Nov 7-8 - Working in Machakos

Monday and Tuesday were both very hard-working days. Our clients from MoHEST travelled to Machakos so they could be with us all the way. While it is a nice gesture on their part, it's actually quite exhausting having to host your client in what feels like a 24 / 7 environment. So we decided to incorporate them into our team. We assigned tasks to all and we each did our own work so that we could accomplish all we needed to. It ended up being very productive.

So now the fun part of the blog - what we do for entertainment in Machakos when it's raining!?

 

Monday, Richard (from IBM India) volunteered to cook us all an Indian meal using the hotel kitchen! It turns out he's quite a chef and cooks alot at home for large groups in his church. He made a delicious dinner of Chicken Curry with vegetable rice pilaf. It was delicious. Here he is - hard at work!!!

The meals at the hotel are all buffet, and it's almost always the same selections..... beef or chicken pieces and either steamed rice or Ugali (a traditional maize based starch that looks like thick mashed potatoes.) with coleslaw. So we've been asking for some variety, and Richard came through! We all enjoyed it tremendously - Thank you Richard!

On Tuesday after work, four of us walked into downtown Machakos to look at the shops. It was really amazing - a true slice of Machakos life. We are the only 'Muzungus" in town and there are no tourist shops at all. Most shops are a small cupboard -sized store front on the sidewalk with a few wares displayed. Every price can be negotiated and it is expected that you bargain.

Here is Henriette from IBM Denmark at a tailor's shop. While we were looking in his shop, we noticed 2 interesting facts. 

1 - He had no power and was sewing by the
light of a kerosene lamp. 

2 - His iron was cooling on the sidewalk out front - it is a hollow iron, filled with glowing charcoal - Something from the early 1900's in Canada! 

As we finished looking around, it started to POUR raining. So we decided to take a 'matatu' (mini-bus taxi) home to the hotel, even though it was a short one kilometer walk. It was a really authentic experience!

 Here is the view from inside where I was sitting - Hahaha!












Back on the work front, we have a big milestone meeting on Wednesday in Machakos - The MID-TERM REVIEW..... ! This is a meeting where we present our progress and preliminary findings to the senior management at MoHEST.     In a stroke of genius (if I do say so myself - hahaha) I proposed that we have our Machakos M0HEST team mates do some of the presenting themselves. Since they have now been doing some of the work, they should also get some of the visibility. So that plan has now been adopted and we all have our fingers crossed for tomorrow. Wish us luck! We leave Machakos at 5 am tomorrow to 'beat' the traffic and arrive at 8:15 am. Our presentation starts at 9am if we are on schedule. More work updates later!