Kakamega - Week Two

So it’s about time to update the blog...where do I begin? First off let me make a sincere apology to everyone who has taken the time and effort to write me a letter only to find their mailboxes lacking a response from me. I have no doubt that everyone who has written waits impatiently day in and day out for the mail truck to come, only to rush eagerly to the mailbox, peer inside, and be devastatingly crushed that once again a letter has not arrived. Well, worry no more. My post-Christmas pre-New Years resolution is to write everyone back. I love getting mail from home and I’d imagine if I take the time to respond my chances of additional letters improves substantially. I feel badly about not sending out letters in time for Christmas, but honestly I’ve been so overwhelmed with adapting to life in Kenya, not to mention self absorbed, that I have not been able to make time to write. So here’s a Christmas card for everyone:

Dear (Your name here),

May all you dreams come true this holiday season. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Best Wishes,

Joseph

Ok, now that that’s out of the way I feel better. On to the latest in Kenya

So this past week has been busy. Over the weekend I had a “painting party” on Saturday and now the living area really looks nice and is ready for Christmas holidays. I won’t get into details on the kitchen but it is still a work in progress. Anyway, I found that it is so much easier to just paint over moldy splotches that to try and clean them off, and with a little silicone sealant to cover up the holes in the ceiling made by termites the place is good as new. Moving all the furniture out of the house and being forced to closely inspect the wall and ceiling while painting really made me realize just how dirty the place was. I don’t think it had been thoroughly cleaned in years, and mushroom clouds of dust exploded from the furniture and Astroturf (which now has a new home rolled up in the closet) as I moved it from the house. The mop water remained dirty and black the first three times I went across the floor. Funny thing is I thought the house was fine when I first moved in (as did the guy before me, apparently). It took a female to come over and tell me the place was disgusting before I realized it, but now it’s a thousand times better.

After a weekend of cleaning and getting ready for Christmas I was invited to an Indian restaurant by the Canadian volunteers that was extremely good. I like Kakamega more everyday, and finding an alternative to Kenyan food really brightened my weekend. I ended up staying the night at the Acess house (the Canadian volunteer’s extremely well funded and very nice home) and four of us fell asleep on chairs on the front porch. The problem is there was no mosquito net so I would remain buried under a blanket until the air became to stale to breath, poke my head out just long enough to hear a buzzing in my ear, and go back under the blanket again. Needless to say it wasn’t the best night’s sleep but it was a lot of fun regardless.

The next day I came to work to help host some guests from the JICA, which is a Japanese volunteer organization. They are working in Kitui of all places on farming as a business for trees, and wanted to gain information on FAO in order to see if they could apply the same principles to forestry. We went to various Farmer Field School sites and since it was an introduction to FAO principles I learned almost as much as they did, although much of the presentation was in Swahili. The Japanese volunteer has lived in East Aftica for seven years with various organizations and speaks Swahili far better than English, therefore I had to struggle to understand what was being said. I walked away from the last few days further determined to better understand the language.

Tuesday was a great day because it involved food the entire time. One of the most marketable products the farmers are growing, I’m convinced, is the Orange Flesh sweet potato. We made sweet potato chapatti, donuts, greens (from the leaves), uji (porridge), jam, and juice, and I had a chance to sample them all. By far the juice was the best, and I think between the juice and the flour there is a potential for a lot of money to be made with this crop. If farmers can sell a finished product (e.g. Juice, Flour) instead of the raw materials to the middle men I think there income would increase quite a bit. I plan to start working very soon on ways to package and market these products.

So that’s about all. I’m in the office now, having finished work for the holidays, and am going into town to gather supplies for the upcoming Christmas party. I’ve also been invited to a Christmas party for orphans on Friday that I definitely plan to attend. Expect to hear more about the holidays the next time I’m around a computer. Merry Christmas everyone!