Close to the End...

I’m sorry I haven’t posted on here in a while. My days have been filled with exciting…typing. I sit in my apartment typing up forty-one interviews worth of notes and attempt to send them to the right companies for review. You would be surprised how many of the email addresses bounce! So, I don’t really have a lot to report on.

On Monday I had a really successful day at a government agency (name withheld). After shuffling through several offices, I ended up at the Director’s office. He spent many years as a diplomat for Kenya in Saudi Arabia and was a very interesting person. Impressed with our work so far, he introduced me to the head of investigation and prosecution (of the ministry). They took a look at our physical map (complete with post-its on all the Chinese company headquarters) and said “Looks like you’re beating us at our own job!” Haha! They agreed to provide any data they had (which I learned is extremely limited as they digitized only last year) if we agree to share our findings with them. Deal.

One thing that struck me was the amount of unfiled paperwork that contained so much data! I’m thinking a lot about thesis topics, and the one I am most excited about requires a lot of data that is not digitized. I wonder if the Kenyan government will pay for me to come back and digitize their information so I can use the data in a thesis? I plan on asking the Director when we touch base tomorrow.

Yesterday, to break through the typing, I baked an apple pie. I am currently renting a room in an apartment with several other people (a Nigerian man, Cameroonian man, two girls from Somalia but work in Dubai, and the Kenyan cleaning staff of three). The first response of almost everyone was, “What is pie?” After I baked it, they asked “Why doesn’t it rise?”And after they tried it, all of them said, “Tooooo sweet!”

Today, I made a banana cake. Actually, I taught my 13-year old friend Charlton (nephew of the owner) how to make a cake. I’m glad to report it received far better reviews than the pie J

Television is the fireplace of the Kenyan home. In every Kenyan household I’ve been to, the TV is always on in the background. My apartment is no exception. Since the communal computer (which I have taken as my own as no one else uses it) is located in the living room, I listen to the TV all day long.  The stations are always limited to: Nigerian soap operas, Hispanic soap operas, Hannah Montana, and Evangelical American preaching. I never thought Hannah Montana would be my show of choice!

Thank you to everyone that has followed me through this two month journey. It is a bit surreal for it to be ending, but I am looking forward to returning to London and regaining a schedule. I'll post at least one more before I leave, and don't forget to check on the research blog for updates once we stat typing the full report!

Other funny things of the week:

-On the street I saw a bus that said “Missionary” down the side and then “Winning” on the front and back windshields. They certainly had faith J

-When purchasing apples, baking powder, and eggs for my baking experiments, I was asked multiple times if I wanted a machete to cut my apples. A knife sufficed.

-In multiple interviews, people asked us what the information would be used for AFTER they completed the entire interview.

-Kyla asked if the burning trash on the side of the road was an offering. Haha. Unfortunately, it is just burning piles of trash, making offerings to the environmental and air pollution gods.

-One of the 5-star hotels we interviewed had clocks representing the time in different cities around the world. One of the places was Nework, which we are guessing was supposed to be Newark.

-After numerous marriage proposals, Kyla calculated based on the current price of cows in Kenya, it would take a minimum of 1 million cows to even take a proposal seriously!