Sunday, November 07, 2004
Africa is so full of surprises. This Saturday morning I had nothing to do except to anxiously wait until 2:30pm, when my friend and I will see what files we can recover from my erased hard disk. I could not concentrate on anything useful meanwhile, so I got on my bike and just started riding. Not far from home I found a small road I hadn’t explored before. It ended at a big high fence, but the gate was open so I went in.
It was a factory complex. Large, and the grounds had obviously been nicely landscaped not too long ago, although they were overgrown now. Lots of land around it, with a private dock on the lake. It still looked rather new, but everything was locked up and clearly not in use.
I poked around for some time, and met Bwana Makena, who opened the factory for me, showed me around and shared its history with me. It was a milk processing plant, and had operated from late 1999 until 2002. Makena had been the chief technician and is the only person left – he continues as the watchman, hoping to use his technical skills again when the plant reopens, as the owner has been promising will happen for the past two years.
Inside the plant, it was amazing. Full of spotless large stainless steel mixing and holding tanks with the most modern digital controls. Automated pasteurizing equipment and bottle filling stations, a huge refrigeration room. Spacious, with tile floor, modern quality control laboratory, offices. I estimate the plant at about 50,000-60,000 square feet – as modern, orderly and clean as any food processing plant you would expect to find in Europe or the US. You could spend a week cleaning up the floors and be back in operation in a month.
Makena told me the owner’s other businesses include large grocery stores in Mwanza, Dar es Salaam, and Zambia, and he owns five of the ferry boats that cross Lake Victoria. He built this factory with a capacity of 12,000 liters of milk a day, bringing in milk from across the lake as well as from local farms, and some 50 cows of his own that were raised in fields adjacent to the factory.
They actually processed some 6,000 liters per day during the rainy season - less during the dry season. But an even bigger problem was finding a sufficient market. Few Africans have refrigerators. So they found that they could sell only about 3,000 liters a day, mostly as “sour milk” – which I interpret as yoghurt. [Others tell me no - that this really is sort-of like sour cream, and so has a pretty long shelf life] Makena thinks the owner is looking for new investment money or a buyer. Meanwhile, he stays there, waiting to use his technical skills again, the only thing that keeps the factory from being destroyed through theft and disintegration.
What a waste of capital, of hopes and promises. And this apparently was African money, not a gift from the industrialized nations of the world. So here the factory sits, marooned and mothballed in the middle of Africa.
After this exploration I came back home, to find that we have no electricity. So nothing can happen regarding my computer today. Maybe tomorrow.
It was a factory complex. Large, and the grounds had obviously been nicely landscaped not too long ago, although they were overgrown now. Lots of land around it, with a private dock on the lake. It still looked rather new, but everything was locked up and clearly not in use.
I poked around for some time, and met Bwana Makena, who opened the factory for me, showed me around and shared its history with me. It was a milk processing plant, and had operated from late 1999 until 2002. Makena had been the chief technician and is the only person left – he continues as the watchman, hoping to use his technical skills again when the plant reopens, as the owner has been promising will happen for the past two years.
Inside the plant, it was amazing. Full of spotless large stainless steel mixing and holding tanks with the most modern digital controls. Automated pasteurizing equipment and bottle filling stations, a huge refrigeration room. Spacious, with tile floor, modern quality control laboratory, offices. I estimate the plant at about 50,000-60,000 square feet – as modern, orderly and clean as any food processing plant you would expect to find in Europe or the US. You could spend a week cleaning up the floors and be back in operation in a month.
Makena told me the owner’s other businesses include large grocery stores in Mwanza, Dar es Salaam, and Zambia, and he owns five of the ferry boats that cross Lake Victoria. He built this factory with a capacity of 12,000 liters of milk a day, bringing in milk from across the lake as well as from local farms, and some 50 cows of his own that were raised in fields adjacent to the factory.
They actually processed some 6,000 liters per day during the rainy season - less during the dry season. But an even bigger problem was finding a sufficient market. Few Africans have refrigerators. So they found that they could sell only about 3,000 liters a day, mostly as “sour milk” – which I interpret as yoghurt. [Others tell me no - that this really is sort-of like sour cream, and so has a pretty long shelf life] Makena thinks the owner is looking for new investment money or a buyer. Meanwhile, he stays there, waiting to use his technical skills again, the only thing that keeps the factory from being destroyed through theft and disintegration.
What a waste of capital, of hopes and promises. And this apparently was African money, not a gift from the industrialized nations of the world. So here the factory sits, marooned and mothballed in the middle of Africa.
After this exploration I came back home, to find that we have no electricity. So nothing can happen regarding my computer today. Maybe tomorrow.
