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Economy and Development

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Economy and Development In Kenya there is a fascinating intersection between the local and world economy. It is possible to get a full lunch of locally grown and cooked food, with tea, for around 100Ksh (£0.70). Yet, a chocolate bar will cost upwards of 250Ksh as many of the inputs are priced internationally. This points to the wider reality for capital goods within Kenya. Business machinery like cars and electrical generators are priced on an international commodity scale as their supply chains are inherently internationalised. Whilst at the same time, locally produced products remain very cheap. Within the economy this leads to a constriction of capital investment as you have to sell a serious amount of lunches to afford the car that will let you purchase produce directly from the farms, for example. It is easy to imagine how this plays out in a wider sense throughout the economy. It confirms much of what I have read about the importance of financing investment within developing
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Life in Kenya

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Life in Kenya The edge of town. Coming into this experience I imagined Kenya would be somewhat similar to India, being probably my closest frame of reference. I have never been to any part of Africa before and was frankly blown away by how ordered, clean and calm the place is. I think it helps that Kericho County is widely regarded to be the cleanest of Kenya’s 47 counties and the town of Kericho itself contains just 150,000 people. I imagine that the ‘India feel’ of total chaos would be very strong in some parts of Nairobi but unfortunately we will not get the opportunity to see it. It just means that I will have to come back to Kenya at some point in the future! The only part of Kenya that comes close to replicating the chaos of India is the road travel. Between the massive trucks that steam their way through the town between Nairobi and Nakuru, we are expected to navigate our way around using the local transport providers. These come in a few different forms: Probo
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The Miguna Miguna Saga

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Miguna Miguna There has been a political saga that has dominated the news cycle here in Kenya for the last week and a half. As far as I can tell, it has gone unnoticed by the British media. It all revolves around the Lawyer, Dr. Miguna Miguna and his attempts to re-enter Kenya following his deportation to Canada. Miguna Miguna claims to hold dual citizenship of Canada and Kenya, having been born in Kenya and holding Kenyan identity documents. This claim is supported by the constitution and Judiciary of Kenya. The government of Uhuru Kenyatta expelled Miguna for his involvement in the controversial swearing in of Raila Odinga in late January. Odinga is the leader of the opposition to Kenyatta’s rule. In 2017, there were two controversial elections that were mired in allegations of vote fixing, partly stemming from the electronic voting system that is in place in Kenya. The first of these elections was contested on the 8 th August and subsequently nullified
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'Be Your Brother's Keeper'

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'Be Your Brother's Keeper' This van sums up my feelings towards Kenyan road travel. Having been instructed to arrive 4 hours early for my flight from Heathrow, I had ample time to enjoy a farewell coffee with Mina who dropped me off. She is very much ‘over’ me going away these days having cried when I went away for Camp America just 3 years ago. Clearly I’m too big and ugly to be fussed over. As people filtered in, the remaining time provided a great opportunity to get to know the other UK volunteers, most of whom I had met before. Either at the initial assessment stage or the pre-placement training that I completed in late Feb. The team’s travel was split over two flights with mine stopping in Amsterdam, the others flying direct to Nairobi. Initially I coveted the quicker direct flight; however, we soon received frantic messages from the other team informing us that a baggage truck had crashed into their plane, denting it. A tense hour ensued as engineers
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Welcome

Dear all, Welcome to my blog where I will be sharing my experience of micro-finance in Kericho. I will post here each week to give an outline of what work I have been doing and the effects that it appears to be having. Through this record I want to assess the work that we will be doing and show where value is created through the businesses that we will work with. Furthermore, it should be possible to share more of how Balloon Ventures as a larger organisation works internationally. On top of that this will be a place for me to share my personal experiences with the highs and lows of overseas volunteer work. I will try to make this as interesting as possible, and stay tuned as this may be my first place to vent whilst abroad! Thank you again for reading and to anyone who donated money. Hamish
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Location: London, UK
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