Jambo!

Successfully made it to the Hilton in Nairobi - the place reeks of British colonialism, which is pretty cool.  A quick recap on the day:

I flew through Heathrow and you know something is wrong with a city (Geneva) when you can get a meal in London that actually fills you up (it was actually a great turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich... my homage to Canadian Thanksgiving... a nice change from European sandwiches that consist of a baguette and 1.2 slices of deli meat) for 30% of the cost.

Ok, a slight detour - in addition to the theory on Geneva's exorbitant inflation posited by Chris Sang (fiat money stashed away there), part of the cause is attributable to the fact that Geneva is very much a corporate town.  Most of the business in the city revolves around the government (UN agencies, all of the diplomatic representation that accompanies them), non-government, and private organization headquarters that draw temporary residents from literally every corner of the world.  All those people live in corporate / government-funded apartments or hotels, have significant expense accounts, etc.  

Though my involvement in the world government / NGO sphere is limited, I've already learned just how much money sloshes around within and between them.  UN / NGO type organizations pay ridiculous salaries that are multiples of similar private sector positions, and the overhead for any world program seems to consume most of the budget.  I think one of the primary reasons that the billions in aid over the past 50 years hasn't made much progress is due to the waste.  It seems like a lot of these organizations have a Wall St. mentality - only instead of taking people's money via morally and legally-dubious means, they just ask for it from governments and Bill Gates.

Anyway, back to Nairobi.  The first thing I noticed was how cool it was - it's about 66F right now, not what I was expecting a few miles from the equator.  I remembered reading that Nairobi's name comes from the Maasai phrase "Enkare Nyirobi" - "the place of cool waters".  Apparently it cools down like this every night, but the days are hot and humid.  Luckily for me, I got upgraded to a poolside cabana room.  We are going to be working out of the hotel when we're not meeting with local officials and experts, so I may have to hold a lot of poolside meetings.

For all of the major commercial and government buildings in town, they check every car for bombs and have metal detectors in the lobbies. They've had that level of security since the US embassy bombings in 1998.  Not that surprising given that some of Kenya's neighbors are the least stable countries in the world.

As we were careening down the highway leading from the airport, I saw what I thought was a statue, but turned out to be two live zebras feeding on grass in the highway median.  I thought that was really cool until I realized they were probably feeding there because they had no other choice - the drought is starving both the people and animals here.

Which made my dinner awkward - I ordered spaghetti bolognese, which turned out to be a giant bowl of ground beef with some spaghetti in it.  Probably a good 1500 calories or so.  It still doesn't make sense that I could eat a meal like that for $15 in a country where people are literally starving.  I had a similar thought on the flight when I had to throw out the sandwich I received with my afternoon tea (British Airways) because it had cheese sauce all over it.  It just seems so simple.

It really does come down to the sustainability of the food distribution model - the long-term solution can't be handouts, it has to be a self-sustaining economy that gets food to the people who need it.  Again, that's one of the great things about the organization we're working for - our job is to find ways to change the legislation, build the infrastructure, and design the business and distribution models that form the basis of a profitable private food / nutrition sector.

That's not to say we have delusions about the challenges we face or that we're going to solve world hunger this year or decade, but I think we're at least heading in the right direction.