Nairobi

So I promised I would come back when I had more news, and now I finally do. I took a week long trip to Nairobi last month. The purpose of the trip was to make some research partnerships with local institutions in Kenya for the think tank that we are trying ever hard to mount from Pamplona. The trip was very fruitful, and I'd love to return to Kenya. That's the bottom line. If you want more than that...

Thursday, November 4th >>> We fly from Madrid at 6.45am in the morning connect in London Heathrow and arrive in Nairobi at 10pm. As we began to land, Nairobi didn't seem to have the allure or the bright lights that other big cities do. When we went through customs, we again noticed that the size of the airport and the quality of its maintenance was something we hadn't seen before. Walking to meet our driver and seeing a seemingly chaotic disorder of cabs scrambling to give people rides made us realize we'd arrived in The Third World.

I was quite tired and happy to get to my hostel. I was greeted by the German Nun of the Precious Blood Order that ran it. She would be my cook for most of the week.

Friday, November 5th >>> I woke up and had to make it for a business meeting at 9.30. I hadn't had a chance to get to the ATM yet so I ask for a ride there. My cab comes and rolls up to an ATM guarded by two army officers with assault rifles (just in case I was worried about theft I assume). I then went to go see Strathmore Secondary School. It is a private high school in Nairobi, and, as you will see from the pictures, quite an awesome one. Next, we had to go to a meeting in at the Institute of Economic Affairs. We showed up nearly 30 minutes late for the meeting because the roads were in poor condition. We literally couldn't move more than 15m on our dirt road before hitting a muddy pot hole. The institute itself was actually in a fairly well-kept building. Once our meeting concluded, we went to Strathmore University to take a tour of its facilities and have lunch. A couple of first impressions still stand out. First, the Kenyans who greeted us were remarkably friendly and the nicest guys in the world. It turns out that they were not exceptionally nice, but rather the norm for the country. Second, I listened to Catholic Mass with Swahili hymns for the first time. If anyone has any doubt Kenya his beautiful, listen to some Swahili music. I doubt you'll find a more peaceful tune. The day concluded with a meeting. We spoke with Terry Ryan who is an economic adviser to Kenyan government. He was brilliant and said many interesting things. The most interesting: "Consider a man who is a tribal chieftain, wears a prestigious cloth, owns 100 cattle, has 30 people who would literally die for him and makes exactly $0 / day. Is he poor? According to the World Bank, he is. But we have to go much deeper into understanding poverties many complexities."

Saturday, November 6th >>> Being a weekend, we took advantage of it to go and tour the centter of downtown Nairobi. For lunch, I had the most amazing fruit of the trip, Passion Fruit. Imagine a pomegranate but so much sweeter and more glorious. That's what it tasted like. I loved it. During the afternoon, we went to go see the Eastlands Project (check out the photos since my words will do injustice). For dinner, we were invited to the Opus Dei Delegation for dinner.

Sunday, November 7th >>> A lazy day. I somehow was able to play basketball with 9 Kneyan guys at the Strathmore School. I am embarassed to talk about how badly I played compared to them. That night, I was also given some yogurt by the nuns that came straight from the cow on the farm that they also work. I was in heaven. That yogurt is so much fresher than anything I've ever tasted.

Monday, November 9th >>> I found my balls this morning, and decided that it was time to walk to work and not just take cab rides. So I walked for about an hour through one of Nairobi's nicer zones. In some ways, today is the most boring day because it is back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings. Enough said.

Tuesday, November 9th >>> We had a meeting in the morning with the five deans of the different faculty at Stratmore University. Afterwards, we presented to the Institute of Development Studies (where Stiglitz won his Nobel). Next, I had to make a presentation in front of 30 lecturers from the School of Accountancy to drum up interest in our project. Was I successful, we'll see with time. One interesting thing is that a student told me that he had developed a project in the slum where he got poor people to band together to save pools of money, and when they had collectivley saved money, a bank would be willing to sponsor them, give them a loan and let people start building houses of their own. It is very creative. That wasn't the coolest part of the day. Just as I was finishing up the last of my cab rides and I reached for my wallet to pay the fare, I heard a squawking sound from the trunk. The driver told me to come to the trunk to see what he had inside. I looked in to find two live chickens. He explained that they were dinner for his family, but if then he offered me the chickens because I had been so nice. I ultimately rejected the offer, but I have never been so surprised before.

Wednesday, November 10th >>> Good news. All of our business meetings were finished so we had the day free before our evening flight. I asked some community outreach people at Strathmore University if they could show me the real Nairobi. They said, "No problem." They got me some jamming boots, and we went to Kibera. This is the name given to Africa's largest slum covering nearly 500 square kilometers (if my math is right, that is more or less the size of Manhattan). I was entering another world.

With internet, you can read about poverty. There are plenty of news stories every day about it. You can also hear about poverty. There are a number of documentaries that attempt to enable poor people to give their testimony about their plight. With the explosion of Youtube, you can also see poverty and the circumstances that these people live in. However, none of these things let you smell poverty. In Kibera, I smelled poverty. From the burning pig hooves that were going to be one man's breakfast to the river of raw sewage that ran through parts of the slum to the collective odor in the air of walking by shacks that house people who use their money to buy water and can't afford to shower everyday or buy clothes, I was overwhelmed by how in the world humanity could let such a thing happen.

But that's when I saw something truly resilient. I went to go see a project where 15 Hiv-Positive mothers had confronted a harsh reality. They would be dead in 5 - 10 years, and it is very likely that their children (72 among them all) would be orphans in one of the worst places in the world to be an orphan. What did they do? They banded together to form a business selling tiny bracelets and necklaces. The profit from any single band is nothing for one mother. However, the profit from 15 mothers working is enough to sustain a school for their children and to provide for medical care as well.

Seeing such resiliency made me realize that the money in my savings account could technically finance that school for quite some time, it would destroy the mothers. Their lives are all about the community that they live in. What can improve their lives is them improving their skills at jewelry-making. My money would be no good. That is the biggest lesson I took away. This poor society was not about competition and invidualism. It was about collaboration and community. I'd like to go back to learn more those things since they are a lot more attractive to me than the former two.

November 10th >>> So I skip the remaining details of my trip (which are few) to talk about being in London Heathrow's Terminal 3 for my connecting flight only 24 hours after walking through Kibera. In Kibera, the streets are lined with garbage. In Terminal 3, the tile floor is so polished that I could see my reflection. At that moment, I did not feel pity for those in Kibera nor contempt for all the businessmen about me who have so many good fortunes in life that they can probably name only a few. What I felt is hard to explain. I was quite humbled by what I saw in Kibera. Western wealth is not a bad thing. Affluency that let's one pursue their dreams is a blessing. The shame is that the people in Kibera are so poor that many of them don't even know what it means to have dreams to pursue. And I can't help but to say that a dream of my own is that we can learn as much from them as they do from us.

4 months

Geez! Has it really been four months since I wrote my last post? That's how life goes. Four months ago I was headed into summer so I knew it would be a good time to take a break. Yet, after friends came in to visit this summer and then my own trip back home at the end of August, I barely had time to resurrect with the work that has been going on. Anyways, we're going to keep blogging this year even if unsporadically. I promise I'll be back soon with a real update...

Falling into place...

Since the last post back in April, I have gotten a lot of answers to some of the questions that popped up. For starters, my contract will be renewed for at least one more year, which means I will be in Pamplona until August 2011. I have also been admitted into a master's/phd program at the university to study governance and culture of organizations. The master's program is one year followed by three more to do the thesis. Obviously, that means I will be in Pamplona for more than a year in all likelihood. I do miss home, and ideally will spend 9 months a year in Pamplona and 3 months a year at home for the next chunk of my life. The other big thing is that a foundation here has named as a US delegate, and so, I will be trying to some grant writing and fundraising on their behalf in the US.

While all this has been going on, my sister came to visit for a week, the girlfriend went back home for the summer and I moved into a new apartment. That is quite a bit of activity, but by no means a complaint. It has been very fun the past two months.
Now with summer approaching and, more importantly, el Mundial I get to enjoy less distractions at work as I prepare for nothing but a few hours of solid work followed by more hours of watching football.

That said, I am not sure how much I will have to say. Originally, I wanted to start blogging to let everyone know about my travels and my work out here. I didn't how long I would be out here so I just enjoyed it. Looks as though now I might be here longer. I will probably continue to blog, but you will notice the tone, content and maybe even the quality change a little bit as I get even more accustomed to life in Spain. Either way, I will be back in New York from August 18th until September 12th. With everything else going on, that date is certainly circled on the calendar.

Easter break

Just got back yesterday from Easter break. It was pretty awesome. I spent five days in Rome with my sister and my parents and then two days in Madrid with my parents and then two days at a conference in Segovia.

Rome was definitely the highlight. I didn't eat a bad meal, and had more spaghetti and gelati in those five days than I will ever have in Spain. That alone was worth the trip. Being back in the motherland with my family was great. The first time we were all abroad even though we were only 4/5 of what we should be. To boot, my girlfriend happened to be in Rome and she met the parents. That went really well. Add in going to the Good Friday service at the Vatican as well as Mass at the Vatican on Sunday. The weather wasn't so cooperative, but it didn't matter. I think there were around a million people at the Vatican for Mass on Sunday. That is how to do Easter right.

Madrid with the folks was good too. They got a taste of the Spanish country side. I was able to show them around a little bit as well. It was all good stuff. I even took them to Pamplona so they could see what life here is like. Pamplona is small enough that it can be enchanting providing you don't stay too long.

I was in Segovia the past two days for something called the Science Against Poverty that was put on by the Spanish Presidency of the EU. It was a big rah-rah about how social scientists and academes can use their skills to make policies to help combat poverty. Still, I met lots of interesting people. Some of whom I will definitely stay in contact with in the future.

After all that travelling, I am very happy to be in Pamplona for the next few days to refocus on what I am doing at the center and to relax. It is springtime here. I want to enjoy as much sun as I can even though I have much to do. I hope by the end of the month I will have official word about my status in Pamplona for next year, but it unofficially it is looking like I will definitely be back.

Until then...

Africa, Africa

For the past twelve days I was in South Africa. It was quite the trip. From the people to the sights to the country itself the visit was incredible. Our journey consisted of 3 days in Pretoria, 5 days in Johannesburg and 4 days in Cape Town. South Africa is a country that can overwhelm you with its stunning natural beauty from Cape Town's winelands and cliffs to safaris just outside the Jo'burg-metro area. Equally overwhelming is the racial diversity of a country that is 80% black and just 15% white, but with much inequality. Apartheid ended here just 15 years ago and it seemed as though you could notice it Jo'burg. There is definitely a severe paranoia that is not unjustified that robbery, assault, carjackings and murders are always imminent. Rich people do not put picket fences around their homes, but rather concrete barriers with electronic fences that have armed response units with guard dogs lurking near the entrance. All of this is because Jo'burg is chronically unsafe. The city has 40% unemployment. Of that number, many are black and between the age of 18 - 24. That is not a good demographic for a low crime rate. Yet, Jo'burg was a city founded first because of its gold and later because of other resources. For that reason, many British mining companies are in Jo'burg and are very much profitable. Throw in the Afrikaaner influence into the mix, and you begin to get an idea of the kind of diversity you see in Johannesburg. It is a city of nearly 5 million, but growing fast. 70% of all businesses in South Africa call Johannesburg home. For all of its security issues, it is the richest place in the country beyond a doubt.

That doesn't take away from other cities who have their own charm. Pretoria is where a lot of politicians call home. For that reason, it is markedly more pretty than Jo'burg, but also less exciting and very white. Cape Town is incredibly cosmpolitan with the feel of a European city to it - just much blacker. These are just generalities and initial things that are striking.

What exactly did we do? In Johannesburg, we went to the Nelson Mandela and Hector Peterson Museums. The name Mandela doesn't need much explanation, but the second one does. Hector Peterson is a little boy who was shot dead by a riot in Soweto in the mid 1970's. An anonymous journalist took a photo of the boy being carried across street in the midst of the riot. That photo became famous and embodied what happened in Soweto that day. At this point in time, the apartheid government had been in power for 20 years. They had previously decided that it wasn't important for blacks to learn math and writing skills only how to mine and to farm. They also decided that blacks wouldn't be allowed to travel outside of their township without permission. Growing bolder, in the 1970's they said that all schools in the black townships had to teach Afrikaans (a mix of Dutch, German and Belgian). Students resisted and organized a protest where they were all going to march from the township to a soccer stadium. They never got there because the Afrikaaner police unleashed fire and killed more than 200 children no older than 12 years old. Seeing all of this in the museum was powerful. What is even more striking is where we went next.

We went to a poorer part of Soweto (here is where you find out that Soweto was a SOuth WEstern TOwnship that is part of Johannesburg that is massively big and riddled with poverty though within it there are some lower middle class and middle class pockets). We visited a school that looked like it had been abandoned. Its windows were shattered, its doors non-existent, its walls sprinkled with gunshot holes and its yard appeared like many of the kids did in the classroom - malnourished. Of all the kids that go to school, 85% of them do not know their parents either because the father is working far away in a mine and the mother has died from AIDS or because the some guy my age raped their mother who abandoned the child. The result is that you have all these kids living in quasi-orphanages with no role models and, for the most part, no future. That is why Real Madrid is throwing a bunch of money to renovate the school so that it can do some after school projects and hopefully link the kids with positive role models that way. Though it is just one school, it is a microcosm of the South African situation. The rest of Johannesburg was meeting with universities. It was fruitful.

Then we went to Pretoria for a few days. We went to nature reserve and saw some zebras and antelope. We passed some time in the swimming pool of the residence where we were staying. We had meetings with government institutions the next day before returning to Jo'burg to wrap some other meetings.

Next, we went to Cape Town for more meetings. The city itself is incredible. There are sidewalks, and it is completely walkable during the day. There are live music venues, bars, diverse restaurants, shopping malls, theater and plenty of life in the city. It is also naturally beautiful with its own waterfront, and the chance to do things like safaris, whale watching, skydiving, cage diving to see Great White Sharks, seal watching, hiking, touring wine lands, driving along the coast and seeing diverse wildlife. We opted for the last two. We drove along the coast to go to the Cape of Good Hope and stopped off in Simon's Town to see some African Penguins.

It is here where I get to say that while I have pictures they do not do justice to the trip. Either the weather sucked when I had my camera on me, or (as was the case in Soweto) I didn't feel comfortable or was too caught in the moment to take the really interesting shots. Regardless, below is the link for photos:

http://s756.photobucket.com/albums/xx208/rbdesimone/Africa%20Africa/?albumview=slideshow

It was a great trip with many memories. South Africa is a fascinating country.

San Cristobal, South Africa and Ulzama

I am gearing up for South Africa. I will take a 12 day trip from March 11th until March 23rd visiting four cities. The purpose of the trip is business. We will be meeting with several individuals at South African think tanks and universities to see what the possibility is that we could do a research partnership with one or more of them. I will be staying at this place called Cotswold Gardens that is right next to the Jo'burg Zoo. It is just a short five days away. It is going to be awesome, terrifc, fantastic, wonderful, sick, mad, etc...

Other bit of news is that I went for a hike yesterday on the Camino de San Cristobal. It was the first hike that I've taken in awhile and the first in Pamplona. It won't be the last. The view from the top of the mountain is pretty neat. You can see the Pyrenees as well as all of the little towns that are around Pamplona. To boot there is an old, abandoned army fort at the the top of the mountain that was also used as a prison camp during the Spanish Civil War. It was pretty creepy to be inside. Regardless, as the weather gets warmer I am animated to take more and more hikes.

After I get back from South Africa on the 23rd, I will go on a four day retreat (25 - 28) to Ulzama (a small village) to spend some time in prayer and silence. I don't know when I will make my next entry then. I will squeeze in what I can. Either way, there should be pictures accompanying some of the following posts.

February

It has been a busy two weeks here in Pamplona. There are two major highlights to speak of:

1) Rome. I went to Rome not this weekend but eight days ago to visit my sister, who is studying abroad there this semester, and my brother, who was visiting here for the week. It was a fantastic time. I got there around 3pm on a Saturday afternoon and had enough time to eat pizza and have some wine with my sister, walk around her neighborhood in Trastevere and walk around Ancient Rome for a bit before having an amazing dinner at this place called Vecchia Locanda. When I say the food was amazing, I don't mean it was just one particular dish. I mean everything including the bread had the same effect on me that those mangos had on George Costanza. After dinner, I went out to get a taste of the Roman nightlife. I went to one hip and trendy bar, a divy student place and then a club. It was a pretty cool night overall. In the morning, I woke up and had a nice breakfast with my sister before heading home. It was an awesome trip though too short. I am very excited for Eastertime now since I will go back to Rome with my parents to visit my sister. It should be spectacular.

2) Getting warmer. By getting warmer I wish I meant that spring was upon us. Unfortunately, the weather in Pamplona is still around the normal winter temperature. It hovers just above or at freezing. What I meant by getting warmer is that if I am going to stay in Pamplona for longer than just this year and if I am going to do the master's and phd like I want, I have always known that I had to thrash out some a solid idea for a potential thesis. Not only does the idea itself have to be compelling, it also must be compatible with the research center here so that I can do the PhD as I keep up with the workflow at the center. I have flirted with several, more specific ideas since January. Common themes that keep recurring are social entrepreneurship and public-private partnerships broadly speaking. I have had some very fruitful conversations with some people recently that are helping to hone more and more what I want to do here. I don't have specifics right now except that I hope to have a very clear proposition by the end of March.

A third thing worth mentioning is that I have been hanging out with what you might call the New York crowd here in Pamplona a lot more. All of us are in a similar boat. We are from New York and came to Pamplona to do research or a degree. It's always good to be around people who have similar struggles.

As you can see, I am continuing to enjoy Pamplona, but think I will be even more comfortable once I have fully warmed up. Hopefully, by the next post, I will be nearly there....

The last 54 days

I am resuming the blog after a long holiday break and what has been three weeks of getting settled back into my life here in Pamplona. Holiday break was amazing. I saw many of whom are probably reading this blog. Now that I live away from home, it was such a blessing to spend Christmas in New York with family and friends. It was absolutely perfect. I much look forward to repeating the experience again and again over the next few years. The holidays are very much time for family and friends so I didn't do anything too eventful beyond the usual eating and celebrating.

I have been back in Pamplona nearly three weeks, and it feels like I never left. At work, things are continuing to pick up. We are on the verge of winning some funding for the center pretty soon, and we are starting to select countries that we will do poverty research on. I am slowly getting very busy. I much like this. In addition to the uptick at work, I am keeping up with the ongoing effort to raise money for Fundacion Profesionales Solidarios. I am hoping that an updated website and some sessions with a graphic designer will give us some better weapons to fundraise. Also, I am going to pursue grants from US foundations since there is real money to be had here. The last little project that I have going is trying to set up some activities here in Pamplona for doctoral students. The effort is coming along nicely and is finally starting to bear fruit. I have organized a small speaker series of sorts. I hope that some sporting events and weekend getaways will also be in the miss, but not only do things happen slowly in Spain. All new things take time. I am wrestling with it.

Socially I am enjoying Pamplona more and more as I appreciate it for what it is worth. It is a quiet town, but I know enough people to enjoy it. Because winter has a way of making people stay indoors, I have been doing my best to try and learn how to cook a few extra dishes in addition to catching up on some reading. In two weeks, I go to Rome for the weekend. I am beyond excited about that. I will be visiting my sister who is studying there and brother who will be in town for the week. At the conclusion of that trip, I will surely have more photos to upload.

Speaking of photos, below is a slideshow I put together explaining the foundation's work and their projects over the 2009 year. Enjoy it...

http://s993.photobucket.com/albums/af60/funapros/funapros%202009/?albumview=slideshow

Last note is that I am continuing to think long-term about doing a doctoral thesis out here. My interest is in how to build an institution. Within that, I am still trying to flesh out exactly where I wish to go. The good news is that by May I hope to have a plan in place as to how I will do it. I also hope to have a theme picked out by then. You will be posted as the idea kicks around my head.

Now, that I am back I hope to resume the regularity of doing an entry every week. Write to you then...