Nairobi, Kenya (July 2019)

After Rwanda, I made a stop over in Nairobi, Kenya to spend time with Kamal, the owner of Karen Huduma on his businesses. Kenyan Airways claims to be the Pride of Africa. Perhaps in light of it being part of Sky Team. Because of this, Kenya tries to hijack this claim to be the Pride of Africa. Well... I am not sure about that. African continent is a vast area with 1.2 billion people in 54 nations.

When I came to visit Nairobi last year, Professor Caleb Kim introduced him to me and I was drawn to the fact that he has been working with the youth from Kibera, the largest urban slum in Africa, to help them graduate from the slum for economic and social transformation. He has helped approximately 50 of them. I have met a few of them during my short stay. One of them was John Kennedy. He has been working with Kamal for the past 7 years. He has now moved out of Kibera and is living close to where Kamal is living with his wife and three children. He is working at a small garage located inside Kamal's house. He looked very happy.

I also briefly met Alexis who runs a small garage outside Kibera. Kamal said that Alexis is one of most successful young men he has helped out. He now owns a car and has been able to send one of his children to college.

Elias is taking care of Kamal's financial affairs, issuing all invoices and handling accounting. He is developing into Kamal's right hand man taking care of all administrative matters.

He lost $190 thousands when his bank, Imperial Bank, failed in 2015 and recovered only $10,000. So SfK made a $30K loan and he has been making payment as scheduled like a clock.

Kamal and I drove in and out of Kibera to eyewitness the number of people who live and work there. Most of the housing was tin shacks that cost the residents $10-20 a month. Technically, all the land belongs to the government. But the rich and the powerful people established these tin shacks and collect the rent from the tenants. It stretches over four valleys and is the largest slum in Nairobi and the largest urban slum in Africa. Its population is estimated to be a million. There are many shops and street vendors, called hawkers, all over Kibera because there is liquidity although the transaction amounts may be small.

Overall, the area looked quite disorderly with a lot of tin shacks and rubbish on the street. But there were some brick houses, which the government is hoping to replace the tin shacks, and a commercial building like the photo second below. But it was empty.

A slum develops near an affluent town so that poor people can meet the needs of domestic help. There are many slums in Nairobi and Kebera has become the largest in Nairobi because Kibera is not only close to Ngong Road where affluent people live but also close to the largest industrial park stretching even to the airport. In the morning and in the evening, you can easily see long lines of people walking to and from Kibera.

I stayed a night at his guest house and had dinner at his house. His wife, Margaret, cooked Chapatti and other dishes for the dinner.

They have two children, Barkat, 15, and Naina, 13 over their 17 year marriage. Through Kamal's prior two marriages, he has four more children ranging from 35 - 24. His two older sons seem to have adversary relationships with Kamal.

Kamal is now 60 years old, to turn to 61 in December. He accepted Jesus as his savior and Lord when he was 42 years old, almost 20 years ago. He was cut off from his Muslim family and his trucking and auto repair business failed. He worked at a garage in Kibera for several years. While he was working there, Kamal met Caleb Kim 15 years ago. Caleb gave him $200 and with this money has has built up his businesses. He now owns and runs four businesses: i.e. a tour company, a used car sales business, a car repair garage and a guest house.

With some of his 12-25 cars he trades

His guest house next to his house

They have lived in the area called Embul Bul, an immediate neighborhood of Karen, one of the most affluent neighbors in Nairobi. In Embul Bul, the poverty was apparent. Kamal and Margart lived at the current house for 14 years, but Kamal has lived in the neighborhood for 24 years.He said he felt very comfortable living in the neighborhood. Perhaps because of their own background of poverty and difficulty, their desire and heart to serve others in need was apparent and inspirational. Margaret reaches out to the poor neighbors to meet their inevitable needs.

I spent only one night, but there was construction going one throughout the night, disturbing my sleep. There was a new railway construction going on as part of Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) financed with a borrowed fund from China. The next morning, Kamal and i walked around the construction site and I was told that they do not allow people to take the photos. Oh well... It is not really enforceable.

 

Kamal and I had a brief get together with Wanjau with Navigators. He asked for some information about SfK MBA BCT and he has never followed up. But I am glad that we had a get together. It was good to be reconnected. I hope he will follow through this time around on a couple of issues we discussed about.

While we were visiting his office inside African International University, he suggested a surprise visit with Caleb Kim's house. We knew that he was in California teaching at Fuller Seminary, but he said his wife Manok would be home. We had a brief encounter at her doorway.

Pastor Samuel Ndunda, a pastor whom I met last year through Caleb Kim's introduction last year. He wanted to see me while I was in Nairobi, but he never responded to my e-mail. We were supposed to meet up at The Hub Karen, one of four popular shopping malls in Nairobi.

I shadowed Kamal as he was visiting some of his business partners. One was touring vehicle remodeling business. An Indian-looking owner said he has been operating the business for 35 years.

Another business we visited was an auto part supplier. The owner was a Kenya-born Iranian. He was in the auto repair business, but now owns the building in the industrial park and the auto parts and bodies he imports from Japan looked quite valuable. I was told that Japan cuts 5,000 used vehicles everyday. Any usable ones are exported to various countries, like Kenya.

 
Unlike Kigali, Nairobi has never attracted my heart, but it is an important hub for Africa in several aspects. I happened to find this bill board.

I could not feel good to be in Nairobi and I could not wait for my return home from Nairobi after a month-long journey. - Jeffrey 

Kigali, Rwanda (July 2019)

After the 2-week SfK MBA Boot Camp Training in Arusha, I traveled to Kigali, Rwanda, primarily to spend time with the Nanuri Community people.

Nanuri Limited is the holding company that owns the properties built on a land in Kanombe. Under this umbrella, Nanuri owns and operates Nanuri Medical Center and Nanuri Guest House.

Nanuri Medical Center has been operational since March 2019 by Dr. Park, Junbum, a physician and Dr. Baek, Jieyeon, a pediatrician. The center was still empty with only a few patients, but I think that it will soon be busy with a lot of patients based on their long experiences and high quality medical equipment and clean facility. I took a medical exam including endoscopy.

I made an introduction to Coge Bank and Urwego Bank to be included in the list of medical service providers for their self insurance programs. For Coge Bank, Emmanuel came and saw the facility and for Urwego Bank, Faustin came to see the facility. We will see.

I stayed at the Nanuri Guest House that has a total of 18 units. But, a significant number of rooms were occupied by Sang Hoon Lee's family, Hee Joo Lee, and one of a short term missionaries. The short term hospitality customers were few at best. Some program clients were also staying at the guest house, such as four high school students from New Jersey and Singapore.

The foods served at the guest house were excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Nanuri Limited is also managing and operating 2 & 5 Christian Academy for the Friends Denomination in Rwanda. Currently, the number of students was at 204. It was encouraging to see the school being run profitably. I helped them pay professional management fee to Nanuri Limited on a regular basis since January 2019. I also helped out Heejoo to prepare the school's financial statements correctly. But, the school has to manage the license matter since the Ministry of Education has issued a final notice not to issue the license for the school. I explored the possibility of collaborating with Alpha, but was unsuccessful. We will see how the Lord leads them.

Great joy of traveling to a foreign country is meeting up with friends. Rwanda was a place where we lived for 7 and half years so I could meet up with a lot of people. But, in light of the short stay, I saw Christian Baingana, Kevin Rudahinduka, Emmanuel Mugandura, Dan Mutiganda, Faustin Zihiga, Hyun Jung Rhu, Mr and Mrs. Noh.

Daniel continues working for Chalmers Group as Africa Regional Director. Grace may be resigning at the year-end.

Dan Mutiganda is working for One Acre Fund as the head of H.R. His wife is heading the diaspora banking unit for Equity Bank. It was a news that Equity Bank purchased the East Africa businesses, including BPR, from Atlas Mara. He seems to be doing well. He asked me about investment overseas.

Jinhee is the second daughter of Sanghoon and Songyi Lee. She is now sophomore at Yale-NUS in Singapore.

Jaejoon, a member of SBS Rwanda, and his wife Eunbyul have returned to Rwanda. Jaejoon is now one of the administrative staff for KOICA Rwanda. It was my first time to meet Eunbyul who is a nurse and has passed the U.S. RN exam. Good for her! She is planning to volunteer at Nanuri Medical Center for now.

Kevin Rudahinduka is now Director of Digital Transformation at Bank of Kigali that has surpassed the $1 billion landmark in total assets. This 2-year project may prepare BK for the next level performance in banking services.

Mr. and Mrs. Noh have moved to a new location in Gacuriro. It was a new house and they seem to be doing well. Mr. Noh's face looked a bit too dark, but he is taking the B12 shot everyday based on his doctor's recommendation.

Emmanuel Mugandura is now working for Coge Bank as CFO. His adopted children David, John, Sarah and Chantia are doing well. David has graduated from the university and is now looking for a job. John is hanging around. Sarah is soon finishing up her college study. Chantia is a student at UR and is doing well. I invited him to consider using Nanuri Medical Center for its self insurance program. He said he would do.

Faustin used to be Chief Relationship Officer responsible for all business units. His business card still shows the same title, but is now responsible for Spiritual Integration and H.R. Probably it is a better job function for him. I invited him also to use Nanuri Medical Center for Urwego Bank's self insurance program. He liked the doctors and the facility a lot.

I briefly met up with Christine Baingana, CEO of Urwego Bank. She has reshuffled the organization chart and has a bit uncomfortable relationship with her Deputy CEO Jesse. But she seems to have done the right thing for the bank. Two RWF500M loans she has made to ADEPER sounded like a concern, but I pray that things will go well.

I had a meeting with Bishop Louis and his wife Pastor Winnie. Bishop is relocating to Anglican University as the Chaplain and also a professor. He did not look too enthusiastic. Well. Winnie has taken over the management of Alpha Community School again. Its students now number 140 although she complained about 40 students who are not paying on time or at all. I hoped to be able to connect 2 & 5 Christian Academy to Alpha, but it appears to be of no use for now. Alpha still owes to Access Bank Rwf93 million and its Rwf 8 - 12 million payment per term seems like a lot of burden. But she seems to manage it alright.

We held the board meeting for Nanuri Limited. Heejoo was brought in as a new member. I volunteered the resignation of Kristin and I decided to stay for now. I meant to resign also mainly because I do not bring much value to Nanuri since Nanuri is not really interested in pursuing the  missional business path. We agreed to hold the board meeting on a quarterly basis through a conference call. We will see how it goes.

I took the Nanuri members out to dinner at BWok, a restaurant owned and operated by Mr. Junghoon Lee and Saesaem Jung. They used to run Rz Manna established and operated by Handong Global University as part of KOICA's ODA program. Now it is defunct. It is sad to see a viable business go under due to poor management and conflict of interest. BWok has recently recruited back Mr. Choi, Jonghee who used to work at Rz Manna as the baker. BWok seems to be doing well and I was happy to see that happen. We enjoyed the food and Hoddeok Icecream.

At the former Rz Manna location, Hyunjin Ryu, a graduate of SfK MBA BCT Chiang Mai in 2017 and a former KOICA volunteer as chef, established an African cafe, called Kijamii Table. It was set up as a social enterprise. Kijamii means "social" in Kiswahili. It is losing money with the revenues covering only 50% of the operating expenses. The losses are covered with donation from supporters and international development organizations. His and his partner's good intent may bear fruit.

Rwanda was one of our long-term dwelling places and remains dear to my heart. More than anything else, its weather is just perfect. Besides, the way it continues to reform itself is amazing. I learned that HE Paul Kagame as Chairman of AU has pulled off the approval from 53 countries in Africa for its Africa free trade agreement, namely Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). Subsequently, Rwanda will host Inter-Africa Trade Fair (IATF) in 2020. It is expected to draw easily 10,000 delegates. Wow...!  - Jeffrey