Nairobi, week two (full week one):

the week consists of 5 days of going to APDK at 8 in the morning, taking tea (tea and milk to make "chai") at 10am, lunch at 1pm, and leaving at 4:30pm; outside of our time at APDK we probably won't do any significant traveling or sight-seeing; this week wasn't entirely exciting apart from a couple good world cup games and some trips to downtown to look for engines

after looking around a bit on monday in the city center for engines, we were not impressed with what we found or the seemingly potential availability of 50cc engines, let alone with pull starts and centrifugal clutches; after discussing our options a bit and realizing that it might be a while before we found a suitable engine, we started working on a tensioning system for the chains; after much deliberation of design issues and discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of different stock shapes of steel, we settled on a couple basic designs that we would subject to test and possible modification once we got an engine; the fabrication of our chain tensioner took only parts of two days and so we were left only with the issue of finding an engine by the end of wednesday; so we went to town again ... and didn't find anything, on thursday or friday; all three days we went in with allan (the guy at APDK who started the project several years ago before MIT got involved), and so felt bad for dragging him around town for so long, but also were grateful for his help in talking to shop owners and exploring possible options ... we also decided towards the end of the week that we wanted to look into electric start, which will make finding an engine of such small size slightly more difficult, but i still have faith in the size and proximity of nairobi to china and its mass manufacturers

i keep getting the feeling that we're not asking the right questions to the right people; after the first day of looking downtown, we talked to allan and clarified what we did and didn't want, which meant that thursday we spent most of our time in shops that ended up only selling generators and larger engines (5.5 hp, ~125 to 150cc), and friday we spent the day asking around the auto parts area; we also got ripped off on buying bolts to mount the chain tensioning system, but i can only blame myself for non-confidence in bargaining, haha; more skills to brush up on ...

we're also trying to learn a little swahili; on our way out of the gate in the morning, we try to exchange greetings with the guard and ask/learn something new every day ... i've got greetings figured out, so we'll see how long it takes to learn some regular conversation and useful questions

and of course the world cup; lots of drama and intrigue, many interesting games as well as lots of ties and lackluster play by some good teams (germany lost to serbia, and spain lost to slovakia); it was also heartbreaking to see the usa get robbed of the game winning goal that would have put them on top of their group (the ref called something, nobody knows, and took away the goal that they had scored; after much television replay, it was very clear that they had fairly scored ... so they officially tied); but there's still one game left in group play through which they can still make it to the final 16; we've been mostly just watching games in the evening after we get back from APDK, so it's nice to sit and relax, but i'm also somewhat anxious to get out and see more of nairobi and kenya as a whole