Team Lebanon: A fragmented land

Beirut, Lebanon

We landed in Istanbul, Turkey on Friday evening (Dec. 11) and had an opportunity to see the city for a few hours. I am not sure exactly what part of the city we went to, but we hopped on the train and got off at the busiest looking stop to look around. We ate at a great Turkish restaurant and the meal included lamb and chicken shishkabobs. After a few hours in Istanbul, we finally landed in Beirut at around 2:00 am. We are staying at a beautiful hotel in a very central location. Our first morning ,we met with the Vice President of the Central Banking Control Commission who gave us great insight on Lebanon's banking industry. Since then we have met with a few Ministers of Parliament, the mayor of a town near the Israeli border, and visited a town near the Syrian border. We were also able to meet up with Notre Dame alums Naji and Jill who own the Chateau Belle-Vue vineyard near Beirut.

So far we have been able to conclude that all issues in Lebanon revolve around the 18 different political/religious sects in the country. Everyone here is very efficient at working alone, but when it comes to working as one towards a goal, little ever is accomplished. CRS has been a joy to work with and they (along with the many other NGO's we have met with) have exceeded our expectations. Thus far I would have to say the most intriguing part of the trip was visiting with an NGO in southern Lebanon which created a business incubator which provided support for businesses in the food and manufacturing industries.

Team Kenya: Entrepreneurs and small businesses are a driving economic force

Dec. 15, Kisumu, Kenya

The day started off with a trip to the local Pentecostal Church where we met with a reverend and a pastor. The Church was very interesting because of their role in business in the community. The Church itself operates businesses to try and generate income for the Church besides collections and donations from the congregation. One business it has is a small private elementary school which is well respected in the community and growing at a very fast rate. The Church also operates a catering service which caters all of the events and activities for the Church, but also caters for outsiders such as weddings, parties, and meetings.

Currently the catering business is the only one which is profitable, while the others are breaking even or showing small losses. The Church is working though to improve its other businesses and claims that the others will begin to be profitable in the future since they admit they were inexperienced and did things the wrong way when they first started. Now, though, they have started a business unit and has a business director to oversee the businesses and make them successful.

A very interesting experience for us was speaking to the assistant pastor who had a fascinating and scary story regarding the post election violence that took place in Kisumu in 2007. He himself is part of the Luo tribe, but his wife is part of the Kikuyu tribe. The Kikuyu tribe is the group that was discriminated against and chased out of Kisumu during the conflict. He told us the scary story of how his wife would get continuous death threats to leave the area and eventually the story of how he had to sneak his wife and children out of the city and get them to Nairobi for safety. It was the first true firsthand experience of the conflict that we have heard, and while it was amazing to hear, it was also very disheartening.

The Church also does work to support members of its congregation in opening their own small businesses. We were so lucky because by chance the reverend was headed to bless the opening of a small business started by a woman in the congregation named Helen. We met her at the Church and spoke with her about her venture.

Her story is both sad and hopeful. Her husband died 3 months ago from sickness. Her husband was a different tribe than her and because of this his family treated her and her 2 children very poorly. Women’s rights is a huge issue in Kenya and the husband’s tribe took all of the husband’s belongings (including the house they had just finished building) and claimed she was not next of kin so she was literally left with nothing. She went to the Church in tears and they gave her 20,000 Kenyan schillings, which is about $274. She took the money and decided she could not just spend it on living expenses because it would be gone in one or two months. She attempted to find employment, but getting a job in Kenya right now is extremely difficult and she had no luck. So she decided she needed to open her own business to support her children. It was very interesting how all of these little things fell into place so that it was possible for her to open a business.

She came up with the idea to open a very small fruit juice and drink stand in the main bus station area of the city. It was so exciting to hear how hopeful she was about the business and the raw vision and drive she had to do this venture. She has plans to expand to selling snacks and then cooked food once she makes enough money to invest in those areas.

Furthermore, she said she hoped to expand in the future and open other businesses and become a successful business woman. The amazing part was hearing about the entrepreneurial spirit she had and the vision.

This woman literally has nothing but was able to use the Church money and another 70,000 shilling microfinance loan to start this business.

This gave us hope for this country because entrepreneurs and small businesses will be the driving force to economic success in Kenya. To top it off it just so happened that she is opening her business tomorrow, and today the pastor right after our meeting was going to bless her place of business. After speaking with us she insisted that we come along and of course we were so delighted and excited to go. So we got in our car and drove to the bus station which is in the middle of a huge street market. We arrived and her shop was a shipping container and she rented about a third of it, so needless to say the space was very small. Six of us crammed in and listened to the pastor pray over her place of business. Then we got to be her first customers as she offered us some mango juice that she had made for the occasion.

We all agreed that it was the freshest and most delicious mango juice we had ever had, and possibly the best juice we have had period. It was so interesting that she had noticed that many stands in the area sold sodas and water but none sold fresh juice. It was so exciting to see a woman with no business training and no experience running a business think of all the niches she could penetrate to get customers. We all left speechless at the event that we were just a part of, which may end up being the most moving and rewarding experience of our time here.

After our wonderful experience we left Helen and departed to the Kenyan Association of Manufacturers. This was a very interesting organization because it is basically a collective union of 40% of the manufacturing firms in Kenya. The firms pay to be a member and the association mainly lobbies for them in the government. Also the group does work to aid the businesses with operations, budgeting, cost control, energy savings and other services.

Team Kenya in Kisumu talks cell phones and tourism

Dec. 14, Kisumu, Kenya

Today we finally started our interviews. First stop was the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC). This group is tasked with conserving Lake Victoria and the surrounding basin. The commission is based in Kisumu, Kenya, but has five member nations: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi. The commission is in charge of many different projects concerning the lake and its conservation. One problem the lake has is that there are many boating accidents, particularly involving fishermen. So one solution to the problem is to extend cell phone coverage over the whole lake, since it currently only covers areas close to the shore. Once cell phone coverage extends over the lake, boaters in trouble will be able to call for help. Furthermore, boaters can communicate to each other about areas with rocks that can damage boats and also when weather in certain parts of the lake is bad. It was a wonderful first interview and the people we interviewed were so hospitable and welcoming. This really set the tone for us and got us really excited for the upcoming interviews.

The next interview was with a man, Laban Mburu, who works for KenInvest. This is a government mandated organization that is tasked with marketing Kenya as a place to do business. The group focuses on attracting international investors, as well as domestic, into the country. They help companies meet all the requirements of businesses to start in Kenya, which is a very complicated and lengthy process.

This is meant to help cut through the complicated bureaucracy and stimulate Kenya’s economy and job market. The gentleman shared some invaluable knowledge with us and also showed us some very interesting projects they have worked on in the past and some that they are currently working on for the future.

Following lunch we departed our hotel and met with a local journalist from Kisumu. This interview was very interesting because we ended up focusing primarily on the government and the political situation in Kenya. The press here is very free in relative terms to other countries in the region. Actually many journalists are comfortable with writing and reporting stories that criticize and contradict government. The journalist we spoke with is also part of a consortium group of journalists in Kenya who search for and cover stories related to health and the environment in the country. So this group exposes problems with the environment and such and they try to make the people aware of these problems so that something can be done to stop the problems.

The most interesting fact that we learned with the journalist, is that although the press is free and not oppressed by government, the main stream media is not able to be completely open and honest about big businesses in Kenya. Large companies in the country, like the cell phone service giant Safaricom, pay for the majority of the media’s advertisements which is the main revenue of the media outlets. So journalists only write good stories about the large corporations to protect their advertising money. Interestingly though there are some outlets on the web for journalists to express themselves freely concerning big business, although these internet news sites are not widely accessible by the public.

We came back to our hotel and on a whim decided we should try and see if we could speak to the manager of our hotel. Luckily he was available and we met in his office. This was an interesting resource because we discovered a possible market that could thrive in Kisumu.

The hotel manager expressed that the city does not have enough hotels and does not have enough marketing for tourism. He explained that building a hotel will not only be a successful business to the owner but it will help the local community as well. Hotels employ many people and will create a lot of new jobs in the city. Furthermore, the hotel will bring more people to the city, which in turn will bring more money to the surrounding businesses. One of the major things that he theorized will create such a demand for hotels is a new international airport being planned and built in Kisumu. The airport is scheduled to open in August of 2010 and will bring much economic growth with it. Needless to say we were very pleased that we thought to speak to him and now some of us are seriously considering coming back here and opening a hotel!

After the long day we decided to have a relaxing evening and went to a local Chinese restaurant that was quite good. Then we sat and did some work in our rooms while watching some local television. We came across a very weird British show called “Can Fat Teens Hunt?” The premise is taking obese teens from the UK and sending them to Borneo to live with indigenous people and live off the land to lose weight. The show was quite ridiculous although quite entertaining. After that we retired to bed.

Team Kenya: From busy storefronts to burned out buildings

So the trip began with 5 of our Kenya team and 3 others in Business on the Frontlines cramming into a Yukon XL, and surprisingly us and all of our luggage fit. We then began our long trip at 5pm Chicago time and touched down in Nairobi 22 hours later (Chrissy Vaughn had a 56 hour trip in total having come from Chile all the way back to Chicago and then flying with us here).

At 12:30am, our driver finally found our lodging for the night called the Precious Blood Guest House, which is run by a convent in Nairobi. When we got there the security guard was the only one awake, but he didn't have keys to open the gate...an elderly German nun was the only person with keys and we later found out she had fallen asleep while waiting for us to arrive. We waited about a half hour while our driver, security guards and other guests (whom they had woken) proceeded to yell and knock on windows trying to locate the Sister (since the security guard didn't know where her room was). We eventually got her up and got to sleep around 1:30am (it was the first time most of us had slept under a mosquito net!).

We had an early wake up at 8:00 am considering our long trip, but we were very excited to start the day and see the country. We met at Catholic Relief Services' headquarters in Kenya and were briefed about what they do in Kenya and such. We met all of the CRS personnel and they were the nicest and most gracious people. We were very grateful they came to meet us, especially considering it was a Saturday and also Kenya's independence day. It was a great start to the trip and it really got us all excited. Then we had our first experience with Kenya food: CRS was so thoughtful, and they had lunch catered for us which was made up of various types of popular local Kenyan cuisine.

That afternoon we were off to traveling again as we departed to take a short flight to the beautiful city of Kisumu, which lies on the shore of Lake Victoria. Attached is a picture of Eric Clark, Mirjam Wit and our CRS guide and new friend Mwende after we got off the plane in Kisumu. We then drove through the city of Kisumu on the way to our hotel. On the way we saw great contrast from busy business fronts to burned buildings left over from the post election violence in 2007 that have still not been rebuilt. That night we went to a local restaurant Mwende recommended called the Green Garden. At first we drove up and all were thinking, "where the heck is she taking us" as it was a true hole in the wall from the outside and looked like it was in disrepair. Then we walked inside and discovered a beautiful open air restaurant (it is in the 80s here, much preferred to the 10 degree weather we left behind in South Bend) and it was decorated like a safari. The restaurant was great and had a huge menu with a wide variety of cuisines from German to Italian to Kenyan to Indian. Everyone had something a little different and the food was fantastic! Even better was the fact that 9 of us had a fabulous meal and drinks and all together it was only $70!!!

Safe arrivals for BOTF teams

On Dec. 10, 2009, three teams of Notre Dame MBA students departed South Bend for Kenya, Lebanon and Uganda as part of their Business on the Frontlines course. Following are their initial blog posts about their trips:

TEAM KENYA.....

Hello friends and family. I am happy to say that we have arrived to Kenya without a hitch. Things are going well. We finished a very informative meeting with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) followed by a great african lunch. CRS is taking great care of us. We will be leaving very shortly to Kisumu and Homa Bay. We will write again with more details once we are there. There is a lot of great work being done here and we are greatful to be part of it. God Bless,Team Kenya

TEAM UGANDA....

Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to let everyone know. Team Uganda made it to Kampala safely. The weather is great, but a little rainy. Today, we will be traveling about 4 hours to Fort Portal, where we will be staying for three days. Excited for our first interviews.

Best Regards,
Team Uganda

TEAM LEBANON....

Hey Everyone, We arrived safely in Beirut, have already done our first interview and started walking around the city. Initial impressions of the city are that while it does seem to be in recovery and people's outlook is optimistic, the signs of War are still very much present and not forgotten. The Military has a heavy presence on the streets and there are still a large number of shelled out and destroyed buildings. Tomorrow since it is Sunday and the Sabbath, we are taking a drive out to see the roman ruins out at Balbek. Hope all is well. Regards, Team Lebanon