Sunsets, Suam Sales, and Smiling Cows

As things have continued to grow for the Kenya Ceramic Project and more people have started to recognize the product, our operations have continued to expand. At the beginning of September we welcomed a new Marketing Manager, Stepehn Karanja, to take the lead in our marketing campaigns in Kitale and beyond. Things have been very busy, we’ve been continuing to work with Supermarkets, running promotions, as well as visiting local shops and dukas, looking for the right people to partner with, as well as setting up an office in Kitale.

Shanna and Emmanuel

All this has kept me quite busy running around trying to set things up. We have also been collaborating with some partners to complete some bulk orders. We got a large order for our filters from Suam Supermarket who were planning on brining the filters for relief to Kakamenga. Things in Kenya sometimes don’t run the smoothest,  a lot of the month was spent trying to get our box supplier in Nairobi to understand our order, and then in securing reliable (and affordable) transportation for our boxes back to Kitale. We also started working with Cooperazione Internazionale (COOPI), the Italien aid agency who submitted an order which they plan on taking to Somalia, which is very exciting news, as we have buckets with the EU logo on them now.

Mount Elgon

Suam Delivery

It seems to be raining a little less frequently now, but when it rains, it can rain very hard. One day I was waiting to meet someone in the Coffee Shop when it started raining. Although it rains quite frequently umbrellas are simply not used by most people. So many people took shelter under the awning at the front of the Coffee Shop. Then very quickly one of the tree out front came crashing down, landing just between the awning where people were taking shelter, and a car, narrowly missing both. It the aftermath I found a guy wearing an “Ford World Mens Curling Championship Edmonton 2007” jacket, so I got a picture of it. I also saw a guy wearing an Edmonton Eskimos Jacket in Khetias, but wasn’t able to get a picture.

Ford World Mens Curling Championship Edmonton 2007

Fallen tree at the Coffee Shop

A computer simulated image of me in 5 years

 

For the past three weeks Katya, a Village Volunteer, was also Staying at Common Ground, helping to make sure things stayed interesting. We climbed up on the school and great pictures of Mount Elgon at dawn. Katja mostly worked with the womens groups and taught at the school, there was one little girl in particular who would follow her around everywhere. For her last day Joshua took us to the Kitale Nature Conservancy (AKA Freak Farm) to experience what it had to offer. Mostly I think I’ll let the pictures talk for themselves. Originally it was built as a place to protect 40 of natural swampland habitat, but overtime it’s morphed into something more of a theme park.

There was a “nature walk” which at first was ok, but then we started coming up on a lot of animal cages, most of which were empty. At the end of that there was the freak farm, a refuge for mutated animals, which was mostly kind of depressing. They say they were there for research, but I think the only research they were doing was market research. The star of it was “The Ever-Smiling Cow” a cow with four horns, three eyes, and  cleft pallet.

The Eversmiling Cow!

This is a regular cow...

Katja also got some custom shirts made, and before she left, we got some pictures of myself wearing one of them.  I might have to think about upgrading my wardrobe.