Day 4
Woke up bright and early to 6 am reggae music playing outside the guesthouse. Good thing, because my and the HFO had a meeting at 7 am ! Over a breakfast of eggs and chapatti (massive Indian influence in the food here), we discussed the Field Operation Management Dashboards and the data behind it. The day was spent in the field with hive technicians, meeting farmers and scouting some sites for hive storage. The organization is building out in a new area of Western Kenya and has been gathering farmers to engage in beekeeping but all farms need to be checked out. The manager in the field has spent over 3 weeks doing his due diligence on 140+ farms. Data feeds from the field are a bit limited due to a new technology that they are working on implementing. The field staff have all been given smartphones with an app in which they can input farmers stats, hive inspections, etc. The goal is to use this for impact metrics in the future using Grameen's PPI metric.
The best moment of the day was when we were walking towards a potential site and the school children spotted us. All of a sudden, 50 or so little kids were running towards and swarming us while screaming "how ARE you?!?" and "Mzungu!" They always scream both when we walk by, and then giggle hysterically afterwards. Not sure why they were fascinated by me, but I'll take it! In the evening we were too tired to go to dinner so we crashed early after killing many many malaria ridden mosquitos. Unfortunately one survived and went to town...
Day 5
Another early start. Spent the day visiting around 7 farms and talking to farmers about beekeeping and their challenges. One of the farmers had made his own beekeeper suit with workman's overalls and a backpack for the netted hood. What an innovative idea!
Along the way, our 4X4 got stuck and 5 Kenyan men came to push the car out of the ditch with no luck. We ended up backing up and it all worked out! We decided to drive back to Kisumu instead of taking the ferry. The roads are not fully developed so it was massively bumpy until the last stretch. Passed a street called "Obama Rd." Obama's father is from Western Kenya and the local are very proud of it!
The last few days were a great opportunity to dive into the field operations of the company and see how things work on the ground. I learned a lot from the HFO and we had plenty of time to go over the management dashboards that are under his mandate and come up with ideas for new reports. Looking forward to meeting the rest of the management team and get cracking on the dashboards.
Woke up bright and early to 6 am reggae music playing outside the guesthouse. Good thing, because my and the HFO had a meeting at 7 am ! Over a breakfast of eggs and chapatti (massive Indian influence in the food here), we discussed the Field Operation Management Dashboards and the data behind it. The day was spent in the field with hive technicians, meeting farmers and scouting some sites for hive storage. The organization is building out in a new area of Western Kenya and has been gathering farmers to engage in beekeeping but all farms need to be checked out. The manager in the field has spent over 3 weeks doing his due diligence on 140+ farms. Data feeds from the field are a bit limited due to a new technology that they are working on implementing. The field staff have all been given smartphones with an app in which they can input farmers stats, hive inspections, etc. The goal is to use this for impact metrics in the future using Grameen's PPI metric.
The best moment of the day was when we were walking towards a potential site and the school children spotted us. All of a sudden, 50 or so little kids were running towards and swarming us while screaming "how ARE you?!?" and "Mzungu!" They always scream both when we walk by, and then giggle hysterically afterwards. Not sure why they were fascinated by me, but I'll take it! In the evening we were too tired to go to dinner so we crashed early after killing many many malaria ridden mosquitos. Unfortunately one survived and went to town...
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| Sikimu and fresh fish |
Day 5
Another early start. Spent the day visiting around 7 farms and talking to farmers about beekeeping and their challenges. One of the farmers had made his own beekeeper suit with workman's overalls and a backpack for the netted hood. What an innovative idea!
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| beehive |
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| the baby calf on the left was literally just born |
We arrived at Kisumu and checked into another guesthouse which looked huge in comparison to Sindo's! It's all about perspective. After dinner, it was internet time! Bought a small bottle of water at the hotel rooftop bar so I could use the Wi-Fi. Another early start to tomorrow with 5 am wake up to catch a 7 am flight back to Nairobi. The last few days were a great opportunity to dive into the field operations of the company and see how things work on the ground. I learned a lot from the HFO and we had plenty of time to go over the management dashboards that are under his mandate and come up with ideas for new reports. Looking forward to meeting the rest of the management team and get cracking on the dashboards.
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| maize |
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| storm is coming |
Oh EM, I emailed you about the food before I read this post hahaha, I was just thinking about food early in the morning. Great minds :-)
ReplyDeleteloved the kids story, you probably looked exotic and facinating to them