The Chinese Deal (Pt. III)

So, we have negotiated the prices, the delivery times, the quantities, the means of payment ... etc. etc.

Now, they are asking for samples!

Surely, that should have been done right at the beginning!

And they don't know the logistics of sending a parcel from a small town in provincial Africa!

First, I have to send money out there

Then my partner, using the money has to buy the samples

Then he has to package them up and post them.

This is in hand (I hope) but I don't know how long it will take 1kg of soapstone to get to the middle of China.

Still, if they finally honour their initial order, it will have been worth it.

OK, I give up!

I really thought that trying to earn our own funds rather than going around cap in hands was a good way forward in financing our future projects.

Maybe it is, but after two attempts to get a business off the ground, I have fallen flat on my face and lost a fair amount of my own money in the process.

[I had to use my own money because anything that comes into the organisation goes towards feeding and housing the kids - and that is paramount.]

I am not really going to give up. After all, I have developed websites and sunk money into these projects, so they have to carry on.

But, in the meantime, we are back to going around, cap in hand looking for hand-outs.

Take a look at some of our projects

The Chinese Deal (Pt. II)

I have concluded that the Chinese deal (See Scam ... ? below) is not a scam - until they prove otherwise, so I am going along with them.

But as we are not in a position to pay for notarisation - or anything else - I have sent them a new contract, based on theirs, but making sure that we are not liable for any expense outside of Kenya.

As a sweetener, we have decreased the advance payment (that they offered in the first place), set out a new payment package that favours the Chinese, and sent the contract off for their perusal. That was on 5th September, which of course was a Friday.

I received an email stating that the new, or revised, contract had been received and would be presented to the Board of Directors.

We are now waiting for a reply, five days later. I try to keep the attitude that no news is good news, but expenses are mounting up in Kenya and with the impending failure of the cyber café, I need this deal to go through, just to cover my commitments.

A worrying time. Still, we now have a structured business to sell the product globally, complete with website, and a vision of a way forward.

All we need is a few clients that want to buy our products at wholesale quantities.

Our website - take a look!

Feed the Orphans

It is about time to start an appeal again. The last one asked people to donate their old mobile phones, digital cameras and any other old, high tech gadgets that are lying around in the back of a drawer.

I took all this "rubbish" to Kenya and we sold it on the local market. Every child at the Mercy Gate orphanage, that is 38 kids, got a new pair of black leather school shoes - success!

So I think I will do it again. Maybe the village has now off-loaded their old phones to us already, but I bet there are still a lot out there, gathering dust. So it is worth a try.

This time, I hope that I will be able to raise enough to start a health fund, a pot of money set aside to treat kids when they are ill. Malaria, chiggers and intestinal parasites seem to be the main ailments. They are all treatable, as long as the money is available.

It would be such a relief to be able to take a child to the hospital without wondering who is going to go without what to pay for the treatment.

-oOo-

On another tack, I was reading somewhere that there is a World Blog Day, where people get together to do their bit to help others - or something like that.

This got me thinking. All those in Kenya who write blogs, and all those Kenyans overseas who also write blogs (and all us non-Kenyans who have an interest in Kenya), if we all got together and donated a bit of time [or money] to a central blog-pot, I wonder how much of a change we could make?