried to move on to another topic, workingwith Matt to facilitate a discussion about the committee’s structure,but that didn’t go much better as we found ourselves effectivelygiving a presentation instead. Eventually, it became clear that thingsweren’t getting across because the group we were talking to didn’tconsider itself the project’s management committee so much as itthought of itself as the precursor whose job it was to form themanagement committee.

At that point, it started to rain and the racket of droplets on theroom’s tin roof effectively ended the meeting. Without too muchregret, we agreed to try again after a community listening sessionlater in the week.

Sorry about how downbeat this post is. It certainly isn’t the mostexciting thing I’ve ever written, but the truth of the matter is thatdays like today are part of the reality of development work (if not anyhuman undertaking). The challenges we’re facing in Khwisero are veryreal, from communications barriers to days when our project simplyisn’t the most important thing going on in the lives of the peoplewe’re working with (as it wasn’t today—most of the school headteachers were off at another meeting talking about the results ofKenya’s national tests).

I’d be lying to say I’m not frustrated this evening, but I’ve come tothe conclusion that all I can do is ask myself what I’ve learned (tospeak slowly and use simple ideas when I’m trying to talk across alanguage barrier, for one thing) and get up and try again tomorrow.

One bad day certainly isn’t enough to derail the project and we’ve hadenough good ones in the past couple weeks that we are certainly doingbetter than we could be. But still, today wasn’t much fun.
Eric

MEMU is Founded, 1/8/10

It’s official: we’ve managed to facilitate the formation of the MEMUWater Pipeline Project Committee, the group of community members thatwill oversee the construction and, if all goes well, operation of thedistribution system. (If you’re curious, MEMU is short for Mundeku,Ematsasa and Mulwanda, the three sub-locations whose residents arecovered by the project. We swear we had nothing to do with how funnyit sounds; the decision was left entirely to the committee).

This is a huge step forward for us, since the committee will need tocarry out much of the preparatory work for next summer’s constructionwhile our American team returns to Bozeman to take our spring semesterclasses. Specifically, they’ll need to acquire grant money from theKenyan government and select a contractor for the project (with thehelp of whatever guidance we can provide from the US).

In some ways, that’s a lot of responsibility to hand members of anAfrican community (as it would be for members of any Americancommunity, for that matter), but we’ve come to the conclusion it’snecessary, since community responsibility is quite possibly ourproject’s most important value.

Khwisero is quite literally littered with the remnants of failed waterprojects—crumbling ferrocement tanks, exposed, broken pipes, rustingwater kiosks, some on the other side of the road from where we plan toplace our own project. At a recent listening session, a communitymember even asked us why he should bother to hope our projectsucceeds, since he’s served on committees for so many projects thathave collapsed.

Jackson (our local coordinator, and himself a community leader)responded before I could. He explained that the common factor in pastfailures was poor leadership, ranging from apathy to downrightcorruption—things that we can avoid if we can manage to properlyengage the community and do our job right creating a managementcommittee.

As usual, Jackson, is dead right, I think. He’s a local farmer whoseformal education consists of local secondary school and a handful oftraining seminars put on by assorted NGOs (he’s also worked on severalprojects before taking on a key role in EWB-MSU’s efforts). In hisanswer, he underscores a pair of fundamental truths about our project:

First, in relative terms, building a pipeline is easy. Creating thecommunity management structure to make it last isn’t. I’ve certainlyspent a lot of time over this trip (and the months leading up to it)worrying about the nuts and bolts of the project—everything fromsurveying to my woefully inadequate understanding of hydraulics—but,when it comes down to it, the community organizing is where our mostimportant work lies. To repeat one of EWB –MSU’s organizationalclichés: this is a social project with technical aspects.

As an engineering student who finds nuts and bolts (and GPS units)fascinating for their own sake, it’s oftentimes easy to forget thattruth. And, to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least some ofthe groups that came in here before us did.

Second, the knowledge and leadership ability to make this project doesexist in this community—Jackson is just one example. The stereotypicalpoor, uneducated African farmer stereotype really doesn’t apply hereat all, and I’m finding that very often the people we’re working withare much better than I am at understanding what needs to be done anddoing it. At community meetings, I’m finding that the more I shut upand let Jackson talk, the better things seem to go.It’s those realizations that give me hope that this project really ispossible. We—EWB-MSU and our local partners—certainly have our workcut out for us. Nonetheless, I’m starting to believe we can reallymake this project happen.

Eric

Matt

2010-01-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Long-walks in Kenya result in seemingly inordinate amounts of time for reflection. On one such six-kilometer walk back to the compound I thought about the relationship that I have with the Inyundos, a retired Kenyan man and British woman who have lived in Kenya for decades, which I met last summer when I was in Khwisero.

I haven’t had much in the way of extended family growing as my closest family consists of: mom, dad, my little brother, my grandpa and uncle. To make matters worse, I haven’t really found a “home” as we moved away from my parent’s hometown, Lincoln, NE, when I was six-years old. We lived in Mukilteo, WA for three years, a small ferry town on the coast of Puget Sound and then we moved to Denver, CO, and lived in a suburban hell about seven years. After spending the rest of elementary school and middle school in Denver I saw myself attending Arapahoe High School in Denver and then, (ironically enough) Montana State University, as a family friend had attended MSU and my biggest love at the time was snowboarding.

Several weeks before high-school was to start I found out we were moving to Helena, MT, which was a little different from the suburban Denver that I had gotten comfortable in. So, we get to Montana a week before High-School starts, providing no time for adjustment, but rather an exponentially increased anxiety for me, as you can only imagine any freshman feeling, but picture a city kid fitting in with what he initially perceived as being Hickville, USA. I eventually began to feel at home as I tried out for the football team (a sport I had never played before) and discovered that fly-fishing was closer than ever before.

Now as I’m walking down a relatively foreign dirt road to visit this relatively foreign couple I find myself feeling a relatively foreign sense of belonging. I’m the only white person to be seen and I don’t speak much Swahili or Luhya but the hospitality would attract any foreigner.

When I arrive at the Inyundos I’m greeted by Evans, on of the young-Kenyans they employ to run their small farm. Jill is sitting on the porch and is eager to criticize my tardiness. Jill is not so kindly referred to as “abulunga,” which means “cruel” in Luhya. Jill is harsh, which is why I like her so much. She is inescapably British, as the grey haired, 5’5” 72 year-old often prefers mincemeat over Ugali, a local Kenyan dish. Yet she has been in Kenya for over forty-years and has a masters degree in Anthropology from London University (where she met her husband Weboko); she understands the roots and current Kenyan culture better than many Kenyans and speaks fluent Swahili, but no Luhya, out of respect for the community. After explaining why the “tea party” movement in American is illogical, the differences in British and American healthcare and the merits of Montesorri education, I spend the rest of the day discussing the complexities of the work we are doing on the ground here in Khwisero.

Jill is a wealth of knowledge as she has seen innumerable aid projects come and go, including one of her own. Jill and Weboko started the Khwisero Water Development Project (KWDP) after two healthy young boys died of dysentery after drinking from one of the local springs in 1996. After protecting many springs in the area (a method that mitigates erosion and contamination) and promoting various development projects over the years, the Inyundos and their KWDP staff now just manage a small demonstration farm that includes hybrid-dairy, diverse crops as well as tree and fish farming.

What Jill and I really discuss is the need for community buy-in and ownership of a project in order to ensure its sustainability. Earlier in the trip, Hillary and I were discussing a Western example of this community buy-in that we face. If a student pays for her schooling or another works for his money, she is more likely to study harder and he will most likely have a higher value for what he earns than someone that is given the same thing. What is necessary in aid projects like ours is for a group like EWB-MSU to come in and essentially subsidize the cost of development but not to just hand something out. We want the community to own the project and know that we are working with them in order to secure a healthier future for their children.

Jill went off to make me lunch (left-overs) so Weboko and I chatted about the nature of African Polygamy, which he saw as another social epidemic. African leaders like Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, just married his fifth wife, and is telling Africans that polygamy is traditional, tribal culture and as a result, most African men have several wives yet are incapable of supporting the large family that inevitably results. Weboko is about 5’10” and has broad shoulders, very skinny legs and a white beard. He was a professor of Economics at Kenyatta University in Nairobi before he moved back home to Khwisero with Jill, who taught high-school in Nairobi.

What I find in this couple is a sense of family that I never had growing up. I had a small close family, but what I am finding with my time in Kenya is that I am almost subconsciously ending up with family members through my studies and travel in Bozeman and Khwisero, two places that are very literally worlds apart, yet home for me. George Metcalfe and Deb Wahlberg, a couple in Bozeman has taken me in, in an identical fashion, as I met them through EWB, and they have assisted in preparing me for my work in Kenya as both have extensive experience after being involved in African Aid for decades. I consider them and the Inyundos as close as I consider my family, which it apparently takes a walk down a long Kenyan dirt road to realize.

A Day at the Driller

2010-01-09T16:49:00.000-08:00

Jackson accompanied Eric and me to Kakamega to meet with Mohammed Ali of Haikal Investments, the drilling company we have been working with since 2008. He welcomed us into his office and asked if we would like a soda. Eric and I both declined, not being sure exactly what we would be agreeing to if we accepted. Mohammed smiled at us and explained that to turn down the soda would be considered rude. Understanding that the soda was a gesture of welcoming, we gladly accepted.

As we sipped our sodas, Mohammed walked us through all the specifics of the borehole and the test pumping procedures he used in gauging the potential of the well. The procedures seemed very similar to those that had been recommended by drillers in the Bozeman area. He made a copy of the report that detailed the methods and results from the well test which should provide sufficient information for our team in Bozeman to design the proposed pipeline. Knowing the details for the well and the application we were hoping for, Mohammed was able to recommend a suitable submersible pump for our project.

He was easy to communicate with and we discussed the project for about an hour. We were pleased to find that his firm has experience with everything from boreholes to the implementation of a distribution pipeline. We discussed the importance of community buy in and he is willing to work with the community if his bid is accepted for the project. We explained that we are planning to work on the pipeline design as a group, in MT, and he is willing to work with us and remain in contact via email as we work toward a final design. Overall, we were very pleased with the outcome of the meeting and are looking forward to engaging him in our future projects.

-Hilary

Under the African Sun: Surveying and Politics

2010-01-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

Our team spent the day dispersed somewhere between Emwaniro Primary School and Mundeku Primary School along the proposed course of our pipeline project, approximately 1.5km. What was unique about the workday was the leadership. We set-up our GPS equipment and met with our Kenyan partners: Mr. Lanya, the retired water expert from our Kenyan Board, stepped up and directed our team, the ligurus (village elders) and the various community and committee members as to how we wanted to survey the route. Lanya, Caleb, the Emwaniro Water-User Committee Chairman; Wycliffe, the Mundeku Primary School Management Committee Chairman; Amos, a local youth; myself and Eric went ahead of Hillary and Joe and staked out the pipeline route while discussing the complexities of the route from a social and technical standpoint. We met the assistant-chief, a short jolly man named Willie, who is the head of one of the governmental sub-locations that our pipeline will crisscross. Overall, our planned pipeline will begin in the Emutsasa Sub-Location, continue to cross the road, which is a political boundary, to serve Mundeku Primary School, which is in the Mulwanda Sub-Location. The third phase will serve Namasoli Primary School and Health Clinic, which are located in the Mundeku Sub-Location.

Now for a bit of a political science lesson, to the best of our knowledge, the assistant-chief is similar to a small-town mayor and is an official in the civic services division of the executive branch of the government. The civic service structure is incredibly complex as Kenya is divided first into provinces, while each province is headed by a Provincial Commissioner; Khwisero is in the Western Province. Each province is divided into districts, Khwisero is one of twenty-seven in Western Province, and is overseen by a District Commissioner. The Khwisero District is divided into two divisions, Kisa East and Kisa West. Each division has a Division Officer and each division is cut up into locations, which have a chief, and then sub-locations, where our friend Willie comes in, he is in charge of the Emutsasa Sub-Location.

We recognize that we have to engage politicians from Willie on up to the District Commissioner in order to generate appropriate support. We have scheduled meetings with most of the officials that will be associated with our projects and it is incredibly fascinating to learn about the governmental structure in the area, especially what works well and what doesn’t.

After the surveying we all relaxed and enjoyed a soda under one of the “umbrella” trees in the Emwaniro School yard and discussed how the management committee should be structured, waited patiently for results of the survey and were in awe of the GPS technology that the university loaned us. This day went precisely how we wanted it to, we were following the lead of the community members, they were ahead of us along the route, staking and discussing the pipeline with the landowners. We scheduled two barazas, essentially community meetings, and the committee and government officials are organizing it. Ultimately we want this project to be in the hands of the community, more and more it appears that we’re seeing our goal materialize before us.

After surveying the other day, our team remained at Emwaniro Primary School and leeched some electricity while meeting various community members who have been coming by the school to see the annual test results from the past year. One would be making a profoundly understated observation by saying that education is important in Kenya. Families will live in the slums of Nairobi so they can afford to education their children and annual standardized tests are the one measure of how a school and its students perform versus every other school in the country. Douglas, an Emwaniro student who helped us on our hand-washing stations and I played football with last visit, scored the top in the school with a score of 387. The next highest student scored nearly 50 points lower than Douglas whose mother just came by, recognized me, and told me how excited Douglas was after working with us last summer and how proud she was of her son.

The impact we have on the kids at these schools by just talking with them, taking their pictures or running beside them in a football game is far more profound than we can comprehend. Phelisters, one of the ladies that cooked for us on our last trip came by to visit our team and told us how nearly all of the twenty children who we played football daily with last August were asking about us every time they saw her.

Last summer I found myself in front of the equivalent of an 8th grade honors class after ducking out of a school tour. The student apparently didn’t feel comfortable asking questions about America in front of their head-teacher so I snuck away from our school tour and spent the better part of an hour answering political queries from the student body. What struck me was how incredibly advanced the students were, they didn’t just ask about what I thought about Obama, but rather what “the implications of globalization would be on the U.S. economy.” Or what the U.S. Secretary State Clinton was up to that day in Nairobi or how U.S. environmental policy was different from Kenya’s. I was astounded, but went through the process of legislation in the U.S. Senate and House of Reps, how Obama loaded his cabinet, etc. Eventually the head-teacher found me and made me attend the meeting that we had come to the school for in the first place, where everyone was patiently waiting for me.

You’ll never guess where you’ll find yourself when you just take up chance encounters. A year ago I never thought I would ever visit Africa, now I’ve spent nearly two months of 2009 in Kenya and have begun 2010 in a mud-hut in the middle of Sub-Saharan Africa; and, after needing only brief reflection, I couldn’t be happier.

-Matt

We Are Students

2010-01-01T11:31:00.001-08:00

During the course of a community meeting the other day, I found myself sitting at a table with Jackson and several middle-aged Kenyan men, surrounded by an audience of 20-odd community members, my other teammates, and a couple of members from our regional management board.

The utter absurdity of the situation hit me as I rambled through a list of points explaining our plans and expectations for the coming months. There I was, a 20-year-old college student with three semesters of a civil engineering degree under his belt, being taken seriously as a technical consultant by an African community. In that context, the fact that I was outlining a project that could change several thousand lives seemed almost inconsequential.

The only thing crazier than that, I think, is that our team in Kenya and organization back home really does have the talent and resources to make this happen. Sure, this project is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars before we’re through, but we can raise the money (and a grant we’re in the process of securing from the Kenyan Government is certainly going to help). Sure, we don’t yet know nearly enough about how to design and build our system, but we can find people in both Bozeman and Kenya who do. Sure, we’re not entirely sure how well the often-competitive schools will be able to put aside their differences and work together to manage the project, but we’ve got some of the most talented people I’ve ever met—Kenyan and American—working to make this socially sustainable.

And, most importantly, after giving it our best shot, we’ll be coming back to Khwisero in the coming years to fix our mistakes, and build on our successes.

And that, I think, is the essence of what we’re doing here in this wonderful place that’s starting to feel like a home. It’s that attitude and approach that’s let a group of college students from a school in Montana change a small part of the world over the past several years, and that perspective that will take us toward whatever success we, and the Khwisero community, will bring to our future.

Eric

The Cow Analogy: Eric

2010-01-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, we held our first meeting with the committee that will ultimately be responsible for the pipeline’s operation and maintenance. Perhaps our most important task this trip is to spend enough time working with the group to empower them, since it will ultimately be their management skills that make the project a success or failure.

Laying a foundation for community members from different schools and tribal divisions to work together to oversee the project may well prove to be the most challenging task we’ve undertaken in Khwisero. Fortunately, yesterday’s meeting was the best start we could have hoped for, I think.

In order to explain the need for community support for the pipeline, we’re attempting to use what we’re calling the “cow analogy,” where we explain that, like a cow, the pipeline will need to be taken care of by being maintained and ‘fed’ electricity for the pump if it’s going to provide water to the community.

We did our best to make clear that the committee must demonstrate to us that it’s capable of taking care of the project before we can justify spending the money to build it. We’re hoping to create a sense that the community must work to earn the project so that it has a stake in maintaining it in the years to come.

As best I can tell, we’re on track to make that happen. The committee was more receptive than we expected to a request that they organize the community to excavate trenching for the pipeline, and seemed to understand our concern over the need for buy-in.

A couple of people even repeated the cow analogy, which made my day.

Eric

Photo Update: Eric

2009-12-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Eric, the fearless leader/project manager-extraordinaire, hard at work:

Management and Mutatus: Joe

2009-12-28T14:38:00.000-08:00

A mutatu ride can be a harrowing experience.

The team caught a Mutatu (passenger van) to Kisumu this morning. In the US, 12 passenger vans aren't exactly comfortable, but Kenyans have made the long, uncomfortable car trip an art. Mutatu drivers must have some engineering training to so efficiently cram such a mass of humanity into such a small space. As for comfort...let's just say the guys hanging out the door had it made.

Still, you can't complain when you take the time to look out the window. Kenya is gorgeous. Looking out over Lake Victoria, watching banana trees zip by, and seeing locals go about ther daily lives is the experience of a lifetime.

Today we are in Kisumu to price out materials for the pipeline we are constructing in Khwisero. Tomorrow we have our first meeting with the local Distribution Pipeline Committee, a group of leaders in the are of the pipeline that will be vital to the success of our project.Talking with Jackson (our incredibly talented, incredibly smart Kenyan Team coordinator) we affirmed to ourselves how much work we have left to do. By the end of this trip we need this committee to be able to organize community support and create a managment structure for the most complicated project EWB has ever attempted. We want the community to take ownership of the project, and we had hoped that they would demonstrate their support by trenching for the pipeline before we return next summer. According to Jackson, that might be optimistic.

One issue with foriegn development is that the Kenyans know we want to do the project. They expect, from past experience, that foriegn aid is free, with few strings attached, and though we might talk tough, in the end we will complete the project regardless of whether the community has contributed. Our goal is to guide the community to truly care about the pipeline. We want a system that will be maintained and is capable of operating for years to come, so we have to put in the time on the social end of this complicated endeavor to make sure it lasts.

In tomorrows meeting we are going to try to guide our Kenyan counterparts to create a committee that can get the community excited, and we are going to ask them to come up with some way that the community can prove to us before next summer that they are ready to build and maintain the pipeline. It might be trenching, it might be another sort of community contribution, but we are sure it is necessary for this project to succed long term.

If I've learned anything so far this trip, I've found that it is easy to underestimate Kenyans. There is so much talent here, there is so much hope, and with a sliver of luck, conditions in Khwisero are going to keep improving at a faster and faster pace. Personally, I think its an incredible thing to be a part of, and I can't wait for tomorrow.

-Joe

2009-12-28T14:33:00.000-08:00

Before writing this I always regretted not getting the macbook pro as it had the backlit keyboard feature that would be ideal for Kenyan nights, a kerosene lantern though is quite a bit cheaper and works equally as well. After a few slow days in Khwisero due to holidays, weddings and rain I was finally able to get more than a few kilometers away. I went to visit an acquaintance from last trip named Jill Inyundo. Jill is an odd sort, who we first met while I was walking down the dirt road from Emwaniro Primary, one of the schools that had received a borehole. After being in rural Western Kenya for two weeks you become pretty accustomed to being gawked at as you’re the only white person that some people have seen before, and if they have seen a white person that person was rarely seen walking. As I was nearing my turn off I notice a grey-haired seventy-year-old white British woman driving a small SUV my way. This was Jill. We were forewarned of her before we left, but none of us had met her. She invited us to her house, lectured us for hours on everything from international aid to local politics to religion. We learned a lot and I kept stopping back to visit her and her Kenyan husband, Weboko, who sports trousers nearly up to his armpits and a salt & pepper beard. The couple had met as students at London University and then married and moved to Nairobi where Boko was an economist and Jill was an English teacher. They had two boys, with whom I have been corresponding via email over the past months. They both live in the UK and are deeply involved with African aid projects directed out of Britain. I met one of them, Boko, the youngest, his wife Sarah and his two children, Abbey and Moses, for the first time. Sarah is Ethiopian and moved to the UK, I believe, at a young age and attended Birmingham University where she met Boko. Abbey, age four, was cruising around the house in a pink tutu and Moses, at 14 months, was toddling and drooling about. Boko and I were able to chat for several hours about the nature of foreign aid, local issues, and some of the projects that we have planned, one of which is a fellowship program. We are looking to get more young Kenyans involved with our project as we recognize that, despite our lack of fiscal resources, we have vast technical and social networking resources that would be incredibly valuable to any youth who is willing to work as hard as our current Project Coordinator Jackson. During our listening sessions last summer Jackson and I were faced with questions about the discouraging community issue of unemployment and it’s subsequent effects on the youth of the area who turned to crime or drugs without anything better to do. We promoted the idea of apprenticeships as something of an immaterial value that could be given to the youth when finances were scarce, essentially providing an advantage to leverage in ascertaining that rare “good job,” while at the same time catalyzing local involvement. Boko, a marketing executive had some helpful recommendations and we plan to have a process in place by our departure. A rather busy day, I’m sun burnt for the first time in a long-time and am going to finish my tea then retire under a bed-net. Qwahara Mano.

-M

A Wet Christmas: Eric

2009-12-24T18:10:00.000-08:00

We woke up this morning, Christmas Eve, to a thunderstorm and pouring rain (see the poor quality photos). At one point, someone joked that we've ended up with a wet christmas instead of a white one.

Since Maurice assured us yesterday that December is a dry season in Khwisero, it came as a bit of a surprise (when we teased him about his prediction this afternoon, he explained that one of the local tribes is able to control the rain).

In any case, it sounds like the change in weather is an early Christmas present for the local farmers, who've been hard hit by a drought for the past several months.

It was less fortunate for us, since it coated the local roads in two inches of mud. Jackson had set up a meeting with our local management board this morning, but the roads' condition forced us to push it back a couple hours to give all the board members a chance to navigate them.
The meeting itself, however, turned out to be more than worth the wait. I was absolutely amazed at how willing the board members were to sacrifice several hours of their Christmas Eve to discuss our project's status and our plans for the next several weeks.

I'd like to elaborate a bit more, but I'm once again in the process of nodding off at the keyboard--the Kenyan tea Nellie (Jackson's wife) served with dinner tends to put me to sleep, I think. Either that or it was the ugali (a cornmeal-mash dish that's the staple dish here).

Regardless--Feliz Navidad,

Eric

Team Member Check-In: Hilary

2009-12-24T18:02:00.000-08:00

As we’ve officially arrived in Khwisero, I feel as though it’s probably time for me to check in. My three other teammates have already written a blurb, so I decided, true to “Kenyan time,” it is probably my turn. I am Hilary Fabich, originally from Livingston, MT and I currently reside in Bozeman. I am working on my degree in Chemical Engineering. As much as I love Bozeman winters, I chose to spend my Christmas in Khwisero to help prepare for the EWB summer 2010 implementation trip.

After our four days of travel, we have officially arrived in Khwisero. I am sitting with the team at our hut on Jackson’s compound, which is complete with mud walls, a grass roof, multiple chickens, and several cows.

This morning, at 5:30AM, we went down to the lobby of our hotel, the Buruburu Wab Hotel, to meet the bus. It arrived at 6:30. Maurice (part of the EWB-Kenya team) and his two year old son accompanied us on the journey to Khwisero. I sat next to him and he kept explaining that our bus was the nicest in Nairobi. It was definitely far more comfortable than the other options, by which I mean almost everyone had a seat, some of the seats reclined (some wouldn’t stay upright), the bus sounded as though it was missing a muffler, and every time we hit a speed bump the bus swayed as though there was not much keeping it upright. After eight hours we stopped in Luanda and boarded a Matatu (see picture). There were 14 seats, and our group of five (not including Maurice’s son as he spend the whole time in Maurice’s lap) filled the last of the designated seats. We remained stationary as five more people boarded the Matatu. It was a bit crowded but oddly comfortable. We drove for about 30 minutes before stopping to pick up another group of four and the chicken they had just bought at the market. This totaled to 23 people and one chicken (which Matt was lucky enough to hold). Two men were standing half way out the door of the van as we drove along the streets of Khwisero. After another 30 minutes, the van stopped and the EWB group climbed out and walked the short distance to Jackson and Nelli’s (members of the EWB-Kenya team) compound. They were very welcoming. We were served biscuits and juice while we discussed the state of our project with Jackson. We headed back to our hut to unpack and settle in. Around 8:30 we were called for a delicious dinner where we were served beef, chicken, ugali, chipati, cabbage, and finally some delicious Kenyan tea!

After dinner we all took a turn using the new latrine, washed with the warm water Nelli graciously supplied, and the four of us are now sitting around a table with a kerosene lantern planning for tomorrow. It is 10:30PM so we’re going to succumb to the darkness and head off to our beds!

-Hilary

Team Member Check in: Joe Thiel

2009-12-23T22:55:00.000-08:00

Greetings Everyone! Habari! Night is falling here in Nairobi. I’m sitting in the hotel, looking out over one of Africa’s largest cities, listening to music from the street as I contemplate the month ahead. It’s incredible; it hasn’t quite sunk in. At 5:30 tomorrow we catch a bus to Khwisero and our work truly begins. I can’t tell you how exciting that is. Over the past year I’ve learned so much about the district and our work there. I’ve ran fundraisers, attended meetings, given presentations and met some of the most talented people I know while working for our project in Khwisero, but to actually see it, to interact with the community first hand, to experience all of these things we have talked about is going to be incredible. I can’t wait.The best thing about our project, I think, is the connections we make both in Kenya and in Bozeman. Dozens (dozens!) of people helped me and the team to prepare for this trip. We had survey training, concrete training and social training. EWB members from Otto Stein, our advisor, to brand new freshmen spent hundreds of hours in meetings for this trip. Because of the incredible work of everyone in Bozeman I’m confident we can do great things in Khwisero this trip. It’s humbling really. I’m a sophomore in Chemical Engineering and Liberal Studies. I’m a young, poor college student, and I’m part of an organization made up of mainly young, poor college students, yet together we’ve been able to do some amazing things. With the Khwisero community we have brought clean water to thousands of children, a simple act which creates ripple effects throughout the entire community, creating a catalyst that can advance the whole society.This planned distribution pipeline will be EWB-MSU’s greatest challenge thus far. It carries with it incredible social challenges and greater technical complexities than we have faced in the past. EWB always says that we learn far more from our mistakes than our successes, and there will likely be many learning opportunities on this trip, yet the quality of the team I am traveling with, the incredible support we have received from the Bozeman community, and the hard work of every member of EWB-MSU is a testament to the power of people working together towards a worthy goal. I am honored to be on this trip, and I am confident of its success.

-Joe

Eric: Landing in Nairobi

2009-12-23T22:53:00.000-08:00

As I write this, we're recovering from meeting our trip's first unexpected challenge: navigating the international air travel system after the winter storm Matt mentioned below threw a wrench in our itinerary. As a result, we've arrived at Nairobi a day later than we'd originally planned, after spending a night in Chicago, 20 hours in London, and more time than I'd like to count in assorted airports and aircraft.

Needless to say, we're thoroughly exhausted at this point--I don't think any of us got more than 15 cumulative hours of sleep between leaving Billings and landing this morning. This afternoon, I sat down on my hotel room bed to do a bit of reading and woke up four hours later, only to discover everyone else on the team had done the same thing.

After taking a cab from the airport this morning, we met with Maurice, one of our Kenyan team members. He'll be accompanying us to Khwisero tomorrow, and somehow managed to arrange bus tickets for us even after we had to drop our original reservations due to our delay (much of Nairobi's workforce consists of people who've come to the city to find jobs so they can send money back to their families in rural areas, so finding transportation to the countryside as everyone travels home for the holidays is difficult).

At Maurice's suggestion, we're staying at the Wab hotel, part of the Buruburu shopping center on the outskirts of Nairobi. It's an interesting neighborhood, to say the least. As I'm writing this about 8:30 in the evening, we're being serenaded by something that sounds like a combination of karaoke night at the local bar and car alarms, though it may very well be someone blasting the latest Kenyan pop hit.

Fortunately, I'm exhausted enough this evening I don't think it's going to bother me. Actually, I'm starting to nod off as I write this, so I should probably quit before I get even more incoherent than I already am.

Mulembe (I'm pretty sure that's "peace" in Luhya),

Eric

Matt: Over the Atlantic

2009-12-22T22:49:00.000-08:00

Well, first blog on the “road” and its origin is mid-Atlantic, written on a London bound Mac-Book. Our debacle began the morning of Saturday the 19th at 3AM when we arrived at Billings Intl. Airport, only to find that Billings was more functional as an international hub (it’s not) than our intended hubs of New York LaGuardia and Kennedy.

When we arrived at the airport, we discovered that the entire Eastern seaboard had been shutdown due to a blizzard that the NY Times designated as one of the Top 10 storms that Washington DC and the like have ever experienced. Nonetheless, in a remarkable display of diligence, two United Agents worked with us for an incredible four hours to reroute our journey in order to put us into Nairobi in a reasonable time frame (within 3 days of leaving Montana).

We caught a flight to Denver, then Chicago, to find that our London flight that evening was overbooked, so, along with thousands of other stranded travelers, we searched for a hotel, found one and were asleep by midnight.

Now, twelve hours later, we are cruising at 640mph, 33,016 ft. over the Atlantic nearing Greenland while a five year old in front of me is irrationally disturbed over having to sit in his seat rather than dance in his seat. We will arrive in London at 11:30PM GMT and will leave for Nairobi at 7:00PM GMT the next day. In the downtime, we have found a hotel that is literally on top of London’s Charing Cross tube station, two blocks from Trafalgar Square and a block from the River Themes. We’ll have the better part of a day to play tourist before we’re off to warmer equatorial climates.

-M

Matt: Our Project's Background

2009-12-22T22:29:00.000-08:00

While I have the time, I’d like to expand a bit on the project in Khwisero from the two points of view that I can: philosophical and business oriented. Kenya is home to a myriad of international aid projects, and I apply that term conservatively, as Nairobi’s Kibera Slum, Africa’s largest, arguably has better access (geographically as Kibera is incredibly dense and financially due to subsidization) to foreign and domestically provided services like medical care, piped water, food, job-training, etc; than most other parts of Africa.

All across Kenya, thousands of well-intentioned groups, from all over the world, have tried to assist Kenyans out of a perpetual cycle of relative and absolute poverty, and have failed. Alternatively, many have been successful, and the single commonality shared between successful initiatives has been long-term sustainability through Kenyan ownership and autonomy. In recognition of this end goal, EWB at MSU has been delicately yet deliberately searching for the means to reach this goal.

In 2003, a soft-spoken Kenyan architect, now a virtual Bozeman celebrity, named Ronald Omyonga wrote to the national Engineers Without Borders (EWB-USA) headquarters describing the need for improvement in the rural division of the Western Province of Kenya, named Khwisero, which he called home.

Ronald wrote because the primary plight of Khwisero was one of perpetual poverty; where the economy is largely agrarian in nature and is defined by a non-existent margin of growth where families are subsisting on their small plots of land (usually .5-4 acres) with little opportunity for growth. Western Province, where Khwisero is located, has the highest incidence of poverty in the country where 65-78+ percent of the population falls below the rural poverty line and HIV/AIDS is found at twice the national average where approximately 15.4 percent of the population is HIV positive.

Ronald wanted EWB to bring clean water and sanitation to the 58 primary schools of Khwisero; he recognized that long-term change comes from the youth, and by putting clean water access directly at the schools, students, almost always female ones, wouldn’t have to miss an inordinate amount of class time every day as they fetched water, thus avoiding the risk of unfairly putting them behind their male counterparts.

The existing water sources are sparsely located springs that are nearly all contaminated by human and animal waste; where contamination can lead to missed school, long periods of declined health and death in many cases for young children and the elderly in the area. By assisting the students and community members of Khwisero meet basic needs, in theory, they would be able to begin to fulfill other necessities for progression, including an enhanced education.

We initially identified the local schools as being not only the point of contact for our project efforts to very literally meet the ground, but we recognized these schools as being the hubs of the local community, where everyone, in some way was connected to the schools. Utilizing existing infrastructure and tapping into the school’s management capacity, which is one the most advanced in the community, we learned that these schools held enormous potential for long-term sustainability.

Each school that houses a well has been tasked with forming a management committee, comprised of school officials, teachers and community members, in order to assist in planning, implementation and operation of EWB initiated projects, which now depart from solely deep water wells, to include composting and bio-gas latrines, that provide an alternative to traditional pit latrines which contaminate local ground water and only last a few years in a single point, while concurrently providing value added bi-products including compost and methane cooking gas, respectively.

In addition to these income-generating aspects of the latrines, each school has set-up (admittedly with varying degrees of success) a maintenance fund where a small, non-exclusionary fee is charged for water, which is placed in a maintenance account in order to enable the schools to fund regular maintenance, emergency repair, and expansion of the existing projects. As an example, Ikomero, a primary school that houses a borehole installed in 2008, recently built a painted security fence around the well and pump by tapping into their maintenance fund, with significant resources to spare.

This trip is focused on two goals, as stated in below posts: to assess both the technical feasibility of a water distribution pipeline that could provide up to four schools and two health dispensaries with water as well as the management capacity of the schools and our Kenyan Board of EWB in planning, implementing and operating this pipeline project in order to ensure long-term sustainability. We recognize this trip as being a crucial one, in that we are at a point where significant progress can be made in the functions and autonomy of our Kenyan Board, school committees and local partners. This project will be the largest undertaken by EWB-MSU, and probably for nearly any student led group in Kenya or anywhere else for that matter, as project phases are likely set to continue through 2012 and will require extensive community support through management, private land-owners, government officials and volunteer community members.

So as our team continues at a rate of 640mph over the Atlantic, now nearing Ireland, our tasks are laid out before us, textually in a 3-page excel document, conceptually in a magnitude that is daunting to any group, but we have made a commitment to the people of Khwisero, which is being increasingly reciprocated by extraordinary business owners, teachers and farmers from all over the community, in a way that hints at the longevity that we all, Kenyan and American, seek.

-M

Team Member Check-In: Eric, Project Manager

2009-12-13T22:29:00.001-08:00

Hello! Karibu! My name is Eric Dietrich (Or jina langu ni Eric Dietrich, to use the full extent of my rather limited Swahili). I’m a sophomore in MSU’s Civil Engineering program, originally from Portland, Ore., and the trip’s project manager.

To provide a bit of background about myself, I’ve been involved in EWB since last fall and spent a month in Khwisero as part of Team 1 this past summer. In other parts of my life, I’m a member of the campus’s swing-dancing club, involved with the University Honors Program and serve as the news editor for The Exponent, MSU’s student newspaper.

As you may have gathered from our other posts, the purpose of this trip is twofold: to collect the technical data we’ll need to create a final design for the water distribution pipeline next spring, and to also lay the social groundwork for the community’s involvement in both construction next summer and the system’s long-term operation and maintenance.

Neither of those tasks will be easy. We’ll spend the next month working in a foreign culture where things as simple as holding a conversation or catching a bus become challenging. Our to-do list ranges from meeting with government officials to surveying the proposed route to facilitating community listening sessions. And, furthermore, we’ll be operating on what our past travel teams like to call “Kenya time,” where everything we set out to do in Khwisero takes twice as long as planned.

Regardless, I have every confidence our team of four will rise to the occasion. My three team members are easily among the most talented students on campus, and the combination of skills I have the pleasure of traveling to Africa alongside is nothing short of amazing.

That isn’t too say we won’t have our rough moments, of course; much of what we’re setting out to do is to learn from our inevitable mistakes. Over the course of our project’s history, the most important lesson we’ve learned is to approach our task with a sense of humility, and we plan to continue that tradition.

Before I sign off, I should take the time to recognize the extraordinary effort that my fellow EWB members have put into making this trip possible. This fall alone, our 50-odd members have quite literally put thousands of hours into our project—as we’ve prepared to travel, our peers have supported us almost every way imaginable, from simply attending planning meetings to sacrificing a Friday evening to fundraise by running a coat check and valet parking for an event at the SUB.

Without that dedication, we wouldn’t be headed to Kenya this Christmas. And, without similar dedication over the past five years, our student-run organization wouldn’t be in a position where we could even consider attempting a project as complex as the distribution pipeline will be.

So, my heartfelt thanks to those fellow EWBers who are reading this from back home, and those of you in the greater Bozeman community who have supported us with your donations and wisdom. You make this possible.

And, to those of you who aren’t (yet) involved in our effort—my thanks for taking the time to follow it. We’ll do our best to make it worth seeing through to the end.

Asante sana,
Eric

Team Member Check-In: Matt

2009-12-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

My name is Matt Smith, I am a Helena High School graduate and am in my fourth year at MSU with majors in Business Management and Philosophy. As many people point out right away, "That's an interesting mix! What do you do with EWB?" Well, I traveled last summer with EWB in order to research the socio-economic and political systems in Khwisero, Kenya and search for basic poverty alleviation interventions that could be associated with our existing water and sanitation projects. I have been an active student at MSU for the past several years and have been fortunate enough to work with local, state and federal policy as well as organizations ranging from student clubs, to large public and small private entities.

This trip we are going to focus on the social mechanisms in order to ensure project sustainability by working to build the capacity of our Kenyan Board of Directors and conglomerated Pipeline Management Committee. Additionally, we will connect and empower local landowners, of which the pipeline will directly affect, with the local politicians and government officials. We will engage these stake-holding entities by holding small-training sessions, development meetings and large listening sessions to engage community members and all other involved parties.

Hope you follow our progress, as we have heard rumors that Khwisero just got dial-up internet access (it takes a while for gossip to get over the Atlantic), if not, we'll be posting from an internet-cafe in Kisumu , off the coast of Lake Victoria.

Thank you for your support and interest,

-M

Composting Pictures

2009-09-07T22:22:00.001-07:00

Composting Action: Ekatsombero Primary
Roofing!
Plastering!

Almost finished product.

Mwisena Primary School

Stairs!

Plastering!

Mostly finished!

Both schools took the same design and ran with it. Both incorporated their own modifications and interpretations of the designs. I let Ekat run with a slightly different roof design to give us some design options. Both fundis and schools did an awesome job and are super excited about the projects. Next up, finding water.

Pictures Galore!

2009-09-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

BioGas in action.

Latrine walls being constructed. The inner wall is for the funnel to get the waste into the dome.
See entry for waste. The pipe extends out of the walls for maintenance and cloggage removal. The pipe won't stay that long.

Funnel form work being constructed.

Site layout. 3 latrines, the expansion chamber being worked on and in the back the soak pit for excess liquid being dug.

Expansion Chamber slab has been cast. Featuring 2 manhole covers.
And then well worked on the dome lid. Still a work in progress.

More funnel construction.

Work on the soak pit.
The first funnel. Hope it makes a good poop slide.

Yeah!

Team 3 Wrapping it Up

2009-08-22T02:49:00.000-07:00

So team Green Hippo’s Kenyan adventure is beginning to wrap up and I think that all of us are going to be sad to see it come to an end. A lot has happened these past couple weeks and we have seen many projects continue to progress. We all settled into our home near Munyanza and enjoyed seeing Team 2 and Team East for a couple days before getting rolling on our work. We got the incubator working again so Amy and Kalen took water samples at a few schools and were able to test them at the house, we also did some work finishing up hand-washing stations at Emwaniro and continuing on with the composting latrines in the east. Damon and Dalen have been cranking away with the biogas latrine. Unfortunately, we won’t be here long enough to see its completion or participate in the “group poop”. At Munyanza, we’ve been looking at problems and solutions for the orange water issue, as well as working with the teachers to improve their hand washing stations. Although it would be nice to stick around and be able to see some more aspects of our work and the completion of or our projects, we have all thoroughly enjoyed our time here, eating ugali and drinking lots and lots of tea. We hope that everything continues to go smoothly as JJ continues on with the projects.

Amy, Dalen, Damon, and Kalen
Team 3
Phase IV EWBMSU

Biogas Latrine Progress

2009-08-14T08:05:00.001-07:00

The biogas latrine is nearly finished! Here is a photo timeline of its construction over the past month. Photos by Cameron.
Molly

Team 2 Update

2009-08-14T07:40:00.000-07:00

Girls from Emwaniro Primary School carrying water from the Emwaniro borehole to team 2's house.

Team 1 and 2. Left to right: Sarah, Kiera, Erich, Megan, John, Matt

Francis Ashira, Jacky, Hannah, Megan and John at the surveyor training for West.

Laura Moon

Stanley, Erin and Matt at the KWDP headquarters in Khwisero. Stanley has been running KWDP since it started. KWDP was founded by Mr. and Mrs. Iyundo, a local couple who have been living together in Khwisero since 1963. KWDP focuses on protecting springs by installing a concrete retaining wall and metal piping. Their goal is to elevate the springs and protect their water from soil erosion. Although protected springs sometimes have better water quality than unprotected springs, many of them still contain coliform bacteria.

Laura, Matt, Kiera, Cameron, Sarah and Molly cramming into a matatu, or public van, the local form of transportation.

Biogas latrine construction at Shirali P.S.

Khwisero in the early morning.

JJ and Sam, an excellent fundi from the Umande Trust in Kibera slum, standing in the bottom of the hole that was excavated for the biogas latrine. Photo by Cameron.

Team 2, 3, and East at Wallace Airo's compound near Emwaniero Primary School. Top, left to right: Kalen, Damon, Amy, Dalen, JJ, Jackson, Tom, Chris, Megan. Bottom row, left to right: Molly, Cameron, Hannah, Laura, John. Not pictured: Matt and Erin.

Jackson and Matt at a farmers' meeting. Matt is researching agrobusiness in Khwisero. One of his goals is to work with people in Khwisero to determine how EWB and locals can empower farmers and their families to live better lives via improved farming practices and increased economic development.

A school girl from Ebukuala Primary School undergoing a distance vision test at the Ebukuala Eye Clinic. EWB-MSU collaborated with EWB-Khwisero, the Khwisero Health Centre, and local volunteers to pilot an Eye Clinic at Ebukuala P.S. The Bozeman Lion's Club donated over 200 eyeglasses to the clinic, and the employees at Advanced Eyecare of Bozeman spent hours reading the lens prescriptions and fixing up the frames. For more information about this program please contact Molly Bruggeman at mbruggeman@gmail.com.

Jacky and Dr. Erich, shielding themselves from the dirt on the piki piki (motorbike) tour of Khwisero's governmental health facilities.

Ebuyonga Dance Performance

"Cows" by Cameron Chen

Hi everyone!
Team 2 is back in Bozeman, where the internet connection is fast enough that I can upload these. Enjoy!
Molly

2009-08-02T14:30:00.000-07:00

Molly:
During team two’s first week here, we researched the health care system in Khwisero. Jackson, the coordinator of EWB Khwisero, brought Dr. Erich Pessl, Jackline Amakobe, R.N., and I on a motorcycle tour of the health care facilities here. We learned that all of Khwisero’s health care facilities and patients are suffering from a lack of potable water. The old hand-dug wells that were installed by the Rotary Club of Kisumu have dried up and the cement rainwater catchment systems from Africa Now are cracking or nonfunctional. Most patients are also forced to cope with major shortages of staff, inpatient wards and essential medications, to name just a few challenges. The lack of water, though, is particularly demoralizing for the staff and compounds the patients’ ailments. For example, most expectant mothers are forced to deliver in dusty rooms, and without access to piped water and washing stations.
The next day, Erich, Jacky and I worked with staff from the Khwisero Health Centre, and Dr. Walter, an optometrist from Khushiku sublocation, on an eye clinic at Ebukuala Primary School. More accurately, they worked, and I took photos or talked with patients. Dr. Walter screened 300 patients, mostly students, in six hours. We distributed the majority of the two hundred eyeglasses that the Bozeman Lion’s Club donated to us, and Dr. Erich saw the patients who had medical eye problems, as well as other conditions. We referred the patients who needed eye surgery to the August 6th free surgical clinic at Khushiku sublocation. The eyeglasses were free for children, and we charged adults 200 ksh, approximately $2.80. With the money we made from adult glasses, we were able to pay Dr. Walter for a full day’s work. Overall, one full day of helping students and adults to address their eye problems cost EWB only $10.00. Dr. Erich left on Saturday the 25th, and ever since then I’ve been working on the proposed water distribution pipeline, and learning about other major problems that are facing people in Khwisero. In the next post, I will talk about some of those issues. Thanks for reading this!
-Molly

Matt:
As the awkward business student on team two I am conducting economic research and looking at community capacity building in the agricultural and business sectors. By conducting economic assessments through surveys, listening sessions and interviews we can better understand the sustainability of our projects by understanding a different aspect of the community of Khwisero. Additionally, we hope to research and recommend the use of cash-crops at primary schools as an income generating activity to raise money for project maintenance funds; assess the accounting and board practices at the primary schools and provide an economic report including basic recommendations of actions towards community economic issues through cooperative formation as well as technology and knowledge sharing. Additional inquiry into tribal and familial relations has opened up new perspectives into the Khwisero community and has provided explanations to issues that would normally be overlooked by outsiders.Thanks for all the support.
-M

Cameron:
Bio-gas latrine work continues and we are several layers high on the dome construction. We have brought in a specialized fundi (~engineer) from Nairobi to assist in construction and we are proceeding well. -C

Team KEO - Keeping it above 80!

2009-08-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

Hello All -

I am happy to report team east is keeping it above 80!

Tom and Chris have been working hard and the results are showing. The composting latrines are getting underway and everyone is rejoicing.

Megan had the whole team working last night to complete the final touches on the surveys and this morning they were handed out to all surveyors! Go Megan!

There are still a few bumps regarding the two wells. It would seem both schools are built on a solid slab of rock which is causing some sustainability issues with any possible aquifers that might reside on the premises. But, with our moods averaging a solid 87, we are welcoming the challenge and eagerly awaiting the next report from the surveyors.

In the mean time;

JJ knocked himself out with his own head lamp on the same day he was nearly brought to his death by a rogue driver eager to test his car's limits. But don't worry, after a good helping of Ugali and some beef liver, he is as good as new.

Chris and Tom have been humbled as they attempted to keep up with elementary school kids in a game of "football". Bare foot and half their age, the kids ran laps around the two.

Megan, with two marriage proposals in one day, decided the 10 cows, 3 goats and 10 chickens were not enough for her to leave my side. We are happily sharing one bed and with the protection of Big Bertha are sleeping like babies!

And, as for myself, I'm enjoying every minutes here. The people are amazing; always with a smile on their face and laughter in their voice. I've only has 2 babies pee on me so far which is a winning average!

A few tips for keeping it above 80!

1. Spontaneous group singing
2. A full stomach of Ugali
3. At least 2 cups of tea a night
4. Practicing Luyha with the locals
5. Bartering for bubbles with Roosters
6. The smiles on the faces of the kids!!

Keep checking in for more,

Until then,

This Hannah sitting at a 97 - signing off!!!!

Ode to KEO

2009-07-31T03:27:00.000-07:00

Thousands of miles away we go

To a place we truly don’t know

They call the five of us team East

Out of everyone we know our district the least

Hannah Megan Chris Tom

And our manager J.J. who misses his mom

Some days are long and all are fun

How many could pull us apart, the answer is none

Before our departure we did tightly pack

Nalgenes, underwear, and the thought of a Big Mac

Sun up and a cup of tea Sun down and a cup of tea

Through these days we have discovered and now see

Life is a lesson you learn it when it is through

Here in Kenya we learn most when our travels are comprised of two

The day has ended with a game of cards starting our night

Before long our liquor filled friend might be an interesting sight

This poem is now ending because I must go to bed

Early we will rise with a chicken sounding from the shed

Tom Brown
Phase IV
Team East

Murieena my friends.

2009-07-27T06:08:00.000-07:00

Just a quick check in for you.

We are currently working with 2 teams in Khwisero right now. A team in the west and a team in the east. It's been pretty crazy having so much going on in the district but really exciting at the same time. The team members are taking projects and running with them. As a whole things are progressing but we've had a few speed bumps slow us down. Part of the fun is working with the locals to find a solution that continues the project but also gives us a sustainable way forward. We have learned a ton and Laura noted there is a whole lot to do. Now and when school starts up again.

I'm still working on posting more pictures but that falls to a low priority when I'm not at a computer. I hope all is well in Bozeman.

Murieena means how are you to a group. Oriena is how are you to a single person. The typical response is Namalay, which means I am fine. The Luhya is coming along nicely and its been really fun attempting to talk to people in Luhya for 2 or 3 sentences before they go flying past our comprehension level.

Take care.

JJ Larsen
Phase IV Co-Project Manager
EWB@MSU

Team One, Signing Off

2009-07-20T01:40:00.000-07:00

As of this writing, Team One has officially wrapped up our three-week stay in Khwisero. After packing and some heartfelt goodbyes this morning, we loaded our bags onto a matatu and headed south to Kisumu, where I'm writing this now.

I think I can speak for the team by saying our stay has been nothing short of wonderful, both in terms of personal experience and what we were able to accomplish for the community. After living in close contact with chickens, cows, mosquitos and ugali for almost a month, readjusting to "civilized" American life is going to take some doing.

We spent this past weekend sharing notes with Team two, and at this point they've taken the torch to continue the work we've started. We hope that they'll have as much success as we feel like we've had.

Oreo mano--thanks so much for your continued support,

Eric Dietrich,
Phase IV, Team One

Some Words of Thanks

2009-07-17T03:51:00.000-07:00

As we were coming to Kisumu from Khwisero on our way to pick up Team 2, I began to reflect on the EWB-MSU-Khwisero Project. Maybe it is because I have just reached my half way point, or maybe I am just feeling grateful for being in such a beautiful place, for a wonderful purpose that has been progressing to a new level...I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for all the supporters of this project. It has taken a large group of very selfless people to reach the level of success we have been experiencing in Khwisero during Phase IV. That is not to say that we do not still face challenges, as I am sure this project will always face, but I see the way that community members and Primary Schools react to the EWB project, and I will say that they are with us and excited. It is now them who are driving the project, who are eager for us to continue or begin work in there area. And none of this would be possible without all of you: members of EWB-MSU who put countless hours into the project, donors who give their hard-earned money with the hope of seeing the world improve, friends and family of members who support those who are crazy enough to travel half way around the world in order to help people they have never met, and especially to the travelers, past, present and future, who immerse themselves in a different culture far out side their comfort zones to accomplish tasks with the Khwisero community that many may have seen as impossible. Good things are happening here, and I am grateful to be a small part of it.

The momentum of the project is strong. I hope that EWB members will be ready to continue their hard work...we have a lot to do. I hope that donors will be able to continue their support...the Khwisero community is ready for projects to improve the conditions of their Primary Schools. And I hope that many are looking forward to coming here in the future...the success of the project depends on it. There are 51 Primary Schools which are still waiting for our assistance. It is up to all of us to see that the project continues.

Once again, thank you for your support.

Peace

Laura Moon
EWB-MSU
Phase IV co-project manager
2009

2009-07-16T05:12:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to report that Team 2 has landed in Nairobi and are eager to get to work in Khwisero. They will be arriving Friday afternoon and spend the weekend working with Team 1 getting up to speed. Things are continuing to go well as noted in Kiera's post the other day. The picture above is the current status of the bio-gas latrine. We have dug the dome hole and the expansion chamber. Time to start constructing.

More to report next week as the work continues to ramp up with the great work from Team 1. We will start construction on the dome for the bio-gas latrine. We will receive both the second team in the west and the first ever team to stay in the east of Khwisero. The community in the east that we will be staying with is very, very excited to receive EWB and start working with them. We will be finalizing our drillers and meeting with the EWBMSU Kenyan board to discuss the best option. We have a much work still to do with the hand washing stations, the household survey of the schools, the assessment of the distribution system from Emwaniro, and many many other projects to work on.

We are busy, happy, and thoroughly enjoying Khwisero. We will end with a quick Kiluhya lesson.

Bushire - Good Morning
Keshitare - Good Afternoon
Bwakera - Good Evening

And my personal favorite:
Oliomulamu - Are you fine?
in which you reply:
Endiomulamu. Yes I am fine.

JJ Larsen
Co-Project Manager
Phase IV
0723 353 821

"It's a cultural experience" - Team I motto

2009-07-14T04:11:00.000-07:00

Mulembe EWBers,

Phase IV Team I's African summer will end soon, but before we leave Khwisero this week, I would like to share an update on our work since the last blog.

JJ, our second project manager arrived safely in Khwisero last Wednesday. We have thoroughly enjoyed his knowledge and experience this past week.

The excavation of phase I for the Shirali Primary School bio-gas latrine has been completed - about 60 cubic meters of shoveled red dirt. Laura, Eric, and the team have been hard at work on the Bio-gas Latrine calculating materials, finalizing the design and working with the school management committee. Next week, EWB will be working with a Fundi (skilled worker) for the Umande Trust to construct the bio-gas dome. Mr. Oloo has worked on these domes before and will provide valuable insight into the project.

Sarah, our Architecture student, has been working on a model of the bio-gas latrine using her impressive cardboard skills. This model will help to educate the community and aid in the construction process.

Eric, Megan, and myself have the water testing project and incubator up and running. We have been led around by many school children and guides to take about 30 samples thus far from the local springs and wells.

JJ, Eric, and myself attended a distribution pipeline meeting with a special committee composed of 4 primary schools and two health clinics. We discussed the pipeline phases and followed up on some preliminary work. The community is very excited for this project and we hope to determine all the necessary information this summer so we can implement on the next trip.

On the sanitation front, materials for six hand washing stations have been collected and will be constructed for Ebuhonga Primary School this week. We hope to expand this program to each school we've worked at to date.

Jackie Robin, her son Andrew, and his friend Sawyer visited Khwisero for a week to work with the pen pal program in the primary schools and experience rural Kenyan life. Together we celebrated the fourth of July by making "freedom fries" and singing songs with Jackson's family. Jackson is our local EWB Co-ordinator and helping us immensely.

Megan Malone, our Sociology and Anthropology student has been working on translating and finalizing the survey, and spending many hours interacting with community women and their families.

In further strengthening our relationship, EWBMSU had our first official meeting with the EWB Kenya Board to discuss our Phase IV 2009 summer work plan. They are a very motivated group and are going to help us achieve our goals for the summer.

The community of Khwisero have yet to cease welcoming us into their homes and sharing their lives. We thank them as well as our own families for their continued support and love.

"We are still together."

Kiera McNelis
EWBMSU Phase IV
Travel Team I

Update of Primary Schools

2009-07-04T01:29:00.000-07:00

Hello from Kenya all!!

It is wonderful to be back in Khwisero and working on the project. Kiera and I have been in the village since June 27th. We visited all five primary schools which EWB-MSU has implemented a deep water well to date. The following details our findings:

Shirali Primary (Borehole drilled Phase I, Composting Latrines Phase II and III ): Well is still functioning, but there is a slight orange water problem. We have been collecting water from this well for the team's drinking water. The first compost latrine is being used by the male teachers and the first compost pile is ready for land application. The second composting latrine is being finished. Fundis have been working for the past week and it is being painted yellow with a black stripe, very nice! The new headteacher, Lydia, is also a member of the new EWB Board. The school is "feeling very comfortable with the EWB projects." We met with the School Management Committee (SMC) to be official handed over from EWB-Kenya and Board to the Shirali Primary SMC. We are now living with a member of the SMC at his compound near Shirali and our meals are being donated by the surrounding community. They are treating us very nicely. For an update on the biogas latrine project at Shirali see Eric's post.

Munyanza Primary (Borehole drilled Phase II): When we arrived Khwisero, we learned that Munyanza's pump had not been functioning. During the first week here we went to a parents' meeting. Jackson (our EWB-Kenya Coordinator) explained the history of the project to the parents in Kiswahili and Kiluhya (the local language). He stressed that the school must take ownership for the project in order for it to succeed. Last week we learned that Munyanza had fixed the pump and are making preparations for Team 3 to stay in the community.

Ebuhonga Primary (Borehole drilled Phase III): The well is functioning with no problems. The school has started several clubs with gardening projects, some including community members. They grow watermelon, animal fodder, and kale which they will sell in Kisumu to raise funds. The gardens are watered with the water from the wells EWB funded. They have also collected some funds from selling the water to community members.

Emwaniro Primary (Borehole drilled Phase III): Although we have not been able to meet with the headteacher yet, we have learned that the well has been operating with no problems. They have been selling the water to community members. The SMC has also been meeting to discuss the proposed distribution pipeline project. We will be meeting with them next week.

Ikomero Primary (Borehole drilled Phase III): The well has been functioning with no problems. Ikomero has collected the most funds for selling the water to community members (1 shilling/20 Liters). They are ready and eager to continuing working with EWB-MSU on latrine projects.

We also visited the two new schools in the East:

Mwisena Primary: We met the headteacher and ate lunch with the teachers. The ground surveyor have identified the point were the borehole will be drilled. They are very excited to received our project. They are very interested in the composting latrines because they are unable to dig pit latrines very deep because of the high water level. They currently do not have sufficient latrine facilities for there students. Also, the headteacher is a member of the board.

Ekatsombero Primary: We had a meeting with the School Management Committee to discuss the project. A Water User Management Committee has already been formed to manage the borehole. It was a very productive meeting in which they asked a lot of questions. They had a meeting with the parents' after we left to inform them and discuss the project.

Both new schools are ready to host Team East and are anxiously awaiting their arrival.

The EWB Board: We have met several members of the new board and will meet with all on July 10th. The office is in a small building next to the Khwisero Jail. Our neighbors in the building are the District Education Officer and the National ID Card Registrar Office.

I think that is all I have to report for now!

Laura Moon
Co-Project Manager
Phase IV
0725 700 244

One week down for Team One

2009-07-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

Team One arrived in Nairobi last Thursday, and spent a day in the city before boarding our eight-hour bus ride out to Kwhisero.

While in Nairobi, we met with Ronald, and toured a set of Biogas latrines built in the Kibera slum (the second largest in Africa) by a group called the Umande Trust. The biogas latrines there are designed to alleviate two of the slum's most pressing issues, inadequate sanitation facilities and limited fuel for cooking, by harvesting methane produced as human waste decomposes.

Back in Khwisero, we're in the first stages of implementing a similar design at Shirali Primary School, where we installed pilot composting latrines last summer and put in our first well in 2006.

This past week, we met with the school management committee, and were pleased to hear their enthusiasm for the project. At present, we're preparing to excavate for the system's digester dome, and have completed an initial material cost estimate.

The school management committee has requested we size the project to serve the school's 300 female students (the working plan is to construct composting latrines for the boys later this year). Once completed, the biogas latrine will replace the open pit latrines currently in use, preventing sewage contamination of local groundwater and saving the community the cost and effort of regularly digging new latrines.

--Eric Dietrich, Team One 2009

Map of Khwisero and the 2 new schools

2009-07-01T14:50:00.001-07:00

The following is a map of the Khwisero district in western Kenya created by several EWB@MSU students after last summer. Adam Sigler took on the task of recording a GPS point for each primary school and their closest water source. The 2 new schools we will be working with are numbers 8 (Ekatsombero) and 9 (Mwisena), in the eastern most point of the district. I've blown up the map of these schools.

We are excited to finally expand our work to Eastern Khwisero after working only in the west for the first 5 schools (Emwaniro 30, Ikomero 37, Shirali 46, Munyanza 47, and Ebuhonga 52).

Click on the images to see larger versions.

Images are property of Engineers Without Borders at Montana State University and can not be used without the written permission. Email ewbmsu@gmail.com for permission.

Summer 2009 work kicks off!

2009-06-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

Hey friends,

EWB@MSU is proud to announce that work is currently in progress. I talked with Laura this morning and she says things are going great. Team 1 arrived last Thursday and arrived in Khwisero Saturday evening. They are excited to get to work and lay the foundation for a whole lot of projects going down this summer. They are staying near the Shirali primary school with the headmaster from the school. The community has come together and helped out with donations to make our stay a success.

One of the big projects for the summer is the biogas latrine going in at Shirali. The school is super excited and ready to get to work. Laura said they had the spot picked out and were ready to start excavating. She thought it might be even be done before I get there. Which is early next week! Talk about getting after it. They are working hard and want to do things right. We couldn't ask for more.

So far its been great reports out of Kenya and I can't wait to get over there and get to work. From here all the reports should be coming straight from Kenya, with the first group checking in this weekend with an update. So stay tuned and feel free to leave comments. I know everyone over there would love to hear thoughts and support.

Kenya here I come!

Team 3 Wrapping Up A Job Well Done

2008-08-30T03:35:00.000-07:00

Hi friends!

I'm in Kakamega today to pick up supplies for the final push. Earlier today we had a second premier of The Water Carriers in Khwisero for the general public (Set up by Lawrence, who is a new prospective member of the Kenya team). Tomorrow we will be having a party to thank the Kenya team and others for all their dedication and sacrifices, as well as say goodbye to Team 3, who leaves Khwisero on Tuesday after a job very well done.

Here's a quick summary of some of the things that the teams have accomplished this summer:

Expanded Capacity of Kenya Team and Other Community Members
- Maurice has learned how to use a GPS (via Adam's excellent teaching) and is in the process of mapping the water sources of all 58 primary schools for us;
- Lawrence set up and advertised a film premier in the Khwisero market;
- 28 Surveyors were trained;
- 7 Focus Group Facilitators were trained;
- The 14 member selection board was voted in to provide a more transparent and accountable selection process for future work;
- Jackson was voted unanimously by the other members to be a part of the selection board (which will help us decide which schools to work at next);
- Technical and management training for Shirali and Munyanza Water User Committees will be in final negotiations early next week, and training for the other three WUC's is planned for later this fall.

Collected Mountains of Information Crucial to Our Future Success
- 750+ Homestead surveys completed;
- 7+ Focus Groups starting next week;
- Extensive people mapping of the formal sector;
- Collection of well logs, spring location maps, water quality, household maps, contact information for dozens of helpful people, reports from other organizations working in the area, and loads of other vital technical information;
- Thousands of hours of experiences and personal connections being brought back to Bozeman by the 14 travel team members (not the least being the important things we learned as a result of revisiting our past work).

Radio Documentary and History of Khwisero Information Collected
- Hundreds of hours of interviews and other material have been collected.

Drilled 2 Wells, With One More On The Way
- Providing 1900+ primary students with clean water, improved sanitation, and an opportunity to spend more time in school instead of fetching water;
- Huge savings for schools on future construction projects, which require a lot of water (money which can be used for other projects);
- A platform for communities around the three schools to begin and enhance existing income generating activities.

Pen-Pal and Water Education Programs are Currently Underway
- Over 100 students in Khwisero have written letters to new friends which will be delivered soon

Thousands of Smiles
- In the last 8 weeks, we have been witness to an overwhelming number of smiles. Everything from little kids and grandmothers laughing at the way we sound when we say hello to them in Luhya and the way we look riding on boda bodas, to trainees grinning and shaking our arms off when we handed them the certificates at the end of their training, and everything in between.

A Healthy Dose of Mistakes
- We were also fortunate to make lots of mistakes while having people around us who weren't shy about pointing them out to us. We have learned more on this trip than on all our previous trips combined - as much about what not to do as about what to do. We'll tell you all about all those things later. ; )

14 Travel Team Members Lives Changed Forever
- 14 travel team members from Bozeman who traveled here this summer had an experience that they will never forget. Personally, I am honored to have been able to work with so many good people (Kenyan and American alike), and it has been a pleasure trying to keep up with them.

Chris and I will be staying behind as long as necessary to finish up anything that can be finished before embarking on our research, but most of what we all came here to do has been done with flying colors, thanks to a lot of hard work by dozens of people here and in Bozeman. Thank you to all!

Thanks for checking up on us, and we're hoping to see you in Bozeman or otherwise soon!
Thanks for your support, and don't forget to keep checking up on us, because this is only the beginning....

One Week Left

2008-08-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

Team 3 (Katie, JJ, Rebecca, Aubrie) has one week remaining until they leave Khwisero to begin the journey back to Bozeman, and they are working hard to finish up the work we came here to do and tie up as many loose ends as possible in the time remaining.

Chris and I will remain in eastern Africa until November doing research and finishing up anything that the three teams were unable to finish while they were here.

The household survey is complete and we have approximately 750 questionnaires to bring back to Bozeman for analysis. The focus group training went very well, (thanks to Katie and Francis) and we now have 7 very bright and motivated facilitators waiting to conduct their first focus groups starting next week.

There has been a slight delay in the start of drilling at the final school, but we are expecting things to be underway at Ebuhonga Primary in the next 7 to 10 days. When that is complete, we will sign a contract for installation of the handpumps at all three schools and each school will host a celebration for the community where we formally hand over the projects to the respective water user committees.

Early next week we will be traveling to Kakamega with representatives of the Munyanza and Shirali Water Management Committees to negotiate pricing for their technical and management training sessions.

We premiered The Water Carriers in Khwisero yesterday to a small crowd of school management committee members from the 5 schools. We'll open it up to the general public on Saturday.

Things are getting a bit hectic as we approach the end of our trip this summer, but overall things are still going very well, and everyone who traveled this summer has performed admirably. Make sure you thank them for all their good work and dedication when you see them!

Check back next week for an update, and thanks for checking up on us.

-Quinn

2008-08-21T04:26:00.000-07:00

Yo friends! Team 3 here in Kenya bringing you an update of our work and the progress thus far. We had a great couple days with Team 2 and a sweet party for Katy's Bday. She killed a goat with her bare hands. Ask her about it. Plus some sweet pineapple drinks. But the more important stuff.

Aubrie is working to set up a new and improved penpal program with the local students in Khwisero and Bozeman. She is also working to plan more parties (something we like to focus on) for the handover of the wells. And since our knowledge of the workings of the area has exponentially increased Aubs is going to be working with the Ministry of health to see how we can work with them on improving water and sanitation education in the community.

Katie is following Katy's lead and asking lots of people lots of questions. But our Katie is putting together the history of the area and in a couple days has learned some great info. It should be an interesting read. She and Rebecca are working to put the focus groups together to further expand upon our ever increasing knowledge. Katie is also fully addicted to grilled corn. FYI.

Rebecca and Jj are working to set up some training sessions for the schools on management and technical stuffs. Hopefully this can be very helpful and work to improve the successfulness of our work in the area. We are hoping to pilot it with Shirali and Munyanza this trip and see our effective it is. Rebecca is also looking to work with the drillers and bring home the well logs so we can study the ground water in the area. Should be good.

Jj is working with Shirali and Munyanza to ensure their problems have been addressed and we can be successful moving forward. Shirali will be worked with to determine the needs of the composting latrine and address their maintenance costs. Munyanza will be worked with to ensure their water user commitee is fully operational and we have a good relationship with them. He would also like to address their water color issue and see if it can be resolved without major repairs. Jj and Rebecca will also look into potentially updating existing rain collection stations for future trips.

Team 3 is enjoying life on the homestead and we like showering in the banana trees. Keeps life interesting. Lots more stories to share when we return. See you soon.

Aubrie, JJ, Katie, Rebecca

Drilling Begins at Emwaniro Primary School

2008-08-17T01:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday the drillers finished flushing and capping the borehole at Ikomero Primary School after reaching a final depth of 91.5 meters. They have transferred all their equipment and are now drilling at Emwaniro Primary. After the drilling is complete at all three schools, we will install handpumps and train the community and management committees on maintenance and management of the wells.

The Surveyor training went very well. We trained 28 teachers, school aids, and community members from around the 5 schools to conduct the water use and sanitation survey, and finalized the survey. We printed 900 copies of it on Friday. The actual surveying is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. Francis, Maurice, Jackson, Jaime, and I spent most of last week preparing for and conducting the training.

Jordan and Laura have been compiling a list of design projects for the fall and researching sand filter designs.

On Thursday, we met with the Lake Victoria North Water Services Board in Kakamega to begin the process of setting up managerial and technical repair training for the 5 water management committees and maintenance personnel at the schools.

Team 3 arrived on Friday and is preparing to take over as Team 2 leaves on Monday. Team 3 (Katie, Aubrie, JJ, and Rebecca) will be concentrating on training facilitators for the focus groups, writing a history of Khwisero, facilitating water and sanitation education programs at the schools with materials from Project Wet, and continuing to work with the schools and water management committees to ensure that the well handovers go smoothly, among a lot of other things.

Today we are celebrating Katy Hansen's 21st birthday and a job well done by all the members of Team 2. There is a rumor that a goat and several pineapples will be involved. And if Jordan and I can make it back from Kakamega to Khwisero (a 1.5hr matatu ride) without the ice cream melting, there will be some of that too.

Check back soon for more details as things progress.

Drilling Begins at Ikomero Primary School

2008-08-07T04:31:00.000-07:00

On Monday, the drillers started drilling at the first school, Ikomero Primary. Progress with the drilling is slow but steady. After that, they will be drilling at Emwaniro Primary, then moving on to Ebuhonga Primary.
In the mean time, we have all been traveling and working frantically - visiting peoples homes, talking with local leaders, facilitating community meetings, revising designs, and learning, learning, learning. I think I learn more in a week in Khwisero than I do in a month back at school. ; )

Laura, Katy, Jaime, Jackson, and I have been finishing the preliminary mapping for the household surveys, and organizing a training session for local teachers and community members to teach them how to conduct the upcoming survey. The surveying will hopefully begin sometime in the next two weeks, and afterwards we hope to be able to survey a total of 750-800 households around the 5 schools where we are working this summer. The purpose of this survey will be to collect information to allow us to scientifically assess the impact of our work here, and also to pinpoint ways to improve our project's effectiveness. In the last two days alone, we have visited around 150 households, and almost everyone we talk to is very excited about and appreciative of the work we are doing. Maurice has been doing an excellent job finishing the Kiluhya translation of the survey (It will be conducted in Kiluhya because that is the first language of the people of Khwisero). We're hoping to pilot it during the training session, and have a final version ready a few days later.
Jordan and Laura have also been working on the revised design for the possible biogas latrine. Negotiations are underway with the school board and community at Shirali to determine whether we will build a latrine this summer or wait until the next trip. Our primary concern, and the major point of discussion with them is of course the long term maintenance of the latrine, and whether they are prepared to sustain it.
Jaime has also been conducting interviews and collecting hours of great material for her radio documentary.
Katy has also been working closely with Maurice, Jackson, and Francis on the people mapping - seeking out leaders in the community and local government to try to get them more involved in our project. There have been some great finds so far, and a lot of good advice and support.

All in all, things are going very well, and we are very busy and right on schedule... which is just how we like it. In one week, I'll be travelling to Kisumu to meet Team 3 and return with them to Khwisero.

Check back again soon!

Team 2 Arrives in Khwisero!

2008-08-01T02:02:00.000-07:00

Team 2 arrived in Khwisero late last night, after a very long bus and matatu journey from Nairobi. The two teams will be spending the next two days transferring information and discussing where we are and where we'd like to be in relation to our objectives, as well as congratulating Team 1 on a job very well done. So far, we are right on schedule, and Team 2 has hit the ground running.

Chris and Quinn are meeting in Kakamega with the drillers today, who are preparing to mobilize and move the drill equipment to the first school as early as this afternoon. Keep your fingers crossed!

More details to come soon....

Updates from Adam, Griffin and Jon

2008-07-26T05:23:00.000-07:00

Adam:

Things are going great! I have been doing a lot of mapping including points for 45 of the 58 schools. I'm slated to finish the other 13 primary schools on Sunday given good weather. We built an incubator using a bimetallic thermostat and a cartail light inside a sawdust/cardboard chamber to run the bacteria samples. I ran a few samples but have had some trouble maintaining temp, so we are going to try a new chamber out of bed mattress padding..... To be continued on that one.....Annie and I have come up with what seems like a pretty good method for laying out the survey. We collected random student names from Shirali test sheets then got info from the deputy head + teachers on home locations. Yesterday I GPSed 37 homes and many water sources. Annie collected more random names from two additional schools. It is coming together and seems to be a good balance between random/western, and Kenyan methods.

The people here are great and the kids are super cute. The culture is so different in many ways and the mix of simple life with the use of technology is very interesting. We are learning so much!Excited to see the next team next week!

Cheers,ADam

Griffin:

Since arriving in Kwhisero, John, Chris, and I have been working on a new composting latrine design that incorporates the producion of biogas for cooking fuel. A final design was established on the 21st and drawings were made. The final drawings were given to Maurice, one of our contacts in Kenya, who is currently working to produce a 3D model using a CAD program. On the 23rd we proposed the design to the Shirali School Management Comittee. They seemed to like the idea. We are meeting with them again tomorrow in hopes that they will be able to do most of the materials procurement and be willing to help with some of the costs. Currently John and I are working to establish a materials list, cost estimates, and to find contacts in and around Kwhisero that sell the materials that will be required to build the latrine. Finally, we have also made several tippy taps and have shown them to the Shirali School Management Comittee.

Jon:

Well we have been here a little over 2 weeks and things have become very interesting. Our team has been doing a lot with the survey work and getting a random list of names that will work for us and for the teachers that will be administering the survey. Griffin, Chris, and I have modified an in use bio-gas latrine system that we will be installing at Shirali. This design is complex compared to what we have done in the past, but I know that with the builders we have on teams 2 and 3 we can successfully complete this project.

Updates From Chris Allen and Annie Hansen

2008-07-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

Chris Allen:
Friday July 25, 2008.

I just signed the largest contract of my life; 2,581,425 Ksh, approximately $40 grand. Though my pen felt heavier than normal, the completion of the two signatures was anti-climatic. The equatorial air inside the office of Muhammad Ali, head of Haikal Investments in Kakamega was thick with the body oder of his country clients, myself included. The large number of shillings made the transaction seem surreal.

I am excited to be working with this company and Muhammad Ali. He has been drilling in this area for as long as I have been alive. The available rig is reaching the end of it's operational life however, if it fails, he has two other newer rigs at other localities. Ali worked for many years with the KeFinCo project, a partnership between the Kenyan and Finnish Governments to provide water to some of the areas surrounding Khwisero. He is open about the fact that the project failed, is very willing to help us not make the same mistakes, and likes our current action plan very much.

With the contract signed I am focusing my efforts on preparing the team to transfer over the information that they have acquired to the incoming team. I will leave this Sunday to pick up team two. While in Nairobi, Quinn and I will be meeting with a Professor from Nairobi University, touring the slums with Team 2, and will personally be enjoying the showers at the hostel.

It is interesting, all of the new schools we have been working are very excited, very willing to give and buy into the project. At one of the meetings one of the community members stood and said that if it would help us believe that they would own the project, they would collect 1000 Ksh ($13) from each member of the community. A large sum considering many families subside on incomes less than $500 per year. Instead we settled on the community providing meals, helping with the survey, and their word that they will expand upon the start EWB is helping to provide. It seems ridiculous now, but for the first time we have insisted that most meetings be run in Kiluya instead of English. In years past meetings were long, arduous, painful, events were three
people spoke and the rest appeared bored, and complacent. Once we stated using Kiluya people pay better attention, they interact, understand what is being said, ask good questions, and state strong opinions. I may miss the nuances of the conversation but for the most part understand the overall flow of the conversation and trust our local teammates to convey everything I could hope for, using far better style. The meetings now sound like the inside of a Southern Baptist church on a cold day where people are looking for any excuse to get up and clap their hands.

The new communities have been very vocal in the process, and it has been a very powerful tool to tell them how much money will go into the project at their school, approximately 1,100,000 Ksh. We have told them this before the drilling has begun, and requested that their proposals for maintenance and expansion be turned in before the rigs are on-site. Their ideas and action plans seem so far to be exceptional. The willingness and ability of the new schools and surrounding communities to invest into the project has surprised me greatly.

When we explain to the schools why we are here, how people in their own community invited us to come, and how we got here through the donations of a generous community smaller than theirs, their eyes lighten up. It is a change of pace to ask a group of people that are used to earning the meal they will eat that day, to invest. Because of our project and the cumulative work of many other projects in the area the concept of investing is slowly catching on. I believe now more than ever that this project will succeed. We can whole heartedly say that we are acting with communities input and support. We have chosen a local driller, we are modifying plans according to the communities needs. They are telling us how they will manage their systems, and we are stepping back. We no longer drive the projects at these schools, we have become consultants, information gatherers, tourists, and I could not be happier.

Annie Hansen:
I am currently working on the survey and determining the radii and sample size for the water use survey that is to be administered in August by team two/three. EWB travel team one has visited 4 of the 5 schools that we are drilling/ drilled wells at (Shirali, Ikomerro, Emwnaito, and Ebuhonga). Adam and I have created random lists of students attending these primary schools. These lists were generated by using the test score results for each student in standards: 5,6,
and 7. Each school has a total of 50-75 students that have been selected to be surveyed in August.

Yesterday, we visited Ikomerro and Emwanito primary schools. The teachers assisted me in accessing the test scores while I entered them in a small field lap top. Adam and I are meeting with 2 teachers at Emwanito Primary school tomorrow to discuss where these randomly selected
students reside and directions to their houses. This information will be added into the computer and then organized into village/zone format. Surveyors will then be assigned to a village/zone to survey a group of randomly selected students.

Team one has about one week left in Khwisero before team two arrives. We hope to have the survey methodology well established so team two can conduct it. I look forward to meeting team two to pass on information and tell some great stories.

So Far So Good

2008-07-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

Team 1 has been making progress on a daily basis.

The meeting with all head masters was conducted as scheduled, and for the first time EWB at MSU was introduced to the head masters of the entire Khwisero division all at once. The application process was outlined and a selection committee based in the school board was proposed. The purpose of the committee would be to assist schools in the completion of the application and select a short list of schools for most immediate future work. This committee would allow for a transparent local process to recommend schools based on the school's applications and written proposals.

The schools outline what they want related to water and sanitation from EWB at MSU. For example: a bore hole, a water dist system, toilets ect. Most importantly, they propose how they will manage and what they will do with the water to bring funds into the school. The application allows several schools to team up and apply for systems where one school gets water and pipes it to the others. The proposal will include how they will route the water, how the water will be metered, and at what cost they will distribute, ect. Another section of the application includes how the community hope to assist.

Teams 2 and 3 will be continuing the process by meeting with the committees that the schools set up to fill out the applications. This will happen at two meetings. One for East Khwisero and one for West Khwisero.

Good progress has been made with the survey preparations. The schools will have no problem providing labor; it is sounding like many will do it for free. Adam and Annie have been finalizing a simple way to find the effective radii of schools.

The design of the latrine has taken a turn for the complicated as Team 1 attempts to introduce a bio-gas component per the request of Ronald. Chris, Griffin, Jon, and Maurice are modifying a German design that Ronald helped to implement in the slums of Nairobi. They have been communicating regularly with Teams 2 and 3 and professors and professionals at MSU to discuss the proposed design. It should be good and the school is stoked.

The contracting and permitting process for the bore holes is essentially complete. We will post expected arrival times for the drill rig soon.

Khwisero now has a movie house that shows DVDs. The Water Carriers coming soon!

Team 2 arrives in Kenya next week. Check back soon for more updates.

Team one has made it to Khwisero!

2008-07-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

Chris and Adam arrived on the 4th and met with the Kenya Team (Ronald, Francis, and Maurice, among others) to finish preparations for the arrival of the rest of the teams, and the remainder of Team 1 (Annie, Jon, Griffin) arrived in Khwisero on the 15th.

On the 17th, the group will be meeting with the headmasters of the 57 primary schools in Khwisero to discuss many important things, including the details of the work we are doing this summer, the application process and expectations for work at future schools, and the maintenance of the work done so far.

They have started conversations with community members about translators and focus group leaders for the surveys. Many teachers have expressed an interest in participating.
Adam and Annie are currently determining the appropriate sample numbers and sample areas for the household surveys.
Jon and Griffin are working on designs for the handwashing apparatus (the tippy-tap) and making contacts for procurement of materials for the composting latrines.
Chris has been working with Francis and Ronald to finalize the contracts with the drillers.
Maurice has been doing drafting work for the composting latrine design modifications.

Things are going great so far!
Check back again soon for more updates.