Looking at the past week retrospectively – better late than never

Upper left: Trafic in Nairobi
Upper right: Nairobi City horizon
Lower left: Team Flamingo (Andrea, me, Luigi and Brooks)
Lower right: City view from the poor area of the city

Apologies to those of you who have been actively viewing my blog and have not got any updates for a long time. Time seems to be flying by sooner than I realise and days are like a blink of an eye....

During the past week life in Nakuru has been following the same rhythm as always: a lot of really interesting activities back to back. All has been extremely good but what I have missed is time to reflect all what we have seen and experienced. Luckily this past weekend we had time off with no activities what so ever and more time to look back and appreciate the time we have spent here.

All in all I am starting to see why all the former CSC participants have said that this is a life changing experience. Things we have seen and heard have been exciting, touching, thought provoking, eye-opening, amazing…every day is different but each one has had its own highlights.

After exploring the nature a weekend (a week ago) the new week started with project related interviews at Egerton University and Moi University + some report writing. What I find always amazing is the warm welcome we get from the client (KENET + all universities and research institutions). Kenyans are known to be hospitable and they always provide us a lunch and tea. This way they appreciate the visitors and at least I have learnt a lot about it. Kenyans are very friendly in general and it makes them very approachable.

We have learnt that Kenyan universities have a lot to develop in terms of collaboration and networking but at the same time have the drive and optimism towards the future. Students and faculty staff are looking ahead despite the fact that often the facilities and equipment is not close to the level of those in more developed countries. The same goes to many things in this country. Happiness and hopefulness remain visible regardless of the environmental issues and circumstances the people need to tolerate. In general terms our project work is proceeding according to the plan.

Doing interviews further away from Nakuru (like Moi University close to Eldoret) is very time consuming as the roads are not very good. The one to Eldoret was especially bad and I promise not to complain about occasional tiny bumps on Finnish roads any more. The road we took on Wednesday was full of big “waves” and heavy truck traffic had consumed the badly founded road even more. Apparently there is major truck traffic from Mombasa across Kenya to Uganda and other African countries. Well, like Kenyans seem to say: Hakuna matata (=no worries). We have all the time in the world and schedules are managed by leaving early enough – even though it means that one small interview may take a full day if you need to travel. Conference calls have not been as well adapted here like they are elsewhere. Meeting face to face makes a huge difference in business situations.

Next I hope to share very interesting experiences from our 3 community days which are integral part of our CSC experience. Very enlightening to see and feel something that is not work related and still very new to us from more developed countries...Stay tuned.