My birthday

Toilet paper has run out. Water has run out. No tea then this morning. Some one says happy birthday, bright and smiley. Turns out most everyone else slept through this night of constitutional cataclysms.

I am in a bad mood. The sort that precludes any ability to dredge up even a fake enthusiastic response to birthday wishes.

This mornings class involves brainstorming certain preliminary problems we suppose ourselves to have already observed around Kenya. We mock up a series of questions to ask locals in order to test our assumptions about this issue, and discover if there is a potential business idea there. Our task is to design a vending machine to address this problem. As we have learnt from yesterday's alien making, it may or may not have to do what a vending machine does/look like one in anyway.

Identifying perceived problems

One issue I had identified in the market yesterday was a general lack of small change amongst stall holders, having to borrow off neighbours to break notes. We had been warned to keep small coins to pay the 20 shilling matatu fare also, as the conductor would find it hard to break large notes. We noted that supermarkets give pennies in sweets when they run low on change. Change seemed to be an issue. We identified a few other percieved problems, but it soon became clear, after testing our assumptions through interviews, that this change issue was a universal and pressing one, and one that could present a desirable and feasible business opportunity.

We return home enlightened and enthused by our idea (not before stocking up on bathroom cleaning products from Wool Matt [Walmart?]). We design the Mighty Machine of Change and get ready to pitch it to the rest of the group. Really enjoyed our task today, and working with my roomies Amy and Shosh. Shosh has no inhibitions and has a great talent for communication with Kenyans, putting them at ease after their initial suspiciousness of our seemingly inconsequential and random questioning. Amy, despite her terrible night soldiers on with remarkable stoicism and we bounce ideas off each other in a creative and rewarding way.

It's raining heavily again, we got drenched on the way back. We soggily sit through the pitches of the two other groups, one has created a vending machine for condoms, malaria pills, morning after pill etc, one has created a machine for putting money directly into ones M-Pesa account, a mobile-phone based money transfer service for Safaricom and vodacom.

Despite being exhausted and soaked, I'm excited to start our pitch, my pride and confidence in our idea mean my stage fright and self-doubt seems to temporarily evanesce, an unprecedented occurrence. I was hoping such an intrepid adventure as this I've embarked on would do something towards building up my confidence, but not within the first week. Amazing!

Our Mighty Machine of Change
(bearing in mind we have unlimited resources to design and manufacture this thing)