Sharing is caring

This construction adventure has been a lonely trip at times. I believe that in life in general, however introverted you are by nature (slightly in my case), a shared experience is a better experience. There are days you want to share your joy and frustrations. As you can imagine, doing something random like this malarkey is a bit of a roller-coaster, meaning you can be over the moon one day and feel like using the powersaw on yourself (or someone else) the next. 

I was therefore very happy to be able to share the last week of construction with my wife. She came from Belgium for a week to see how it was going. What she didn't know was that I had an intensive schedule of bathroom cleaning and material buying planned for her visit. Not that she complained. She was just happy to see myself and a completely transformed house. After all, since getting married last summer she's only seen me for a total of about 4 weeks, while last time she saw the house (in January 2013) it had its own indoor swimming pool and was occupied by a variety of insects, of the flying, crawling and even possibly swimming varieties.

Apart from a chance to spend some time together, it was nice to go through the ups and downs of the days side by side; moaning one day and celebrating the next. And a lot happened in that week. The inside almost got finished, and we had some serious prospective renters visit. One of them even went as far as to congratulate us on the great job we'd done. That was a nice moment to be able to share with a loved one.

Two more weeks until our next meeting.... but I should heed a previous post and stop counting the days.

This happened a few times during the last week. As it turns out, not everyone is used to white people! (sorry wife for using this photo!) 

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Matatu of the week

I pribbling-idle-headed-gigglet you not. This is an actual matatu. Alina and I crossed it three times during the last week and were still too shellshocked to take a picture, so I've had to steal someone elses's.

Now, the sarcastic among us would wonder how well it would go down if we drove a bus around Brussels with "IDI AMIN" plastered on the front. But sarcasm's not my thing. Really. Or maybe it is...

Making it count

Don't count the days. Make the days count. Muhammad Ali.

Coming back to Kenya has been a bit of a shock. It's hard to imagine two places more different than a quiet country house in Kent (where I spent Christmas and New year with friends and family) and hectic Luthuli Avenue in Nairobi (where I get my electrical materials).

The first day, as always was the worst. I arrived Monday night and the honeymoon period for being back in Kenya was about as long as Zsa Zsa Gabor's entire eighth marriage. By midday Tuesday I was asking myself what it is I'm doing here again. It even brought up the whole question of why exactly it is that we work?  Money? Self-fulfillment? Killing time?  We do seem to spend a lot of our lives just wishing time to pass.

Oh Matatus, how thou and thy driving have not been missed. But his particular matatu deserves a matutu of the week award for innovative naming and driving around in "floss mode" as indicated at the bottom!

But today's Friday and I'm almost adjusted.  Most workmen have returned, so I'm back in the routine of checking their work and doing material runs to the same old hardware stores. Most of the store owners know my by name by now, unsurprisingly, so I do get warm welcomes.

During a meeting with my agent today*, while discussing the timetable for getting this place finished and rented, he pointed out we have 21 days until works will stop as I have to leave, and the house should be ready to rent. 21 days. That's a scary thought for me.

Time to stop counting and make those days count.

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* Not previously mentioned but doing something like this requires house agent, accountant and lawyer as well as the architect, engineer and contractors...

Cunning linguists

Some people have commented that I may have a talent for languages (though maybe not for articulation :-D ). My mum has always said it's down to my Kenyan side. And I think it's a fair conclusion, as Kenyans are linguistically talented. What, you after some proof?!

There are two official languages in Kenya: (ki)swahili and English. But on top of that there are over 60 tribal languages, with very few which are similar. Before any Kenyan gets as far as learning one of the official two languages, they learn how to speak their "mother tongue", i.e. their tribal language (or Gujurati, Punjabi or Urdu in the case of many ethnic Indians*). By the age of 7 or 8, a large number of Kenyans are speaking three languages fluently; their mother tongue, English and Swahili.

The short version of languages in Kenya. Just because some languages are the same "colour" don't assume they are the same. It's like saying English and Swedish are similar because they are both Germanic. Ever tried reading Swedish?!

Then some guys take it even further.

As you can imagine, in certain areas, tribal languages are used as a first language. Take the area I'm in (Kiambu county). In most parts of the county, Kikuyu is widely use for verbal business matters. English and Swahili often come second. People of non-Kikuyu ethnicity therefore end up learning Kikuyu in order to get by / avoid being ripped off. Take my carpenter, an ethnic Meru for example - he speaks fluent Kikuyu. This is a guy who probably didn't even stay in school to 16, yet  he speaks a total of four languages: Meru (his mother tongue), Kikuyu, Swahili and English. Not many countries in the western world where you'll find such linguistically talented workmen.

On the flight on the way back to Kenya, I was reminded of Kenyan's linguist talent. It was a Kenyan Airways flight from Paris. On arriving in Nairobi, our steward welcomed us to Nairobi firstly in Swahili. Then in English. So far, so expected. Then in fluent (and I mean perfect) French. Ok, not entirely expected and impressive.

Then the other steward grabbed the mic, also a Kenyan. He welcomed us in Italian. Bit broken, but not bad. Then in German. Pretty good German as it happens. Then in Spanish with a Castillian accent with African twangs. By the time we'd been greeted in all six languages we'd finished taxiing  and could get off the plane.

I couldn't help but be impressed. These are people who I seriously doubt have had the advantage of living a year in these countries as many westerners (myself included , if I'm still a westerner nowadays!) do. It's very possible the second guy has never been to Italy, Spain or Germany for more than a few hours just on a layover with his job. I doubt Kenya Airways cabin crew are paid enough to go to these places on holiday. Yet somehow this guy managed to learn three languages to add to the three he no doubt knew already as a Kenyan. Kind of reminds me of a football mad cousin of mine who learnt how to speak Italian by watching Serie A games with Italian commentary.

Cunning linguists indeed these Kenyans.

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*There are about 100,000 Asians in Kenya who were largely brought over by the British in the early 20th century to build the Mombasa-Nairobi railway line. In case you wondered. Both cities have retained large populations which are economically very active.

Brave new world

If there is one, construction unrelated thing that I have realised from this trip, it is that there is a whole new world out there. And this world is developing rapidly all by itself.

That might sound both obvious and naive, so let me elaborate a bit.

Living in Europe, it is easy to "do the ostrich", i.e. bury one's head in the sand. Probably because our institutions, media and even companies often do the ostrich themselves. Their focus is generally on Europe first, then North American and Japan, with minimum thought given to the rest of the world.

Though well travelled, it's been quite a long time; 10-15 years; since I've really spent an extended period outside Europe (that includes in Kenya). At that time, the world still seemed to be working on the sun and planet model which had been effectively installed by colonialism and remained thereafter; the west was the sun and the rest were the planets. For example, looking at Kenya 15 years the airport was dominated by European carriers (BA, KLM, Swissair); the cars and tyres were French (Peugeot and Michelin) while the trucks were German (Mercedes Benz); petrol stations were British or American (BP, Shell and Mobil); the biggest banks were British(Barclays and Standard and Chartered); the roads were funded by Americans; electronic items were Dutch (Philips) and restaurant chains were non-existant. In other words, the west was at the centre of the economy of Kenya and many other developing countries.

Nowadays in Kenya, a veritable mix of carriers can be found  at the airport, with Middle Eastern carriers (Turkish*, Emirates, Ethiad, Qatar) the most present after Kenya airways ; the cars are Japanese (Toyota), tyres Indonesian (GT) and trucks Indian (Tata); one of the biggest petrol station chains is Lybian; the biggest banks are Kenyan; the roads are built by the Chinese; electronics come from South Korea; and restaurant chains are South African. The west has been marginalised.

Some of these changes (such as South Korean electronics) are pretty obvious as they reflect the evolution of the wider world, and can be picked up on wherever you are. But other changes are less noticeable e.g. in Europe. The bottom line is that "the rest" are now largely cutting out the west.

Photo from Deira, the old part of Dubai. Which isn't really very old at all!

Financial centre looking like something from a sci-fi movie 

Now that is a big shopping mall!

Alina: "Inspiration for Romanian highways!"

View from the top

My flight to and from Kenya took me through a place which epitomises this new world dynamic; Dubai. A city which has literally grown out of the sand in the last 40 or so years, to become a real cosmopolitan centre for the new world.  People from all corners of Africa and Asia living in a city years ahead of most western ones. Burg Khalifa, the world's tallest building at 828m, dwarfs America's tallest (Sears Tower). The Dubai Mall makes a modern London shopping centre like Westfields look like a flea market. The infrastructure makes the whole city seem futuristic. Sure, it had the advantage of not having to update old infrastructure, as European cities tend to need to. But it still seems to have that "je ne sais quoi".

During this trip, my eyes  have been (re)opened to the new world. I won't let them close again.

* I'm putting Turkey with the middle east for simplicity, but I'm aware it's part European too!

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A short break for xmas now. I'll be heading back to Kenya in the new year for a few weeks to finish off the works - as you can see from the other post, the house is better but not quite entirely ready.  And the blog will resume then!

Taking stock

With the trip, and the main phase of construction at the end, it seems like a good time to take stock - statistics and lessons learnt. After all, those who do not learn from history's mistakes are bound to repeat them (George Santayana).

The house construction in statistics

82. The number of days I have spent in Kenya. I think 81 of these were spent working some way or another!

883. The man days of work required to get the house to this state, excluding my input and that of supervisors. That's the equivalent to one man working all day every day without holiday for two and a half years! These days were spread across 11 contractors.  If you're curious how this breaks down areas, well:      Structural repairs, exterior and interior finishing 446 days

• Plumbing 89 days
• Electrics and lights 65 days
• Windows, doors and gates 152 days
• Kitchen and bathroom cabinets, wardrobes and other wood fixtures 111 days
• Guttering 20 days

108. The number of receipts I have for building materials. That means 108 individual trips to buy items, and given that shopping around was required first it probably means 300+ visits to hardware stores and shops. As receipts often contain tens of items, the number of items purchased is likely well into the thousands.

638. The estimated litres of petrol used while driving around, mainly for construction purposes. I've now taken myself of both Greenpeace and friends of the earth's Christmas card lists! Given the car's poor fuel consumption rate of about 8 km per litre, that translates to about 5,100km travelled.

1.85. The length in kilometres of the pipes, gutters and conduits used during this adventure. And there is still a bit more to add in the new year! I can't even begin to calculate the length of wiring going through the electrical conduit....

Lessons

1. Hire good people and treat them with respect. This isn't really something I learnt, but rather something which was reinforced during my time here. As per one of my first blog posts, you'll hear plenty of stories of construction nightmares in Kenya. Some workmen are downright bad to start with. However, I get the feeling that some, while not bad, get shouted at so much they stop caring. I admit I was lucky with my contractors and I have my cousin to thank for hooking me up with them. But once here I treated them with respect. Even the one time had to seriously intervene and do their work myself (the parquet saga), by taking a polite attitude, one of the culpable fundis joined me and said "I want to see how you are doing this so I can learn and do it for you". I feel that as a result of hiring good people and treating them well, the quality of the workmanship has been good.

2. Count the pennies. When doing a project on this scale, every little saving quickly adds up. By choosing wisely and always pushing for a discount, you can save a fortune; I estimate that my hustling on every little item has saved at least 5,000 euros over the whole project so far; possible even more than 10,000.

To give an example, for something like tiling, the difference between the "perfect" tile which is 1500ksh per square metre and the next best thing which you can find which is 1000ksh can add up to the equivalent of  100 euros over a surface area of a normal room floor. Through pushing for a discount and getting the price down to 950, it is possible to save another 10 euros. Now imagine how the savings add up over 100 receipts containing 1000s of items. Counting the pennies is key, without cutting corners... because corner cutting is always paid for later on!

One final point about discounts... no-one's going to offer them to you - you have to ask for them! And as a friend once said, there is no danger in asking.

3. Be organised and have a plan. But remain flexible! You're probably wondering how the hell I could produce those statistics at the beginning. Well, you've probably heard that 90.19% of statistics are made up :-). The ones quoted above however, fall into the 9.81%. I have kept records of works, expenditure and materials each day. And it's a good thing I did as otherwise I'd have ended up paying people twice (or three times), getting ripped off because of not knowing how much work has actually taken place, and being unable to submit anything for tax exemption. Similarly, at the end of each day I have got into the habit of planning the next day. Doing so has limited the amount of own-tail-chasing which is done. Nonetheless, as a previous post highlighted, plans will always go wrong in Kenya, so flexibility is key. Too meticulous a plan will lead to you wanting to hang yourself from your wonkily-installed second choice dining room light fitting (which you only took because the lighting shop ran out of your first choice fitting while your car was overheating in rush hour traffic; in which you found yourself stuck only because one of your contractors messed up your day's plan by being 3 hours late for a meeting with you at the site).

4. Have a big vehicle. I have never been as upset with an inanimate object as with Katie (the car - registration number KTP 833). Some of my moments with her resembled Ralph Fiennes in In Bruges. Nonetheless, I have to admit Katie has saved me a fortune in transport (as well as costing me another one in parts and mechanics). By having a 5m long car - basically a pickup truck with a boot - I have avoided a lot, and I mean a lot, of transport costs. Katie has transported tonnes of large and/or heavy objects such as tiles, cement, paint, wood and stones. If you're heavily involved in a big construction project, I highly recommend you get a big vehicle. Though preferably one which has not been sitting unused for 13 years like Katie...

5. Keep an open mind and try to enjoy. One thing I can confirm is that construction can be very stressful. If you have never been involved in a construction project, it's easy to think that you just make a few broad design decisions, such as colour schemes, and the rest magically happens. The reality is far from that; legwork, decision making, quality control and problem solving are required on a daily basis, and they cause stress. There is no way of avoiding the stress; if you give up half way through, things will turn out looking like the witch's house after Hansel and Gretel visit. But if you stress too much you might find yourself waking up at night with wonky parquet nightmares.

I've learnt that a  lot, and  I mean a lot of work is required for construction projects. But by putting that extra mile and keeping an open mind, solutions to problems will appear. If you fix yourself on just one possibility, you will go insane as it simply won't work out. The final thing I've learnt though is to  try to enjoy the process. It has been far from easy, but I've learnt a lot throughout, and  I would hope anyone involved in such a project does as well. As you can see from the photos below, it can be rewarding!

Even from the outside the house looked horrible before, and water was causing a problem

Complete facelift and waterproofing results in a new, durable look. Even the sun has come out!

The old messy veranda....

has been cleaned up to this

The old master bedroom was cramped, boxy and hosted bees

Knocking down the wall in the photo above you saw, the master has been opened up to something beautiful and spacious

Parquet was damaged in many (most) places

But with a lot of work (and glue), plus a resand and 2 coats of varnish, it looks like new

The master bathroom looked a bit groovy 70s...

But is now looking more luxurious 2000s

And has a shower cabinet.

The old dining room and lounge

Again more walls have been knocked to make it open. And LOTS of repairs.

The kitchen was a horrible cramp and damp

So more walls went and it was turned into a kind of bar

And this entirely useless looking room...

.... has been turned into a beautiful kitchen

With a "highland"

The old dining room

And the new one now the red wall has gone

What I use to refer to as the indoor swimming pool

Has been transformed to this, with funky new wardrobes

Money doesn't grow on trees

It's one of those sayings which, if you think about it, doesn't really make sense. Notes - everyone's favourite kind of money -are traditionally made from paper, which comes from trees. Ergo, money does grow on trees, kind of.

Recently, however, I've discovered another way that money grows on trees.

From this.. the jungle before...

To this... what the jungle has been turned into.

Over the years a small forest has developed at the bottom of my father's house plot. It looked more like a jungle when I first arrived (monkeys and exotic birds included), but with a few days of bush clearing, it took on a more forest like appearance. And it became clear that the trees which form the forest are fully mature. In view of this I looked into what could be done with them.

A fully mature eucalyptus from the grounds. This one was over 1m in diameter and 50m tall

Wood is a valuable commodity in Kenya. There is high demand from commercial uses, most notably from the construction and related industries. A surprisingly large number of houses in Kenya (including the one I'm staying in now, and am writing this article in) are built entirely of wood. Furthermore wood is extensively used in houses with high end finishing, for parquet flooring and general decoration.

Demand for wood is not limited to the construction industry, however. There are a range of other uses for which wood is demanded. Probably the most significant is as fuel. As previously mentioned, the proportion of households with electricity connections in Kenya is very low; supply is unreliable; and electricity itself not particularly cheap. Wood is therefore extensively used as a fuel for cooking, heating and lighting. Indeed the "heating" system in my father's old house is three fireplaces for wood fires.

This high demand for wood has led to a fast rate of deforestation. In the 50 years since independence (which incidentally were celebrated last Thursday), Kenya's forest cover has fallen from 10% to around 1.6%. The future trend does not look good either, given the rate of increase in Kenya's population; it is expected to over double from 44m to 100m by 2050. The larger population will demand more firewood, and the emerging middle class will want more wood for high end finishing. Deforestation appears to be a trend heading in only one direction.

Back to the mini forest at the bottom of the house plot, you can probably see where all of this is going. I've taken myself off the Christmas card list of yet another environmental NGO by selling the trees to a sawmill, who in turn (sure enough) will sell it to the construction industry and general public.  So effectively I've become part of the problem, not the solution.

In reality, it wasn't an ethically easy decision to make, but it was a no-brainer. Fully mature trees on a plot 6,000 miles away from my day to day job, and hence half out of my control. An expensive renovation of a house I'm not going to live in for some years (not the recommend way to start married life). Selling the trees killed several birds with one stone. To present a football (soccer) analogy, it was an Arsene Wenger move. Wenger is renowned for selling players near their peak (about the only player who he hasn't sold at his peak is Robin Van Persie*). And he sells them before other clubs pick them up for free at the end of their contracts so that he can reinvest in new players with better potential. This is a bit what I was doing here; selling an asset at its peak, before someone sells it for me (a very real possibility in Kenya when you are not around), in order to invest funds in something I hope has potential!

So after lots of research (such as how to measure the volume of wood in a tree - there is a formula for this) and running around talking to prospective buyers, another bit of chaos has been added to the trip-mix. While construction is ongoing inside the house, outside the house there are guys with chainshaws and heavy trucks are now passing through daily in order to cut the trees and transport the wood. As it turns out there is a lot, and I mean a lot, of wood. About 50,000 board feet... though quite a lot of it is proving tough to access.

This is what those beautiful trees are becoming. Feel my guilt!

Seeing the wood through the trees.

As for my contribution deforestation problem, the buyer I chose to work with is a reasonable man, and we are talking about planting seedlings when he finishes. They will probably never grow as big as the fully mature trees which are being cut now; that would require most of my remaining life; however, it will be a small contribution towards Kenya's fight against deforestation.

* Football fans could argue Nasri, Clichy, Song, Fabregas etc weren't sold at their peak. On one hand they have gone to clubs which win (more) trophies. On the other hand, they spend more time getting splinters in their rear ends than playing. Come to your own conclusions!

When cash isn't king...

Dealing with money in Kenya is an awkward issue. The highest denomination note is 1,000 shillings; that is about 9 euros. This creates challenges when you have to pay for more expensive items as you have to carry around stacks of notes. Now this might make you feel a bit gangster, as you pull out your fat wallet (see pic) and additional envelopes of money. However it also creates security issues as it becomes tough to conceal your wealth ("Is that a bundle of 1,000 ksh notes in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?!") Take my earlier post where I went to the shanty part of Kariobangi with my cousin to buy a car engine. We had to somehow conceal 90,000 shillings from curious loiterers in a poor area of town. In a country where 90,000 shillings roughly equals the annual minimum wage,  the temptation to mug us, had we not been careful, would have been great.

Most days for the last two months, my wallet has looked something like this. At least at the beginning of the day. End of the day is a different matter....

Faced with such limitations, naturally you would expect some kind of alternative to hard currency to emerge. The first place you'd expect such a solution would be the banking sector. Incredibly, Kenya has forty four (44) different commercial banks; that is about one banking chain for every million people in the population...  though in reality there are only around 16m bank accounts in Kenya in total (so on average each bank has 300,000 accounts). You'd imagine with such an overcrowded sector, competitiveness would breed excellence. Sadly this is not the case based on my experience. Banks are expensive and slow. Cheques are still widely used and internet banking is closed for maintenance more often than the London Underground.

Thankfully though there is a hugely popular alternative payment system in place in Kenya. It is called Mpesa. It allows you to send money through your mobile phone to another mobile phone.  The system has been in use in Kenya since 2005, and indeed 17m accounts have been registered so far. Indeed Kenya was the country that invented telephone payments - the rest of the world is years behind. As well as being innovative, Mpesa is reliable, cheap and effective. After over two months here, I finally got round to setting up Mpesa on my phone this week, and I can say it is a joy.

As you can imagine, repairing a house is not a cheap affair anywhere, and Kenya can be included in this. I spent a large part of October and November trying to get my (and my wife's) savings out of Europe to Kenya to pay for the works. Most of this period was lost fighting with Western Union. Before I came on this trip, I'd always associated Western Union with stew cooking Jamaican mamas sending money "buck ome". However,  it emerged as one of the most cost efficient ways of sending money to Kenya and I hence decided to set up an account. Following this, during the course of October, my perception of Western Union changed to one of a unresponsive company which makes Belgian communes appear customer friendly. So when it came to phase two of sending money from Europe to Kenya, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the responsive South African company Mukuru which allows you to send money from the UK straight to a phone in Kenya via Mpesa. I have in turn moved away from unreliable internet banking and started paying my contractors directly with Mpesa.

In summary, Mpesa is a revelation, and a sign of how a developing country like Kenya can leapfrog the whole developed world in an area. The only downside of Mpesa I have noticed so far is that you have to pay even more attention than ever to your phone!

* If you are curious... there is a UK company called Monetise which is trying to roll out mobile phone payments in the UK and indeed the rest of the world. However, given you may have never made a payment by mobile phone so far, it is fair to say that Monetise is lagging Mpesa by many years