Here we are at 11:00PM on Saturday night after having left on Tuesday and I'm finally getting the chance to post a real update. I apologize that it has taken this long to write, but as you might imagine, we've been moving all over the place and working hard to keep up with everything that needs to get done.
 
For the sake of immediate clarification, I'd like to say that we have not changed the name of our project, but I wanted to give a shout out to the Mashavu team that has been doing great work since we got here. (Check out their blog at http://mashavu.com/blog/.) Since there are only two of us here working on WishVast while nearly ten times as many are here to work on Mashavu, we've had the chance to interface with their team a lot and I've learned a great deal about their wonderful initiative. I look forward to continuing to help them out in any capacity possible.
 
In order to get everyone up to speed, I'll organize this entry chronologically:

Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday
 
While I've been fortunate enough to have had numerous international experiences in the past (Hungary, Spring '08; India, Summer '08; Morocco, Spring '09), I was eagerly anticipating this trip knowing that no two experiences are alike. Unlike a few of our peers who experienced problems with their flights and their baggage, Matt and I both departed State College Monday afternoon and arrived in Nairobi Tuesday evening after a pain-free travel experience. Once all the rest of the team members (there are 33 total students in all working on WishVast, Mashavu, and Eco-Village) had arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, we crammed (quite literally!) into a bus for downtown Nairobi.
 
We finally got something to eat (including some delicious fresh fruit) and then spent the night in a hotel in the city. With the morning Wednesday came an ICE COLD SHOWER (thankfully my only one of the trip) and then our trip to Nyeri with a few welcomed stops along the way. 

While obviously our goal for this trip is to complete work on our Humanitarian Engineering projects, we wanted to make sure to get a well-rounded experience along the way, so our stops on the way to Nyeri were to a giraffe orphanage and Nairobi National Park. At the giraffe orphanage, we learned there are three types of giraffes found in Kenya, and had the chance to get very close to a couple. At NNP, we saw a variety of animals from monkeys to lions to cheetahs to an ostrich!
 
At each destination there exists a different entry fee for Kenyans vs. non-citizens. While this was unfortunate, it was expected, and we paid the higher amount in order to go inside. At NNP, the sign said that the price for students and/or large groups was $5, yet they still wanted to charge us $15. This is a common theme at times with large groups of "mizungos" (tourists), as earlier in the morning the person at the currency exchange had also changed the price for us. This is similar to experiences that I have had in India, and I believe it stems from the perspective that Americans have everything and can afford anything. It's hard to blame them for thinking this; I just wish it wasn't so. In the case of NNP at least, Khanjan was able to argue with the person enough to get us in for the correct $5 price. :)

The rest of the day Tuesday consisted of the scenic yet bumpy bus ride to Hotel Ivory in Nyeri. After a stop for dinner at a restaurant which featured a very good menu (I got a nice chicken dinner), we finally made it. The last stretch of road to the hotel was an uphill climb, and our bus was zigzagging all the way up the hill in an effort to get more traction! This made us all very glad to arrive and get some rest after a very long two days.

Thursday
 
The day we'd all been waiting for was Thursday, our first day at the Children Youth and Empowerment Center (CYEC). This is the location that we'll be spending the vast majority of our time at as we all get validation on our project ideas. We were greeted by and introduced to the wonderful CYEC staff, and then got a tour of the campus. I was surprised and impressed by its size, and am continually impressed by the friendly and knowledgeable staff.
 
The tour included a peek inside the Clinic, the housing areas, and what would be our workspace for the duration of our stay. We also got to venture out into the fields and some of the land that the kids get to play in - the area is very beautiful.
 
Upon completion of the tour, Matt and I had a very enjoyable meeting with a man named Andrew. Andrew helps out at CYEC, but his main job is running a biodiesel plant. He has actually been helping out the Biodiesel Eco-Village team all semester, but he is also interested in helping out with WishVast. As an entrepreneur who is very in touch with the community, Andrew will be a huge help to us as we work on our project. He has a lot of great ideas, can help frame our ideas in the proper context, and also has a lot of contacts that he can link us to so that we can be talking to all the right people. The three of us had a wonderful conversation bouncing all kinds of ideas off each other, and all agreed we were excited to work together for the next three weeks. We left Andrew with a copy of our website and videos so he could see what we've been working on this semester and so that he could give us some tips for framing our pitch better to local individuals.
 
After enjoying a nice big lunch at CYEC (a large variety of food and a good price -- 300ksh which is about $3.75), Matt and I ventured out into the area surrounding CYEC in the afternoon to start working on a community assessment. A few of the older CYEC students travelled with us, as did Abdala, one of the teachers at CYEC, to help translate and guide us along as we talked to people and observed the area.
 
Because we were travelling with some of the Mashavu students as well, Abdala was deliberately taking us to some families who had medical problems. All the individuals we spoke with were very forthcoming in talking about their situations, and all seemed very happy to see us! Our goal for the day was not to be asking specific questions that related to our projects, but just to be listening to their stories to really get a good understanding of a different perspective. A majority of the families we visited were extremely impoverished, which was a very humbling experience. We are just all so lucky to have what we have, and it's a shame that it's not until seeing things like this that many of us truly appreciate that.
 
Walking around the community in the blazing sun, we talked to around 20-25 people, and learned a lot from individuals who have a very different worldview. Despite living in poor conditions, it's not "coping" for most of the people we talked to, it's just life, and like I said, most are happy and were certainly happy to see us! For the most part very religious people, a number of them even told us that it was by the grace of God that we were here to see them, and they were so glad we came and visited. While we did not explicitly tell anyone about our projects or the exact reason we were here, I gather most induced that we were here as some part of project to help them.
 
One very interesting point that we noted while going around the community was that even though this was a poor community, most of the people had cellphones! We've all seen the statistic from the study in Tanzania that 97% of people have access to cellphones, but it never really hit home until now. From a western perspective, we wouldn't think that poor people would have cellphones, but they are an important part of life here and even if it's a large portion of their income, many people will spend the money on a cellphone. In many cases, it's the only way people have to communicate with family and friends in other parts of the country since transportation is difficult and we saw no one with computers or internet access, and they also use the phones for additional functionality like transferring money.
 
The experience in the community was very grounding, and really gave us a good contextual experience from the get-go that would set the tone for the rest of the trip.

Friday
 
Everyone definitely slept well on Thursday night after a long day, and in the morning we eagerly ventured back to CYEC. Matt and I sat in on a Mashavu pitch to a local woman, Sister Purity, so that we could hear the types of questions that she asked and continue to frame our project. Thursday morning also afforded us our first opportunity to really spend more time with kids. We went out into the fields while they were outside for recess, and we all had so much fun!
 
The kids are absolutely exhausting, but it's worth every second we can spend with them. To see the smiles on their faces is just priceless, and you really get the sense that they appreciate so much that we're here. They were constantly asking for piggyback rides and for us to spin them around. Despite the fact this was tiring, who can say no? I know we won't have a TON of free time to spend with the kids over the course of the trip, but they are so much fun to play with and I plan to spend as much time with them as possible. It's really hard to say goodbye to them at the end of the day as a lot of them crowd around our van to see us off, and smile and wave to us as we drive away. I think we're all getting attached...
 
We actually had an experience with kids on Thursday afternoon when we were out in the community, as school had let out while we were walking between homes, and a big group of kids followed us around like an enormous entourage, and they were smiling and laughing and asking us questions. A lot of the kids have very good English, in addition to speaking the local languages Swahili and Kikuyu. Every kid deserves a chance for a great life, and it's wonderful that CYEC is providing this for the kids who don't have that opportunity at home or don't have a home. The CYEC kids always seem just as happy as the kids who we encountered out in the community.
 
Anyway, Friday afternoon gave me another opportunity to go back out and talk to more people while Matt went into the town with Khanjan to look for some cellphones and some other project supplies. In town, I know Matt had a very neat experience seeing the hustle and bustle and venturing into the shops. He has a video of the busy streets that perhaps he'll post. He also saw some microfinance business and other possible businesses that we'd like to talk to about WishVast - I look forward to making those connections. While he wasn't able to get the exact cellphone we're looking for to use with WishVast, Khanjan talked to Paul Maina and Paul will be getting us the phone from Nairobi so we can start to test the technology. As far as my experiences in the community, Abdala gave us more of a varied tour as we talked to some people who were a little bit better off than the people we'd talked to on Thursday. I ended up running into a Macadamia nut "driver" along the way, and after asking him a few questions, knew that I had stumbled onto a great scenario that WishVast could really be valuable. A number of people around here farm Macadamia nuts, and the way the process works is that the farmers sell to brokers, who sell to the drivers, who sell in Nairobi, who then sell elsewhere. If we can further investigate and understand this supply chain, perhaps there is an opportunity for WishVast to eliminate some of the additional hops and allow the farmer to earn more of the money.
 
Another interesting stop on Friday was at the local quarry where a number of the men work. Seeing the quarry was quite impressive, and in probing for questions, we also found it interesting how they communicate with the person who comes and picks up the rocks after they've mined them. After each visit, it seems we're getting more and more validation for WishVast as a viable product here that can really help people.
 
Saturday
 
Saturday was a pretty hectic day, but one that allowed us to spend some more time with kids, and venture back out in the afternoon.
 
The morning was made stressful by the fact that our computers and thumb drives have all been ravaged by some kind of virus. The Mashavu team started experiencing some problems when we first got here, and it seems to have spread since then to the point where we've lost a number of our files and it's handcuffing our technological capabilities. At home, this wouldn't be such a big problem since downloading tools to fix this would be a snap, but here with very limited access and slow download speeds, it's a big problem and we're working hard towards finding a solution.
 
While we continue to work towards that solution, the day was not all bad though as we helped out with the first test of the Mashavu station. I believe Matt and I hold the first and second place rankings for the spirometer test of lung capacity (I guess playing brass instruments helps), and we enjoyed helping out the kids get in for the testing. I didn't have much time to spend there, though, as we prepared specific questions for another trip into the surrounding area. I knew a little bit more about specifically what I was looking for, as I really wanted to talk to more people involved in the Macadamia nut process, and hopefully maybe even stumble into some other individuals who could exemplify a need for WishVast.
 
The afternoon more than met expectations as Matt and I got to talk to a Macadamia nut farmer, some fruit vendors, and a number of other interesting people. During these interviews, we got a lot of great information that will help us enormously in vetting our already-prepared scenarios.
 
Abdala also took us to her beautiful home and served us tea! This was a wonderful treat, and one that we were so happy to have experienced. There's nothing like being invited into someone's home in a foreign country to enjoy tea and have a good conversation. We talked about how we've really enjoyed our experience so far and how we're looking forward to the next two weeks! Matt and I also spent some time strategizing as we now have a lot of leads and need to figure out who will be engaged in which interviews moving forward. Our primary goal will be completing as many interviews as possible and really validating these value chains to understand specific scenarios for which WishVast can be used here. Our secondary goal will be testing out the technology with our group of students since Paul did find a phone for us and we're looking forward to getting it set up.
 
If the first few days were any indication, we're definitely in for a roller-coaster ride of fun and hard work, but I can't imagine anything else I'd rather be doing! I'm excited for what's ahead, and will continue to provide updates whenever possible!