An unusual journey to work

On Tuesday Jerry gave me and Joy a lift to work. It was the first of the month when most people have been paid and filled up their cars with petrol. So the roads were horrendous. He dropped us off on a street corner and I got my first taste of travel by matatu. These are 14 seater minibuses that are the staple form of transportation in Nairobi. Very cramped but efficient and providing employment with a driver and a conductor who spends a lot of his time hanging out of the door and banging on the roof to let the driver know when to stop.

 

Then a short walk through a market area and finally arriving at Little Rock. Much smaller than I had expected. A small building with a garden of reddish earth with some well worn play ground equipment. The classrooms looked tiny, and each one seemed to be full. 

 

A typical classroom 

 

It turned out that there was another compound in the next street, so not quite as small as I had a first thought, but still amazing that they get 200 kids in there. There was an amazing variety of activities going on, from standard pre-school lessons to remedial classes for kids with special needs to a library for after school kids to use and a workshop for making uniforms. 

 

I was feeling pretty dazed by the time I got back to the office to meet Lilly. She was just leaving for a meeting, not an uncommon occurrence by all accounts. She gives every impression of being a very busy lady. So a brief word with her and an introduction to Evelyn who is the deputy head teacher. Evelyn also looks after the money and runs the income generating activities, so I will be working with her a lot. Then Erick arrived. He is the accountant who comes along once a week to update the accounting records. He took me through what he had done on Quickbooks, and we arranged to meet on Friday to go into some more detail on data entry. The rest of the day was spent observing the payment of the support staff wages and generally wandering around on my own. By the end of the day I was starting to get a better understanding of what the centre provides.

 

Lilly, Joy & Evelyn 

 

Wednesday was the real eye opener. Joy and I walked to work. This entails a half mile journey along the edge of the slum, which was enlivened by the sight of two Maasai herdsmen manoeuvring  seven or eight cows through the throng of people walking from the slum to whatever places they work. Then a right turn and into the slum itself. Kibera is situated in a shallow valley. So the first half of the traverse was down hill toward the open sewer that runs along the bottom of the valley. The smell was pretty awful when we entered and it only got worse as we descended. 

 

I didn’t really see much of what was around me as I had my eyes glued to the ground to ensure that I didn’t step in anything too nasty or trip up. Falling down would have been a very unpleasant experience. All I recall is narrow windy uneven passageways, with various dubious looking garbage lying around, and an overpowering smell. It was a relief to be climbing back out of there, crossing the railway line and arriving at Little Rock. Not one of the pleasantest experiences of my life, but now I understood why the kids are so desperate to come to school. It may be cramped but compared to where they live it must be wonderful.

 

 

I got some time with Lilly in the morning and we talked about what she thought was needed. I also visited the small shop selling uniforms and stationery with Evelyn. She keeps receipt books and records for everything and is very diligent. The set up reminds me of my early days in accountancy, pre decimalisation and computers, when everything was done by hand. There should be some efficiencies in automating some of these processes, but power is not reliable so they will have to retain some paper systems.

 

 

I can’t believe my first week is already over. On Friday I worked with Erick who is Little Rock’s accountant. He is part way through compiling the accounts for 2010, so I’ve decided that my first job will be to help him complete the data input so we can get a first draft of the accounts and make sure that Quickbooks is set up to produce accounting information of some value to the organisation. My other objectives will be to get Evelyn proficient in entering data into Quickbooks for 2011, reviewing the chart of accounts and budget formats to make sure that they are useful in fundraising and managing, seeing if I can get a simple cashflow forecasting process in place and producing a summary finance & administration manual that can be used to demonstrate to donors that the centre is professionally run. That should keep me busy for a while.

 

On Saturday I was invited to the wedding of one of Lilly’s friends. It was very much like a British wedding until the point at which the bride and groom arrived. All the mothers then go out to greet them with a dance, and from that point on I was in no doubt that I was at an African wedding! Great fun.

 

Worked on Sunday, then out to a local bar to watch Liverpool beat Chelsea. Premier league football is as popular, if not more popular, here than in the UK. The bar was packed but good natured, just like home apart from the Tusker beer!

 

So that’s the first week gone. It has flown and been a great experience. Now down to some hard work.