I’m glad I attended especially because of the following:

• Reading about a tech topic gives a limited understanding of the topic. Listening to people who have done things in an area is a far more enlightening experience and the barcamp did that for me.
• It was amazing to see a room packed with techies ready to share … in Nairobi!
• I got to meet two bloggers who’s blogs I read often: Daudi & Josiah

The HalfWay Proposition presentation by Riyaz really got my attention. I’d read the paper a day before and I thought I’d basically got it i.e. aggregate traffic and then we can have enough volume to negotiate with the IBPs. Riyaz suggested something completely different and it made quite a bit of sense. He talked of focussing on generating local content hosted locally to drive up our volumes. Have people find local sites when they search for kenya at google and instead of struggling with uploading photos onto flickr, how about creating an alternative for that here? We just need to make it easier for people to generate content locally. He had some graphs from kixp and wananchi showing how their traffic spiked on the days KCSE results were released. I was seated at the back but I think I saw traffic of 15mbit lasting a day.

A lot of great ideas were presented on the day and all that is required now is action. All eyes are on skunkworks for this.

Write ups on the presentations can be found at the skunkworks blog (here’s the first one), Hash has a video on the “Equal Opportunity Manufacturing” presentation here and Afromusing has a list of blogs to watch for reviews here.

Photos coming up as soon as I can find some batteries for my digicam.

Thika road on a wet morning.

The roads are good (by Kenyan standards) apart for Thika Road and some stretch before and after Nanyuki.

White Cap. Come to think of it, I’ve never tasted this particular brand. I’m a cold tusker person BTW.

Dad’s old high school.

Mt. Kenya hidden by clouds

In Meru, they grow tea

Maize (duh)

Beans (interplanted with maize)

Mangoes

Trees (timber fetches top dollar apparently)

Mushroom growing in the forest pictured above

and coffee, veve/miraa/khat, bananas, potatoes … heck the land is fertile and the rains are usually good.

A well about 20ft deep dug manually. The rains were bad last year so this well was dry. This year round, there’s lots of water. There is a water supply in the area now so its redundant.

Gourd

Mud. I’ve never driven in mud. Its a whole new experience. The car just gets a mind of its own and goes in completely random directions. The trick is to counter steer. If the car swings to the right then steer to the left. Also try and keep away from the sides of the road, that’s where there is more mud and its wetter than the middle; you get stuck in there and its game over. Initially its nerve wrecking but eventually one gets the hang of this counter intuitive way of driving. My experience was nothing compared to those my mum tells me about where she used to drive in the muddy hilly roads of Mbooni (somewhere in Ukambani) where one slip up could send you down a cliff!

The Lewa conservatory begins at the hills in the background.

Isiolo road.

2006 was a great year for wheat.

Marina Grill and Restaurant. The only decent eating place I know of in Nanyuki. If you’re in a hurry, just order chips-sausage (for lunch) or tea-samosa/ndazi (tea break), anything else will take 45 minutes at least.

Tana river looking healthy. Kengen should have a good year.

On the way back, it started to rain heavily so there were quite a number of accidents on Thika road. This led to a jam that started a kilometre or so from JKUAT all the way to the Kasarani roundabout! Now I understand the rationale behind those bypasses they’re trying to build. There was just no way out of the jam and everyone coming in from a north easterly direction from Nairobi has to use Thika Road.

Kenchick Inn at the Caltex on Ngong Road. Now that’s the way to end a journey. Just FYI, they’ll be remaining open 24/7 till New Years.

One day in the Garden of Eden, Eve calls out to God…

Eve: Lord, I have a problem!
God: What’s the problem, Eve?
Eve: Lord, I know you’ve created me and have provided this beautiful garden and all of these wonderful animals, and that hilarious comedic snake, but I’m just not happy.
God: Why is that, Eve?
Eve: Lord, I am lonely. And I’m sick to death of apples.
God: Well, Eve, in that case, I have a solution. I shall create a man for you.
Eve: What’s a ‘man,’ Lord?
God: This man will be a flawed creature, with many bad traits. He’ll lie, cheat, and be vainglorious; all in all, he’ll give you a hard time. But, he’ll be bigger, faster, and will like to hunt and kill things. He will look silly aroused, but since you’ve being complaining, I’ll create him in such a way that he will satisfy your… ah, physical needs. He’ll be witless and will revel in childish things like fighting and kicking a ball about. He won’t be too smart, so he’ll also need your advise to think properly.
Eve: Sounds great! (with an ironically raised eyebrow) What’s the catch, Lord?
God: Yeah, well…. you can have him on one condition.
Eve: What’s that, Lord?
God: As I said, he’ll be proud, arrogant, and self-admiring…So you’ll have to let him believe that I made him first…So, just remember… it’s our secret… Woman-to-woman.

Well, it seems like Telkom reserves the right to use personal data it collects about its clients or possibly even share(they do NOT expressly say otherwise) it for whatever they deem as “marketing and research related activities”.

Geez, the guys will/are going to keep actual records of calls/sms’s/data! I haven’t had a look at Celtel’s and Safcom’s yet buy after seeing this, its about time I begun scanning the fine-print for this nonsense.

Monday, 2:00 AM:
Six men, four of them in AP uniforms walk up to the guards at City Hall and introduce themselves as police officers on patrol. They proceed to tie them up and, working for hours with a welding machine, manage to gain entry into the cash office and open three safes. They to get away with the deputy mayors mace, chain, 15,000 in cash, 185,000 in cheques and a computer’s CPU. CCTV cameras in the cash office have been out of order for some time.

Tuesday:
Town clerk John Gakuo announces that although investigations are underway, the council will be tendering for a replacement chain and mace and that council business will continue as usual despite the absence of these key ceremonial items.

Hmmmmm, the investigators have barely locked onto the scent and they’re already talking about replacements! I wonder who stands to benefit from the council’s ‘excellent’ tendering process?

As with all council affairs, this one smells of a rat. However, now the rot seems to be even more blatant with time.