First humbling impressions of my stay in Kisayani

The past few days have been quite eventful.

Last Friday, while still in Nairobi at 3am in the morning I awoke to screams and commotion. It turns out a woman 2 rooms down from me got robbed at gunpoint. She was OK, but had a few things stolen from her. The next night I was heading out with a few friends to go to an Ethiopian food restaurant and the guard dog of their house randomly bit me. It wasn’t a bad bite but it broke the skin. Thinking it was OK, I went on with my night. The next day I spoke to someone who mentioned how if left untreated, rabies is 100% fatal. The chances of me getting rabies is very slim, although there is no way to be fully aware that the dog is clean, so I went to see a doctor the next day. The doctor also mentioned that I should not risk it and get the vaccines, 5 different shots over a month. The only problem there was that I was to head to Kisayani that day to start my fieldwork, and Kisayani won’t have a fridge to keep the vaccine—the nearest clinic is about 10km down the road. I ended up finding cooler as well as a small guesthouse in the nearby town which had a fridge and could keep the vaccines cold for the next few days. I got my second shot today in town. For the 4^th and 5^th shot I will need to head to Nairobi.

Despite these few setbacks and scares, I have made it to Kisayani, where I will be spending the next few months conducting my interviews, focus groups and holding various meetings asking questions surrounding the water project, climate variances, and other sustainability questions.

I have moved into a single room ‘apartment’ with 1 bed and 2 lawn-chairs and a shared bathroom with others in the complex. When moving in I realized no cooking arrangements had been made. Because the food that is cooked in Kisayani will at times likely get me sick due to its preparation; those deciding my accommodations decided I should cook for myself. Also, the shared water tap outside the rooms doesn’t seem to work (an interested observation for my research), and the nearest water kiosk is about 500m away (sometimes works). To drink this water I need to also boil it for 8 minutes. The tin room over my head heats the room temperature to about 35 degrees midday.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed and frustrated at first on how I’m supposed to survive out here and do my research, I realized that the other rooms surrounding mine are shared by families, some of which have 3 or 4 children. They do not have a gas stove like me, but a charcoal stove that requires firewood (which fills their rooms with smoke and more heat). They don’t have the privilege of having money for transport to the larger town nearby to buy supplies or get vaccines. Moreover, my room, despite being simple, is one of the nicest in the area and located right in town, many others live in mud huts 6km from town and 2km from any water kiosk and without electricity. And here I am writing this message on a laptop with a wireless internet connection via G3 network.

This has indeed become quite a humbling experience these first few days. I have felt almost unable to take care of myself at times, when those around me are living like this each and everyday while supporting families. My neighbours have been kind enough to also fetch water for me, give me some supplies and have offered to teach me to cook. The children have also promised to help me with my Swahili homework, if I practice English with them.

So these first few days I have spent getting to know the area, the people, their living conditions, and also taken time to figure out how to sustain myself. The people have been more than kind, showing me to their homes, introducing me to their families, offering me meals, and inviting me to their kid's birthday parties (I'll share about this later).

I may need your help with recipes. Here are the readily available ingredients in the nearby market:

• ·      eggs,
• ·      tomato,
• ·      onion,
• ·      potatoes,
• ·      maize meal,
• ·      kale,
• ·      rice,
• ·      oil,
• ·      bread,
• ·      banana,
• ·      papaya
• ·      and limes.

I also have the ability to buy chickens—a whole chicken. So any experience slaughtering and cleaning a chicken, please share. Any recipe suggestions with the above ingredients are also welcomed and appreciated!

Visit to Kisayani & the Spring

 Well for the past two weeks I have been travelling through Kenya, as well as putting together some research and meetings in Nairobi which will help me once I finally settle in Kisayani (which will be on Monday). I was travelling with my professor and one of his Masters students from the University of Manitoba (Heidi Walker) as well as a University of Nairobi student who will be with my in Kisayani. Heidi is writing her masters on Strategic Environmental Assessments in Kenya and looking at community participation, a research project with a lot of overlap with my own. She has yet, however, to find a case study site something I have had a privilege to have laid out for me.

Dr. Spaing, Heidi, and I

So on our journey through Kenya, we went to the Indian Ocean coast to Mombasa and travelled North to a potential site for Heidi in Watamu, where a great little organization by the name of Rocha Kenya is based (http://www.arocha.org/ke-en/index.html). But on the way to Mombasa we stopped in Kibwezi and Kisayani for a few nights. I had the privilege of meeting the Water Project Committee and the Kisayani Christian Community Development Programme and make introductions. I was able to briefly meet a few key people introduce my research and myself and explain how I hope they can learn and benefit from the results. Since they have been the site of a number of research studies, they had expressed concern about having more research done in the community and never hearing back from the researchers or the findings. This is a very real concern of theirs and something I will be attentive too; it is something that Dr. Spaling has also specifically tried to resolve by offering workshops and presenting the results afterwards – something I hope to do when I am finished. After some constructive conversations they were open and accommodating to the research and would help us coordinate many of the details (including my lodging). Building relationships and trust is an important part of Kenyan culture, and is something I have experienced throughout both east and west Africa.

I was also able to hear some of their concerns and brief observations of the pipeline. They all expressed concern over the pressure of water from the kiosks, which has severely lessened. They were concerned about the lack of rains, expressing how they have not had rain in three years (something I understand to mean they have not had a ‘good’ rain in three years), and food prices are rising dramatically. The area itself is very arid and thirsty for rain, which should arrive in late October, but the rainy seasons have since been increasingly unreliable. This region of Kenya has been long susceptible to drought, although they are much more food secure than northern Kenya where the famine is worst. Famine has not reached the south.

The once-wet swamp - I am told water was up to the roots of the trees a few years ago

The committee also offered two kind women to accompany us to the Umani Springs, the source of the pipeline. So we made the 20km journey through the increasingly dense Kibwezi forest. We passed baboons and elephant tracks (and droppings) which are not an uncommon sight in the area. Before we arrived at the spring we passed by a large swamp which is replenished by the steam from the outpouring of the spring. According to government regulations 25% of the spring flow must be untapped. However, the women in our vehicle were shocked to see that the swamp was nearly dry—an indication that either the spring is drying up or the intakes are taking too much. According to hydrological studies it is during the dry season when the spring has the largest output.

The new pipeline project - showing 6 intakes

The original 5 intakes at the base of the spring

The spring itself is a beautiful oasis of green vegetation and diverse bird life. Signs of wildlife were apparent all around, elephant tracks, suspicious python dens, insect clouds and monkey calls. The spring is literally bubbling up from the ground and flowing into a intake which supplies 5 different pipelines.

However, we noticed immediately the presence of construction in the area. There was a new installation of a series of pipes and a large plaque reading “Mtitu-Andei Umani Water Project” commissioned by the Minister for Water and Irrigation. This pipeline I came to learn is a 300 

million KSH (~$3 million) project supplying nearly 70,000 people (about 5 times the size of the Kisayani project). It will be interesting to see how another additional pipeline (or as it seems an expansion for one of the smaller existing ones) makes the management of the spring water resource even more complex.

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Now back in Nairobi, I have been trying to come across the EIA for the new project, which could prove to have some valuable information and updated data on the spring and rainfall patterns. I have been given a number of contacts for the project but no luck. I have also been reading up on studies which evaluate local communities’ ability to manage water projects. Since the passage of the new Kenya Water Act, the government has attempted to decentralize many of its functions to lower state bodies. Some project therefore are expected to be handed over to communities or to private water service providers (WSP), but projects already owned by the local community (such as the KCCDP) are sort of in a grey area to who owns the assets, and who has the authority (let alone capacity) to manage such resources. Many community project are currently outsourcing (privatizing) certain aspects of management, whether it be the financial responsibilities or the technical expertise to maintain a multi-million dollar project.

Again there are a lot of complexities to work through, and on paper this proves quite difficult. I am looking forward to soon moving to Kisayani, and hearing from the recipients of the water themselves as well as the management committee and gaining a better idea of how they are adapting to these multitude of changes. 

We also visited some giraffes

Destination & Introduction to Reserch

Friends and family, 


I’ve decided to re-open my blog for my time in Kenya over the next 3/4 months on my research project. Too often research is shared within a small community of academics, or between professors and students severely limiting the benefit of the discoveries, and observations in general. My hope is to at share some of my findings with you, and if these are too boring to at least share some stories. 


Perhaps I should open up by sharing with you the scope and purpose of my research. I have spent since the start of August reading and preparing for my time in Kenya where I will be situated in a community by the name of “Kisayani” just NE of Kibwezi which lies along the highway between Nairobi and Mombasa. In 2000, the Kisayani Community Christian Development Programme (KCCDP), a local community based organization formed back in the early 90s to improve living conditions in Kisayani, decided to make a safe and reliable water system a priority. With the help of World Vision, Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, and a few other organizations along with the Kenyan government, the KCCDP brought flowing water to their community. 


However, in 10 years a lot can change. 


Back in 2001, my professor (Dr. Harry Spaling), who I am working with, helped the community carry out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which was a new requirement set forth by the government in Kenya to all new development projects. For those who do not know, EIAs are used worldwide to identify potential impacts (+/-) of a given project on the natural environment, economy, and society in order to mitigate negative impacts and ensure sustainability (social, ecological, and economic). Dr. Spaling assisted the community by conducting an alternative method of an EIA which allowed for greater participation from the community in identifying risks and then eventually giving them more responsibility in management. Since then, he has revisited the community many times in following up on the project and the community. It is under his research that I am conducting the follow-up study and will find an introduction into the community. 


So my work is as a research assistant gathering data, compiling interviews and writing a report on my findings to address my research question is essentially 'what conditions of promoting sustainability (set out by the EIA) were effective' and 'what new changes have arisen that could have an impact on the ongoing sustainability of the project'. 


A study was done previously on the impacts on the water project, which indicated many positive environmental, health, social and economic impacts, thus, the community and myself included hope this project will succeed and remain beneficial and reliable in a time of drought and famine in the country. Moreover, we hope that the source of the water can be conserved and protected in order to support populations in the future and the natural biodiversity of the area.  


So far I have identified 3 main areas of change that need specific attention: 

• Biophysical changes (a changing climate, a water source that may be at risk of depletion) 
• Political changes (new changes to the Kenya Water Act which manages water resources) 
• Social changes (capacity within the leadership of the community to successfully manage the water system and adapt to all sorts of challenges including the rapidly increasing demand for water).

I will be meeting with various NGO representatives, government officials and consultants regarding the factors above over these initial weeks. I also hope to be introduced to Kisayani and visit the Umani Springs (the unique source for the water project-something I will elaborate on later). My brief observations thus far affirm that many changes are occurring and have occurred. The complexity of these are concerning and my hope is that I will be able to untangle and begin to understand them better in order to support the community and future similar projects. I hope to unpack this further as I go along. 

Thanks for reading!


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The community of Kisayani is about ~8km NE of Kibwezi town, and will be where I am spending the majority of my time. If you look SW of Kibwezi you can find the Umani Springs within the Kibwezi Forest Reserve. (I only wish it was this green at the moment).


 
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