Off to Kenya – Again!

I am travelling to Kenya on 11th November for a month. It will be good to see friends in Kisii.

More importantly, I hope to get a full-size anaerobic digester built and working on this trip. I need to find out how much gas (in cubic metres) my design will produce in a day. I know that 1 cu.m is enough for cooking the daily food for a family of 5-6 people.

But I have had enquiries for commercial applications, that is, to supply gas for places such as game lodges, with several kitchens and a need for hot water. This project, which started out as a way to stop trees from being felled for firewood looks like it could turn commercial!

It would not be a bad thing to find a commercial use for digesters, but I had not given that side of it much thought. After all, I am not really a businessman. Commercial potential for a project has to be dangled before me before I can see it.

But now, I am going to have to look  at our other projects to see if there is any commercial potential in those. Somehow I doubt it, but I am now looking at things from a different angle. I am trying to take off the blinkers of a tool-using thing-maker and look at things from a business perspective.

Cheap Diesel

I am lucky enough [?] to drive  a diesel-powered car in the UK. It is not powerful, nor is it a recent model, but it gets me from where I am to where I want to be and back again in comfort.

But it drinks diesel like a fish drinks water, mainly because it is fitted with much smaller tyres than it was originally designed for.

So, last Spring, I decided to supplement pump diesel with the contents of my deep-fat fryer. This gives me about 3 litres of clean fuel every two to three weeks. After I have processed it, I mix it with diesel, depending on the ambient air temperature. In the height of the UK Summer, I got away with a 50/50 mix, but in Spring and Autumn, I drop ot back to 25% bio to 75% pump diesel, and in Winter, I use 100% pump diesel.

This is because bio emulsifies at a relatively high temperature and will clog up the works in a typical UK Winter.

However, this would not be a problem in warmer climes, such as Kenya. So when KCIS eventually gets itself organised enough to actually own a vehicle, we will be getting a diesel, and we will run it on a bio-diesel mix.

If we can find a major source of used cooking oil (just how many fast food outlets are there in Nairobi?), we may be able to produce enough to pass on our excess to the likes of KWS, Rhino Ark, the UN (but not for their petrol-guzzling Hummers) and any other organisations running fuel-hungry diesel 4×4s.

It will be a lot cheaper than pump diesel and performance is not compromised.

Kenya Tourism

In the UK, it is the season for TV adverts for the summer vacations. I have been told I need to go walkabout in Australia, escape to New Zealand, go on cruises to the Carib and Mediterranean.

But I have seen nothing from Kenya, the country whose tourist industry was decimated after the post-election violence a year ago.

What are they waiting for? People like Dr. Livingstone to rediscover Kenya by themselves? Those days are gone.

What I would love to se is an advert showing the beautiful Indian Ocean coast, the Maasai Mara, the Aberdares, The Ark and Treetops, hot dusty towns, full of Kenyan life, good food …

It is all there, but people need to be told, or at least, reminded.

It is all very well having TV programmes like Big Cat Diary showing the wonders of Kenya, but Kenya should be shouting about how wonderful it is as a holiday destination.

Come on, the Kenya Tourist Industry. Knock a few film clips together and get it broadcast!

Why drugs are so expensive

From Daily Nation 12/1/09

The majority of Kenyans cannot afford essential medicines mainly because of unreasonably high profit margins being enjoyed by manufacturers, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report published last month in The Lancet.

In a study involving 36 developing and middle-income countries, including Kenya, WHO says manufacturers are making mark-ups of more than 380 per cent. Retailers are said to be making mark-ups of more than 550 per cent.

Drug manufacturers also try to suppress any cheaper or alternative drugs, as these will obviously cut into their profits.

Many drugs are produced by copying natural products (e.g. aspirin) which have been in use for centuries. But the developed world has forgotten how to use natural herbs and plants to cure their ills.

I have been introduced to a product that supposedly cures malaria. A sufferer can usually be on their feet and feeling fine within 24 hours.

But apparently, this product is being suppressed by the FDA. Why? Probably because the drug companies making the recognised cures would lose a lot of money if it were allowed to be introduced into the world market.

And yet, the economies of many African, South American and Asian countries are blighted by workers taking time off because they have contracted malaria.

In Kenya, the treatment costs 2000/-, about £17 UK. As many workers earn only £1 a day (115/-) or less, how do they get  treatment?

I am not saying that this product works. I don’t know. I have seen the written results of trials carried out in various countries, but these were not, on the whole, scientifically controlled, because they had to be carried out “under the radar”.

I would very much like the WHO or the Health Ministry of Kenya to invite me to carry out trials of this product. If it does not work, we have lost very little, but if it does?

A dose of this product would cost about 60/-, which is affordable, even to the poorest of people.

Anyone in the Health Service or WHO Malaria Control in Kenya want to help me to find out if this product works?

If not, I guess the drug cartels have won!

Printing more money

The UK Government is about to abolish a 164 year-old law that obliges the Bank of England to inform the Government (and thereby, the people of England) how much money it is printing.

This means that the B of E will be able to print money without constraint, a road that Germany went down just before WW2, and more recently, Mugabe has used to prop up his regime. In both cases, the economy was ruined.

Is the UK about to join pre-war Germany and Zimbabwe – it certainly looks like it.

What is laughable is that  Gordon Brown puts forward a Bill to hide the printing of money and simultaneously calls for greater transparency amongst the banks.

Hypocrite!

Moving shop?

Since the area of town where my cyber café is situated is devoid of pedestrians since the matatus are banned from stopping there now, Vincent, my manager, has been looking around for new premises closer to the centre of town that won’t cost us an arm and a leg.

And lo! He has found one! I know the shop. far bigger than our present set-up, which will allow us to partition a bit off to make a computer repair workshop and an office.

Then we will be able to start up the soapstone export business with a proper Kenyan office, and with a bit of luck, start to make a profit!

And all this for an extra 2,000/- (£17) a month – what a bargain.