Now that the book is submitted for editing. I can take the blinders off and take in the realities of where I am. Guys, I’m in Haiti. O. M. Gee! It is absolutely beautiful along the southern coast of Haiti. Unbelievably so. The earthquake didn’t affect this part of the country. And all around me I see green mountains, blue skies, palm trees and the great big Caribbean sea – blue and vast.

I’m working on a joint project with UN Environmental Program and UN Operations to develop the southern coast of Haiti. It’s called the Cote Sud Initiative and I’m an independent contractor for the project. Here to develop marketing materials for promoting the use of firewood efficient cookstoves that will help in slowing down the rate at which trees are cut for firewood. It’s the same stuff I was doing in Senegal, Nigeria and Mali. Except this time, I’m more focused on marketing and I’m not just working on stoves. I’ll be doing some work on solar lanterns as well.

Call me crazy, but I think I want Haitian citizenship. The food’s great. I hope they let me return someday to buy land along the coast. If there’s one thing I’m learning from all the places this work has taken me, it’s that opportunity abounds. There’s low hanging fruit. And well meaning businesses and the private sector can do so so so much more than years of NGO involvement. So friends, I hope that as ideas evolve, we’ll be joining forces to do some amazing things not only in Africa, but in sister parts of the world like the Caribbean.

Who’s with me!?!

It’s not pretty. Needs lots of work. I’m going over and plugging leaks, fixing tenses, trying not to cringe. Almost there.

The people I interviewed in Nairobi had one thing in common. It wasn’t until I’d left Kenya that I realized it. I know I’m about to make a sweeping statement, but you’ve done so well bearing with a name like Solving Africa that I figured why not test the waters even further. These people weren’t in sync with their surroundings. It didn’t matter what was happening around them or what their realities were, they operated at a plane above it all. They were either really oblivious to the odds they were up against or really optimistic that they were all the difference that there needed to be. Or both.

Take Fostina Mani for example. I met her after the focus group at USIU. She’s about 40, married, has a teenage son, Head of Fundraising at the university, serves as faculty mentor to the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) club and on Saturdays, runs a business school in Ukambani, her husband’s home town. I can’t say she had an epiphany. She was like many of us who visit our rural hometowns and see that very little has changed. She saw that would-be entrepreneurs set up small, barely-stocked shacks and called it a business. They rarely took steps to evaluate and improve their businesses and planning for the future simply didn’t factor in. When the rains don’t fall as heavily or as frequently as expected, crops die and the village calls it drought. But the grass, flowers and weeds around the village tell a different story. They bear witness against the farmers that there was water somewhere else.

Fostina did more than just observe. Transforming her village was easier than she’d thought. She called a meeting of Ukambani entrepreneurs. At first it was just women coming to these meetings. They discussed the importance of keeping accounts, why it was necessary to know how much one was making or spending, and easy methods to begin doing so. They discussed the idea of co-operatives and seeking grants to expand their rural businesses. She explained that there were resources out there for villages like theirs to get loans and expert help to develop themselves. Soon, husbands heard about what their wives were learning and they too started showing up. The community provided a place for what has become the Ukamba School of Business. What started out as just some bookkeeping advice is now a building with a library and computer room with Internet access, which she pays for.

When I visited, the class was discussing irrigation. There were two class assistants, students from the SIFE club. They helped with everything from searching the Internet for answers to questions that might come up during class to grant writing. Fostina started by asking why there was a drought in Ukambani. Everyone agreed it was a lack of sufficient rainfall. She then told the class that Israel is a country in the desert, they barely get any rain, but somehow they are able to grow food to feed themselves. She asked the class to come up with ideas of how to water their plants if no more rain fell. They said they could drill a borehole. It would cost almost $10,000 – a hefty sum for a small village. They could dig a well but they couldn’t use it to grow maize. Their groundwater was salty and maize couldn’t survive on this kind of water.

Despite the knowledge that maize was not optimal given their location and unpredictable rainfall, it seemed every farmer present still only thought to plant it. Maize is used to make Ugali, the most Kenyan of Kenyan dishes. Asking the people of Ukambani to plant something else was almost like asking a fish not to swim or asking a Korean not to eat Kimchi. If they were to survive, adaptation was imperative. This was the point Fostina was driving at. As class progressed, someone mentioned River Harvesting. He explained that it was a technique used in the old days to collect water for irrigation. Instead of entirely damming a river, people would build walls in the river. As the water flowed, it would collect in the pseudo-dam and when full, continue flowing along its normal course. Class ended with the decision to seek grant money for a borehole with a River Harvesting project in the meantime. I realized that Fostina wasn’t just transforming her village, she was transforming minds. People were learning to look at their surrounding differently, to take charge of what they could control and seek help when necessary. By having these kinds of conversations in a culture where people believe that the hand nature deals you is the lot that God has given you, Fostina is pushing the limits of Ukambani’s vision.

It’s great to have this positive outlook that things in Africa can and will change soon. And if possible, change in our lifetime. But my goodness, the whole situation inspires very little hope doesn’t it? I’ve been back for less than six months and the hopelessness is palpable and waiting at the door.

It’s there when I see children as young as six with their begging bowls walking around town. In northern Nigeria, these kids are called the Almajiri. It’s said that their parents send them to the city for Islamic school but their masters let them roam the streets to beg. Someone tried explaining to me that moslems are obligated to help them so it isn’t like they won’t have food. This is true to an extent, but kids shouldn’t have to beg or wear tattered clothes and walk around unsupervised around town at such a young age! What does this say anout a society that’s too preoccuppied to protect its most vulnerable? Even if I gave them money or food, there’s always the lurking rumor that their masters require that they relinquish whatever money they make. This is an age old tradition and there’s very little I feel I can do about it.

The hopelessness is there when you hear that the Nigerian government is spending N10 billion naira ($670 million) to celebrate its independence while children in government schools have classes under a tree. You’d think leaders in Africa would be shamed into action. They just don’t care. How else could you explain why African presidents, ministers and senators are some of the world’s highest paid government officials?

The system is so ingrained that people who want to do the right thing are seen as the enemy. And it’s clearer by the day that no one is interested in doing right by the people they lead.

This feeling of powerlessness is so debilitating and I’ve found myself slowly shutting down and shielding my eyes from how messed up things are around me.

It’s a management issue isn’t it?
It’s a leadership issue isn’t it?
It’s western oppression issue isn’t it?
It’s an education issue isn’t it?
It’s a lack of personal responsibility issue isn’t it?

Its all these and more and the only way to come at it is to do something. Say a prayer. Sweep a street. Pick up litter. Be unnecessarily polite. Sponsor a kid through a semester, year, the entirety of school. Adopt an orphanage. Write a song. Write a poem. Write a book. Visit more often if you’re abroad. Open your eyes and dream larger if you’re at home. Speak up against injustice however small and within the limits of your courage. But speak whenever possible. Get frustrated but don’t lose hope. Wear Africa, rep Africa, own Africa. Just do something.

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!