In the field I'm still not streetwise

Yesterday we met our entrepreneurs for the first time (quick recap on why this is important: I'm in Kenya to work with a group of five and I've spent the last week in training to get me ready for this moment). I'm not going to lie, it wasn't a glorious moment, it was actually quite awkward as I tried to ingratiate myself with 5 strangers  at once none of whom spoke English as a first language, and in the certain high-pressure knowledge that a trust relationship is essential to working partnerships here.

After this session one entrepreneur invited us back to his shop. Are we happy to walk, it's a kilometer away? Of course we are! This was a great opportunity to get to know him better, overcome the language barrier through  seeing and doing and ultimately build the all-important bonds of trust that I keep being told are so important.  An hour and a half later, still following our entrepreneur across fields in the midday sunshine (sun cream in hand, reapplying anywhere that felt 'too hot') I was beginning to feel less enthusiastic.

However, when we eventually arrived we were rewarded with panoramic views of Kenyan plains, we saw the shop space he had built (a little wooden shack by the roadside), walked around his house (an old colonial mansion), met his puppies, were shown his fields, his aunt's house and the junior school he attended. On the way back he told us about his history: He went to Njoro boys school and had previously worked selling cars. Great! Were really getting somewhere.  I was tired, extremely grubby (I didn't need sun cream from the knee down, such was the covering of dust) but very pleased we'd made the journey to see his village and get to know our first entrepreneur.

The next day, my group discussed the experience. There is one Kenyan (Paul) and one English chap (Matt). This mix of cultures is absolutely  invaluable as Paul went on to demonstrate: He pointed out that there's a certain lack of evidence the house we were shown really did belong to the entrepreneur (he may have just picked the biggest house in the village and claimed it); the wooden  shack didn't look like it was freshly built and there's no proof he owns it as he didn't produce the key to it while we were there; Njoro boys school is a good school and his level of English isn't of the standard of their graduates; cars are expensive, claiming to be a car seller to impress a stranger here is a bit like meeting a guy in a UK night club pretending to be a banker, it just sounds prestigious and may not be true. Oh my God!

You can take the gullible idiot out of England but you can't change her in the slightest. I may be too wise nowadays to follow a someone home because they've offered me a bacon sandwich but I feel like I still have a lot to learn...