Long Week. Longer Weekend.

Finished up with all of the major construction in Makadara on Thursday. Everyone was completely exhausted by the end of the whole thing. Luckily it was labour day weekend here in Kenya so the workers got to enjoy their wages and get some rest while we went for a much needed mini vacation on the coast.

We were invited to join a group of other foreigners working in Kenya that had rented an amazing villa on Dianni Beach. There was a pretty great crew of NGO workers, private sector people, volunteers and the lot. Everyone was doing some kind of incredible work and they were all a blast. We basically spent the entire time swimming in gorgeous water, eating ridiculously good food, going on catamaran trips and enjoying the odd beverage or two. It seemed a bit surreal going from piles of garbage in the slums to a beach vacation, but hey, it’s not against the rules to have some care free fun now and then!

Now that we’re rested up Nathaniel and Sean are going to be moving their efforts over to Mathare for about two weeks to renovate the existing structure and convert it into a youth centre/ waste management centre. We’re still not 100% on the plan yet, but it looks like we’ll be using part of the area to store plastics and other recyclable from collections, the rest of the building will be upgraded to a community hall where the group uses the space to show soccer matches for a small fee and also rents it out for functions.

I’m going to continue to work with the Kibera group from last year at developing their door to door garbage collection business. Myself and some members from the NGO WorldBike have been working with the guys and girls from Kibera to make a solid business plan for the group to use as a guiding tool. The plan is almost done, next step is to do a pilot phase to see what works in reality and what doesn’t. We’ve made some good progress and the group has learned quite a deal about marketing, financial forecasts, staffing and all the other fun stuff you need to know when running a real business. It’s pretty awesome to keep working with these guys and see all of the familiar faces.

Time’s flying over here, we’re a third done already.

Il faut bouger bouger.