Business Travel

Blog 2007jan6 Saturday

Good Morning!

You know, one thing I hate is how during the week I get up at 6:45 (ish) and then it comes to Saturday morning, and no matter how late I’ve been out, I still wake up at 6:45.

So, this week has been more getting used to Nairobi. I’m beginning to know my way around (the areas I visit) and know how to get to town, work, couple of pubs etc. So in a way the excitement of NEW PLACE is fading and I’m in that middle slightly time between adrenaline newness and really settled in and know what to do with my time, my weekends, having made friendships with people who I can hang out with whenever I want.

I was chatting with my flatmate Mita, who’s been here for 4 months now, about how I’m still always overly aware about my personal security. Who is sitting beside me on the bus or matatu? (A matatu is a small minibus used for public transport that smells badly, is crammed full of people and plays bad music). Where are their hands? Near my pockets? What’s in my pockets? How open are they? Or as I walk down a street… Who are the people walking towards me? What are their intentions? Which side of the street feels safer? I think I’m still affected by those horror stories you hear about Nairobi. It’s not really that bad and Mita says that this excessive awareness fades with time. Or maybe you still remain aware, but are no longer consciously processing it all the time. Although, many of the real UN staff would never take public transport or walk anywhere… but then UN benefits allow for this.

These security issues and my lack of knowledge of the city also mean that I don’t feel as free as I would like. I miss having a bicycle, but that’s impossible here (my matatu knocked a cyclist over pretty badly yesterday). The 7 UN interns upstairs from my flat have moved out and I’m missing them, but now they’re half way across town near the UN complex… not sensible/possible to get to by public transport at night and pricey (15 euros return) for unshared taxis – doable, but not everyday.

All these security concerns have a knock-on effect on my exercise, which I miss. I do not walk/cycle around here and I’m determined to find some way of getting fit.

I’m also aware that I only know a bit of Nairobi… the nice bit. And as home to the largest slum in Africa and with 70% of the population living in slums I feel that I’m quite sheltered from a major part of the city. However, several of the interns I’m friends with have done their projects in the slums. One Dutch girl (Annike) is an architect making a plan to improve the two sports fields in a slum that houses 1 million people. At present, they’re both just mud and she’s trying to re-design them so they are safe with good lines of sight, and light (sponsored by a mobile phone company) and flat etc. Another German flatmate (Christine) is mapping the pit latrines in the slum and recording the quality and state of the sewers, drains: an official map shows adequate sewerage for the slum, but her photographic evidence reveals otherwise… sewers broken, toilets that flood when it rains and wash past open rubbish dumps down hills into schools, churches and houses. Then Mita (half Dutch, half Indonesian) is assessing the capability of clinics/labs around the slum to test for TB. Cristian (from Colombia) assesses the impact of a bicycle and cart project for waste collection that was hoped would be used for income generation within the slum.

I’d like these other interns to show me the slum sometime so that I can get an insight into how many of the people in this city live – although as I ask them, I’m reminded of a comment by an Indian friend that I’ve heard some white people come to India to see poverty – if that’s true, then they are just there for a peep-show on poverty, which is sick.

[b]

Thought it was time that I blogged again to let you know about my exciting Christmas. I’d only been here a few days and hadn’t really got friends yet. I have met lots of nice people who will hopefully develop into friends, but most most of them had booked holidays to the coast (near Mombassa). So I was really grateful when the Brazilian UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) intern from upstairs called Napoleon invited me to a little party at a Canadian girls house for 24th night. After attending a carol service at the cathedrale, I made my way to the fun party, complete with Turkey, and reminded me a lot of being in Halls at York with people from all over who had nowhere else to go.

Christmas morning I got up early and not really wanting to hang around in Nairobi with nobody to spend it with I took a Matatu out to Lake Naivasha. A Matatu is a local form of public transport a bit like a smallish minibus, crowded with smelly locals, that drives far too fast. At lake Naivasha I went cycling through Hell’s Gate national park which has some animals stuffed between a beautiful gorge. I saw Zebra, Giraffe’s and Baboons

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That evening I went to sleep in a little campsite on top of a hill with a beautiful view over the lake.

Next morning (Boxing Day), after another walk through animals,
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I found this Zebra Crossing quite ironic

I visited the house of the lady from the classic film/book Born Free about the lady who hugged a lion called Elsa.

Did a day of work on the 27th, then 28th-30th went on the famous Masai Mara Safari with, again, two girls from upstairs – Claudia and her sister Gabriella (two girls from Bolivia but moved to Sweeden when they were very young). Masai Mara is the pinnacle of African safari experiences. It’s what people come for. All the things you might expect to see in a David Attenburgh documentary, right before your eyes and in July/August it is host to the enormous Wildebeast migration that has recently been designated as one of the 7 natural wonders of the world.

So we left early in the morning, getting a view of the rift valley on the way,

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hoping to reach the Mara by early afternoon in time for a few hours of animal spotting. However, a couple of hours along the way we ran into some lorries blocking the road: one broken, the other stuck in mud trying to pass… oh yes, did I mention its been raining heavily and persistently here.
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After half an hour or so and some pushing we were on the road for another 20 minutes before reaching another lorry slippage – the blue vehicle had somehow managed to get stuck fully crossing the road.
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After another couple of hours in the cue, a path around the lorry was found that involved the minibus slanting at about 40 degrees into the ditch. Needless to say, watching all the human activity surrounding a big blockage was enjoyable with all the people getting very involved.

Also, with Claudia and her sister being the children of a political refugee from Bolivia we had plenty to talk about.

At two further points on the journey we got to unpassable mud splats along the rain drenched road and had to get toed by tractors, jeeps and at one stage toe another minibus ourselves. Along the way we saw a few ostriches and zebra. By the time we reached the Mara, it was already past dark so we had dinner and went to bed.

Next morning we entered the park heavily excited at the thought of finally coming face to face with those lions. With all the rain though, the vehicles had to stick to the main roads through the park and had to therefore hope the animals would come close to us, instead of the other way round. Feeling a little disappointed I have since realised that this is a good thing because the vehicles normally drive all over and cause untold damage to the ecosystem.

Hartebeest were our first spot,

Then buffalo,

A family of Mongeese

An Aslan like lion

A vulture,

Thomson's Gazelles

Jackal,

Then a sleepy female lion…

one comment by a fellow tourist is that lions are great, but you rapidly get frustrated with their sleepiness: they spend 18 hours a day sleeping. You want to see blood, the kill, the excitement and the drama. Not just a bunch of lazy oversized pussycats. It’s a bit true, but they really are beautiful anyway.

And it’s incredible how close they’ll come to the vehicle. They are totally un-phased by humans.

Topi

A turtle in a puddle

And then we saw a bunch of 10 vehicles in one area and followed down to see what was going on. We couldn’t see anything on this barren hillside…

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But, oh, if you look closely, on the far left there’re a couple of hartebeest, and on the right a pair of lions hidden in the undergrowth waiting for the hartebeest to look the other direction. We watched for about half an hour… every now and then they’d sit down and the lion would stand and look excited, but then… nothing. No blood. No runs. But one up still on our other tourist friends.

Next viewing was a bunch of cool elephants.
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The baby was cute, throwing dust over itself.
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This one’s for Pete.

Next was a pair of lionesses with 5 cubs. So cute, but difficult to get a close up photo.

Then suddenly, the one mother stiffened and prowled off, keeping low and hidden.

The second mother followed
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Leaving the cubs looking a little concerned.

We, of course desperate to see blood, trailed the lionesses silently on their hunt in our minibus. One lioness trailed a lone wildebeeast for a kilometre or so, the other followed a warthog. We tried to follow both, but alas, neither was successful at the kill.

That had been an exciting morning. So much life in such a short time and small area. Really, you’d be lucky to drive a couple of kilometres without seeing something cool. And Zebras and antelope are very quickly considered to be too numerous and boring to stop for. It’s incredible.

After a good lunch we headed out again in the rain for a couple more hours, but saw less.
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The highlight being a pride of lionesses looking damp and unhappy in the rain.
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And a really cool tree.

So, after our first day we’d seen three of the ‘big five’ namely buffalo, lions and elephants. Still lacking the shy leopard and rhino. But what I really wanted to see was a cheetah. The girls and I shared a beer and dinner and went to sleep in our tents, lulled by the gentle rain,
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Final morning we left the camp at 6 am in the hope of catching some sights before breakfast. Our driver/ guide, Nick, wanted to leave by 10 am since the road was so bad and he was keen (for safety’s sake) to get back to Nairobi before nightfall.

After a night of rain, it rained all morning. We drove and drove and drove hoping to catch some animals, but there was nothing. Nothing. None of the vehicles were seeing anything (they all keep in touch by radio telling eachother where to look). It was still raining, and we were getting wet in our open topped minibus. We were just giving up when the radio crackled into life… we might be lucky, whispered Nick…. And increased his speed.

And there, round the next corner, she was.
A beautiful cheetah. Sleek, feline, damp sitting on her haunches surrounded by vehicles and lapping up the adoration. We could have watched her for hours. But she got fed up of the attention and stalked off, slowly at first, and then she went for the chase and disappeared behind some bushes. I hope she ate.

I forgot my camera though

On the way home, we got stuck in more mud,

Picnicked in more rain

And said hello to some giraffes

My last few weeks in Rome were good. I’ve met a lot of great people at FAO and have begun to understand a little more about how the organisation works and also my own job.

I feel very privileged to have been able to work, eat, drink, dance alongside so many interesting people from across the world. Yes, we all rant at each other regularly about the annoying system, but as Louisa pointed out to me… we get upset because we care about what we’re doing.

My own project has become a little clearer. I’ve been trying to analyse what has been going on with it both in Rome and Africa. Who’s who. Who’s done what. Where the strengths and weaknesses are and what are the best possibilities to move forwards. This is largely in the context of how we can help crop scientists do better science. On the side I’ve also been reading up on how products of research using biotechnologies (such as a new variety of rice that will tolerate drought) actually reach to small poor farmers and the impacts that they may have.

It perhaps shouldn’t have been surprising to me that this is a major major stumbling block. There are countless improved crops which only stay in the lab, or with the rich farmers. It is easy to think that a new improved rice is the answer. Even if we assume that this new improved rice really is great, and has been crossed into farmer favoured lines so maintains all the characteristics that farmers like (which is a big if) then there are still lots of problems.

“But surely”, says the innocent plant scientist “All we have to do is multiply seed and give it to farmers”. But this is quite a big “all we have to do”. Producing seed is apparently a big bottle neck. In addition, extension systems in many countries are inadequate, staff poorly trained and access to information limited.

I’ve also, in the last few weeks, begun to make my mark in a wider sense on the organisation. I think I mentioned in a previous blog the importance of coffees. How the organisation is so big that it can be difficult to find out what’s going on, or how to do things, or who is the key person to talk to about use of rural radio stations to dialogue with farmers about their agricultural needs or who to talk to get a visa sorted for Kenya.

Also got chatting with the volunteers and realised that I don’t really know what each they do, or what their departments are experts in. Ok, I knew that: Frederic was studying migration of fisherman in west Africa; and that Claudine works on promoting the concept of the fundamental human ‘Right to Food’; and that Emily is trying to find machines that will help poor schools make milk from Soy and improve the nutrition of their kiddies; and that Alice studies trade flows of Fair Trade and Organic produce. But I didn’t really know more than that. We thought that it would be a terrible waste of the opportunities given to us to work in Headquarters if we left still not knowing. It was also apparent that some of us could help or advise each other on our projects. For example, Emily may know lots about Soy-milk-making-machines but less about growth of Soy crops, or about its nutritional details. However, Margherita is working on a School Gardens project and could quite possibly feed in background information.

It also seemed ludicrous to me, coming from a PhD background, that there was no structure in place to facilitate our sharing these ideas with each other. So, I (with some help) decided to start up a Volunteers Lunch Club, where any volunteers who want to can come and present their work , ask questions, get advice in an informal, non-threatening environment. Within hours of my first email being sent out I had 20 -30 enthusiastic YES’s. We haven’t done this officially at all and it feels a bit like we’re in a conspiracy to rebel against the formalised system of FAO that keeps us apart.

Then because I was leaving Rome, I handed over responsibility for organisation to some of my fellow conspirators at the end of the first meeting. I missed the second meeting (being in Calcutta, India for Sanhita’s wedding – which was incredible) and by the third meeting, three days ago the Volunteers Lunch Club had already evolved into the Volunteers and JUNIOR CONSULTANTS Lunch Club because some of the young paid staff felt left out and thought that they’d benefit from it too. Assuming the Lunch Club continues into the new year, we’re going to try to hit the Personnel department for formalised advertising to new young staff and suggest that they provide free lunches/coffees for us… worth a try.

Felt a bit sad to be leaving all that behind. My new friends. The comfort of having an environment I was getting used to. But work-wise, it makes sense. I’ve done all I really can do in Headquarters. And I applied for this thing for the purpose of getting field experience. Not corridor experience. So now I’m pretty keen to get stuck into my work in Kenya.

Arrived in Nairobi a few hours ago. Was picked up by a young man called Benson, who’s going to be working closely on my project with me – running the website. He dropped me at my hotel and said he’d come back in a few hours once I’d washed and had a rest. He seems like a nice guy. Laughs a lot and I know he has the respect of my bosses in Rome. I’m a bit nervous myself. Not quite sure what role to play. ‘The man from Rome’. The assertive coordinator. The listener. The motivator. Or just me. The danger of being too assertive to begin with is I might alienate people or not hear what they have to say. But if I’m too meek, I might get pigeon holed into a ‘not respected’ persona. I think, all I can do is be me though. I’m not good at playing games.

Will make a tour of the offices and meet the bigwigs tomorrow.

[b]22ND October 2006
Sunday
Afternoon
Rome, city centre
My flat (C/O Marini, Via Volturno, 7, scala A,00185 Rome, Italy)b]

Yup, you will notice that more than a month has passed since I arrived, and Yup I’m still in Rome. You also may notice that my address has changed and you may be delighted to know that this flat has WINDOWS.

So much to say, but where to begin. Hmmm. Ok

Why haven’t I blogged?
The reasons are threefold:
1. Been having to much fun
2. Since I’m still in Rome, I’m doing a desk job – not as exciting to write about as you may imagine
3. I have been informed of my responsibilities as an International Civil Servant

Number 3 may require some more explanation: apparently even though they don’t pay me, I work for the UN now, and signed an oath on a bit of paper. This states that I will be loyal to the UN and not harm it. At first I thought that having to hold back from criticism would make writing much less fun… but now, after much deliberation, I’ve decided that loyalty doesn’t mean keeping silent in the face of problems, because that doesn’t result in change and improvement. But more practically, I’m just going to take the link to my blog off the bottom of my email.

Reading back it makes it look as if I’m about to say some horrific things about FAO, but in fact, I’m not. It’s a great place, but like any beaurocracy, it has its issues.

The main criticism that most of my young colleagues have, would be that internal communication and coordination within the enormous building has room for improvement (I think that’s how teachers used to describe my behaviour on school report cards… unlike my twin brother who was a model pupil, a delight to teach, with such tidy handwriting – sorry I’m diverting. Rant over). Yup, 3000 people not all working in perfect harmony.

We have all experienced a scenario, that we’ve been working on a project or a report for a couple of months and banging our heads against brick walls in search of key materials, data, expertise etc. Then, quite by chance, over a coffee someone will mention: “Oh, but Andrea Marinari does/did/tried/is the world expert on that”. It turns out that some guy who may be in the same corridor, or 5 floors away has something almost exactly identical to what we’re trying to achieve. He may have finished it, he may still be doing it, he may have given up, but he will have some good advice.

It can be quite frustrating, but at my stage I’m being philosophical and seeing it all as a learning experience.

The key thing learnt it that at FAO you should NEVER underestimate the importance of COFFEE breaks. They are not breaks! I consider them to be one of the most important parts of my days work.

So many of you have asked me, WHAT DO I DO?

Well, task one is of course to have coffee breaks.
Coffee in Italy is not like coffee the UK.

Task two is therefore to decide which of the 20 different types of coffee is desired - a big problem for us new people.

Café
Café lungo
Café machiatto
Café lungo machiatto
Café scumatto
Café lungo scumatto
Café late (not to be confused with a late, which is a glass of milk)
Cappucino
Café Americano (what british people drink and considered the lowest form of dirty water available)

All of those can be caldo (hot) or fretto (cold), with or without an Italian or French Croissant (French is much better though).

If you’re female and your coffee has milk in it, then the barman will draw a white heart in the dark coffee with your milk.

Tea is an option, but the stuff they have here in Italy is foul. And they seem to think it should be prepared with water which isn’t quite boiling, so as to stop the oxygen leaving the water… I don’t know why.

One guideline to picking coffees. Italians consider that it is appropriate to have some fat in the morning, therefore a milky coffee (Café Late or Cappuccino) is the correct choice before lunch. Immediately following lunch it should really be one of the espresso varieties… Café, Café lungo that may have a little milk in (machiatto). But after that, it is considered obscene to have any fat with your beverage.

Another important point to remember for those of us used to drinking British Coffee, is that an espresso variety of coffee doesn’t actually have much liquid in it. So in the hot Italian climate, it is important to supplement liquid intake with water in between coffee breaks. Otherwise you’ll get dehydrated and do the rest of your days work, and nights play, badly.

Hmmm, I’ve written enough now.
I’ll try to get back on soon to tell you more about what I do, when not choosing coffee.

Was sent this beautiful little presentation about WHITE MEN trying to develop native tribes in the jungle.

http://www.survival-international.org/thereyougoenter.php
(Click on the right hand arrow to enter. Takes 2 minutes.)

A lesson to remember