Relaxing on a bright and sunny beach while melting into a lounge chair was great. After being completely worthless and spoiled on buffets and soft beds it was a bit tough readjusting. Luckily, even though it was back to my project and Peace Corps living, I did manage five more days on the coast. Mike is a volunteer from the latest business group. He was placed on the coast to work a sweet potato project that is not so different from what I have been forced into in Kakamega. His host organisation is CIP (the International Centre of Potatoes). I’ve worked with them before and they are the ones primarily responsible for promoting Sweet Potatoes as a cash crop without even bothering to see if there is a market. Since the damage has been done in Western Kenya they are now making their rounds on the coast, coercing farmers into growing excess potatoes with false promises. When the job description is to promote sweet potatoes as much as possible and the donors require you do so, what does it matter if you’re doing more harm then good? You are still getting your paycheck. People can be so clueless and NGO’s can be such a joke.
It was with that cheery attitude that I met Mike and the Kenyan CIP officials for a meeting in Mombasa. Yet again I questioned why they continue to promote sweet potatoes as a cash crop when nobody buys them, and once again they averted the question as best they could. “Although there is no market now”, they claim, “one will emerge.” “It will just take time to establish the new crop in Kenya”. I then questioned why the tons of excess Sweet Potatoes already being grown by thousands of disillusioned farmers wasn’t already sufficient, to which I got some nasty looks and an uncomfortable silence. An extension officer from USAID was also present, and she gave me a contact for a “guaranteed” sales lead through an export market in Nairobi. It was enough to keep me pacified, but once I sent a sample for the 10th time to a potential buyer they were not interested. There’s always a different reason, but in this case, the sugar content is too low. The loss of credibility to the network and the disillusionment by network farmers as a result of this crop is too much to go into right now.
If nothing else good has come out of this at least Mike has developed a healthy amount of skepticism for his project. He has been given a large budget for the purpose of finding markets and training as many farmers as possible to grow potatoes. If no market emerges he is just going to use that money to subsidize the farmers. Although not at all sustainable at least it’s a way to get some of the money CIP is so determined to spend back to the farmers.
Mike’s site is in Msambweni, south of Mombasa towards the Tanzanian border. The temperatures are sweltering and Mike lives in a shanty with one pit latrine for over twenty people. Also, there is a naazi bar next door to Mike’s house where drunks make plenty of noise late into the night. Naazi is nothing more than coconut palm sap, which I learned is highly alcoholic. Mike tried it once and spent the next week wishing he didn’t have to share his latrine, so I decided to leave it alone. Regardless, Mike has one of the best sites in Peace Corps. Just out his living room window is a view of the Indian Ocean. 20 miles north of his site the beach is filled with tourists, beach boys, and hawkers. In contrast, Mike has a shoreline almost entirely to himself. We spent every evening swimming in the clear blue water on his private beach.
On my first day at his site we had plenty of work to do. CIP had arranged training events for two farming groups deep in the interior. If we did not have a CIP vehicle to drive us it would have been impossible to get there, as even matatus to not use these routes. Although I disagreed with the work and honestly answered questions farmers asked concerning the sweet potato’s profitability (or lack thereof), the scenery was amazing. Rolling hills covered with palm trees nearly 50 feet high were a common site. Colorfully dressed locals and thatched hut villages littered the sandy roadside. I’ve said it before; the diversity of the Kenyan landscape is incredible.
One farming site, far into the middle of nowhere, featured a clear and tranquil lake. I wanted to walk to the shore line but could not, as piles of sticks and branches surrounded it. There was a small path through the clutter not far away, but the women fetching water made sure to throw plenty of stones before approaching. I was intrigued and asked what was going on. “The lake is filled with crocodiles” they said. “Just last year the Kenya Wildlife Service recorded the second largest croc on record here.” Apparently, even with the brush barrier, dogs and chickens go missing all the time. Although I did not see any crocs firsthand, I decided not to take my chances and kept my distance from the deceptively still water.
When our first day was finished I had a chance to walk through Msambweni town. It is so different than Western Kenya. Nearly everyone in the town is Muslim, and a mosque that wails a call to prayer in the middle of the night marks the town center. Men in white robes and women in brightly colored kangas mill about the main street, and monkeys leap from tree to tree. The most strikingly different aspect of Msambweni wasn’t the clothing or landscape, but the attitude of the people themselves. Mike has already made several Kenyan friends and all of them seemed genuine interested in wanting a friendship and nothing else. The entire time I was there no one asked for money or shouted “mzungu!” or made me feel like an oddity. Brutally hot weather aside, coast life is good.
The following day we make our way to nearby Funzi Island. Our guide book said a boat tour was available that included a trip down a crocodile-filled coastal river and a visit to the island. Thanks to a ride in the CIP truck we were dropped at the pier of a stereotypical tropical village. After some quick negotiations in Swahili the tourist price was dropped by more than half, and we boarded the boat and spent the day at sea. First, we drifted down a large coastal river filled with mangroves and colorful birds called African flycatchers. Crocodiles lurked in the murky water and I was shocked to see that several fishermen were waist deep in the same water. When I asked the guide about it I was assured that, had I made the same decision, I would quickly become crocodile food. In fact this is a common fate for the troops of monkeys who routinely attempt to cross the river. The reason the fisherman are not attacked, I was told, was due to a strong traditional medicine given by a local medicine man. I would love to know what they could possibly be using to keep crocodiles away.
After the river we went to Funzi Island, which is about 5 miles off the coast and inhabited by around 2000 people. As we walked around there was nothing remarkable about the island itself, but the fishing boats known as dhows that were used by the locals were incredible. Entirely handmade out of wood and powered by sails, it was amazing watching how quickly they could glide through the water. A rancid smell on the island turned out to be fermented shark blubber, which is used to water proof the vessels. Funzi Island has no running water or electricity, and the houses and boats are all built from locally available materials. It was hard to believe the people here were living in the same way, and with the same technologies that they had been using for hundreds of years.
Following our tour of Funzi Island we went to “Paradise Found”. As the tide goes out the water level becomes very low for miles, and at one place near Funzi Island a patch of dry land emerges that is only accessible during low tide. We walked along the newly formed island and spent some time swimming and relaxing on the shoreline.
The next day I needed to head back to Mombasa to catch a bus the following morning. Before we left we toured the tide pools that emerge as the tide goes out near Mike’s house. Once the water recedes there are literally thousands of pools of water filled with marine life. The strangest part was that things seemed to be clustered together. On section consisted of tide pools willed with anemones, another with star fish, and another with small tropical fish. Mike described each section of pools as neighborhoods and I described them as a good reason not to walk around barefoot in this water.
In Mombasa I caught up with a few more Beach Corps volunteers and we enjoyed a local bar with live music. It was also when I tried “the mix” that I wrote about earlier and became sick for a week. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose but all in all my time on the coast was fantastic, and it has become my favorite place to be in Kenya.
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