Hello Family and Friends:
Not much happened this week, again. I’m sure most of you can imagine what it would be like if you had to report on what you did each week. Pretty boring!
Still working on a number of things at works, like census reduction. That will be a big effort going forward. I have meeting scheduled this coming week to get things moving. I will meet with all the department managers and front line foremen and make sure they have bought in and will support the actions. I believe most people are expecting something to happen, they just hope they will be survivors. Fortunately for me, it is viewed as a corporate initiative and not the guy from the US driving it, which is a correct assessment. All top management at Magadi knows something has to happen or this place will never make money. So stand by for future developments.
There was a guy that arrived this week from Florida. So another mzungu is in Magadi. He is here to help implement “Lean Six Sigma”. Which is a method of maximizing company profits by using statistical tools to evaluate and solve problems. It is a tool that is being implemented all across Tata Chemical. He will be here off and on for the next six months.
So I had some company. I had dinner with him one evening and spent the day with him on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I took him rock climbing with my African friends. He enjoys the outdoors so he tried rock climbing and enjoyed it very much. He will probably go again in August when Debi and I are back. As usual there was a crowd of Maasai watching. It was so cute there were tiny children that wanted to shake my hand. I bet it had been months since they had had a bath. They were soooooo dirty and cute. Some new kids came to watch, but they thought we were crazy for climbing the rock and didn’t want to try.
After rock climbing, we went to the hot springs and sat in the pools. It was wondering as I watched the women selling necklaces if they were wanting to put in some carrots and potatoes in the hot pools while Mike and I were soaking. On the way to the pools we saw wilder beast, ostrich, and giraffes. We got close to all of them and Mike got some good pictures (I forgot my camera). The giraffes were amazing. There were some that were the normal reddish/brown color but there were some that almost looked black and white.
Then today while I was in church, Mike and a driver went to the Kenya National Park, and the giraffe park. I guess they had a good time at both places. But the thing Mike liked best was the giraffe park. You could feed the giraffes. They had buckets of food and you just filled your hands and the animals would eat it out of your hand. So they had a good time doing that while I was in church. After church we went to an Indian restaurant for lunch. That was great, best lunch I’ve had in Kenya. There is a large Indian population in Kenya so it was authentic food cooked by Indians. Mike wanted to look for souvenirs to take back to his family so the driver took us to an outdoor shopping place. What a place. I will go back to buy stuff for family but only because it is a cheap place. There were people trying to sell you stuff that reminded me of used car salesmen on meth. They were absolutely nuts. I finally told the guy that I would not buy anything if he didn’t back off. They were so pushy!!!! So this is your opportunity girls to tell me what you want from Africa. They had bowls/dishes, jewelry, carvings (masks, animals, people), paintings, African clothes, so if you want something special, let me know. I will go back either next weekend or the following one. So let me know what you want. I’m not going to go to that place very often….. They think that because you are a mzungu, you have to have money and it is their goal to separate it from you.
One comment about church. We have asked a couple of young men who have been asked to teach in priesthood meeting. Both are returned missionaries and both are incredible teachers. They have a good understanding of the gospel and their ability to teach is as good as if not better than what I have seen in the US wards I’ve attended. These young men know the gospel and how to teach.
So that's it for another week. Next week another fellow (Andy Voytko) from the US will come to help me with maintenance. So there will be three of us here. The population of mzungus’ is exploding. Andy will stay until the end of July. In fact we are on the same flight out of Nairobi.
So love you all
Paul/dad
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Mon 6/21/2010 12:42 PM
Hello Family and Friends:
Day late and a dollar short, didn’t feel up to writing a letter yesterday. When I got home from church I went to the plant, ate dinner, worked out for about an hour and didn’t feel like doing anything else. So I didn’t.
It was an exciting week but probably just for me. Bankers were here on Wednesday. I guess the way the debt is financed on the plant is that the parent company, Tata has the debt on their books. They want it off their books and on the plant books. So the bankers were here to look at the plant and determine if the plant could handle the debt load. I just give the tours and answer the technical questions (can you believe it mom, me answering technical questions). Don’t know how it will turn out. After I got done with them, all the finance types from corporate and the plant locked themselves in a room to discuss money.
Then on Wednesday night and Thursday the Board of Directors met. My part went well. They are pleased at the progress made in improving quality and reliability. But the message was clear; there has been a lot of work done to improve things: now, make some Soda Ash. So the pressure is on. The soda ash market is sold out. Whatever can be produced can be sold and in addition to that, prices are going up. So this situation doesn’t happen very often where prices are good and demand is good too. So like I said the pressure is on. Need to impress on everyone here that we have to perform.
Also discussed with the board the need to rationalize the workforce (polite way of saying there needs to be a lay-off). So they are bought into the idea. There are so many people here, they are literally tripping over each other. I have never seen such an inefficient work force in my life. The view is that labor is cheap, so let’s give everyone a job. Labor may be cheap, but there is still a cost associated with every worker. Magadi Soda also provides housing and utilities for every worker. So the cost to the company is not just for wages but it is for maintaining housing and utilities for every worker. So anyway, I’ll keep you posted on those efforts. We will start rationalizing the workforce in July.
And now to my African experience for the week. I’ve talked about bugs before. I have never seen so many different kinds of bugs. It’s almost like there is a bug du jour of the week. This week it was grass hoppers. There were big green and brown ones. They almost made a carpet in front of my office. There are also a lot of stick bugs (praying mantis). They are really cool, I know my boys would love them. They get quite big, not like horror movie big but there were some that were 4 inches long.
Well maybe something exciting will happen next week to add a little flavor to the letter but not this week.
Later, love
Paul/dad
Day late and a dollar short, didn’t feel up to writing a letter yesterday. When I got home from church I went to the plant, ate dinner, worked out for about an hour and didn’t feel like doing anything else. So I didn’t.
It was an exciting week but probably just for me. Bankers were here on Wednesday. I guess the way the debt is financed on the plant is that the parent company, Tata has the debt on their books. They want it off their books and on the plant books. So the bankers were here to look at the plant and determine if the plant could handle the debt load. I just give the tours and answer the technical questions (can you believe it mom, me answering technical questions). Don’t know how it will turn out. After I got done with them, all the finance types from corporate and the plant locked themselves in a room to discuss money.
Then on Wednesday night and Thursday the Board of Directors met. My part went well. They are pleased at the progress made in improving quality and reliability. But the message was clear; there has been a lot of work done to improve things: now, make some Soda Ash. So the pressure is on. The soda ash market is sold out. Whatever can be produced can be sold and in addition to that, prices are going up. So this situation doesn’t happen very often where prices are good and demand is good too. So like I said the pressure is on. Need to impress on everyone here that we have to perform.
Also discussed with the board the need to rationalize the workforce (polite way of saying there needs to be a lay-off). So they are bought into the idea. There are so many people here, they are literally tripping over each other. I have never seen such an inefficient work force in my life. The view is that labor is cheap, so let’s give everyone a job. Labor may be cheap, but there is still a cost associated with every worker. Magadi Soda also provides housing and utilities for every worker. So the cost to the company is not just for wages but it is for maintaining housing and utilities for every worker. So anyway, I’ll keep you posted on those efforts. We will start rationalizing the workforce in July.
And now to my African experience for the week. I’ve talked about bugs before. I have never seen so many different kinds of bugs. It’s almost like there is a bug du jour of the week. This week it was grass hoppers. There were big green and brown ones. They almost made a carpet in front of my office. There are also a lot of stick bugs (praying mantis). They are really cool, I know my boys would love them. They get quite big, not like horror movie big but there were some that were 4 inches long.
Well maybe something exciting will happen next week to add a little flavor to the letter but not this week.
Later, love
Paul/dad
Monday, June 14, 2010
Sun 6/13/2010 11:31 AM
Hello Family and friends:
This week was even more uneventful than last week. And I thought last week was bad. About the only interesting experience that happened this week was “the phone” incident. The process at work used a lot of water to transport trona around to various parts of the operation so it is not unusual to get drenched occasionally. There was a guy that told me during the week that his cell phone had been soaked in one of his drenching and was no longer working. He had talked to his supervisor and asked to have it replaced but he hadn’t heard anything. So he wanted to know if I could help get it replaced. Well to get a phone replaced due to a work problem would take an act of the Kenyan congress (and I don’t think they are in session). So I just went back the next day and handed him a thousand Kenya shillings (about $12.50). He was extremely grateful and said he was humbled because he knew it was coming from me and not Magadi Soda. Well, at the start of the next shift I was approached by a fellow coming on duty that his phone had been damaged when he got wet the previous week. The next morning a third fellow asked me if I could help him out because his phone had also been damaged at work when it got wet. So I’ve come to understand if you help one person you better be ready to get out the wallet and start handing out the money. I am becoming more and more calloused, it seems as though everyone wants to be friendly but it’s not because they like you it’s because they believe they can get something from you. It’s a skill the people learn early here. They don’t try to take care of their own needs they try and see how much they can get from others.
I gave my talk in church today. Unfortunately the roads were all open and I made it on time. I don’t know how I do it but a member of the area seventy was in attendance today. He was there last time I spoke. Maybe someone is making sure I don’t get too far off track in my talks. But when you are talking about home teaching it’s difficult to get off topic. I’ve about got the home teaching lined out, the Branch President is pleased because we’ve been able to attach phone numbers with most families which is an accomplishment in Kenya.
This week is the Board of Directors meeting. It will be interesting because I’ve lowered the production numbers from where they were last year. Last year, there were a number of by-products being sold where those products are not being sold this year. We have not hit sales targets and that’s why. So until those by-products start selling volumes are going to be down. So I may be home early. But I doubt it. There are also going to be bankers here. I guess the company is trying to refinance the debt at a lower interest rate. So I’ll be entertaining my favorite people “finance people”. In any case it is a good experience being involved with board meetings. If anything, it's educational. I just remember a phrase that was used in Green River when big shots came to visit “they can kill you, but they can’t eat you”. Not sure that applies here.
The plans for coming home in August;
I arrive in Vegas on July 31st. Leave Vegas on Aug. 2nd (assuming I have any money left) for St George and then I need to be in SLC for a Dr’s appt on August 5th. I wanted to go to Green River for the General Chemical Company picnic on August 6th. But other than those days everything is open. Haven’t made return reservations yet but they would be the 15th or 16th of August. So those are the plans. Let me know what you would like to do and we’ll try to fit in all the fun and happiness we can.
So, like I said, a slow week. I’ll write next week again. (By the way Margaret, how are my writing skills? Maybe you should be grading my letters for grammar, spelling, punctuations, etc. etc.)
Love
Paul/dad
Sun 6/6/2010 1:45 PM
Hello Family and Friends:
This may be a short letter because not much happened. There were some breakthroughs at work which will be big by the time all the results are in. I wish I could take credit for them but I can’t. There were some changes made that started about a month ago. One piece of equipment wasn’t performing well and so another type of equipment was installed that was manufactured by a different company. I wasn’t too crazy when I saw it gong in because it had not been engineered it was just an old piece of equipment that was available and the maintenance people though it would work better so they installed it. It took about two weeks for it to be tested and it worked pretty well, so another one was installed and then this week two more were installed for a total of four. The upshot of the change is that production through that area of the plant has been increased by 50% at least. And like I said that is big because that area is one of the bottlenecks in the process. With that improvement, production will come much closer to meeting targets and consumption factors will also improve dramatically. Fuel oil and electricity are two of the biggest expenses in the process and the harder and more consistent you can run the process the cheaper each ton becomes.
There is going to be a board meeting here from the 15 – 17 of June. The guy that asked me to come here is on the board and has asked to have a special meeting to talk to those folks involved with making the improvements in the plant. He is going to spend the day touring the plant and then have dinner to recognize those who have contributed. So my job for the next few days will be to prepare for the board meeting and try to assign names to the improvements. It will be a real motivating day for those who have contributed. Many of them are hourly employees who have probably never met a CEO. So the exposure for them should be quite an experience. I have told the employees here that you can bring in “herds” of engineers and improvements may happen. But if you have interested operators that are watching the process every day and get them interested and involved positive things will happen. No one understands the process better than they do. So after the meeting I would think involvement will be tremendous. The problem may be to prioritize all the suggestions.
When I was asked to come here and work to improve the plant operations’ that’s exactly what had to happen. I know processing and can direct the workforce in where they need to go but the specifics of the process has to come from those who run the plant on a day to day basis. My main contribution is to create an environment where people don’t come to accept poor performance, in themselves or the plant. And there have been a few times where my patience has been tried and the group has been asked to raise expectations for themselves. They have to strive to become a word class soda ash operation.
And speaking of raising expectations, this week begins the process of reducing census. I am involving all the managers but there are so many people here it is just crazy. No one does anything, everyone has someone else who does their work. That needs to change. By comparison, in Green River, every employee at the plant is responsible for producing 5,800 tons of soda ash/year (2.6 million tonsper year /total # of employees). In Magadi every employee is responsible for producing 800 tons. A long way from word class production. So we’ll see how the process goes. There are going to be some unhappy people but better a few people leave vs. the entire plant shuts down because it is uncompetitive.
In church today I distributed the home teaching lists and asked the brethren to begin calling their families. Communication here is s difficult. The home teaching lists is going to have to be updated every week as phone numbers are received and as families are moved in and out of the area. Today, there were a number of elders in Priesthood that were not even on the list who can home teach. Records here are a disaster. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to reorganize the home teaching because they asked me to talk in Sacrament meeting next Sunday on home teaching. Hopefully I can inspire the branch to get involved and reach out to those in the branch. Here a phone call counts as a home teaching visit, so the percentages better be good if that’s all it takes. The RS president has also been asked to speak on visiting teaching. With the goal to dividing the branch this summer visiting and home teaching better be good.
Well as usual I’ve rambled enough. I miss you all and hope you are doing well.
Love Paul/dad
Sun 5/16/2010 12:22 PM
Dear family and friends:
Another week’s gone. For the most part, weeks go fast but there are some days that just go on forever. I’ve forgotten to mention the flamingos have returned to Lake Magadi. It is the rainy season so they are here. When you look out across the lake it looks pink. There is some kind of fish that lives in the water here that can survive in high alkalinity water. So that is what the flaming eat. There is a group of scientist coming to study the fish this summer. As it turns out, one of the scientist is from the University of Wyoming. So I sent him an email and told him there was a UW fan here and we would welcome him. The water has a Ph of about 11 which is pretty high for normal life to exist in. So that is why they are coming to study the fish.
This week I signed some scrap passes for employees to remove used conveyor belt from the site for personal use. The employees in the US would use conveyor belting to put in the beds of their $40,000 pick-up so they didn’t get scratched. I can’t imagine what the people here would use it for. Some ideas come to mind; it could be used for roofing or wall material. There are some houses here made out of corrugated metal siding but many are literally made out of grass and sticks. The conveyor belting would go a long ways to keeping rain out of the house; or flooring so you don’t have to walk in the dirt all the time. We just don’t know how good we have it.
Today in church the Branch President (also first counselor in the Stake Presidency) asked me to give a talk in general priesthood meeting next week. I guess he likes what I’m trying to do with home teaching. Communication here is terrible. There few if any land lines in homes. So phone books are unheard of. And keeping up with cell phone numbers if out of the question. So organizing home teaching is difficult. What I’ve done is divided the branch into the two areas. Identified the active elders assigned they Jr. companions and then divided up the ward among those companionships. Pretty straight forward I thought. But when you get to how to contact them that is where the problem comes in. Not only are phone numbers difficult but addresses are like “Nairobi”, or “Langota” or “Rongai”. Not much to go on in an area that has 3 million people. So today in priesthood all we did is collect phone numbers. I printed out a home teaching roster and began filling in numbers. I gave the two sets of full time missionaries copies last week and ask them to fill in all the numbers they knew. The Relief Society is also helping. So I guess he likes what we are doing and wanted the rest of the stake to try something similar. As you can imagine, home teaching struggles in the stake.
So anyway, I told him I couldn’t do it next Saturday because representatives from the World Bank are going to be at the plant. They sponsored a study on geothermal energy in the area and want to come see what has been done with the information. There are geothermal turbine generators north of the plant where the water is much hotter that here. In the Magadi area, the water is only about 85 degrees C. So it will be an interesting meeting. Nothing has been done. I didn’t even know the study had been done until a guy invited me to sit in on the meeting. Will be interesting to see how they react when they find nothing has been done after their investment into the study. We will move it forward now because our energy costs are very high compared to the rest of the world.
The outage is finally over. We will have a review meeting this week to discuss what went well and what needs to be changed. In the early days in Green River there were month long shutdowns to complete maintenance work but those have been shortened to five days and everything just goes crazy and the work gets done. Here they have never tried to shorten the outage. They just expect it to take a month and then take six weeks. So a 10 day outage was a big change; it should have been completed in5 days. The group here have never been taught that work needs to be completed quickly. The expectations have never been set very high. The expectations of the guy that asked me to come here, are that month long outages are a thing of the past.
Next week I will be moving into a different house. The one I’ve been living in is for plant guests that come for a week or so, not long term employees. So it is one of the nicer houses on the site. The one I’ll be living in is not much different, just arranged a little different. It has three bedrooms and three bathrooms, and a very nice gazebo/picnic area. So it will be fine. Just a different house.
Went rock climbing on Saturday. There were three guys from the local village that showed up to climb with me. They think climbing is a hoot. They are pretty good for never having climbed before. I asked if they knew where there were more rock faces but they couldn’t come up with anything. But on the way home from church today I saw some cliffs. About 15 miles from Magadi at a place called Ol Donyo Noyke. I will see if I have to get permission for the tribal leader to climb there. That might be interesting. I also need to get a drill so I can bolt the routes or at least put in anchors at the top (don’t want to pull a Kimball).
And last but not least, the old white guy was the guest of honor at the 10K run on Saturday. There was a charity run for a hospital in Nairobi that treats children heart problems. I didn’t run but I told them I would run next year. I haven’t run much since my near death water skiing accident almost two years ago. But I did run three minutes last Thursday and my leg has been sore since then. I just need to start slow and add mileage each week. I’ve been exercising a lot, just not running. There weren’t many adults running with the kids so I told them that they need to exercise all their life, exercise is not just for kids.
Anyway I’m done. Hope everyone is doing well. I enjoy your emails so feel free to write me.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
PS for those of you who forgot, it was Debi’s birthday on Saturday. It may not be too late to wish her a happy birthday (435-669-1735). I went through the normal routine to get her a gift from me. I called Shena and ask her to do my shopping. She always has been my favorite first born.
Another week’s gone. For the most part, weeks go fast but there are some days that just go on forever. I’ve forgotten to mention the flamingos have returned to Lake Magadi. It is the rainy season so they are here. When you look out across the lake it looks pink. There is some kind of fish that lives in the water here that can survive in high alkalinity water. So that is what the flaming eat. There is a group of scientist coming to study the fish this summer. As it turns out, one of the scientist is from the University of Wyoming. So I sent him an email and told him there was a UW fan here and we would welcome him. The water has a Ph of about 11 which is pretty high for normal life to exist in. So that is why they are coming to study the fish.
This week I signed some scrap passes for employees to remove used conveyor belt from the site for personal use. The employees in the US would use conveyor belting to put in the beds of their $40,000 pick-up so they didn’t get scratched. I can’t imagine what the people here would use it for. Some ideas come to mind; it could be used for roofing or wall material. There are some houses here made out of corrugated metal siding but many are literally made out of grass and sticks. The conveyor belting would go a long ways to keeping rain out of the house; or flooring so you don’t have to walk in the dirt all the time. We just don’t know how good we have it.
Today in church the Branch President (also first counselor in the Stake Presidency) asked me to give a talk in general priesthood meeting next week. I guess he likes what I’m trying to do with home teaching. Communication here is terrible. There few if any land lines in homes. So phone books are unheard of. And keeping up with cell phone numbers if out of the question. So organizing home teaching is difficult. What I’ve done is divided the branch into the two areas. Identified the active elders assigned they Jr. companions and then divided up the ward among those companionships. Pretty straight forward I thought. But when you get to how to contact them that is where the problem comes in. Not only are phone numbers difficult but addresses are like “Nairobi”, or “Langota” or “Rongai”. Not much to go on in an area that has 3 million people. So today in priesthood all we did is collect phone numbers. I printed out a home teaching roster and began filling in numbers. I gave the two sets of full time missionaries copies last week and ask them to fill in all the numbers they knew. The Relief Society is also helping. So I guess he likes what we are doing and wanted the rest of the stake to try something similar. As you can imagine, home teaching struggles in the stake.
So anyway, I told him I couldn’t do it next Saturday because representatives from the World Bank are going to be at the plant. They sponsored a study on geothermal energy in the area and want to come see what has been done with the information. There are geothermal turbine generators north of the plant where the water is much hotter that here. In the Magadi area, the water is only about 85 degrees C. So it will be an interesting meeting. Nothing has been done. I didn’t even know the study had been done until a guy invited me to sit in on the meeting. Will be interesting to see how they react when they find nothing has been done after their investment into the study. We will move it forward now because our energy costs are very high compared to the rest of the world.
The outage is finally over. We will have a review meeting this week to discuss what went well and what needs to be changed. In the early days in Green River there were month long shutdowns to complete maintenance work but those have been shortened to five days and everything just goes crazy and the work gets done. Here they have never tried to shorten the outage. They just expect it to take a month and then take six weeks. So a 10 day outage was a big change; it should have been completed in5 days. The group here have never been taught that work needs to be completed quickly. The expectations have never been set very high. The expectations of the guy that asked me to come here, are that month long outages are a thing of the past.
Next week I will be moving into a different house. The one I’ve been living in is for plant guests that come for a week or so, not long term employees. So it is one of the nicer houses on the site. The one I’ll be living in is not much different, just arranged a little different. It has three bedrooms and three bathrooms, and a very nice gazebo/picnic area. So it will be fine. Just a different house.
Went rock climbing on Saturday. There were three guys from the local village that showed up to climb with me. They think climbing is a hoot. They are pretty good for never having climbed before. I asked if they knew where there were more rock faces but they couldn’t come up with anything. But on the way home from church today I saw some cliffs. About 15 miles from Magadi at a place called Ol Donyo Noyke. I will see if I have to get permission for the tribal leader to climb there. That might be interesting. I also need to get a drill so I can bolt the routes or at least put in anchors at the top (don’t want to pull a Kimball).
And last but not least, the old white guy was the guest of honor at the 10K run on Saturday. There was a charity run for a hospital in Nairobi that treats children heart problems. I didn’t run but I told them I would run next year. I haven’t run much since my near death water skiing accident almost two years ago. But I did run three minutes last Thursday and my leg has been sore since then. I just need to start slow and add mileage each week. I’ve been exercising a lot, just not running. There weren’t many adults running with the kids so I told them that they need to exercise all their life, exercise is not just for kids.
Anyway I’m done. Hope everyone is doing well. I enjoy your emails so feel free to write me.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
PS for those of you who forgot, it was Debi’s birthday on Saturday. It may not be too late to wish her a happy birthday (435-669-1735). I went through the normal routine to get her a gift from me. I called Shena and ask her to do my shopping. She always has been my favorite first born.
Sun 5/2/2010 12:21 PM
Dear Family and friends:
Another week completed. There were a few good things that happened; hopefully one of the changes made will allow one of the dredges to deliver more material to the new plant. That will be a big deal because under producing has been a problem.
The New plant was scheduled to go down tomorrow for 7 days to complete a number of modification and make repairs to equipment. But I got a call in church today that problems had come up; so the decision was made to take the plant down today. One of the problems with going down early is that schedules had been put together for people to arrive for work tomorrow. Fortunately many of the people that do the work live in Magadi so they were available to come in today and begin some shut down work. So by the time I got back from church, a few jobs had already been started.
Today in church a woman got up and bore her testimony, she said that she wanted her children to grow up and go on missions and went on to say how much she loved the gospel. Come to find she is just taking the lessons. I guess she is what you would call a golden contact. Her husband is a member but for some reason she has never come to church. Speaking of church, I am amazed by how reverent kids are here. There are a lot of young people and many come without their parents. Primary kids sit by themselves during sacrament meeting without making a peep. Amazing!
The safari drive to church didn’t have much wild life. But what did surprise me was how big ostriches are. There was one just right by the side of the road, I had to do a bubble take because it was so big. There were some little dig-digs too. They look like a very small deer. About three times the size of Shena’s attack dogs. And then there were the regular baboons. They are all over the place.
Work is about completed on installing the dental chair for Debi. I’ll have to check on what equipment they have and what they plan to buy. I’ll send the information along Debi and you can determine what else you will need. You will be able to work your own schedule; either as much as you want or a little as you want.
Tried to break the boredom this week a little and went out to a rock face and did some climbing. I brought back a rope, harness, shoes and a device that will allow me to climb safely by myself (it will catch me if I fall). The rock face is on the road out of town and to a number of communities of the local people. So when they saw a crazy white guy up on the rocks they had to come look. I did one easy route just to see what the rock was like and by the time I got back down one to the local guys had completed the route also. He was pretty proud of himself. They wanted to do another route that was a lot more difficult so I put up the rope and started climbing. Fortunately the Massai guy couldn’t do that route (my ego had been spared). That is all I need is to have a guy that has never climbed doing what I did. But by the time all this had worked itself out, there was a crowd of women and children. I got a standing “O” for finishing the last route. When I was packing everything up the group wanted to know when we were going to do it again. So May 15th is the next date. Note to self – take water!!!! When I got back to town I drank three liters of water. It was very hot and I was soaked from sweat.
Enough babbling, you’ve probably have heard enough. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate getting your emails, notes on face book and text messages. It helps me know that whatever sacrifice I make here is appreciated and that makes the effort worthwhile. Getting up in the morning to find a text makes the whole day go better.
I asked Greg to put together a conference call next Saturday; could we schedule it for 9:00 am St. George time, 8:00 am Van Nuys time and 6:00 pm my time. Hope everyone will be able to make it.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
Another week completed. There were a few good things that happened; hopefully one of the changes made will allow one of the dredges to deliver more material to the new plant. That will be a big deal because under producing has been a problem.
The New plant was scheduled to go down tomorrow for 7 days to complete a number of modification and make repairs to equipment. But I got a call in church today that problems had come up; so the decision was made to take the plant down today. One of the problems with going down early is that schedules had been put together for people to arrive for work tomorrow. Fortunately many of the people that do the work live in Magadi so they were available to come in today and begin some shut down work. So by the time I got back from church, a few jobs had already been started.
Today in church a woman got up and bore her testimony, she said that she wanted her children to grow up and go on missions and went on to say how much she loved the gospel. Come to find she is just taking the lessons. I guess she is what you would call a golden contact. Her husband is a member but for some reason she has never come to church. Speaking of church, I am amazed by how reverent kids are here. There are a lot of young people and many come without their parents. Primary kids sit by themselves during sacrament meeting without making a peep. Amazing!
The safari drive to church didn’t have much wild life. But what did surprise me was how big ostriches are. There was one just right by the side of the road, I had to do a bubble take because it was so big. There were some little dig-digs too. They look like a very small deer. About three times the size of Shena’s attack dogs. And then there were the regular baboons. They are all over the place.
Work is about completed on installing the dental chair for Debi. I’ll have to check on what equipment they have and what they plan to buy. I’ll send the information along Debi and you can determine what else you will need. You will be able to work your own schedule; either as much as you want or a little as you want.
Tried to break the boredom this week a little and went out to a rock face and did some climbing. I brought back a rope, harness, shoes and a device that will allow me to climb safely by myself (it will catch me if I fall). The rock face is on the road out of town and to a number of communities of the local people. So when they saw a crazy white guy up on the rocks they had to come look. I did one easy route just to see what the rock was like and by the time I got back down one to the local guys had completed the route also. He was pretty proud of himself. They wanted to do another route that was a lot more difficult so I put up the rope and started climbing. Fortunately the Massai guy couldn’t do that route (my ego had been spared). That is all I need is to have a guy that has never climbed doing what I did. But by the time all this had worked itself out, there was a crowd of women and children. I got a standing “O” for finishing the last route. When I was packing everything up the group wanted to know when we were going to do it again. So May 15th is the next date. Note to self – take water!!!! When I got back to town I drank three liters of water. It was very hot and I was soaked from sweat.
Enough babbling, you’ve probably have heard enough. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate getting your emails, notes on face book and text messages. It helps me know that whatever sacrifice I make here is appreciated and that makes the effort worthwhile. Getting up in the morning to find a text makes the whole day go better.
I asked Greg to put together a conference call next Saturday; could we schedule it for 9:00 am St. George time, 8:00 am Van Nuys time and 6:00 pm my time. Hope everyone will be able to make it.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
Sun 4/25/2010 9:57 PM
Dear Family and friends :
This was kind of a short week cause the ash clouds in Europe delayed my return by two days. Thanks to an alert travel agent who sent me a text the morning I was suppose to leave and told me not to get on a plane cause I’d get stuck. So I got to spend two more days with the family. With the two extra days we all went and played with Shena and her little friends that came to George. I don’t know if I speak for Debbie, but for me being able to associate with adult children and their friends is a lot of fun. Krista and Greg met some of their friends in George last year and that was an enjoyable experience as well.
The trip back was interesting; I had a 14 hour flight from Atlanta to Dubai (couldn’t go through Europe). I have a difficult time spending time in an office so the flight was murder. Ambien and movies can only keep me seated for so long. Maybe Shena is right, I need to be treated for AD HA (I think that is what she says I have). And speaking of Dubai, that airport looked like a five star hotel. Now I know where all the oil money is going.
Anyway when I returned it was still hot and dry; not much had changed. But while I was away a test was completed with chemicals that were ordered back in March. They were supposed to have arrived prior to my return to the US but they didn’t make it. The test went very well. There are a number of characteristics necessary for soda ash to have to be able to be sold in the premium market. There are low grade soda ash products available but they don’t sell for much. Part of my assignment incoming here was to work on the process to improve quality. So in my absence a test was completed that showed the new chemical could treat the raw soda ash and improve quality significantly. Hurray for our side. The process still needs work but the successful test was a big step in the right direction. So now that quality is moving in the right direction, I’ll turn some of my attention to other areas of the plant. I’ve asked to have a fellow that retired from General come over here and help with maintenance. He will be a big help because there are a lot of maintenance needs here. It’s difficult keeping the plant running for more than a day at a time.
I went to church today as usual. It was good to see all the members again. They are my family here. They all seemed glad to see me back. Everyone knew I’d been away (at work and at church). We watched General Conference because the church here isn’t hooked up to the broadcast system (I guess). I’m always amazed at the insight the speakers have. It is interesting to be half a world away with people so different from me but all share the same bond with the church. The Saints here have a strong testimony of the gospel and truly support the Church leaders in Salt Lake. I think I’ve said it before, but I’m one of the oldest members in the ward. The branch president (who is the first counselor in the stake presidency is a year older than Shena). I’m sure this is the way it was in the early days of the church in the US; everybody was young.
When I was leaving church I needed to stop at a store and buy some things. I was at the check stand when a little boy came up and wanted to shake my hand, so I shook hands and paid for my stuff. He followed me as I was leaving the store and I thought he had gone back to his mother. But when I got to my car and was sitting down there he was ready to get in the car and go home with me. I took him back into the store and gave him to the people at the customer service desk. He was sure a cute little boy.
One other event from the week that my kids will get a kick out of. On Saturday, I’d had enough of office work and wanted to get outside and get some sun (can you see this coming kids). So, I packed up a bunch of reading material and headed to the house. I thought I’ll read all this stuff get some sun and get out of the office. Well guess who is all itchy. I remember Debi saying don’t over do it on the first day in the sun, so I didn’t think one hour was too much; it was. Ops, my bad. I’ve been burned worse but I’m still pretty red. If you want the hand gestures that go with the “I feel itchy” phrase, I’m sure my children will be more than happy to show you and laugh at their poor fathers expense
So much for another week. It was sooooo good being home with family. I love you all very much and enjoyed our time together. I’m looking forward to August when I can see you all again.
Cherry (#4 favorite) I sure enjoy your emails. Thanks a bunch.
Love you all
Dad/Paul
This was kind of a short week cause the ash clouds in Europe delayed my return by two days. Thanks to an alert travel agent who sent me a text the morning I was suppose to leave and told me not to get on a plane cause I’d get stuck. So I got to spend two more days with the family. With the two extra days we all went and played with Shena and her little friends that came to George. I don’t know if I speak for Debbie, but for me being able to associate with adult children and their friends is a lot of fun. Krista and Greg met some of their friends in George last year and that was an enjoyable experience as well.
The trip back was interesting; I had a 14 hour flight from Atlanta to Dubai (couldn’t go through Europe). I have a difficult time spending time in an office so the flight was murder. Ambien and movies can only keep me seated for so long. Maybe Shena is right, I need to be treated for AD HA (I think that is what she says I have). And speaking of Dubai, that airport looked like a five star hotel. Now I know where all the oil money is going.
Anyway when I returned it was still hot and dry; not much had changed. But while I was away a test was completed with chemicals that were ordered back in March. They were supposed to have arrived prior to my return to the US but they didn’t make it. The test went very well. There are a number of characteristics necessary for soda ash to have to be able to be sold in the premium market. There are low grade soda ash products available but they don’t sell for much. Part of my assignment incoming here was to work on the process to improve quality. So in my absence a test was completed that showed the new chemical could treat the raw soda ash and improve quality significantly. Hurray for our side. The process still needs work but the successful test was a big step in the right direction. So now that quality is moving in the right direction, I’ll turn some of my attention to other areas of the plant. I’ve asked to have a fellow that retired from General come over here and help with maintenance. He will be a big help because there are a lot of maintenance needs here. It’s difficult keeping the plant running for more than a day at a time.
I went to church today as usual. It was good to see all the members again. They are my family here. They all seemed glad to see me back. Everyone knew I’d been away (at work and at church). We watched General Conference because the church here isn’t hooked up to the broadcast system (I guess). I’m always amazed at the insight the speakers have. It is interesting to be half a world away with people so different from me but all share the same bond with the church. The Saints here have a strong testimony of the gospel and truly support the Church leaders in Salt Lake. I think I’ve said it before, but I’m one of the oldest members in the ward. The branch president (who is the first counselor in the stake presidency is a year older than Shena). I’m sure this is the way it was in the early days of the church in the US; everybody was young.
When I was leaving church I needed to stop at a store and buy some things. I was at the check stand when a little boy came up and wanted to shake my hand, so I shook hands and paid for my stuff. He followed me as I was leaving the store and I thought he had gone back to his mother. But when I got to my car and was sitting down there he was ready to get in the car and go home with me. I took him back into the store and gave him to the people at the customer service desk. He was sure a cute little boy.
One other event from the week that my kids will get a kick out of. On Saturday, I’d had enough of office work and wanted to get outside and get some sun (can you see this coming kids). So, I packed up a bunch of reading material and headed to the house. I thought I’ll read all this stuff get some sun and get out of the office. Well guess who is all itchy. I remember Debi saying don’t over do it on the first day in the sun, so I didn’t think one hour was too much; it was. Ops, my bad. I’ve been burned worse but I’m still pretty red. If you want the hand gestures that go with the “I feel itchy” phrase, I’m sure my children will be more than happy to show you and laugh at their poor fathers expense
So much for another week. It was sooooo good being home with family. I love you all very much and enjoyed our time together. I’m looking forward to August when I can see you all again.
Cherry (#4 favorite) I sure enjoy your emails. Thanks a bunch.
Love you all
Dad/Paul
Sun 5/30/2010 1:48 PM
Dear family and friends:
Maybe to begin the week I should finish last week’s story line. After getting to church today, I found out not many people made it to church last week. They had closed the road to the church for a stupid marathon and didn’t let any traffic on the road. The Branch President wasn’t able to make it to church and the Stake President didn’t make it for Branch conference. So the Branch conference was postponed until today. I was the dumb one that tried to find another way to get to church, those that know Nairobi know there is only one way to get there.
When I was in negotiations to come to Kenya, one of the things I ask for was an insurance policy to make sure Debbie was taken care of in the event something happened to me. So they have been working on that since last November. When I was home in April, there was a nurse that came to the house and did a physical just to make sure there were no health problems and report findings to the insurance carrier. Well, about a month ago I got a note saying there was something wrong with my heart. It took about a week to find out what was wrong because I had to send an email to the right guy due to HIPPA laws. As it turns out the insurance people thought I had bradycardia (sp), a condition where your heart rate is very low. Apparently my heart rate was in the 40 bpm range where normal rate is between 60 and 100 bpm. So I had an appointment scheduled at the Nairobi hospital to have an exercise EKG. That’s where they put all the wires on you and crank you up on a tread mill. When I got there the heart rate was still in the 40’s but everything else looked good; they did an ultrasound on my heart and a few other things I’ve never had done. They start the tread mill out slow and then index up the speed and incline every three minutes. The objective is to get your heart rate up to 153 bpm. After 10 minutes I started sweating and my heart rate was just past 100 bpm. After 15 minutes, I was dripping sweat and my heart rate was about 120 bpm and now I’m getting worried if I will ever get to 153 bpm target. After 18minutes, I’m up in the 130 bpm and going about 6 miles an hour and the angle is as high as it will go. I was beginning to worry when the girl running the test said the tests ends after 21 minutes even if your heart rate doesn’t reach 153. I breathed a sigh of relief. As it turns out I’m only the second person to time out on the machine. The other person was a 17 year old kid. But I guess when most people who use the machine are old people that have heart conditions so it’s not much to brag about. The Doctor told by my slow heart rate was due to training and not a medical condition (duh). He told me I was a very fit man. So now maybe I can get an insurance policy.
Aluminum foil. I have come to believe that the more aluminum foil you put around lunches the better they taste. Krista packs a lunch for me each day. She double wraps my sandwich, wraps my apple, wraps my cookies, and even wraps the container she puts my hot sauce in for my chips. I don’t have the heart to tell her they would taste just as good with half the foil.
There have been a lot of people come into my office this week begging for jobs. There was one man that came in twice and told me he had no money and no job and he had children to support. That is one of the heart breaking things in this job is telling people I can’t give them a job. The area is so poor, but the company can’t afford to employ everyone. I just tell them to go to the HR department and get their name on the list to be hired. Fortunately the HR guy is an African. I’d rather have him tell the men they can’t have a job instead of me.
Went climbing this weekend again; found a great climbing wall that is about 70 feet high. When I’m in Nairobi on a week day, I’m going to look for an electric drill so I can put in bolts for climbing. This weekend we just used a tree at the top of the route. I had four natives with me; they had a heck of a time. Something they would never experienced without a crazy American visiting their country. We will climb in two weeks again.
There is also a four wheel rally in town this weekend. If you are interested go to www.rhinocharge2010.co.ke . It is an event where money is raised for some charity. I’ve been down to where the race will be but it doesn’t start until Monday so nothing is going on. But talk about rednecks, the vehicles coming in for the event look like they could climb telephone poles. I haven’t seen this many white people since I arrived in Magadi. I saw some zebras and other critters while I was checking out the rally. I have attached some pictures.
Well so much for another week. I appreciate hearing for you all. Thanks for the emails and texts.
Talk to you next week
Love
Paul/dad
Sun 5/23/2010 8:58 AM
Hello family and friends:
Another week shot and time for another update. If you are getting bored with the updates just tell me to take you off the distribution list.
Let me start by telling you about my trip to church today. I referred to it as my trip because I didn’t make it to church. It all started out as usual, left the house at about 7:00 and headed north. About 20 minutes out of town there was a car with two flat tires. The driver looked like a catholic father and as it turned they were Anglican ministers. So I offered a ride and the wives of the two ministers got in the truck with me. The two of them filled the back seat. They wanted a ride to a turn off where they could catch a Matutu (like a taxi, but driven by young men with death wishes) and then go to their church. I’m not sure the ministers ever go to church. After I dropped them I was about five minutes from the chapel and there were police were directing everyone away from the direction I wanted to go. So I thought I’ll just find another road there. Right! About an hour later I stopped and asked some policemen how to get back to where I started. Had I continued I would have wound up in northwest Kenya where I wanted to be in Southwest Kenya. I’ve grown a lot here, I am not longer afraid to ask directions cause I knew I was lost. I discovered that the slums of Kenya all look alike. The police also told me not to ask directions from just anyone; if I needed mote help to ask at a petrol station. So, by that time I figured I could still make it back for part of church; wrong again. I was about at the same spot I was detoured from before and the traffic was not moving so I texted the Branch President and told him he was on his own for the day. On the way back there were some boys shoveling rocks in the pot holes. Last week they were shoveling rocks off the road that had washed over the road due to the flooding. I gave them 500 shillings last week and 100 shillings this week. You would have thought they won the lottery. They were so excited someone was giving them money. But that’s why they do it, hoping travelers will pay them. One last thing, the birds in Africa will not last with modern travel. I bet I hit 6 birds on the road today. The birds in the US know how fast cars travel and get out of the way. Birds here have not developed that skill yet. They are about 2 seconds too slow. So Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest is being tested here.
Last week there was a guy that came to the office and told me he was collecting money for the local chief and he wanted me to contribute. I didn’t have any money to give him so I told him to come back this past week and I’d contribute. I thought might as well get in good with the chief. Well I was talking to my secretary and she warned me about the guy, her comment was “He may be less than honorable”. So when he came back this week for the money I asked him for some proof that eh money was for the chief. Well guess what he didn’t have anything. Then he wanted me to contribute to a kids college fund. I said I would but I wanted to give it to the kid. He didn’t like that idea either. He wanted to give it to him because the kid lived in the back country. Anyway the upshot of the ordeal, he didn’t get any money from me. Honesty is a rare commodity here. It’s not like some people intentionally lie to you, they tell you what they think you want to hear or they miss lead you without giving it a second thought.
The plant finally came online following the outage. There were many improvements made and production is improving. The guys here have many good ideas and can make things better but no sense of urgency to get things done. So between their ideas and my lack of patience, it may be a workable combination. But in some situations, they haven’t seen how to do make the process better. That is where having worked in the business for 30 years and having spent the last 14 years at a soda ash plant helps. So hopefully improvements will keep coming.
The meeting with the people from the world bank was interesting. Apparently the Japanese banking industry had financed some research here to evaluate geothermal energy. The whole process was not well done. Somehow the final report did not make it to the right people here and was incomplete. So that did not look very good to the people here evaluating the project. It looks like geothermal may be an option here because there are geothermal power generators about 70 kilometers north of the plant. Power here is very expensive so if we could make our own it would be a great financial benefit.
Can’t think of anything else to say, so I’ll stop talking. I have attached some pictures or the house I moved into. It is very nice by Kenya standards but leaves a little to be desired compared to the one is St George.
Love you all
Paul/dad/etc
Sun 5/9/2010 12:21 PM
Dear Family and friends:
Another week gone; hard to believe! A lot happened at work this week. One plant was taken down on purpose and the other one went down due to problems. Neither plant is entirely up yet but both are getting close. Not sure anyone likes me after the week though. On Monday evening I couldn’t sleep so I went into work and didn’t find much going on and then at about 2:30 in the morning I went in again and nothing was going on. And in addition to nothing going on, I found most workers either asleep or playing card games on the computer. So I got all the managers together and gave them a list of expectations and sleeping on the job and not working 24 hours a day during an outage were not on the list. Not sure I made any friends that morning. And yesterday I had to call the mine manager and tell him to come to work over the weekend because the mine is having a terrible time keeping up with production. So after those meetings during the week, I got people stirred up. One fellow, who does a very good job of planning maintenance work told me he was excited to hear me trying to get people worked up, he said it was long overdue and he wished it had been done years ago. Today one of the maintenance foremen told me they had accomplished as much during the week as they had during previous month long outages. So maybe some progress is being made. In spite of the progress we are way behind on orders. Soda ash sales have gone through the roof; now is the time to be running and not shut down.
So what else is there to tell? I’m trying to figure out hair. On guys over here it is pretty easy. 99% are bald (shaved heads). But the women, I can’t figure out. Some look like they have burber (sp) carpet attached to their heads. Those are easy to identify. Others look like they have twisted up a black cotton t shirt and woven it into their own hair. Those are easy to pick out too. But some hair looks like it is real. Can’t decide if I would get back handed if I just went up and asked. Maybe I’ll wait until Debi gets here and let her be the judge and figure it out for me.
Looks like there will be a g
uy (Andy Voytko) coming over here that I worked with at General to help with maintenance. It will be good to have some help. Plus he is excited to come to Kenya. He retired about three years ago and wants to work again. I guess not working isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I’d like to give it a try for a while though.
Well one last comment: Happy Mother’s day!! Mom thanks for all you did and continue to do for me. Had to come to work over here to try and earn enough money to pay you back for all the brooms you broke on my butt. Thanks for all your efforts on my behalf. I don’t think I could begin to list all you have done for me. But know how much I appreciate all you have done for me. You are a great Mom!
And Debi: Happy mother’s day. I hope your girls know what a great Mom they have. You saved their lives many times from a father who was ready to shoot them. You put their happiness ahead of yours and have always done what was best for them. You are a good example for them to follow.
And Mom, sometimes I provoke Debi, and make her yell at me; just wanted to let you know that. Sometimes (actually most of the time) I deserve what I get.
Can’t think of anything else to say, so Ill shut up.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
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