Text on Techs

On Sunday, I kidnapped Charl, my South African coworker, for some trains and then some.

First stop, the Lunatic line. Canada built the railway to populate the country. Kenya designated a country because of the railway.

I love the story of the official who decided to coax the lion into his carriage only to fall asleep. Anyway, we got to climb on steam engines and troll through the early century cars where dreams of romantic Kenyan adventures were baked in the sun.

After we got good and lost in our wanderings only to end up at the Muthurwa Market. Apparently, the number of people that we thought was many was 1/3 the actual street foot traffic of the neighbourhood. Our taxi driver told us that tourists don’t go to that hood. We were pleased. It was busy, but safe. The story of the market is actually fairly important to the city too.

Oh, earlier in the day at the Maasai market, situated close to a posh shopping mall, two men offered to pay me to touch my hair and one man gave me this in honour of it:

I bought a bracelet from Lou as thanks for this picture of her beadwork.

Giraffes. Of all the exotic creatures that traverse the lands of Africa, giraffes were top on my list. Beautiful graceful animals that seem to teach us a few things about calm demeanor, the swagger and patience. Yes, I hope to see more animals after the big work stuff is completed.

When I arrived at the Giraffe Center (such a tourist hub), The Giraffes were eating out of people’s hands. Then, they left just as I walked up the stairs. For 30 minutes, I wandered around the center and watched the giraffes way off in the distance.

Where are the Giraffes: (I expect my nieces and nephew to memorize this map.)

They took their sweet time, I mean, ate grass and napped.

With a pail-driven food racket, they returned.

Eyeballed:

After the giraffes, I tried to go to Kazuri beads to see the factory for my mom. They were closed. So, next week. Instead, I went to Karen Blizen’s estate. She was the author of Out of Africa. Many a female in my life swooned about Kenya and learned about the country’s colonial history via the Pollack movie. Apparently, the movie rubs off some of the true nature of the book and adds some “North American mainstream movie tone.” The grounds were beautiful.

What is RHoK

Random Hacks of Kindness is a community of innovation focused on developing practical open source solutions to humanitarian aid, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. This is about technology helping people. On June 4th and 5th, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA, HP and the World Bank, through their initiative Random Hacks of Kindness (RHoK), will bring together thousands of people in over 18 locations around the globe to create open solutions that can save lives and alleviate suffering.

We would love if you joined us: Register for RHoK 3.0 Toronto

RHoK 3.0 will focus on the issue of climate change. We’re hoping that this year, RHoK 3.0 Toronto is just as successful as our inaugural RHoK 2.0 in December. Over 50 hackers, citizens, designers, writers, researchers and open data enthusiasts came out in Toronto and joined 1000 others, collaborating with RHoK events in 21 cities and Open Data Hackathon Day events in 73 cities, all around the world.
We could not have done this without the generous support of our sponsors. Last year, sponsors donated space, food, tools, services and funds which helped make the event a success.

Help Feed RHoK Hackers and give them prizes.
RHoK Toronto 3.0 is a Satellite event for the RHoK global event. We are responsible to drum up local sponsorship support for food and prizes. This time, we are looking for sponsorship for a pre-event reception, to provide meals or funding for meals to participants and prizes for the top 3 innovative solutions or ‘hacks’.

In exchange for your involvement in the RHoK initiative, we will do the following:

• Showcase your logo internationally on the RHoK global website.
• Mention you in the media and press releases for the Toronto event.
• Provide you with space at the event for your pamphlets or promotional materials.
• Offer recruitment opportunities through our job board and your presence at the event.
• Provide you with blog content about the event

Sponsorship Options

Fill the Hacker Candy Jar $100.00 Feed the Hackers Lunch $250.00 Buy the Hackers Dinner $500.00 Opening Night Party Sponsor $750.00

Please let me or our contacts know if you have any questions or suggestions. Any donated funds will be used for food and prizes. Any funds that we do not use will be given to the Red Cross. RHoK global requires that we provide full disclosure on accounting for events. We will happily do so. The Donation button is on Brian Chick’s Left Button Solutions business account. Brian is a core volunteer for this event.

Hope you can join us.

Thanks,

Heather Leson
RHoK Toronto Coordinator

For World Environment Day (#WED2011), my family and I decided to write a post together.

What does the forest mean to you? What do you think of nature’s forest services (for example water, food, medicine, clean air, preventing soil erosion, timber products, rubber, home for many plants and animals, etc.)?

Unlike W.O Mitchell’s version of a prairie childhood, we grew up where the forest meets the prairie. Our grandfather had a sawmill. A number of uncles built wood cabin houses with their own hands, one uncle made custom cupboards, another planted trees and another was a forest ranger. My dad used to tell us stories about a forest monster to scare us from wandering in it alone at night. There is an old Ukrainian fairytale about a Makva – a protectorate of the forest. I often think of this as our role. All of our responsibility as global citizens.

Our whole livelihood was centered around the forest and forest production. Our third-grade teacher did a fun exercise. All of the students stood up and were asked whether their family’s income was based on the forest. There were three forest mills in town. One by one we all sat down. Forests are interwoven in many of my childhood memories. We created games, picked blueberries or morels, build forts with broken branches or lay reading out of the afternoon sun. As a teenager, I worked in the regional park and gave tours talking about the types of trees, the fresh water creek and the town history.

From my nieces and nephew:

Abby
Abby demonstrates a person breathing oxygen because of trees. As well, has drawn a wooden desk and chair with paper and a pencil.

Serena:

Peter: “homework kills trees“. Clearly, more online education web apps are in order. Also, it might be a good idea to not ask kids about school on a Sunday.

Visit and ‘like’ the UNEP Facebook page and the TreeHugger.com Facebook page. Search #WED2011 on Twitter. Follow @UNEPandYou & @TreeHugger on Twitter.

Check out the UNEP and Treehugger websites.