Mix John O'Shea of Goal with the Co Kerry entrepreneur Jerry Kennelly and you get an adventurous plan to provide some Kenyans with a livelihood - in 10 days. How could 'Irish Times' photographer ALAN BETSON say no?
I am in a furniture showroom near the Red Cow roundabout when the phone rings. "It's Jerry Kennelly here," says the voice, as in Jerry Kennelly who has just sold Stockbyte, his photography company, for €120 million. Would I be interested in going to Nairobi in five days' time?
He wants to take up a challenge set by John O'Shea of Goal, on the night they both won Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards, to create a sustainable business in Africa in 10 days. He has decided to create a selection of postcards, framed prints and posters. He will fund the set-up of the company, which, once established, will be owned and run by Kenyans, with a portion of each year's profits going to local charities.
Kennelly may as well have said: "I'd like you to go to one of the dodgiest places in the world and make it look good. There will be 5.30am starts and 16-hour days, with four to six hours' sleep a night." But I was still delighted to be asked.
My introduction to Africa was Rwanda, in 1994, after the genocide. A return visit, two years later, included the lawless Burundi, to the south. Seeing the atrocities that man is capable of, and the endless suffering of African people, left me in no rush to go back. This time, however, I might be able to get a new perspective and focus instead on Kenya's physical beauty.
It doesn't take long to find a subject. Famed for its sunrises, Africa delivers on day one. The sight of thousands of Kenyans streaming to work and school on foot in golden sunlight is breathtaking. It is difficult to take my finger off the shutter release. Only when I get closer to the starting point of the exodus do I see Nairobi's tin-roofed slum of Kibera, home to 70,000 people, tightly packed, with open sewers.
My head spins as I try to get my bearings, judging distances and travelling times across the city and around the country. One of the many minor miracles of the trip is our driver, Joe Ngwiri, whom we borrow from the charity Icross. His local knowledge is invaluable, and he keeps us safe. He guides us to some soccer pitches where a local initiative to keep at-risk children away from alcohol and drugs is under way. They play until dark, after which we are invited to huddle in prayer. Joe then checks to see if I still have the contents of my pockets.
The first day's photographs are mostly average, and I am anxious to get something substantial in the bag. As it happens, the second day blows my mind. At 5am I join a local photographer, Georgina Goodwin, and Kennelly's colleague Sean Greaney in a Cessna that, with its side door removed, gives a perfect view of sunrise on the horizon. We put our faith in a very young pilot called Moses. At 24 he is one of the coolest dudes we meet, and we glide through the early-morning mist enveloping Nairobi and its surrounding countryside.
The lowness of the sun produces breathtaking shadows as ridges and trees break through the mist on the way to Mount Kenya. When we rise above a cloud it is tempting to reach out and grab it, like candyfloss. We skirt past the Abadares mountain range to Lake Elmenteita and swoop over thousands of pink flamingos, which take off, leaving ripples as their feet slap the calm water.
A brief glimpse of giraffes and zebras leads on to the spectacular sight of a herd of 35 hippos lounging in the middle of the lake. I decline an offer of a second pass overhead, however, as my watch tells me we are hurtling towards spending $1,000 for the flight. On the way back we circle the perfectly formed Longonot volcano, which has a forested crater.
Joe is waiting for us with his friend Sarune, a Masai warrior, who has arranged for us to observe a traditional circumcision ceremony. The earth turns a deep ochre as we drive for three hours, deep into the countryside, the snow-covered tip of Mount Kilimanjaro poking through the clouds. When we arrive at Lorngosua it's like a film set: a visual feast of red-robed Masai set against the most basic of buildings. Every attempt to photograph them, however, is met with a request for money.
We pick up the local Icross doctor, Steve Masenke, and delve deeper into the bush, eventually having to hack a path for the jeep with a machete. How we arrive at our exact destination I still don't know, but the boma, or small homestead, is alive with chanting and dance. We are invited to meet two circumcised 15-year-old boys, who emerge from a mud hut dressed in black. Surprisingly, they are smiling after their ordeal. I wince as Georgina tells me that they are not allowed to cry out during the procedure, and I cringe when she tells me that the Masai circumcise girls, too.
The women of the village dance in the baking sunshine, dressed in colourful beading. Their harmonies echo across the plains. A goat has been freshly killed in our honour. I avoid stepping on the fly-covered goat's skin and piles of dung to accept some ribs sliced off the animal by a tall warrior wielding a knife. It's finger-licking delicious. Afterwards we are led to a nearby bush to use the leaves as cloths and the thorns as toothpicks.
It's hard to leave. Everything is a photograph. On the way back we are nearly lynched, however, after I photograph an overcrowded Land Rover piled high with Masai. Their demand for payment evaporates when they see the Icross doctor accompanying us. At the end of the day we download 1,800 photographs.
After dinner and a few beers we decide to work on the when-in-Rome principle and check out a Nairobi nightclub - only to discover it crawling with prostitutes. We finish our drinks and leave to the sounds of gunshots down the street.
Next morning it's off to Mass, to capture a flavour of the Christian side of Africa. Not for the first time does it strike me as strange to be the only white in a sea of black faces. Later we pass a man filling a barrel of drinking water, although the faded inscription on the side reads "sulphuric acid".
That afternoon Moses flies Paul Ashe, Stockbyte's IT wizard, and me to a luxury tented safari camp for tourists in the Masai Mara. Zebras run alongside the dirt airstrip as we land, and within 10 minutes we have seen giraffes, baboons, gazelles, elephants and warthog from the camp's open-topped jeep. A few hours of sleep before dawn - in a four-poster bed - are broken intermittently by hippos snorting in the river outside.
The airstrip is lit by the lights of the jeeps, allowing us to leave before the rising sun. We can see a lightning storm in the distance. I feel slightly guilty for disrupting the silence with our buzzing Cessna, as we photograph people on a balloon safari costing over €300 each, but the sight of hippos wallowing in the snaking river makes me think the price tag might actually be worth it.
We return to Nairobi by flying over the crimson red surface of Lake Magadi, which is mined for its mineral salts. On our approach to Nairobi the cloud cover descends to about 60 metres (200ft), and we fly low enough to almost see what the locals are having for breakfast. John McMonagle, a graphic designer, and Brenda O'Hanlon, public-relations guru, have arrived to lend their expertise. Jerry and a colleague have been interviewing locals, to see who should head the company. They select Jacky Iwiya and Irene Gitonga as Create Africa's new executives. The next 36 hours is a sweatshop of editing and laying out photographs. The selection process is tough, and we've only just begun.
The next next day Georgina's local knowledge guides us to the tea plantations of Nairobi's suburbs. When we get back Jerry decides that we need more pictures from Mombasa, a city on the Indian Ocean known for its beaches. I make the flight with about 20 minutes to spare. The city is hot, humid and filthy, and my heart sinks as I survey the streets on the way to the hotel. My cell-like room makes Mountjoy look plush.
My heart races as a local tour guide at the old port asks me which hotel I am staying at. If there is trouble, he explains, we go to the police first, hospital next and hotel last. I worry slightly as I carry €20,000 worth of camera gear through the old streets, past drug addicts and down to where slaves were once washed before being shipped to foreign lands.
Fear turns to stomach-turning excitement as we go deeper down the narrow streets into the Arab quarter, where wonderful scenes flash before me, including burka-clad women darting along the pastel, powdery streets and buildings worn and shabby but full of character.
My every attempt to capture the serene scene is met with annoyance, however, as I am seen as yet another tourist intruding on their living space. Eventually, kids playing soccer under the ancient walls of Fort Jesus - a stronghold built by the Portuguese in the late 16th century - and the laid-back atmosphere of the people allow me to tune into the slow pulse of this seaside resort. I only notice the white gleaming beaches on my way to the airport the next morning.
Friday's challenge is to find somebody in Nairobi who can frame 60 A3 prints by Monday morning. Sean and Jerry work miracles as our computers stop working one after another.
John O'Shea arrives with a TV crew, and ideologies clash as Jerry sticks to his guns about the realities of what is achievable in the set-up phase of a sustainable business. Jerry explains that he is no Mother Teresa or Bono, but that, in the long term, the benefits of the business will flow to the local entrepreneurs and to local charities. John gives Jerry a tour of the slums and rubbish dumps where children eke out an existence, impressing on us the need for funding and practical projects that make a difference on the ground.
The work is launched in a gallery, and it looks impressive on the walls. It has been the most awesome 10 days of photography in my life - and a fantastic example of what can be achieved with true collective effort.
Create Africa's website is www.createafrica.com. Alan Betson's trip features in Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Challenge, on RTÉ1 on Thursday at 10.45pm