Nairobi!!

Last week, two other FSD interns and I went to Nairobi, Kenya to attend the 2010 Africa-Middle East Microcredit Summit. For those of you who don’t know, this is essentially the Super Bowl of the microfinance field. Each year, there is a regional conference somewhere, and every few years, a global conference (next November in Spain!). This was the first-ever summit held in Africa, so it was kind of a big deal.

I would have loved to just fly to Nairobi from Kampala (the capital of Uganda), but that wasn’t exactly economically feasible. So, a long bus ride it was. And by the beard of Zeus, this was a long bus ride! And bumpy! Now I’ve taken long plane flights before, but those seem like a vacation compared to this. We left Kampala at 7pm on Monday, and got into Nairobi around 8am Tuesday morning. So naturally, we tried to sleep on the way there. Well, I’m pretty sure I got at most 2 hours of real sleep. It’s just a little hard to sleep when you’re head is constantly being rattled back and forth, and you occasionally fly out of your seat. But I don’t want to paint this horrible picture … we got there safely, and the cost was minimal. So although it seems easy to complain, I really can’t complain too much. And on the way back, I saw 3 zebras on the side of the road! Who needs to go on a safari, right? By now, I’m used to seeing lots of cows and goats on the side of the road, but seeing a zebra was new, which was pretty sweet.

On a separate note, Nairobi is so much different than Kampala, the capital of Uganda. It is much more of a western city, which makes sense, since it is the central trading hub for all of East Africa. There are big buildings, paved roads, nice parks, and restaurants with “real” food. All of those things are much harder to find in Uganda, even in Kampala. And the people there are a different kind of “friendly” than here in Uganda. Most of the locals I have met here are usually poor subsistence farmers with limited education. They are incredibly warm, friendly, and hospitable, but I can definitely feel like I’m on a different plane than them. But the locals I met in Nairobi were very western. They spoke English very well. They were educated and you could have a “normal” conversation with them. Now, one caveat is that this is indeed the central city in Kenya, and I’m sure the rural communities there are similar to here. But I was stuck by the vast differences in my surrounding environment in Nairobi as compared to here in Masaka. It was a nice breath of fresh air to stay at a hotel with a shower, eat a variety of western food, and talk with westerners outside the normal small group of people in Masaka. Sidenote: one of the interns knew someone in Nairobi, so we were able to have our own private, guided walking tour of Nairobi, which was great.

Kenyatta International Conference Center, location of the summit

A nice park in the middle of Nairobi, similar to Central Park in NY

Me with the other interns (Jay and Fennie) and our "tour guide", Collins

A delicious Italian dinner!

Yes, a camel just cruisin' along City Hall Way in the middle of Nairobi

Yeah, this conference … awesome! There were some big names there, some big people in the microfinance community. There were a lot of well-known organizations there, as well as some of the new, cutting-edge companies that are supporting microfinance activities. It would take far too long to explain to you all that I learned, and I’m guessing most of you aren’t incredibly interested in all of that, so I’ll spare you. But know that it was very worthwhile, and I gained a lot from being there. Not to mention shaking hands, talking, and taking a picture with Muhammad Yunus – the grandfather of microfinance himself! I also did some good networking while I was there, so we’ll see if that turns into some potential job opportunities come June (too early to tell now).

There was some "cultural" dancing before the opening ceremony, which was actually very impressive!

Some very important dignitaries were on hand, including the President of Kenya, the Queen of Spain, and the Princess from the Netherlands

Yeah, that's right. Me and the man!

And a group shot with the "celebrity" of microfinance

So now I’m back to work in Masaka, realizing I only have 8 more weeks left of this internship. And since I’ve already been here 10 weeks, that doesn’t seem like very long! There’s so much work I still want to do and a number of different projects I want to implement before I leave, so I’m actually feeling a little bit of “time crunch” for the first time. But I think this is a good thing – it will keep me motivated when it’s easy to fall into the “Africa routine” of living life at a slow-motion pace.

I think that’s all for now. I hope you are all doing well, and please let me know if you have any specific questions (I’m sure I’m leaving out certain parts of my time here, but I don’t know what you want to know … let me know!) Thanks.