Laura M. Schutter

Future:
My goal is to become a successful communications professional who can wake up every morning proud that what I am doing is (in some small or significant way) making our world a better place for everyone.

Present:
A recent graduate of Elon University, I am currently the Communications Director for Takamoto Biogas, an African alternative energy and waste management startup company. This position has helped me to develop a better understanding of socially responsible companies and alternative marketing practices and given me the opportunity to try my hand at practically anything communications related. In addition to my interest in socially responsible organizations, I also have experience working in multicultural settings and enjoy working in environments with many things going on all at once, even multiple languages being spoken. During my time in school I built on this interest through research I conducted on cross-cultural and international communications, a concept which I believe has the potential to teach an understanding that will bring peace to people of all cultures across the world.

Over the course of the summer I have been doing some freelance web design and taking my baby (a brand new Cannon Rebel T3) with me during my travels (see photos on my photography page and regular updated photos on my blog).

Past:
My hometown is a small yet lovable place in southeastern Pennyslvania that is full of cows, farms and forests. I attended Kimberton Waldorf School where I learned to value balance in all things, from academics and art to gardening and sports. Perhaps most importantly, I developed a fascination with other cultures and countries and had the opportunity to study abroad in Lima during high school and in Buenos Aries my sophomore year at Elon University.

So now I have been here for five weeks in total, I can travel upcountry alone, identify all of the coins, eat at the 60 cent lunch place on the corner, identify a few words of Swahili when spoken around me and do many other things that seemed all but impossible when I first arrived. What HAS been impossible has been keeping a regular blog as I am keeping pretty busy!

News about Takamoto Biogas: I travelled upcountry alone to meet up with one of our sales reps for a presentation at a previous client’s home for the local farmers. I intended to do at least half of the presentation, but upon arriving I found that one of the farmers spoke not a word of English, so I just tried to fill in the holes for everyone else as much as I could understand. I had planned to return to Nairobi that night, but of course we were running on Kenyan time and downtown Nairobi is not a good place to be after dark on a week night so I spent the night at that client’s home. The client and the sales rep kept suggesting I was fasting, and that at my age I should be *gesture to wide in the midsection*. Rest assured that if you ever go upcountry everyone is generous to the point that you may never feel you need another meal. It turned out to be a good thing I had stayed the night upcountry as there was some kind of explosion at one of the bus stops downtown I would have had to walk through at just about the time I would have been there. (There have been many threats of attack since Kenya’s involvement in Somalia, however this explosion still has not found blame).

We also did some photoshoots with the clients— see below:

Mixing the dung and water

Enjoying the light of a biogas lamp

Demonstrating using their biogas stove

Our clients were super excited to have photographs taken of them and their biogas plants. We hope to get these framed and give them to our clients as a gift.

We have also attempted a few photoshoots with our team during construction. See below:

Kyle climbing out of a dome of a biogas plant under construction

Part of the construction team finally behaving for the camera

In addition to travels, I had a new experience this past week of interviewing and hiring employees! I hardly thought I would be doing that this early on in my career. It was a challenging and interesting process—I’m not sure which is harder, being the interviewer or the interviewee… But now we will have some interns in the office with us and some more sales people working up country to bring in more clients.

Apart from work, Nairobi is just as vibrant and exciting city and it was promised to me to be and the variety is endless. From rally races to concerts to tango classes they pretty much have it all (except delivery alcohol—props to Buenos Aires).

See below some shots from the rally

This is really how close we were standing to the racers.

A local clown we met at the rally.. who tried to teach Kyle and Graham how to dance.. See below:

http://youtu.be/c30Q_popdds

Concerts are endless in Nairobi, one of the best of which is the first Sunday of every month call “Blankets and wine.” People bring blankets and picnics of mostly alcohol and its an afternoon of local music.

Solo cups are hard to come by here hence the Hannah Montana thing we have going on.

Some of the local talent

And what I love most about my job—the often unexpected variety. I can go from a 10 acre farm with no white people anywhere to be seen and crisp, clean air, to downtown that is always bustling and choking you with bus fumes to places like Kibera slum, to our lovely apartment.

A tea farm owned by own of our clients