Merge pull request #445 from OpenFn/td_rev

Notes for travelogue

blog/2024-03-21-kenya-travelogue.md

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+---
+title: 'All-Hands in Kenya (Another Travelogue)'
+author: Joe Clark
+author_url: https://github.com/josephjclark
+author_image_url: https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/josephjclark
+image: /img/team-no-td.jpg
+featured: true
+---
+
+We are staring at a concrete block. We are hot, a little bewildered, deeply
+impressed.
+
+Enouce just laughs (he does that a lot) and leads us up a flight of unfinished
+stairs, all rough concrete and exposed metal.
+
+It is light and airy now, the last embers of the summer sun fill the empty
+stairwell as we climb. When we return in an hour or so, it'll be pitch dark and
+we'll be picking out planets in the clear night sky.
+
+We are in Kenya for our annual company retreat. We do this at least once a year:
+gathering our team from across Africa and Europe to meet face-to-face,
+old-school, all-analog (baby). We share a week of smiles, playlists, brainstorms
+and understanding.
+
+| ![Most of the OpenFn team overlooking the Great Rift Valley](/img/team-kenya.jpg) |
+| :-------------------------------------------------------------------------------: |
+|             Most of the OpenFn team overlooking the Great Rift Valley             |
+
+<!--truncate-->
+
+Actually, specifically right now, we're a little ways east of Nairobi, at the
+new [Vijana Amani Pamoja](https://vijanaamanipamoja.org/) (Peace Together Youth)
+community centre.
+
+VAP uses sport to empower and uplift kids and young adults across Kenya. That
+means kids get to kick around a football on a decent pitch, but also get
+opportunities for HIV testing, vocational skills training, gender-based violence
+recovery, and more. They get to spend time with adults who care.
+
+VAP recognises that the real power of sport is its power to mobilize, to
+connect, to inspire.
+
+Enouce and his partner Nancy built all this from nothing. Well, okay, twenty
+years of sweat and toil and giving a damn and strategic partnerships and
+fundraising and dreaming big, oh so big. But on this small patch of earth,
+Enouce is building a base to shelter kids and help them build better lives for
+themselves.
+
+This is grassroots aid, Kenyans helping Kenyans.
+
+And they're not even close to stopping. Right now, they are lodging a bid to
+host the
+[Homeless World Cup](https://www.homelessworldcup.org/stories/more-than-a-game-using-football-to-drive-social-change-in-kenya).
+I hope they get it — but there's a lot of work to do. We actually came to play
+some five-a-side, but the pitch was dug up for renovation that very morning.
+
+| ![Taylor Downs (OpenFn) and Enouce Ndeche (VAP)](/img/taylor-enouce.jpeg) |
+| :-----------------------------------------------------------------------: |
+|               Taylor Downs (OpenFn) and Enouce Ndeche (VAP)               |
+
+VAP is one of the reasons we travel all this way, hopping trains and catching
+planes from London, Lisbon, Cape Town, Riga, Dakar, Budapest et al; why we put
+up with Murder Birds screaming all night long; why we get the vaccinations and
+stare down hippos and wonder if we can drink the water from the taps and leave
+behind everyone we love.
+
+We come here to observe, understand and discuss our impact on the world. We come
+here to check in on the mission (since you ask — increasing the efficiency of
+the social sector: we automate rote tasks, saving time and money for NGOs and
+governments across the Global South while increasing the quality of service
+delivery).
+
+And of course, the opportunity to meet each other, to communicate face to face,
+is irresistible. Priceless. Our team is totally remote, almost each of us in a
+different country, so far apart that we measure it in time. We make the most of
+every minute.
+
+The launch of [OpenFn v2](https://www.openfn.org/blog/lightning-is-here)
+(codenamed Lightning ⚡) dominates the agenda, of course. We plan how to bring
+our next-gen open source workflow automation software to market; work out how to
+talk about it; list what is left to be done.
+
+| ![Team Meal at Lake Naivasha](/img/team-kenya-meal.jpg) |
+| :-----------------------------------------------------: |
+|               Team Meal at Lake Naivasha                |
+
+We discuss ambitious "moonshot" ideas, dreaming about AI-assisted workflows,
+seamless onboarding, live playgrounds. We recap the mission — not that we really
+need to — and remind ourselves why what we do matters. We set context for each
+other, learn about each other.
+
+We somehow pack ourselves and our luggage into a van that can't possibly fit us
+and yet somehow does (shoutouts to driver and miracle worker Dixon and the hotel
+staff that agreed to look after his subwoofers for the weeekend). A two-hour
+drive takes almost the whole day.
+
+We cycle across Hell's Gate National Park (some of us more _up_ than _across_);
+we swim in sulphurous hot springs; we feed giraffes, watch fish eagles soar and
+dive. We are burgled by a baboon (not even joking) and hippos graze outside our
+cabins at night.
+
+Our CEO Taylor Downs walks around wrapped in a blanket, looking like a late-era
+Luke Skywalker, doing chameleon impressions across the grass.
+
+We order so much Tusker and Stoney that our hotel throws a complimentary
+cocktail hour for us.
+
+| ![Loading the van](/img/dixons-van.webp) |
+| :--------------------------------------: |
+|             Loading the van              |
+
+Everything is great. Co-working in the real is a joy. Decisions are getting
+made. Kenya is paradise.
+
+But something is wrong with this picture.
+
+Time and again it strikes me that, busy as we are - running around, packing
+buses, climbing stairs, cramming meetings - the world around us moves at a very
+different pace.
+
+We drive down red, rocky roads, lined with people just... waiting. No-one
+rushes. Staff at our hotel work dawn to dust and beyond — longer than we do. Our
+driver takes us to the office and, with nothing better to do, waits around
+on-site, washing the bus, chatting with the security guards.
+
+When Dave Graeber wrote about
+["bullshit jobs"](https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/the-bullshit-job-boom),
+I don't think this is what he meant.
+
+There seems to be a lot of spare time here. I wonder about that. We at OpenFn
+are obsessed with efficiency - a certain kind of efficiency, anyway. But this
+lifestyle doesn't seem to be _inefficient_. Nor is it wasteful.
+
+If I ever work out what any of this means, I'll let you know.
+
+Maybe this is the real reason we're here. We spend our lives fighting
+inequality, in our own small, specialised way, reducing inefficiency in parts of
+the world where every dollar, every drop of water, is precious.
+
+Maybe the only way to understand our impact is to immerse ourselves in places
+like this. Maybe this is how we understand the mission.
+
+| ![AkiraChix HQ](/img/akira-chix.jpg) |
+| :----------------------------------: |
+|             AkiraChix HQ             |
+
+Hang on, I'm trying to round off this ramble into some kind of point but I
+haven't even told you about [AkiraChix](https://akirachix.com/) yet. That's the
+best bit.
+
+The AkiraChix HQ hosts us for our working conference. They are a sort of a
+sister organisation for us as we are both funded (in part) by the Patrick J.
+McGovern Foundation and Steele Foundation for Hope.
+
+The heart of AkiraChix is the
+[codeHive](https://akirachix.com/programs/codeHive/) program: a one year,
+live-in coding bootcamp for young adult women. The students live and learn on
+the beautiful campus in the Nairobi district of Karen, learning about front-end
+web development, dev-ops, distributed systems, game development, and more. All
+accommodation, tuition and food costs are covered.
+
+When their training is completed they go off and work in industry (they cite an
+80% placement rate last year), but also come back to the campus to teach and
+support the next cohort.
+
+We are lucky enough to speak to some of these young women. The students are
+quiet, polite, softly spoken, curious. The graduates are bold, outspoken,
+switched-on. The difference is night and day, the transformation remarkable.
+
+This is a lifeline in a world where tech roles tend to be inaccessible and
+intimidating to women, where girls are driven away from science, maths and
+computing and towards family, fashion and art. It's an endemic cultural problem
+in "the west" and even worse in many parts of Africa, where crippling poverty
+and inequality exacerbates the problem, chokes the pool of opportunity.
+
+Maybe the proof is in the pudding. Long before we knew just what AkiraChix were
+up to here in Nairobi, we actually hired one of their graduates. Not for the
+sake of the mission, not to prove a point, not because someone asked us to:
+because she was just that good.
+
+Speaking of pudding - I have to say, the food they served every day was
+_incredible_: colourful, varied, imaginative, playful. A range of dishes, each
+perfectly executed. I've never eaten better. Our Frank nearly went vegetarian.
+We came from a dozen _major_ cities across Europe and Africa and none of us
+could shut up about how good the food in this place was.
+
+The contrast between the luxury of AkiraChix and the shanty towns of Nairobi is
+stark. Kenya can be a Paradise. For me, in my privilege, it was - but I mean for
+_everyone_. By driving at this wedge of inequality, by empowering individuals,
+civil society and governments with technology — really good, careful,
+considerate technology — they can chart their own futures.
+
+Just like AkiraChix and Vijana Amani Pamoja are doing today.
+
+The more we can enable organisations like these, the faster we get there. I
+can't wait until my next family dinner in a healthier, safer, more equitable,
+and _even more_ inspiring Kenya.
+
+Tuko pamoja.
+
+| ![Your writer in a silly hat](/img/kenya-joe.jpg) |
+| :-----------------------------------------------: |
+|            Your writer in a silly hat             |