Why I'm Here

It is Sunday again, and after waiting for an hour for my usual internet cafe to open, I decided to try to find another one in town. You never quite know if the place you are headed to is going to be open (or accessible), so it's always a good idea to have a backup plan. This applies to pretty much everything - electricity availability, water availability, computer availability (at work), and availability of people - even if you've scheduled a meeting - and so many other things. So, I have candles/ a headlamp, several big jugs of water, a notebook for writing and doing math - I can't believe I still know how to do long division! -, and I always carry a book or some sort of work that I can do by myself. Things that I would normally take for granted in America I have to think about a little more here - that is one of the big differences.

So, I don't think I've actually told many of you what the heck I'm doing here in Kenya. Well, for starters I am a Peace Corp Volunteer, officially in the business/information communication technology (i.e., computers) sector, but my specific project deals with environmental work, which is what I was doing for the last seven years prior to coming to Africa. Just as a little background, I worked as an environmental consultant doing mainly air pollution work with especially awesome people at a firm called ENVIRON (www.environcorp.com). I had a very comfortable life and lived in a beeeeeautiful part of the country - the SF Bay Area. It was very difficult to leave friends and family, but this is something I had wanted to do for quite a while, and the timing was finally right.

I didn't know that I would be working on an environmental project here in Kenya - in fact, I had very little idea what I would be doing until the very end of training three weeks ago. One of the big things about Peace Corps is that you have to have faith in the system and trust that things are going to work out. And if they don't, you work them out yourself after the fact. I am lucky and have a pretty great APCD (i.e., my boss/supervisor) who did a lot of hard work and found a great match for me with a group of organizations that deal with water use and conservation. I am working with three different organizations in an around Nanyuki, Kenya - two river water users' associations and an organization affiliated with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) that promotes environmental conservation and restoration specifically in the Mt. Kenya area. Mt. Kenya is the second tallest mountain on the African continent, reaching over 17,000 feet. It is an extinct volcano, and it sits by itself as a massive mountain, much like most of the Cascades in Oregon/Washington for those of you familiar with that part of the country. There is a glacier on top of Mt. Kenya that feeds a dozen or more rivers that provide a lifeline to communities at the base of the mountain. The water river users' associations that I am working with cover two of those rivers that come down on the northwest part of the mountain.

The population of Kenya is increasing very quickly, thus there is increasing demand for resources - water, wood, and food among them. Also, because the glacier on Mt. Kenya is melting, the rivers are drying up at an alarmingly fast rate. In addition, there has been massive deforestation in the forests on and around Mt. Kenya which has altered the landscape, causing erosion and greater surface water runoff. In non-scientific terms, this is all very, very bad. Unfortunately, very little money has been invested in water infrastructure such as dams or other storage facilities, so there is little capacity to store all of the surplus water that falls during the rainy seasons. So there is a lot of competition for water during the dry seasons, which is increasingly resulting in conflict, among humans and between humans and animals. To put it simply, there is not enough water for everyone, especially during the dry seasons, which are growing longer and longer. The water river users' associations were created to help manage the water resources and ensure the equitable distribution of water, and to act as a go-between between the local communities and the regional and governmental water authorities. So, although I'm still learning all about the specific operations of my organizations and their roles within the community and in relation to the governmental authorities, I know that I'll be working on a whole host of water conservation, management and education issues. In fact, I've jumped right in and have already been doing a lot of work, but I'll leave that for another post. I'll also be helping with issues related to deforestation and hopefully helping with the development of water storage schemes so that the area does not end up with dry riverbeds in the next decade. That is what is called my "primary project".

In addition to that primary project, I'm also planning to be get involved with various community organizations (or starting community organizations) depending on what is really needed within my community and the skills I have to offer. That might be HIV/AIDS education, helping to get funding or setting up an orphanage for disadvantaged children, setting up after school programs for youth, helping to establish sustainable and environmentally-friendly income generating activities to help combat the high unemployment/poverty in the area, starting a library... the possibilities are endless. Right now I'm still getting to know my community and trying to meet as many people as possible and gather as much information and as many different perspectives as possible.

I recently started a really awesome secondary project with a good friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer, Chris McKeown, which I will talk about in my next post. I don't want it to be lost/buried here, because it is something I'm going to ask for help with. I often have a hard time asking for help, and I'm not very good at it, but this project is something I really believe in, and is going to help some really good and deserving people. I'll give more details next time, and if any of you are interested in getting involved, I'll let you know how. I'll leave that as a teaser so that you'll check in next time. Goodbye for now and I hope you are all well!