I owe you stories about Fostina Mani, Sammy Gitau, Leah Komen, Wairimu Gitau – all Kenyans whose pet projects are examples of that originality we were discussing last week. I also need to tell you about my last interview at USIU and about Salsa night in Nairobi and about Ugali and Sukumawiki but I’m yet to figure out how best to tell these stories. I’m stuck.

So, while my thoughts percolate, I will either bore you with my internal musings on my tme in Nairobi or start writing about another country. I’d rather finish Kenya before moving on, though. So here’s to waiting for a breath of clarity on how best to proceed.

Guys, this (bit by bit on the blackberry) method is actually working! So far, I’ve written about 1500 words. A typical chapter would fall between 3000 and 5000 words. Your comments help more than you realize so don’t be stingy. Whoever reads this should say something. And to those of you regular comment leavers: muchos gracias, merci beaucoup, dalu ofuma, nagode maku, ese, gratis, danyavahd, xie xie, THANK YOU! Four to five more posts and the chapter on Kenya is done. Ok. Back to work. Where were we? Ah yes…

I’d earlier stated that playing catch up with the west is a strategy rigged to fail. This idea is probably better illustrated than explained. After the focus group, Diana, Allan, Linda who’d been with us at the library, and I headed over to Diana’s office where she kept us entertained with P-Squared music videos. P-Squared is a Nigerian music duo comprising two brothers – Peter and Paul. The pair came on the scene in the mid-2000s but it was hard to take them seriously. It’s not that they weren’t talented. In fact their performance was the best I’d seen out of Nigeria in a while. The problem was they seemed too interested in being Usher Raymond or some other Karaoke version of an American R&B sensation. It just wasn’t believable. A few years down the line, their act became less copycat they’ve become one of the most successful artists out of Nigeria. Their style remained contemporary, but was now peppered with traditional flavors. This combination of modern instruments and synthesizers with traditional storylines and language cannot be seen as an imitation of anything else. P-Squared had finally entered the building and the whole continent was listening. Their 2008 concert in Nairobi was as packed as an overrun stadium of prebuscent Nsync fans.

This phenomenon is not just true for music and movies. It is evident in nearly every endeavor where genuine African originality – instead of a mimicry of western trends – thrives. The most recognized Africans on the planet are those who’ve been truest to their African heritage. If Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka had written books about the lives of the western characters they’d grown up reading about instead of the life they knew firsthand, they wouldn’t be the icons they are today. If Lisa Folawiyo, founder of Jewel by Lisa, and an acclaimed Nigerian designer was making englishwear instead of the Batik she is known for, her work would have been lumped in among that of the myriad would-be designers trying to design clothes for a western audience in an already saturated market.

Even from a purely empirical stance, originality is Africa’s smartest move. More on that in the next blog…

So back to this U. S. Of Africa business…

Allan was not the only one who thought it was a bad idea. Some argued that smaller countries would be perpetual casualties of this idea. There were also concerns that if power were to be rotated, leaders would play favorites, giving more attention to their region at the expense of the entire continent’s development.

Those who supported the idea were concerned about its economic benefits – another argument in favor of regional integration. I am no economist, but what I’d learned from all those afternoons at the African Union headquarters in Addis was this: our only hope for economic survival lay in our ability to cooperate. Playing catch up with the west is a strategy that is rigged to fail. There are regional economic blocs already in existence. Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), Southern African Development Council (SADC) and the African Maghreb Union (AMU) in the north. All except the AMU are members of the larger African Economic Community (AEC) – the closest thing we have to a United Africa. And the only AMU country opposed to joining the AEC is Morocco. I learned that the existence of these organizations was not enough. Economists at the African Union explained that regional blocs could agree on a strategy in-house, say on trade agreements for a common export. But if I came along with an offer that was good for an individual country but could potentially undermine trade in the region, most countries would jump at my offer.

The divide and conquer strategy was still effective and such offers will be forever tempting until African countries become more concerned with actual development than the appearance of development. Instead of pride in skyscrapers and roads built by foreign workers, an educational system that can train its citizens to build their own roads and skyscrapers. Instead of heads of state running off to Saudi Arabia for treatment, a country with hospitals fit for its own president. But the onus does not fall squarely on our governments. Even among businessmen, sights are set on making connections in Asia, Europe, America when an easier to reach partner may be one country over. Firms like UAC Foods, MTN, Guaranty Trust Bank, and EcoBank had begun building franchises within Africa and I dream of a day when even smaller firms seek out expansion opportunities in neighboring African countries.

Seeing as none of you saw fit to comment on the previous post about a United States of Africa, I’m putting that on hold to write this instead:

Kenya would have been a lot less fun without Nyambura, a precocious eight-year-old who taught me almost every word of Swahili I now flaunt. Her invaluable commentary and tutelage in Sheng, the swanky slang version of Swahili spoken by most young Kenyans, had me sounding like I’d been there much longer than just six days. Swahili is that language that other languages want to be when they grow up. They can only dream of having the same swagger it has. Let’s face it, you too wish you could say Hakuna Matata and get away with it. And if you thanked people by saying the words, Sante Sana, you’d find every excuse to be grateful. And if Habariyako was your way of saying hello, keeping a grudge would be very difficult because you’d be too busy saying hello to any and everyone…Habariyako!

Now Sheng is what happens when you take an already kick-ass language and hand it to a bunch of expressive, fun-loving, melody-inclined, Channel-O-watching juvenile East Africans. From the moment I heard my first morsel of it, I knew I’d kickstarted a love-affair with the bastard child of this great language. As with every great linguistic movement, the older crowd is ever-bemoaning the bygone days when people spoke properly. They cannot stand Sheng. They think it is disrespectful and degrading to the Swahili language, which of course sends the young folks deeper into devising even more derivatives with which to torment their parents. I usually would side with the parents on this one, being a lover of language myself, but what’s the point of language if not in communicating the gamut of human experiences? Sheng does this perfectly.

For instance, on a drive home from the Yaya Mall in Hurlingham to Kileleshua (another word I love saying), Nyambura’s mom was explaining how the quaint bungalows in this part of town were slowly being replaced by luxury apartment buildings and condominiums. Nyambura said, “Heh! Mummie-ee, all these houses have been bomolewaa’d!”
Instinctively, without ever having heard those words before, I knew exactly what she meant: the houses had been demolished. Her reaction to hearing that I had no other grown-up job than to travel from one African country to the next? “That’s so nomaa.” You guessed it, she thought that was so cool.

The beauty of Sheng lies in the ease with which it fits into everyday English and in its ability to spice up a mundane sentence. I can’t tell you how many times Nyambura interjected the words nomaa and moto, meaning hot, into what would have been an otherwise everday description of her day at school.

But my absolute favorite of all Sheng idioms is the word fikaa. To fikaa means to reach or to arrive. You fikaa the airport. You fikaa the orange behind the fridge. You have also fikaa’d when you make a killer point during a conversation. You have fikaa’d when you come to school wearing the best and latest gear. And you are also fikaaing while driving a turn-people’s-heads-my-way type of car. You have fikaa’d when you’re done ranting and you’ve fikaa’d when you’re moved out of mom and dad’s. I could keep going, but knowing when you have fikaa’d is a skill worth having.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry. And yes, it’s another gimmick to help me finish what I started.

This is continued from my landing at the Jomo Kenyatta Int’l Airport. So tell me, will a United States of Africa solve any problems or create bigger ones? Enjoy…

Minutes after clearing customs, I bought a Safaricom SIM card, negotiated a ride for (about 1300KSH) to the school where I’d be interviewing students and was discussing the possibility of a United States of Africa. Good idea? Potentially disastrous? Which language would we speak? Could we finally exert some pull in trade agreements? Would we lose our cultures? Become stronger? Was this entirely laughable?

It was a Friday and I was having this conversation at a plush conference room in the library at USIU (the United States International University) in Nairobi. Complete with swivel chairs, projector, several sockets for laptops and a phone, you could quickly tell that this school was in the big leagues. These students belonged to a pan-African student club they called YALDA (Youth Alliance for Leadership Development in Africa). Founded in 2007 by Bukamu Hulela while at Harvard University, YALDA is active in Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, Egypt and the United States – a total of twelve universities. She wasn’t even 22 years old and she’d created an organized network of students around Africa. If YALDA Kenya was anything to go by, this organization’s members are a driven and insightful bunch. Organizations like this made you feel that a United States of Africa wasn’t so far fetched.

My thoughts drifted to Sofiene and the gang in Tunisia. What would they think of this? They were just beginning to make sense of being Arab, Mediterrenean and African. The Amideast students had only just been convinced that not every country south of their border was at the precipice of a bloody TV Cinq-worthy headline-making civil war. Then let’s not forget it was nearly impossible to make friends with people my age in Ethiopia because of the language and ideological barriers. A United Africa of any sort would be a feat. Slowly, my thoughts returned to the conversation in the room.

Alan, a second year student of public admin, was absolutely against the idea. “I don’t want to ever lose my identity. I’m a Luo and that comes before being Kenyan. It just won’t work. Africans are just too different,” he said.

This is under 200 words on my first moments in Kenya, the third country on the Solving Africa itinerary. You can expect short anecdotes like this from now on until I’ve exhausted all my stories from Kenya.

Kenya started off with a bang. After the ordeal of getting a Kenyan visa, I thought I’d have a hard time getting through customs. But, as soon as the immigration officer saw my green passport, he instantly broke into a smile and said, “My broda how far?” Thoroughly impressed with his rendition of Nigerian pidgin and a little shocked to hear pidgin in Kenya, I asked him why he was speaking pidgin, didn’t Kenya want to keep Nigerians out at all costs? I should have known better than to ask that question because I could have predicted his answer: It’s just a few giving you a bad name, he said. Earlier this year, a Nigerian man was being deported for drug trafficking. When he was brought to the airport, he threw a tantrum, even stripped down until he was stark naked and had to be sent back to jail. Of course he only succeded in showing the world his family jewels because he was still deported. With that, I was handed my passport and called Oga Sir!

I was supposed to write a great book. Everyone was counting on it. I’d raised the money to travel to seven African countries and I’d told everyone I would write a book about it. All I had to do was sit my ass down and write the book.

So after traveling, I started writing. I even got an agent in New York and a book deal with a solid publishing house in Lagos. The inspiration was heavy on me and I produced what I thought were two amazing chapters. And then, nothing. I tried to write. My agent asked to see some more chapters. The Lagos people gave me a six month deadline to complete the book. I felt guilty for not writing after receiving over $10000 in travel donations. But even guilt had stopped being a strong motivator.

Bottom line was, I simply didn’t want to write anymore. I just didn’t like the book I was writing even if the agents and publishers liked it. Of course no one was forcing me to write this way, but after submitting the first two chapters, I could sense that the book I was writing and the book they were expecting were as similar as Koreans to Papua New Guineans. Yes, I’d titled the book Solving Africa but let’s be serious, were they really hoping I’d provide solutions to Africa’s problems? All I wanted to do was jabber on aimlessly about my travels around Africa. Sure, I’d slide gems of wisdom in there if they somehow lost their way and strayed onto the page but it seemed I was expected to tell fun stories and come up with ideas based on my many interviews with young Africans. If I kept trying to write that great book, I would end up not writing at all.

So to save myself from becoming an utter failure (my biggest fear in life), I’m going to write another book. Of course I’m secretly harboring hopes that I’ll write brilliant stuff and become wildly successful. But this time, I’m working hard to keep my neuroses at bay. I’ll just keep writing as stuff about the trip comes to mind. I’ve also decided to write from my blackberry. If it feels like I’m sending a text message, I might actually keep writing. It seems to have worked this far.

So let’s talk about this new book. It won’t have pithy nuggets of wisdom. It will probably be riddled with very lame attempts at humor. It will be honest. It will be short. It won’t be heavily researched to show you just how much I know about the countries I visited. Everything you read in these pages will be what I learned on the trip. Disclaimer: I’m a big wuss. I didn’t go after any major adventures. I don’t drink much if ever so clubs and bars aren’t my scene. I am desperately extroverted (under the right circumstances) and I love hanging out with sober people. I consider a good conversation quite intoxicating and will gladly forgo sleep, food, or other such prudence if a good conversation is at stake. So, you will find that several scenes in this book consist of people talking. Fortunately or unfortunately, there will be a lot of me doing the talking. If you’ve already tired of hearing me talk, now would be a good time to put down this book. If you’ve decided to stick it out here’s a map of the next hundred or so pages: I’ll tell you how I decided to go on a trip around Africa; how I got the money to do it; and some of the best stuff I learned from visiting Tunisia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria. In that order.

Here goes….

There’s a saying in Nigeria that goes:  better soup, na money do am – which essentially means that money equals quality. I don’t think so.

In my first week home, I’m realizing that it’s not as if I was wary of returning because things would suck. My main fear boils down to one thing: things wouldn’t look nice anymore. Sounds silly right? But let’s think this through. Instead of well-planned streets, it would be semi-planned streets without sidewalks and medians. It’s not like the roads wouldn’t be paved, it’s just that it’d be done haphazardly in some cases, or ignored in others. Instead of clean, symmetrical, inviting shops, it would be shabby lopsided boxes as excuses for entrepreneurship. In fact, what one would consider a low-end bodega in New York is priced way above Whole Foods in Abuja and could pass as a high-end shop.

I’m aware that I sound like I’m complaining so let me  unpack this a little. What happened to the desire to make things look nice? What happened to demanding that the walls be absolutely straight and the paint work be impeccable when masons complete a house or shop for you? What happened to packaging and presentation? It’s not like we lack the materials present in other countries. It’s the presentation of it that becomes the deal breaker 9 times out of ten.

Stories in Nigerian cinema are clearly riveting to its audience. It’s that extra step of white balancing so the picture doesn’t look cheap and washed out, or editing so the sound is that much crisper that is missing. There are entrepreneurs every which corner. However, what makes one stand out from the pack is presentation and not necessarily the contents in his or her shop. The quick buck seems to always win out against the planned investment. At Mr. Bigg’s (Nigeria’s main fast food chain) – it’s the same thing. The drabness of their presentation makes it that much less appealing, still this franchise is making bank because it even attempts some form of decor in a country where there is none. I realize it takes money to do certain things, but I’m not talking about those types of things. I’m talking about making the most of what’s available to you. Having standards and expecting the best that you can afford. I’m talking about going the extra mile just when you’re tempted to settle because it’s all you see around you. I’m talking about stewardship. About symmetry than about quantity. About presentation than about reinvention.

I know we have it in us. Just look at the variety of clothes at church on a Sunday morning. The styles, the ingenuity, the flare. If only we’d put the same efforts into our homes, offices, shops and cities that we do into our clothes! It’s the cumulative effect of such small things as people taking the extra step to make their surroundings pretty that speaks volumes of how much they value themselves and how much they expect you to value them. Putting all that effort into clothing speaks more of vanity, which in the Nigerian situation, deserves its own article.

Wake up Nigeria, we’ve got work to do. Lots of it. And this time, I’m afraid to break this to you, it has nothing to do with the government.

I left New York last week to live and work in Nigeria. It felt like an out-of-body experience as I packed the articles that constituted my life since I moved to the U.S. in 2002. I’m here now, I’m living in Zaria and working as an energy consultant for the United Nations Development Program’s efforts in bringing efficient firewood stoves to people in Millennium Villages. My work starts in Nigeria, but I expect that after a successful test run in Nigeria, I’ll be moved to Senegal, Mali and hopefully elsewhere.

You should have seen me packing. It’s like I was trying to pack as much of America into my suitcase before leaving. As I walked around New York that last week, I looked around knowing it could be a while before I’d see “order” and “choice” and “convenience” as embodied by the subways, restaurants and other amenities of life in New York. However, this attitude almost ruined me. It wasn’t until I’d mentally let New York and the US go and fully embraced the reality that I was leaving and it was counterproductive and unfair to my time in Nigeria to keep wanting to capture as much of the US as I could. This realization was particularly freeing and has made the transition quite fun.

Boy, it was great to hang out with my parents and my sister. I get to be home for Easter, my sister’s graduation, my parents’ 25th Anniversary, my other sister’s 21st birthday, my little bro’s 13th birthday. I get to hang with my aunties and uncles – who can be quite a riotously funny bunch. I get to be uncle Jr to their kids. I’m also acutely aware of how much I have to learn about being a grown up in a place where I’ve only ever been a kid. It’s in small things like being called uncle Jr, but also in the way parents treat you and value your opinions – they actually kept quiet and wanted to hear stuff I had to say. People at work randomly assaulting you with a sir instead of your first name, etc. I promise I won’t let it get to my head.

Now that I’m here, I would recommend it to others who’ve lived away for a while. But remember, financial stability makes this move a lot easier. Like others have said, it’s no use comparing your life in Nigeria to your life abroad. In some ways it’s better and not so great in others. What matters most to me right now is that I get to see firsthand all the things I’d talked about with friends in the comfort of coffee shops and restaurants abroad. It’s a lot like putting your money where your mouth is, and sometimes, having your money and mouth in the same place won’t be tasty.

Well, work starts tomorrow. I’m not as nervous as I thought I’d be. Let me spell out what my job is: Open firewood fires remain the main stove option for many African villages. In some places, this is a heavy burden on the forests and causing the desert to creep south even faster. To counter this, there are stoves that burn firewood more efficiently and could lead to as much as 40% less wood being burned and possibly less time spent fetching firewood for cooking. My job is to help community workers in these villages test the stoves and determine which one the community prefers. Once we’ve identified a stove that people are willing to buy, we will set up a cooperative to sell these stoves in the community. This also has benefits in terms of carbon credits that can be received from richer nations – but that comes up further along the road.

What does this mean for Solving Africa?

It means I’ll be a lot closer to the projects we’re hoping to start. I’ll be looking into how hard it is for ordinary individuals to start schools or basic health centers. Keep checking www.solvingafrica.com for what I’m learning about setting up these facilities. It’s going to be a busy next few months and with writing the book, it’s going to be a fun ride, but I hope to stay on schedule with completing a first draft of the book sometime this summer.

Now that I’m not in New York and wanting to concentrate fully on book-writing , Solving Africa will need a steering committee of a 3-5 people that will:
a) work on helping us organize events like April’s kickoff, where people can share their project ideas;
b) incorporate Solving Africa as a nonprofit; and
c) keep the website updated with fresh content.

If any of this interests you, please send me an email: junior.kanu@gmail.com and we’ll get the ball rolling.

From Zaria, Nigeria,

Jr.

Columbia University’s SIPA Pan-African Network, African Business Club and African Law Students Association

Invite

The 7th Annual African Economic Forum

March 26th and 27th, 2010

Columbia University in the City of New York

Sessions:

African Hospitality: The Power Within| Infrastructure Development in Africa

African Fashion Going Global |China-Africa Trade and Investment

Aid vs. Investment| Brand Africa: Defining a Continent

Greasing the Wheel: Law, Corruption and the Economy

Niger Delta Investment Summit

Fashion Show | Movie Screening

Details: http://www.aef2010.com

Register: http://africaeconomicforum.com/aef2010/register

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnRPunzOZds