Matt and I got new rooms last night since we had checked out for a night (so we could apply our 
hotel allowance to the Fig Tree Camp). They are on the north side of the hotel this time which means they look out over a park and just have much nicer views of downtown Nairobi. But the view had another surprise in store. I was ironing my shirt this morning as the sun began to rise, taking in my new view as it was slowly revealed by the increasing light, when suddenly, something was staring back at me. There was an enormous stork in the tree just outside my window. As I looked around, both trees outside my window were full of these gangly, 3 foot tall scavengers. They congregate right at the fifth floor level, so it looks like I will have company for my last few days here.
We got 2 new students today. I was pretty alarmed since modeling is cumulative and I was afraid they were going to dominate our time during the workshops getting up to speed. But they both partnered up and turned out to be so sharp that they were actually assisting their partners who had been here all week. We have added several students since we started and they are mostly up to speed. We have only lost 1. This happened in Kabul as well. The oldest professor wouldn’t partner up but just couldn’t keep up with the computer skills to understand what he was working on. He is very excited about us being here and wants to start a new department of water modeling at the University of Nairobi based on what he saw; he is just beyond the point of diving into a new piece of software.
Today is a light lecture day for me. Matt is leading the Optimization stuff this morning and then we are supposed to have some local guest lecturers this afternoon to talk about the site specific considerations of Kenyan hydrology. In particular, the embassy mandated that we include a lecture about the social impacts of water projects in African communities. The guy giving this lecture is named Ronan, which makes me smile as a Stargate Atlantis/Dinero movie reference.
(Caution, the next 3 paragraphs are mostly water politics that I found interesting but may not be).
It is a really big issue. The Navy and Kenyan Army (who have the equipment to drill wells) have suspended all well drilling in Kenya at the orders of AID because of the social impacts of new wells. This is all very important, because a well seems like an unlimited resource until you drill thousands of them…then you are essentially mining water. Groundwater is a limited resource.
Another classic example is that nomadic people have wet season grazing areas and dry season grazing areas. The off seasons give the food sources time to recover before the next grazing cycle. A well introduces a fixed, permanent water source and disrupts these rhythms and concentrate impact devastating the immediate region of the well beyond repair.
Well drilling has also exacerbated tribal rivalries in Africa and can actually exacerbate conflict. It is totally true that social aspects of water management are as important in technical aspects. After a 10 year period of intense well drilling in Sudan >50% of the wells were non-operational for some political or social reason. In my Theology of Development class at Wheaton, one of the authors I read called this ‘development archeology’ to refer to the abundant structures constructed with development objectives that exist only as useless monuments to the importance of understanding the social implications of technical solutions.
Anyway, this is why we are here. The Kenyans are exploring surface water solutions to their
water problems in lieu of more wells. The first lecture was too general to be of much value, but one of my students gave the second lecture on an information system in Somalia for the second lecture. It is a tool that local governments, foreign agencies and NGO’s are using to consolidate their efforts and keep track of problems that arise with wells and other water infrastructure. It was really interesting and could be really useful to my Kenyan students. It was very much worth the time. Afterwards I talked with him about his flooding problem in Somalia. He said that there is an urban center that floods almost every year. He wants to use our software to develop a flood prediction and warning system.
The evening was mostly uneventful as I worked and prepared for Tuesday.
hotel allowance to the Fig Tree Camp). They are on the north side of the hotel this time which means they look out over a park and just have much nicer views of downtown Nairobi. But the view had another surprise in store. I was ironing my shirt this morning as the sun began to rise, taking in my new view as it was slowly revealed by the increasing light, when suddenly, something was staring back at me. There was an enormous stork in the tree just outside my window. As I looked around, both trees outside my window were full of these gangly, 3 foot tall scavengers. They congregate right at the fifth floor level, so it looks like I will have company for my last few days here.We got 2 new students today. I was pretty alarmed since modeling is cumulative and I was afraid they were going to dominate our time during the workshops getting up to speed. But they both partnered up and turned out to be so sharp that they were actually assisting their partners who had been here all week. We have added several students since we started and they are mostly up to speed. We have only lost 1. This happened in Kabul as well. The oldest professor wouldn’t partner up but just couldn’t keep up with the computer skills to understand what he was working on. He is very excited about us being here and wants to start a new department of water modeling at the University of Nairobi based on what he saw; he is just beyond the point of diving into a new piece of software.
Today is a light lecture day for me. Matt is leading the Optimization stuff this morning and then we are supposed to have some local guest lecturers this afternoon to talk about the site specific considerations of Kenyan hydrology. In particular, the embassy mandated that we include a lecture about the social impacts of water projects in African communities. The guy giving this lecture is named Ronan, which makes me smile as a Stargate Atlantis/Dinero movie reference.
(Caution, the next 3 paragraphs are mostly water politics that I found interesting but may not be).
It is a really big issue. The Navy and Kenyan Army (who have the equipment to drill wells) have suspended all well drilling in Kenya at the orders of AID because of the social impacts of new wells. This is all very important, because a well seems like an unlimited resource until you drill thousands of them…then you are essentially mining water. Groundwater is a limited resource.
Another classic example is that nomadic people have wet season grazing areas and dry season grazing areas. The off seasons give the food sources time to recover before the next grazing cycle. A well introduces a fixed, permanent water source and disrupts these rhythms and concentrate impact devastating the immediate region of the well beyond repair.
Well drilling has also exacerbated tribal rivalries in Africa and can actually exacerbate conflict. It is totally true that social aspects of water management are as important in technical aspects. After a 10 year period of intense well drilling in Sudan >50% of the wells were non-operational for some political or social reason. In my Theology of Development class at Wheaton, one of the authors I read called this ‘development archeology’ to refer to the abundant structures constructed with development objectives that exist only as useless monuments to the importance of understanding the social implications of technical solutions.
Anyway, this is why we are here. The Kenyans are exploring surface water solutions to their
water problems in lieu of more wells. The first lecture was too general to be of much value, but one of my students gave the second lecture on an information system in Somalia for the second lecture. It is a tool that local governments, foreign agencies and NGO’s are using to consolidate their efforts and keep track of problems that arise with wells and other water infrastructure. It was really interesting and could be really useful to my Kenyan students. It was very much worth the time. Afterwards I talked with him about his flooding problem in Somalia. He said that there is an urban center that floods almost every year. He wants to use our software to develop a flood prediction and warning system.The evening was mostly uneventful as I worked and prepared for Tuesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment