Latest News from Kenya

Way behind but some pics to kick things back off

2008-01-24T07:41:00.001-08:00

I'm way behind on everything and in the States right now. I'm off to Rwanda tomorrow (long story) and will bring things up to date over the next few weeks. In the meantime here are some pics. I'm going to post several sets of pics since I actually have bandwidth here.

Here are some of pics from the Camel Derby:

Piled up in the only vehicle we could find

Stuck in the mud on the hellish road to Maralal

Another look at the road. These trucks were stuck here for days.

My Peace Corps friend Mindy poses with Samburu kids. See anything funny in this picture?

A Samburu child in traditional clothing

The camel derby begins

Samburu men and women congregate for the festivities

My Second Annual Maralal International Camel Derby

2007-08-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

Today is very exciting! I’m in Nairobi working on a project, but this evening I am picking up my parents from the airport for their first trip to Africa. I hope they enjoy it as much as I have and manage to spend their two weeks here without any of the stomach bugs that plagued me during my first months in country. The sanitation on the tourist route should be a bit of an improvement over the living conditions of a Kitui homestay, but I’ve packed plenty of Pepto just in case.

Meanwhile I need to catch up on my latest adventure or I’ll have too much to write about two weeks down the road. This month I once again attended the Camel Derby in the northern Kenya town of Maralal, and once again it was wild. The trip began with full day trek from my house to Nakuru followed by a travel ordeal from Nakuru to Maralal.

The travels to Nakuru were uneventful until we were on the outskirts of Kisumu, where a gasoline truck had tipped over on the side of the road. A mob of people had surrounded the truck and were punching holes into the side of the tank to catch as much petrol as they could manage in their 20 liter water barrels. Every matatu that passed by, including our own, stopped to purchase discounted gasoline from the spilled tanker. The guys that filled our tank used their hands as a funnel and had teary red eyes and welts on their arms and faces from being soaked in the fuel. It was a bit sad seeing what people were willing to go through to earn a bit of cash. The next day the event made the paper, and it said that, despite the health concerns, things could have been much worse. The last time a tanker flipped some brilliant individual had the bright idea to light a cigarette, and many of the scavengers collecting fuel were killed as a result.

We arrived in Nakuru in one piece and I met up with several Peace Corps friends for the journey north to Maralal. After a stay at the dirty but cheap Mt. Sinai hotel, we left bright and early for our trek into Northern Kenyan wilderness. The last real town before the paved road becomes dirt (or in this case mud) is Nyaharuru. We stopped there for a visit to Thompson falls, a huge waterfall spilling into the rift valley. It’s beautiful and we walked down the steep trail to the base of the falls, where we were covered in mist and took some very nice pics that I hope to post soon.

I had anticipated a problem going any further than Nyaharuru, but figured we would get to Maralal one way or another. However, after several hours of searching we became discouraged as it became apparent that no vehicles were willing to take us any further. We were told the road was impassible due to recent rainstorms. We almost gave up when we came across a cargo truck that was willing to take us in the bed. The original price was 100 shillings and we almost took them up on it until the truck was about to leave. At the last minute people swarmed into the back of the truck, and it was stuffed to the brim. The dank, dark ride in an open truck covered by a leaking tarp to keep out the rain seemed extremely unappealing. To make matters worse, they decided the price for us should be 500 shillings as opposed to the 100 the other passengers paid. That was the last straw. The truck took off without us and we were left stranded in Nyaharuru with no way to travel any further north. In retrospect, this was the best thing that could have happened to us.

I called Laura, the coordinator of the event, to let her know we would not be able to make it. She told us to hold tight, because a private matatu that was passing through from Nairobi was carrying people to the event. We continued to wait and after yet another hour the matatu finally came. There was no room at all but the four of us managed to squeeze between seats and barely fit, much to the chagrin of those already onboard. Once again, fate was with us. Despite the discomfort of the extra people on board we became extremely useful further down the road.

Finally we were off, or so we thought. We spent another hour sitting in the vehicle not moving, because the driver, who had agreed to go from Nairobi to Maralal and had already been paid, was not willing to go any further. He was unwilling to refund the money as well. After a very long argument, the driver reluctantly agreed to go forward.

Things seemed fine at first. The scenery from Nyaharuru into the northern Kenya wilderness is dramatic. The scrubby bushes and thorny trees grow sparser and sparser, and there is absolutely nothing except an endless arid landscape in all directions. Last year there were occasional flashes of brightly dressed Samburu people herding their cattle, but even they were not to be seen.

We had several close calls in slippery mud but after a few hours we mistakenly became convinced the road was not nearly as bad as we had expected. Kenya has a way of doing that to you, so of course once our hopes were high we came across mud so deep that it was impassible. A line of trucks, at least a mile long, was stuck in place and buried up to the wheel wells. We attempted to bypass this by cutting through the brush, and passed vehicle after vehicle, including the truck that refused to give us a ride at a fair price. We also passed at least a hundred people stranded in what has to be the closest possible definition to the middle of nowhere. We were in still in good spirits, fishtailing through the muck as revving the engine high as we spun through the brush and mud, but we soon became stuck ourselves. Our driver had absolutely no idea how to maneuver through the mud, and as soon as we became stuck he pressed the gas peddle to the floor, digging a huge trench with the spinning tires that made matters much worse.

The next three to four hours consisted of getting unstuck, edging forward, and getting stuck again. It took everyone in the vehicle to keep us moving along, and before long we were completely exhausted and caked in mud. A small pickup truck behind us had the same problems, and we worked with them to keep both vehicles moving. Sometimes it took 20 people to lift the tire out of a rut just to keep going, and I’m sure we destroyed the vehicle before we finally struggled through the 5 mile stretch of impassible road. At one muddy rut, with ropes tied around the bumper to pull it through, we managed to actually tear the bumper from the vehicle. Later a tire was destroyed and the spare, which had unknowingly fallen a kilometer back, had to be located. Several petite Kenyan girls were on our matatu, and they were the real lifesavers. The women here never cease to amaze me and more than anyone they were digging through the mud to remove obstacles and keeping the vehicle inching forward.

The ride to Maralal from Nyahuru takes around three hours on a good day. In our case we spent over 10 hours on the road. When we finally made it through the mud it was dusk, and we were treated to a phenomenal wildlife show, as hundreds of large animals that had somehow been hiding during the day started to emerge. Near the road we saw plenty of antelope and gazelle, giraffes, zebras, and even a buffalo. As we continued things got a little too close for comfort. It was dark and around a bend our driver almost ran head-on into a full grown Elephant. The animal was three times the size of our vehicle and the driver slammed it into reverse and flew backwards to keep from being too close. A baby elephant was on the other side of the road, and we were very thankful as we cautiously edged past that we were not charged by an angry mother. Finally, almost kissing the ground, we arrived at the campsite. By then it was late in the night but at least we were there, and we had a camel race to look forward to the next day.

The travel was more of an adventure then the event but we had a great time at the derby too. After my extreme discomfort on a camel the year before, I decided to refrain from the 10k amateur race. I gave my handler and champion camel to another participant, who would have been the winner if she had not been directed down the wrong path. I decided instead to focus my attention on the camelathalon, where I became the two time 1^st place winner. The biking and running wasn’t too terrible, but trying to stay balanced on an extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable animal after a full throttle run and bike ride nearly killed me. I was so glad to be finished with the race and very happy to once again have enough prize money to cover the cost of the trip.

Even better then the camel races is the cultural experience of being in Maralal at the event. Because of the road less than 100 tourists were there for the games and races, but at least a thousand locals were present. The Samburu people gathered together to dance and sing in traditional clothing and beautiful beaded jewelry. Unlike the Masai Mara, where Masai people will perform “traditional dances” for tourist tips, these people were genuinely enjoining themselves. They were clustered into groups without any foreigners around, dancing and singing and jumping in a competition with the other Samburu tribes present. The event was extraordinary to watch.

The return trip from the Mara was a bit less painful. It was an adventure the first time but the though of going through it again was less than pleasant. Luckily the rain had held out and some of the trucks were even starting to drive out of the muck. Also, our matatu had four wheel drive. Even though we had to walk along side the matatu several times as it spun through the mud, the driver never got stuck. I loved the derby and can’t wait to show off some pics. I’ll post them once I return from my travels with my parents. Now I need to go and prepare for their arrival tonight!

Lamu Tamu and Exploring the Coast

2007-07-18T07:18:00.000-07:00

The first half of June featured some excellent travel. I’ve burned through the majority of my leave time (all that remains is going towards my parents’ visit in August), but I had a great time doing it.

The adventurous Whitney (who told me I could not write about her without always placing an adjective before her name) is a friend who occasionally works at the Brittany James orphanage in Migori. She loves Kenya and will be working as a trainer of Kenya social workers next year. Meanwhile, she wanted to visit and I arranged to take some time off to show her around. She helped out at my site for a few days and we took off to wander around in the rainforest and explore the Kenyan coast. Amiable Whitney grew up as a service-oriented missionary kid in the Philippines, and as such she makes an excellent travel partner. Third-world travel doesn’t faze her and we had a great trip.

A jet-lagged Whitney arrived at the Nairobi airport on a red-eye 5am flight. Lucky for me I didn’t have to collect her. She was greeted by her friend Dero and brought to the Migori orphanage, where we met up. That worked out well because I needed to be in Mirogi anyway to tie up some loose ends concerning my wheelchair project. We spent a day there before heading off to my site, where I spent several days trying to square away my projects so I could spend some time on the coast.

While I worked on my various projects, enthusiastic Whitney worked a bit with my Peace Corps friend Jessica on a Public Heath presentation. She also spent the day working with the Wake Up Women’s group harvesting the very spicy Bird’s Eye Chilies the women are growing as a cash crop. She had fun working with my group and when we had everything finished we traveled to the rainforest for a few days before making our way to the coast.

The rainforest, as always, was a great experience. We stayed at the bandas (thatched-roof huts) which are not bad for the money, but I am counting down the days until I am at the Rondo Retreat, where I will relax in a beautifully landscaped all-inclusive resort with my parents in late August. While in the forest I did the usual; we hiked to the platform overlooking the natural clearing in the middle of the dense jungle, walked along several trails cutting through the forest, and woke up early for the sunrise hike to the highest point. I think I’ve exhausted my descriptions of the rainforest in previous posts. I’ve been there more than a dozen times now so I won’t go into too much detail this time around.

One thing worth mentioning is that, although the last group of monkey-watchers has come and gone, two new researchers have arrived along with the professor that heads up the program. Sociable Whitney got along with the primate researchers well, and we spent the evening talking with them in their cabin. The professor, who teaches at Columbia University, is remarkable. She knows literally hundreds of blue monkeys by name, and visits the forest every summer to meet the latest younglings, which she inevitably will remember the following year.

Following our trip to the forest we traveled to Kisumu to spend the day relaxing at Kiboko Bay with my Peace Corps friend Adrienne. Kiboko Bay is a tented camp right on Lake Victoria with very good food and a pool right on the water. Like Rondo, it’s a place I visit regularly but have never managed to stay at, and I am looking forward to bringing my parents there soon.

I have been wanting to take off for the coast for awhile. We opted for a flight to Nairobi, as our schedule was tight and a there wasn’t time to fit in a hellish 9 hour ride on what remains of the road. There are plenty of airlines competing with each other in Kisumu and the prices aren’t bad, and the 30 minute flight was wonderful. After flying it's very difficult to convince myself to board a matatu for that route. The Kisumu airport consists of one small building to wait for the flight and a single strip of tarmac for a runway. School kids are often there on field days and it’s always funny to see hundreds of children identically dressed with their faces pressed up against the fence to watch the airplanes take off and land.

Our time in Nairobi was short as we made it to town, grabbed a bite to eat, and booked a bus to Mombasa. I don’t enjoy night travel and feel it is dangerous (because it is), but the road from Nairobi to Mombasa has recently been paved and as such it is a much safer and more pleasant ride than night travel to Kisumu. The bus ride was fine and I actually managed to sleep a bit, and we arrived in Mombasa early in the morning.

We met up with another Peace Corps friend in Mombasa and spent a half day wondering around the old Swahili town. Narrow, winding roads pass by plain white buildings made beautiful by ornately carved Arabic doors, windows, and balconies. The entire area is Muslim and the streets are filled with men in white robes, women in black burquas, and young girls with colorful head wraps. The coast is the only place in Kenya with any kind of culinary culture, and the food, as always, was delicious. The air is scented with the savory fragrance of kebabs and chicken tikka from the many street vendors, and we enjoyed Chicken Biriani, a chicken curry in yogurt sauce served over fragrant rice. No coastal meal is complete without freshly squeezed juice, which got progressively better as we made our way north towards Lamu.

The main reason I wanted to go to the coast again was to visit Lamu. Prior to Kenya’s unification, Lamu was an independent Swahili state with a very unique culture. It is considered the jewel of the Kenyan coast and everyone I know that has visited loved it. As such, the agreeable Whitney and I decided to make our way North from Mombasa, with Lamu as our final destination.

There is plenty to see and do on the coast between Mombasa and Lamu, so we took our time getting to Lamu in order to visit various sites along the way. Our first stop was Kilifi, where my Peace Corps friend Soren was willing to take us in for a night. Soren’s site is basically paradise, and as such he is extending his Peace Corps service for a third year. He is within walking distance from the beach, and we went with him and his Kenyan friends to a point where a wide channel feeds into the ocean. It is an excellent place to swim and we decided to swim across the channel to the shore on the other side. Soren does this regularly, but one of his Kenya friends had a difficult time. I was unaware of her swimming abilities and surprised to learn that this was her first time to attempt to cross the channel. She was only able to doggy paddle, and by the time we reached the other side she was exhausted. Soren and I had to swim back across the channel on either side of her, helping her to stay afloat until we finally made it back to the shoreline.

Exhausted, we went to a sea front café for a pizza dinner. Due to the Italian influence from a regular stream of tourists, the northern half of the Kenyan coast has excellent Italian food, which is yet another reason I am very envious of coastal volunteers. After dinner we made is back to Soren’s house before taking off early for Malindi, the next leg of our coastal adventure, in the morning.

Malindi has a negative reputation. People claim it is crawling with Italian tourists, who frivolously spend money in private resorts and have little regard for cultural sensitivity or the well-being of the locals. Furthermore, drug use is rampant and Malindi is well known for its child prostitution, as sex tourism is apparently very popular among many Malindi tourists. As such I was not particularly excited about spending time there, but I was pleasantly surprised that I did.

The good-natured Whitney and I were fortunate to travel in unusually sunny weather during the rainy season. Because of the rain, this was a time of year when very few tourists were around, and as such prices were significantly lower and we were able to experience places like Malindi and Lamu without annoying swarms of tourists. Malindi sans-tourist is a very nice place to be. It is apparent that the influx of money from the Italians has done much to improve the city. The streets were well paved, the parks and sea front were picturesque, and the city itself was remarkably clean. We ate at a phenomenal restaurant called “I Love Pizza”, and the food there was in the running for best pizza I’ve ever eaten. The people were very friendly and laid back and I think the entire town was relaxed and in low gear until the tourist season began.

We also took an excursion to the nearby Gedi ruins. Gedi was an Arab trading city built on the coast more than 800 years ago. As the ruins testify, the architecture and infrastructure of the city were very advanced. However, for reasons unknown the entire civilization was abandoned sometime in the 17^th century; it was not a gradual decline either. Whatever caused those people to leave made them leave in a hurry. Valuables such as silver, jewels, and imported Chinese pottery and chests were left behind with disregard. Also, because the local Swahili people considered the place cursed, it was all left virtually intact until it was discovered by the British. However, the strangest part about Gedi was that, although it existed for centuries and obviously had thousands of wealthy inhabitants, there is no written history that it ever existed. I found the history (or lack of it) fascinating and the ruins very intriguing. Gedi even had a running water, baths, and latrines that surpass those in use by the majority of Kenyans today.

Following our visits to Gedi and Malindi we took the bus to Lamu. The original plan was to spend a few days in Lamu, visit a Peace Corps friend on the nearby Island of Pate, and sail onwards to explore Kiwayu Island before coming back to Lamu in time to catch our Nairobi flight. However, after the travel to Lamu (A six-hour bus ride on a miserable road followed by a ferry overloaded by about a hundred people), we decided to stay where we were. A big part of the reason was we no longer felt like travel was Lamu itself. The Island has a way of sucking people in, and I was in no hurry to leave once I arrived.

Lamu is beautiful. The people there live a centuries-old way of life that has changed very little, and it felt like an Arabian world from the distant past. The streets that maze through the town are far too narrow for automobiles, and in fact there is only one car on the entire island. The majority of people choose to walk or ride donkeys, which are the main means of transport and the work force on the island. Donkeys are everywhere and walking through the streets was an entertaining challenge, as we would weave around street vendors, donkeys, children, men wearing kikoys, and women dressed in traditional Muslim attire.

Lamu did not feel like anywhere else I have been. The culture is entirely Muslim and most people there appear more Arabic than black African. It is the only place in Kenya where I have felt completely safe walking at night, and I fell in love with Lamu. It seems to have that effect on nearly everyone, as Kenyans called it “Lamu Tamu” (“Sweet Lamu”)

Lamu town does not have a beach, but Shela Beach, on the other side of the island, is spectacular. The beach goes on for miles without any man made buildings, and as we looked down the coastline there was nothing but sand dunes and palm trees. It took considerable effort to pull myself away from Lamu town, but Shela was worth it. Although I did not make my way to Pate, my Peace Corps friend decided to join us in Lamu, and we had a great time relaxing on the beach at Shela and fighting the waves in the ocean.

The downside of such beauty and isolation is that it has become a second home (or third, forth, fifth...) for some of the wealthiest Europeans. They buy large plots of land, fence them off, build gargantuan houses, and leave them vacant for the majority of the year. Many of them hire Masai to guard their property. I wonder how the Masai feel, considering how their way of life is so contradictory to guarding homes that are not even lived in. Thankfully, the majority of this takes place in Shela and nearby Manda Island, leaving Lamu town itself relatively intact.

Lamu also has amazing seafood for very good prices, and the fruit drinks were incredibly good. Nearly every restaurant on Lamu offers fresh juice, and the varieties include banana, passion fruit, avocado, coconut, papaya, orange, and pineapple just to name a few. You can mix and match as you please, and I found coconut pineapple banana to be my favorite.

There were also many very talented artists. Wood carvers create beautiful chests, plates, and ornately designed furniture. The beaded jewelry is extraordinary, and the colorful kikoys, often worn my Lamu men, can be made into bags, shirts, trousers, or left as they are for a sarong or a beach towel. A sunburned Whitney and I spent a lot of time just wandering from shop to shop, looking at the crafts, and making friends along the way.

Ok, I think I’ve written about my travels and raved about Lamu enough now. It was hard leaving the place but I was very grateful to have a plane take us back to Nairobi as opposed to days of overland travel. I love the Kenyan coast more and more every time I visit.

10 New Pics

2007-07-14T05:27:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from recent travels exploring the Kenyan Coast

The Gedi Ruins near Malindi on the Kenyan coast. They are over 500 years old and there is no written history on what was a very advanced Arab civilization

A view of Lamu Island as I arrived with at least 100 locals on a boat built for perhaps 20 people

There is only one car on the island, and the majority of the work goes to the Donkeys

Inquisitive Whitney at the Donkey Santuary, the local hospital for Lamu's workforce

A fierce-looking Whitney poses with her Masai friend on Lamu Island. The guy followed us around until we finally bought some jewelry from him. We got this picture in return. Masai are hired to guard the billionaire's houses on Shela Beach the 11+ months out of the year they aren't there. (The Dunlops, the Puegots, and British nobility among them)

A typical congested, donkey-filled narrow Lamu street. The one vehicle on Lamu Island doesn't go many places

A Lamu sunrise viewed through a moquito net

Joe of Arabia overlooks Shela village

I love Kenya's giant insects (roaches aside), and they get even bigger on the coast. This enourmous spider can allegedly catch and eat birds

Check out this giant stick bug

Mt. Kenya Pictures

2007-06-02T01:08:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics from the Mountain:

Above the treeline and past the grassy plains an alien world exists unlike anything I have seen.

Sunrise from the summit

More Mt. Kenya Terrain

An alpine lake in the valley below

A Summit Sunrise at almost 17,000 ft.

I never thought I'd see this in Kenya

Mt. Kenya!

2007-06-02T00:57:00.000-07:00

It seems I’ve all but abandoned the blog, but I’m determined to get back to it. Over the last three months there’s been a lot going on, but I’m actually starting to have some success stories. Even though I’ve been extremely busy it’s a shame not to write about some of the positive things finally happening after all my complaining over the past 21 months. (Hard to believe it’s been that long!)

So coming soon: a summary of my life in Kenya since February. I’d do that now, but I am still pumped up about one of the best hikes of my life on the slopes of Mt. Kenya, and since it’s fresh on my mind that’s the topic of the day:

I’ve wanted to take on Mt. Kenya since arriving in country. It’s the tallest mountain in Kenya and the second tallest in Africa, topping out at over 17,000ft. Africa’s tallest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro, is not far away, but it costs five times as much and is a huge tourist destination. Friends that have climbed both complain that Kilimanjaro consists of a Disney World line all the way to the top and tell me that the scenery and experience of Mt. Kenya is much better.

Anyway, Mt. Kenya’s been on my mind for awhile, but I’ve never managed to find the time to take it on. With this being the rainy season, I started to worry it wasn’t going to happen, so I finally decided to take my chances and give it a shot anyway. I called up my Peace Corps friend Adrienne and then Dero, a photographer from the States working a six-month stint at the Brittany James orphanage. Dero is very much into the hiking and outdoors and was an excellent hiking companion, and Adrienne is always up for an outdoors adventure.

I began the journey with a trip to Migori to meet Dero at the orphanage, where I finally had an appointment to distribute wheelchairs (blog post coming soon). Short on vacation time and swamped with work, I decided the best way to fit everything in would be the night bus from Migori to Nakuru after the wheelchairs were handed out. Adrienne would meet us in Nakuru, and we would all leave bright and early for Nanyuki to begin the hike.

The night bus, as always, was terrible. Every time I would almost get some sleep the bus would sail over another bump, lifting me off the seat and leaving me sleep-deprived and ill-tempered. The bus was supposed to arrive in Nakuru at 2am, where we would take a taxi to Adrienne’s hotel room and crash on her floor until the first matatu left for Nanyuki in the morning. As we approached the outskirts of Nakuru, I was anxiously awaiting at least a few hours of sleep, and the bus driver decided to pass a slow moving vehicle in front of us. Kenyan drivers often find it unacceptable to wait for the oncoming traffic to pass before overtaking (although, ironically, there’s never an issue with arriving two hours late for a meeting) so the bus had to immediately veer back over to avoid a collision. What the driver didn’t realize was that a broken down truck without any marker lights was on the road just in front of the vehicle it passed. With no option but to crash into the truck, the driver slammed on the brakes just in time to smash up the front end of the bus. The bus was totaled but luckily there were not any injuries. The moral of the story: the road between Kisumu and Nairobi is terrible. I’m sticking with the train on this route or day travel from this point forward.

We stood outside the crashed bus with all the other sleepy passengers for about an hour. Finally another bus came by to pick us up and take us into town, and we grabbed a cab to arrive at the comfort of Adrienne’s hotel room floor by 3:30am. Our 6am alarm was ignored, and we left for Nanyuki with barely enough time remaining to arrive that day. The guide met us at the matatu stage, walked with us to his office, and of course began raising the prices on everything I had been quoted on the phone. I’m very adapted to Kenyan bargaining tactics now, so I told the guy we didn’t have time for nonsense and began to walk away. This approach works nine times out of ten, and suddenly what began as a $110 ride from the park exit to the nearest town was thrown in for free and an additional $75 per person was knocked off the price. An all-inclusive package, including 3 porters, a cook, a guide, park fees, transport, and all meals and accommodation worked out to $200. I know it sounds cushy, but I’m not too proud to say I wanted to enjoy myself along the way. Having everything taken care of and someone else carrying my heavy bag went a long way towards making that happen.

We began the trail on what is called the Simeron route. To get there, we piled into a private matatu filled with 15 people. I found it a bit strange, since there were only eight of us hiking, but I assumed the additional passengers were just hitching a free ride. However, on the mountain it had been raining most of the day, and I soon realized what the extra people were for. The road was thick with mud and the rear-wheel drive matatu kept sliding sideways and off the road, where it would inevitably get stuck. That’s when all those extra people came in handy. For a solid five miles we moved along at a snail’s pace with the engine revved high and tires throwing mud everywhere. 10 guys were surrounding the matatu and basically lifting it off the ground to keep it moving forward. Gotta love this county.

We arrived at the park gate around 5pm with a 10km hike ahead of us to get to the first cabin. Our timing was perfect and we made it to the cabin just as the last bit of daylight faded away. There was nothing spectacular about the first day of hiking, as we followed a dirt road build to carry scientists to a nearby research station. The scenery consisted of a sparse forest and the occasional gazelle or bush buck (which surprisingly makes a loud barking sound just like a dog). The climb was a bit difficult the first day as we began to acclimate to the altitude, and it got plenty cold at the 11,000 ft. elevation cabin.

The following day was much better, as the road ended and the real hiking began. The day started off nice, with plenty of sunshine. It was remarkable how quickly I went from three layers of clothing and a jacket to shorts and a t-shirt as the day progressed. The cook’s food was exceptional considering the circumstances, and the porters had no problem keeping up, despite the huge bags of gear and plenty of cigarettes. As we continued the to climb higher the landscape changed dramatically. We rose above the tree line to barren plains of short grass, which I assumed would continue until the snowy peak, but as we continued to climb things got weird. The landscape morphed into an alien landscape, with five-foot high plants covered in fur and huge cabbage-like flowers sitting atop what appeared to be tree stumps. I read up on this, and the fertile volcanic soils, combined with the equatorial alpine climate, creates a landscape unlike anywhere else in the world. Descriptions alone won’t do it justice so I will try and post some pics.

I was also amazed at the deep jagged valleys cut into the mountain. Far below us clouds began to gather as it rained in the forest we had passed the day before. Then, slowly, a mist began to creep in that stole our spectacular view and left us with little visibility. Once the clouds settled in, the temperature fell immediately. My shorts and t-shirt suddenly became very inadequate and once again I was bundled up in as many layers as I could throw on. My rain gear proved useful though, as the mist and clouds soon became freezing rain, which then turned into hailstones. The hailstones fell faster and faster until eventually the trail and surrounding landscape were completely blanketed with small white spheres of ice. As we continued to climb, by now thoroughly frozen, the hailstones began to subside and snow took their place. Snow on the equator! I couldn't believe it.

We arrived at the next cabin in the late afternoon, and I was all too happy to change clothes and get out of the weather. The altitude here was 14,000ft, with around 2,500ft to go to reach our summit the following morning. By “following morning” I was surprised to learn that meant we left at 2:30am. As I had learned, the mountain is usually clear in the mornings, but by early afternoon the clouds have settled in soon to be followed by rain, sleet, ice, or snow.

2:30am didn’t take too long to arrive. I was wearing everything I owned, while bundled up in a winter sleeping bag, and still felt cold. Getting out of bed wasn’t easy. I could not believe how cold it was. I’m told that the temperature averages around 10°F and after spending more than two years without experiencing sub-freezing temperatures it was a bit of a shock to my system. I was groggy and tired and still trying to work up the enthusiasm for the climb ahead. Meanwhile, the porters and our guide had brought a bottle or rum with them. We went to bed at eight so we could be rested for the summit, while the guide and porters had stayed up the entire night drinking, smoking, and playing cards. Unbelievably, they seemed fresh and ready to continue the climb the following morning.

Once I got moving things improved, and the remaining elevation gain was the toughest climbing of the trip. I was surprised how quickly I heated up and how many layers I had to strip off just to keep from roasting despite the freezing temperatures. As we continued to climb a dim horizon of light started to appear to the East, and we reached the summit just as the sun began to rise in the distance.

We were blessed with clear weather and a phenomenal view; it was exhilarating to be at the top of the world. The landscape below was so diverse, from plains in the distance to rugged valleys to boulder fields and glaciers. I celebrated by having my picture taken at the summit marker, while our guide celebrated by smoking a cigarette. I haven’t mentioned how difficult it was to breathe up there, but just looking at the guy smoking made me sick to my stomach.

The return trip was a different direction on a route called Chigoria, which was even more spectacular then the Sirimon route. There were forests of crazy plants, panoramic views, a huge boulder field (that was miserable to navigate through), and a beautiful alpine lake feeding a waterfall that in turn fed a stream cutting through a deep canyon.

We were able to enjoy the scenery until around noon, when the rain finally caught up with us. The remaining hike was a bit miserable, with plenty of mud and rain leaving us completely soaked through. When we arrived at the park gates, we had been hiking for over 14 hours and more than 20 miles, but in good spirits for having taken on and successfully summited Mt. Kenya.

We took a matatu back to Nairobi, and went out to an Ethiopian restaurant where I tried raw meet soaked in spiced butter on the suggestion of an Ethiopian friend. It was edible but not great, and my stomach rewarded me with a nasty bug for three days afterwards. Oh well, you live and you learn. My trip concluded with a train ride back to site was only 2 hours late and much better then the night bus, and now that I’m back I’m gearing up for a trip to the coast in a week. I’m determined to get back into keeping up with my adventures and will write more soon.

Coastal Life Continued

2007-03-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

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 10^th 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.

Latest Pics

2007-03-21T08:26:00.002-07:00

Here are a few recent pics:

The Yala river, located in the heart of the rainforest. A four hour hike but less than one on our Mountain Bikes

Adrienne and Justina, two Peace Corps friends from my cycle trip though the forest

The huge number of volunteers I had assist with mudding the Wake Up Women poultry house during this year's Cross Sector Training

Lots of progress on the chicken project. The wall on the right hand side? My handiwork. :-)

Working with the mamas on mudding the walls for the poultry house

Living the Highlife in Coastal Kenya

2007-03-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

Well after our never ending train ride we finally made it to Mombasa. Jana wanted to see wildlife, and since Nairobi National Park didn’t work out we decided to visit Shimba Hills instead. Shimba Hills National Park is about 50 miles from Mombasa, and Jana and I were sick of public transport and decided to opt for a taxi. The train had arrived in Mombasa at 4pm instead of the scheduled 8am (after talking to many other people about their train experiences, I’m told we did fairly well), and we did not have enough remaining daylight to risk a matatu.

After some tough negotiations we boarded a taxi for the game park. Things were going well enough until we were 20 miles or so from the park entrance. That was when the drive belt went out on our cab and of course no replacement was to be found. Stranded on the side of the road after our never ending travel fiasco, I couldn’t help but to laugh. Jana was not amused.

Sometimes things go so absurdly wrong that laughter is the best coping mechanism. I see this reaction in Kenyans all the time. For instance, when a network official shared the story of how $400 designated for a disabled youth group was channeled through our local Social Development Officer and stolen, or how tons of free maize seed donated to widows ended up being sold by the Ministry of Agriculture, the result from the other network officials was nervous laughter. Except for politicians (who ironically are the primary contributors to corruption), most Kenyans I know rarely get visibly upset over something as commonplace as corruption. They realize it eats away at their quality of life, but since there is little that can be done about it, a shake of the head and a laugh that implies “this is life, what can you do?” is the next best thing. I even had this reaction when discussing the death of my friend Zelda in a Nairobi carjacking. “Those crazy carjackers! What can you do?”

The beautiful thing in this country is that for the most part, even when things go horribly awry, in their own Kenya way they eventually work themselves out. Such was the case with our stranded cab ride. As we sat on the side of the road wondering what to do next, a flashy car with a Dutch driver cruised by. Seeing us standing on the side of the road and looking pathetic, he decided to give us a lift. He was heading in the opposite direction from the game park, but by then we were just happy to find a way back to civilization so we could make a new plan of action. It turned out our driver was the manager of one of the multi-million dollar hotels at nearby Diani Beach. He offered to let us stay at one of the all-inclusive resort hotels for a fraction of the price.

Fed up with budget travel, we took him up on the offer. At first I felt entirely out of place. Not only was the hotel extravagant, but Diana is almost exclusively the tropical resort of choice for Germans (Italians, on the other hand, make their way north of Mombasa to Malindi). Many of them did not speak English at all and even the menus and signposts were written in both German and English. With very few exceptions, everyone in the hotel was over the age of 50, and some were quite demanding and bossy. However, the hotel itself was amazing. Swimming pools, the first air conditioning I have encountered in Kenya, an incredibly comfortable bed, and hot running water complete with actual water pressure were just some of the perks. I have a newfound appreciation for all-inclusive hotels; it means all you can eat and drink all day long without having to leave the comfort of the hotel, and most of the time you can just stay in a lounge chair. In fact, many of the coastal tourists fly to Mombasa, immediately hop on a private bus, drive straight to the beach, then never leave the hotel again until it is time to go home. I loved reaction on the valet’s face when we walked to the road with our luggage and boarded a matatu back to Mombasa.

Another perk was my Swahili. Western Kenya is off the tourist route and most of the wazungu here are doing some kind of development work. Speaking Swahili gets a reaction but it’s not unusual to come across a white person who knows a bit. On the coast, and particularly in a resort hotel, nearly everyone is a tourist and Swahili is spoken by very few of them. Being able to talk in Swahili to the reception and staff of the resort hotel got a very positive reaction and made friends quickly. Also, as opposed to Western Kenya where Swahili is a second language and the local tribal dialect comes first, coastal Kenyans speak Swahili as a primary language and the fact that I could speak “mother tongue” was much appreciated.

We had such a great time at our resort hotel that after our two days were up Jana offered to cover two more. Her parents had done some research online and found a place at Baburi beach for a bargain. We decided to make our there, where the nearby nature trail I visited with Zelda last August would finally provide the wildlife viewing Jana had been waiting for.

Our next two days at yet another all inclusive hotel were as great as the first two, and I began starting to feel pretty worthless, and not at all in a bad way. I’ve never understood how great it is to just sit on a lounge chair under the hot sun on the beach and not move for hours at a time, but now I’m convinced there’s no better way to recharge. Thirsty? If you can manage the effort to look up and speak a few words a cold beer is on its way. Hungry? Well, there’s a snack bar with pizza if the buffet full of delicious food from the most recent meal wasn’t enough.

Remarkably, I did manage a bit of activity during my last few days. I went diving in the Mombasa National Marine Reserve, my first dive trip since getting certified last August. What a blast. The reef was spectacular and I got close enough to touch (though I didn’t) sea turtles, thousands of beautiful reef fish, a sting ray, and even a few creepy stonefish. I included the link so you can see the thing. It matches the reef so well you can’t even see it. The only reason I noticed is that is was pointed out by my guide. Also, it is the most venomous fish in the world. Why God created a creature that was both completely camouflaged and highly lethal is beyond me, but luckily I didn’t bump into it.

I also went back to Heller Park. I’m sure I wrote about it in August so I won’t go into it again, but this time I did manage to feed the Giraffes and it was hilarious watching sneaky moneys make a run for the giraffe food and cram as much of it as they could into their mouths before being chased away. I actually saw the same type of money reach through a window at one of our beach hotels and grab a handful of food off someone’s plate before running away as fast as possible. I wish I could have a mischievous monkey for a pet.

One night there was a raffle at the resort hotel. Only one person would win and there were over a hundred people. I asked what the prize was and the woman wouldn’t tell me, but when I suggested it may be a safari of some type she just smiled and kept her mouth shut. Since I assumed it was a safari or a travel package and I was certain I wouldn’t win, I was totally shocked when they called my number. Luck like that doesn’t come around too often. Beaming, I walked to the stage to receive my prize, where it was obvious I was getting a gift wrapped bottle of wine. Assuming a certificate of some type must be inside the wrapping, I opened it up to discover that all I had was a cheap bottle of white table wine. For over 100 people, most of whom were paying big bucks to stay at the hotel, I thought the gift a bit disappointing. What a pity to use up all my luck on a wine bottle. Next time the raffle is for a Porsche or Mountain Bike you better believe I don’t stand a chance...

...Or so I thought. On my way back from Nairobi I won a raffle again. Two raffles in less that a week! This time it was for a free bus ticket in luxury (sarcasm here) Akamba bus lines! I was the only person in the entire bus to win. What are the odds of that happening twice? Unfortunately, I had to use it within three weeks and never got around to it, so both prizes were pretty much a letdown and my luck has surely run dry by now.

Although I had a great time at the beach resorts there were several things that bothered me. On the coast sex tourism is huge, and child prostitution is a big reason that many tourists make their way to Kenya every year. I’ve been told it is at it’s worst in Malindi, but even in Bamburi I couldn’t walk to the beach at night without being harassed by a prostitute. Stranger still was that it was very common to see middle-aged European women with very young Kenyans. I spoke to some of the coastal PCV’s about this and apparently there is quite a market for young Kenyan men to sell themselves to older European women. In fact, one of the coastal Peace Corps Volunteer’s Kenyan friends does this regularly and is doing quite well for himself financially as a result.

Another slightly less disturbing thing was the performance put on every night at these hotels. I watched a bit of a “traditional Masai jumping competition” and some of the coastal tribes in traditional clothing dancing around to music. It struck me that the displays put on were more along the lines of what tourists would stereotypically expect Kenya to be like than the way it really is, and it made me a bit sad to think that the impression of Kenyan people given to beach tourists is limited to poolside performances staged to meet their inaccurate expectations.

So all in all my time with Jana was a bit stressful at times but a lot of fun. It also left me with so much to write about that I’m still over a month behind. Once Jana left (just for good measure her flight was delayed by a day and a half) I made my way South to work with a Peace Corps Volunteer for some time, but I’ll save that story for the near future as I frantically work to catch up over the next few days.

Pics from February

2007-03-07T02:40:00.000-08:00

February was busy and I've yet to bring the blog up to date, but here's some pics from thing I've done:

A fully loaded fridge at my friend Geoff's house, who graciously had Western Kenyan Peace Corps volunteers over for great food and drinks and a heck of a party.

The Western Kenya Peace Corps crew at Goeff's party last weekend

4 kids using one bicycle. I saw this on a cycle trip with a few PCV's to visit some volunteers in Mumias

Peter, the chairman from the Bugoma FFS Network, on one of the ridiculous motorized bikes given to network officials from the FAO

The Wake Up Women's Group hard at work making the mud to apply to the sides of their newly constructed poultry house

A pic to prove I helped out a bit too

A tragedy, a visitor, and lots of projects

2007-03-07T02:39:00.001-08:00

In late January I had a visit from Jana, a friend of mine from Germany. Jana is currently a travel agent in Southern France and has always wanted to see Africa. We’ve been discussing her visit for over a year and decided she come in late January. The problem was that I had no idea how busy I would be. Beyond juggling about a dozen different farming projects, I was approved for both my wheelchair and poultry grants and recruited by my supervisor for computer training in three different farming networks. Regardless, I managed to get enough knocked out and rescheduled to set aside two weeks, assuming Jana didn’t mind a few work days in between.

On a Friday evening I picked up Jana at the Kisumu airport and we walked to the nearby Kisumu Beach Resort, a campsite on Lake Victoria. It was a long way to walk but Jana was not yet willing to risk a boda boda ride. Just three months ago I was at the same campsite, and it offered a beautiful view of the lake. Now it is completely covered by an invasive non-native floating plant, to the point where Kisumu bay appears to be a large green field. Regardless, we had a great view of the Kisumu skyline and the usual spectacular sunset, so all wasn’t lost.

Occasionally it dawns on me just how incredible it is that life has taken me here, and I stop for a moment to appreciate my surroundings. However, these moments drift further and further apart. Observing Jana’s perspective on Kenya helped me realize how adapted I’ve become to a culture where I initially felt so out of place. Everything from transport to food to the landscape and people differs greatly from the western world, and Jana was understandably a bit overwhelmed. On the other hand, I have more and more people jokingly tell me I’m becoming a Luhya (the tribe I live with in Kakamega), and I do feel Kenyan culture rubbing off on me. It’s an interesting place to be, and as I’ve said before, if nothing else I rarely find myself bored.

For about a week prior to Jana’s visit I was feeling pretty miserable. My inner ear hurt, I could barely swallow, and sores were breaking out on my face. I kept thinking that whatever it was would run its course, but it reached the point where I couldn’t even sleep. Beyond the intense pain in my ear, it felt like a metal barb was lodged in my throat. On Jana’s first morning in Africa I had no choice but to visit a doctor. Diagnosis: staph infection. The doctor told me that my ear canal had swollen shut and my throat wasn’t doing much better. Fortunately, strong antibiotics started to treat it within a day and it cleared up completely within a week.

Kenya has introduced me to all kind of wonderful illnesses and infections. Although I claim to live at a grassroots level with rural Kenyans, have access to Western-style health care. I can’t imagine where I would be without the barrage of vaccinations I’ve been given and access to quality medical treatment. Considering how I’ve fared, the people here are exceptionally tough to be able to get by as well as they do.

So Jana’s trip thus far consisted of a weed-filled lake and a doctor’s office, but things started to improve as we left Kisumu to see the Kakamega rainforest. Our travels that day included virtually every means of public transport available in Western Kenya: Tuk Tuk (three wheeled taxi) from the campsite to the stage, matatu to the dirt road, dog catcher style pickup truck (complete with a blowout and 30 minute delay) down the dirt road to Shunyalu village, and finally boda boda into the forest. It took some convincing to get Jana on a boda boda, but once she used the bicycle taxi she really enjoyed it. If you can get past how annoying the drivers can be it really is a great way to travel. Still, I arrived at the forest with a renewed sense of appreciation for private taxis and personal transport. I love that I can usually just bike to the forest as opposed to putting myself at the mercy of matatus and boda bikes.

At the forest we stayed at the “guest house”, a dirty lodge on stilts without electricity or hot water. At 400 shillings a night it’s hard to complain, but as usual I thought longingly of the Rondo Resort, the upscale and beautifully landscaped cottages I plan to stay at when my parents visit. It was nearly dark when we arrived in the woods and there was little to do, so I was thankful for my primate watching friend Kristy. Although there is no electricity in the forest, Kristy’s house is exceptional. It is completely self-sufficient with solar panels on the roof and a rain catchment system for running water. Kristy let Jana and I spent the evening at her place we also visited the nearby observation tower overlooking the forest grasslands.

The next day was eventful. First, Jana and I went monkey tracking with Kristy. It is fascinating to observe monkey behavior with commentary from an expert. I learned a bit about how blue monkeys communicate and can differentiate between the meanings of a click, a hoot, and a growl. Following the monkey trek Jana and I climbed to the highest point in the forest. I’ve done this four times now but it was my first mid-day climb, and the sun was intense. My next stop on the forest tour is the bat cave, but Jana politely declined.

After the tour of the forest we relaxed for a bit at the Rondo Resort. Although we did not stay there, it was well worth an overpriced soda to sit in the courtyard and take in the beautiful landscape and colorful birds. I’ve been to the forest at least a dozen times and never get bored. Except for possibly the coast, it’s by far my favorite place in Kenya, and I’m so fortunate to live close by. Beyond the spectacular colors of the birds, insects, and flowers, the millions of shades of greens throughout the dense foliage make it a truly beautiful place to relax and unwind.

As such, I was content and happy when I was jolted by some tragic and awful news. Peace Corps medical called and informed me that Zelda, a friend in Kenya, had been killed near Nairobi along with her mother in a car jacking. I had first met Zelda with her daughter and their adopted seven-foot tall Sudanese refugee while in Mombasa. (A picture of them from August is posted on my blog). When she learned I was Peace Corps and she told me that she was the sister of my Peace Corps Medical Officer, we had much to talk about and quickly became friends. Since then I have been to her house several times, became friends with her husband, and spent Thanksgiving with them. We even made plans for a visit to my site and the Kakamega Forest early this year. Zelda was a wonderful person and a good friend, and her senseless death has been hard to come to terms with.

With much on my mind and a visitor to entertain, I was also busy with work over the next three days. The FAO donated computers and motorized bicycles to each of the three Western Kenya Farmer Field School Networks, and unfortunately my boss put me in charge of installing the computers and training the network officials on how to use them. NGO’s do some ridiculous things with their money. Yes, these farmers could use a computer for simple tasks like word processing and accounting. Regardless, I don’t see why it is necessary to give each network a top of the line Dell with a flat screen monitor, huge hard drive, and DVD burner. The printers, HP LaserJets, are cutting edge as well, and can print over 30 pages a minute. Our network already has one donated computer that is more than sufficient, and our simple, inexpensive HP DeskJet does everything we need it to. We use the printer often, and I am able to get the ink cartridge refilled for less than $5. My boss tells me that we cannot refill the cartridge on our new superprinter, and the replacement cartridge runs 7200 shillings (more than $100). Since no money has been allocated for the maintenance and upkeep of our computers, all it is going to take is for a cartridge to run empty one time to render the printer useless.

In terms of sustainability, the bicycles are an even bigger problem. There are Chinese made bicycles rigged with some kind of 50cc chainsaw motor. Within a few days of being donated to the networks they already started breaking down. In Kakamega a motor has already blown on one of the bikes, and there is plenty of bickering over how the repairs will be made. Of course, it was expected the funding would come from the network, but there’s no money set aside to maintain these things. Same goes for fuel costs, when prior to these motorized bikes people peddled to and from the office with no complaints.

To make matters worse some guy from Texas with lots of donor funding has been milling around lately. I haven’t had a chance to meet with him, and as it stands he wants to give motorcycles or even a small truck to the network to assist the farmers. The only problem is that no long term plan has been made on how to afford the upkeep, insurance, and maintenance on these things. From talking to the network officials I fear that the network’s source of income for the upkeep would come from acting as yet another middleman and taking the profits away from the farmers. It drives me crazy how people to come into Kenya for a few days then start throwing money around without any kind of exit strategy or plan for sustainability. It hasn’t worked for the past 50 years and it’s not going to start working now. Regardless, I do have a lot of hope for the sustainability of the network. I won’t go into it now but the DrumNet project has a lot of potential for all three Farming Networks.

Computer training promises to be quite frustrating as well. Most of the network officials I’m teaching are middle-aged but have never used a computer before. I’m told that, like foreign language, teaching computer literacy to children is easier, and I have reason to agree. Thankfully, the top officials of the Kakamega Network have already undergone training, but there is much to be done in the Busia and Bungoma, the other two districts. Just turning a computer on and off, using a mouse, and navigating through a simple tutorial took the better half of the day and I walked away from the Busia group in particular convinced they had really learned nothing. Double clicking is the worst. No matter how many times I demonstrated it and showed them how to hold the mouse, they couldn’t get it right. They would either take too long to click twice or end up moving the mouse slightly between clicks. As you can try for yourself this renders the double click useless.

Since I was practically raised with a computer it is hard to remember just how difficult it can be to use for the first time. Working with people for whom the computer is completely foreign showed me just how cumbersome and confusing it initially is. They were a bit discouraged at the end of the first day and I tried to convince them that over time it becomes second nature and almost instinctual. Of course, several weeks of the many low cost NGO-subsidized computer literacy classes would go a long way towards achieving this, but the FAO did not budget for anything beyond the hardware itself.

By Wednesday all three new computers were installed and further training was postponed until I set aside multiple days and plenty of patience. Jana and I had purchased a train ticket to the coast on Thursday and thankfully I had a day remaining to meet the Wake Up Women’s Group and talk about our project. As I’ve mentioned before, Wake Up Women is a group of 14 Kenyan Mamas, and each is supporting one of 16 HIV/AIDS orphans in their village. Although it took longer than expected (what doesn’t here?) I was approved for a grant to build a chicken house for over 100 birds. It is expected that the money generated from the poultry project will go towards providing a sustainable source of income for school fees, clothing, and health care for the kids. I met with the mamas and we discussed how to move forward now that the funding had arrived. We pieced together a shopping list for the materials required for the construction of the house, and I left the mamas in charge of gathering materials while Jana and I were finally able to head towards the coast.

The train ride to the coast takes two days. In theory, it leaves from Kisumu at 6pm then arrive in Nairobi at 8am. It then leaves that night at 6 and arrives in Mombasa by 9am. It’s a timely way to travel but it’s the only safe and comfortable way to get across the country at night and you sleep most of the time.

Since the train arrives in Nairobi in the morning and with luck is only an hour or so late, we planned for a full day in the capital city. Since our travel plans left little time to go on Safari, the original plan was to spend the day at Nairobi National Park, where giraffes, zebras, and lions supposedly roam behind the skyline of downtown Nairobi. However, I was invited to a memorial service for Zelda and her mother at 10:00am that day, and Jana graciously agreed to accompany me to the service. In return for missing Nairobi National Park, we agreed to spend a day on the coast visiting Shimba Hills, a game park near Mombasa.

Part of me was looking forward to the memorial service. I wanted to console Zelda’s sister and I knew the service would help me in finding a sense of closure for the tragedy. However, this is Kenya and I am Peace Corps, and as always I was at the mercy of public transport. The train scheduled to arrive at 8am never actually got to Nairobi. After a three hour delay in leaving Kisumu, we moved at a snail’s pace with plenty of unscheduled stops and broke down completely 20 miles from the city. The memorial service began at 10am. The bus that picked us up from the broken train and drove us the remaining few miles arrived in Nairobi at 4pm. With the next train leaving at six, that left just two hours in Nairobi, barely enough time to grab dinner and return to the station.

I hated missing the service but all was not lost. With the problematic train running eight hours late, we were able to see the majority of the route by daylight. Riding along the mountain tops offered phenomenal panoramic views of the Great Rift Valley and the Masai lands below. Regardless, after more than 20 hours sitting in a train it was painful reboarding for the next leg.

Despite the notorious unreliability of the train in recent times, it has had a tremendous impact on where Kenya is today. Nairobi did not even exist until around 100 years ago when it began as a small colonial outpost built as a central point on the train route between Mombasa and Lake Victoria. Furthermore, prior to the arrival of the British, the Masai had a prediction that has proven to be eerily true. They prophesied that a great iron snake would divide their land in half and mark the end of their world. Colonialism, Kenya’s development into a capitalist society, and plenty of tourism, all made possible by the great iron snake, seems to have done just that.

So...After a few short hours in Nairobi we boarded the train yet again. I should have known another problem was brewing when the train from the coast, expected to arrive in the early morning, rolled into the station at 5pm. Watching the unhappy people pour out of the train convinced me not to go through this again. I went to the station manager and asked him what the problem was. “There was flooding on the tracks” he said. “It’s all been cleared now. The train won’t be late again.”

With that encouraging news and finally on our last leg of travel to the coast, Jana and I boarded the train in good spirits, assuming the worst was over. Once again the train left the station late, creeping slowly forward and stopping in many random places throughout the night for unexplained reasons. The critical difference, when the sun came up the next morning and we were not yet halfway there, was the scenery. The landscape east of Nairobi is very Kitui-esque. That is, dry, scrubby, somewhat hilly, and uninteresting. Oh, and the sun was brutal, and brought the non-air conditioned train cars to nearly unbearable temperatures.

At 4:00pm, yet again, the train finally made it to Mombasa. We had sat in a train for 44 hours over a 48 hour period and I made a vow never to travel by train again. With a similar vow made for the night bus and cross country matatu trips, I’m running out of travel options. Now that I’ve written my way to the coast I need to take a breather. Things did improve from this point forward and I’ll write more soon. Remind me never, ever to get this far behind on my blog again.

Palmetto Bugs Invade my Home

2007-02-19T05:26:00.000-08:00

Well, I’m sitting on the bus again and finally on my way back to Kakamega. Writing in my notebook is proving to be difficult this time around. The road from Mombasa to Nairobi was freshly paved, whereas the road from Nairobi to Kakamega has some of the worst stretches in Kenya. My handwriting is barely legible as it is, and the potholes, off-road detours, and two hundred of miles of crumbled, eroded asphalt make writing a real challenge.

There was also an unfortunate meal called “The Mix” that I ate in Mombasa last week. Only available late at night from the downtown meat market, it is a mix of boiled meat, french fries, chilies, and a cream-based “special sauce”. It has been five days now and my stomach still hasn’t recovered......

.......That was the extent of my bus trip journalism. I’m back in the village and now on stable, level ground and my stomach is finally purged of The Mix. It’s good to be home and I feel much better. I think I ended my last blog entry discussing the roaches that invaded my house as a result of the open sugar bag and half eaten candy bar my uninvited guests were considerate enough to leave behind while I was away for Christmas. In mid-January a vicious battle was waged against the Great Cockroach Invasion of 2007, and I’m proud to say I emerged victorious. Lillian, one of the FSD volunteers, used the cutsie euphemism “Palmetto Bugs” to describe my unwanted houseguests, but they were actually enormous, disgusting cockroaches. After throwing away half of my food that the palmetto bugs had managed to eat through, packaging and all, I sealed what remained in Tupperware and Ziploc bags.

With the food issue resolved I was then able to focus my attention on the demise of all cockroaches living in my kitchen. Thanks to a brutally effective insecticide called Doom (Motto: “Kills Dudus Dead”. Dudu is the Swahili word for insect) and an amazing product called Death Chalk, I’d estimate that at least 200 roaches met a grizzly fate one muggy January evening.
Insects in this country are persistent and a nuisance. If a single breadcrumb falls to the ground or leftovers cool on the kitchen counter, it is just a matter of minutes before an otherwise sterile kitchen is overrun.

Fortunately, my house is equipped with a hard working team of geckos. Except when food is carelessly left out, the most I see of my insect friends are usually scattered legs and antennae, which apparently the geckos leave behind as a reminder they are doing their job. Thankfully, after one large can of doom and a stick of death chalk, the proper cockroach-to-gecko ratio was restored.

Beyond my epic battle with the cockroaches, there was plenty going on in January. I sat through several never-ending network meetings both in the office and in the field, in what I hope will contribute towards a very productive year for my primary project. I was also with visitors throughout nearly the entire month. During my first week back in Kakamega I had a homeless FSD volunteer staying with me. She was in the middle of a very frustrating change of houses and needed a place to stay. We got along well enough but realized by the week’s end that between my disorganization and her perfectionism we were not very compatible roommates. I also went monkey tracking with Kristy, my primate research friend living in the rainforest. Kristy has been in the woods for over six months now, knows hundreds of blue monkeys by name, and taught me all kinds of disturbing money trivia. For instance, did you know that there is only one male for each group of 20-50 monkeys? And when that male is overthrown, the new male will kill off all the babies from the previous male, so as to increase the likelihood that only somebody from his own gene pool will take his place? Nature is beautiful.

Another high point of January was a lunch that was scheduled with the American Ambassador to Kenya. Around 20 volunteers living in Western Kenya were invited to attend. However, when we arrived at the restaurant we were informed that the Ambassador had been called away at the last minute due to “an issue” in Somalia, but his aides and assistant were still there, as were several employees from the American Embassy. Even without the Ambassador’s presence we had a great time. The food and conversation were good, and the open bar we were treated to after lunch left many volunteers out of commission for the long distance travel back to their sites, which resulted in a party at my house with around ten volunteers.

The next day we left for Kisumu, and between the unbearably hot and humid Kisumu weather, dehydration, too much to drink the night before, and rarely having a minute to just unwind since I had returned from the states, I was starting to feel pretty terrible. Regardless, I had to keep going full throttle through the next week. I installed a computer system that was donated to the network along with some ridiculous motorized bikes that I’ll talk about later, gave a training session on needs assessment to an incoming group of FSD volunteers, and facilitated language lessons for the new volunteers with Panina, my favorite language trainer from Kitui. When I saw that a teaching job was needed for Swahili training I immediately thought of her and gave her a call. She gratefully accepted and it was great to catch up with her again.

Panina is a rare breed in Kenya, and is much like my friend Rhoda from the Sweet Potato training days. She doesn’t put up with any nonsense and tells men exactly how she feels about them. I have a lot of respect for empowered, independent women in this culture. She was also a language trainer for the American Embassy and was teaching in the building when it was destroyed in an Al Queda terrorist attack in 1998. She told me that a guard refused to let the vehicle filled with explosives into the basement level parking garage, even at gunpoint. As a result the driver of the vehicle panicked and detonated the explosives outside of the building. Although hundreds of people (mostly Kenyans) were killed, this was because so many people rushed to the windows to see what the commotion was about. If they had stayed in the interior of the building, as Panina did, they would have emerged from the incident unharmed. How tragic.

Finally I made it through the week. I had so much work piled on partly because I wanted to make time to travel with a visitor, my friend Jana who is a travel agent from Germany. Jana has wanted to see East Africa for some time and planned to visit me in late January of this year. When she made arrangements to come a year ago I had no idea how much would be going on at this time. Things got even crazier when she arrived, but I still managed to show her around and we had a good time. I’m almost up to date, but there are still tons of things I want to write about so I will save my two week adventure with Jana for next time.

Loads of Pics!!

2007-02-12T07:27:00.000-08:00

I'm in Nairobi staying at the extremely nice house of the chairman of the DrumNet program. I'm a little behind on my blog but now's as good a time as any to take advantage of the fast Internet and post a few pics from the last month.

This is Bodo, a coastal village I passed on my way to Funzi Island. Kenya is so amazingly diverse. This place is completely different than Kakamega, from the culture to the architecture to the landscape.

I took a boat ride down a coastal river last Friday and found this sinister croc hiding out under the mangroves

Fisherman waist deep, not 50 feet away from the croc I saw. I was told a medice man has a special ointment the shrimpers use to keep the crocs away.

The trains apparently go a bit slower around this turn nowadays

Along the bay on the way to the coastal river

A close up of one of the hundreds of different catepillars living in the rainforest

A crested crane, the national emblem of Uganda and a common site in Kenya as well

Bugs on the coast are ginourmous. I used the ballpoint pen to provide a sense of scale.

A coral reef during low tide in the coastal town of Msambweni. For several hundred yards you are able to walk past tide pools filled with starfish, sea urchins, crabs, colorful fish, and even the occational octopus

A fishing dhow on the return trip to the shoreline. The man on the right is standing on the pontoon to act as a counterweght and keep the boat upright

Theft and Robbery Month

2007-02-11T09:32:00.000-08:00

I’m currently riding on the bus to Nairobi after a great time on the coast. The woman in front of me is scrolling through the ring tones on her phone, playing all of them at maximum volume. The guy next to me keeps leaning halfway into my seat, his elbow propped on my knee. No matter how many times I push him away within a few minutes he’s back again. Oh, and its a million degrees outside. In the bus with the windows shut (the guy behind me doesn’t want the breeze in his face), the temperature raises to a billion. All coastal Kenyans come equipped with a sweat rag for wiping their body and face. I don’t have one and am pretty much soaked right now.
There’s plenty I want to write about the past week but I’m still more than a month behind. I’m trying to do something about this before things get hopelessly out of hand. January and February are proving to be the busiest months I’ve had here. For the sake of my future Pulitzer Prize-winning best selling autobiography I better catch up soon so I remember it later.

My return flight to Kenya went well enough. During a layover in Detroit I met my Peace Corps friend Maria, also on her way back from a holiday at home. I think I’ve written about her before but I think Maria is one of the best volunteers in Kenya. She’s fluent in Swahili, completely integrated into her school and community, and loves it here. She was even thinking about extending her service for a third year. However, her trip to the states appears to have changed her mind. Maria is one of the only volunteers from my group who has managed to maintain a long-distance relationship past the first year. Seeing her boyfriend over the holidays seems to have convinced her that two years in

Kenya

is more than enough.

I flew in on Friday, but had a meeting in Nairobi on Monday and Tuesday. I was ready to get back to my site but ended up having to spend my first four days in the capital city. The good news was that Maria’s mom works for the Holiday Inn, and I was able to stay at the upscale Nairobi Holiday Inn on my first night back for a quarter of the cost. The posh hotel and westernized atmosphere of the capital city actually made a nice, more gradual transition back to life in the Peace Corps.

That’s not to say everything went well. This is Africa, after all. Nairobi thieves must have been working full time this January. On Saturday morning Maria and I decided to go to Adam’s Arcade, a huge second-hand store full of the clothes American people don’t want and donate to Charity. I have managed to get brand new designer clothes in this country for less than a dollar, and plan to come back the states with a better wardrobe than when I left. Over time of course the clothes will wear out, and I will donate them again so they can come in a container back to Africa and the great cycle of life can continue.

So I’m getting sidetracked. On the first matatu towards Adam’s Arcade a man came running up and butted me out of the way with the intention of sitting between me and Maria. I’ve decided that when people are blatantly rude there’s nothing wrong with occasionally returning the gesture, and I shoved the guy out of the way and took my seat. There are three seats in the back row and the third one was already taken, so the man started telling the conductor he knew us and wanted to make sure he could sit in the back. The conductor asked if that was true and I told him I’d never seen the guy. He was asked to leave the matatu and the conductor told me he’s seen the guy often and he always behaves that way. He suspects that the guy makes a living stealing and pick pocketing from matatus. I was proud of myself because I didn’t him even have an opportunity to try that on us. Nairobi is sketchy, I reasoned, but when you know the way things work here like me you don’t have to worry too much.

We took the first matatu from Westlands to the city center than boarded the next for the trip to Adam’s Arcade. The back of the matatu was full except for the middle seat in the second row and the middle seat in the front. We took our strategically located places and the guys on board were exceptionally friendly and nice. That should have been a warning sign in itself but after my victorious defeat over my previous theft attempt I guess I wasn’t being overly cautious. The two guys in the front row were chatting amiably with Maria, particularly the one on the left. In fact, he even paid her fare when we departed the matatu. Meanwhile, the man sitting next to me warned that there had been several police checks that day and I needed to wear my seatbelt. Seatbelt use is required in Kenya and failure to wear one is punishable with a fine. I always try to put one on but I find the law a bit of a joke. A good two thirds of the belts don’t work at all and the overcrowded vehicles usually just pay a bribe at the checkpoints and continue unchecked. I reasoned that perhaps the laws were more stringent in Nairobi and paid no attention when the guy sitting next to me helped adjust my belt.

We arrived out of the matatu with no police check, and as usual I checked the contents of my pockets as soon as I got out. I immediately noticed that my phone was missing and before I could stop the matatu it had driven away. I told Maria what had happened and she checked the contents of her backpack that had been securely in her lap during the entire ride. In the front pouch she had stored her passport, residence card, cash, and credit cards. Everything had been stolen. It had also been where she was keeping her change for the matatu fare. The thieves, noticing this, cleverly offered to pay her way so she wouldn’t look into her empty bag. I could see then how the man on the left managed to keep Maria distracted while the man on the right unzipped her bag and stole her things. The fact that they managed to do that in her lap without her even noticing indicates they were pretty good at what they do. I realized that the man adjusting my seatbelt had somehow gotten into my pocket and lifted my phone without me even noticing. We both felt like total suckers for being so careless and realized you can never be too cautious in a matatu, especially in Nairobi.

I spent the next few days in Nairobi going through the extremely frustrating ordeal of trying to get my old number back. I waited in three different lines for hours, but managed to learn through my experience that I was not alone. There were easily fifty people waiting with me, and after asking around I realized that nearly all of them had had their phones stolen as well. Later I spoke to several Kenyan friends about the experience and nearly all of them had a similar story of losing a phone or a wallet in Nairobi. It made me feel a little bit better to know I’m not the only target. I actually learned there’s a booming market for cheap second hand phones on the streets of Nairobi. You lose your phone, buy back a stolen one, and the cycle continues.
A similar story goes for side view mirrors. Not long ago it was very common to come out to your vehicle and see the mirror was gone. Luckily there was a place in town where a mirror, identical to the one that was stolen, could be purchased for a decent price. Drivers in Nairobi finally put an end to that by writing serial numbers on their mirrors.

The day after losing my phone I met two Danish girls at the Upper Hill campsite, my favorite low budget backpackers hostel in Kenya. The girls had just started their first day of a six month backpacking trip around the world. Within their first few hours on the streets of Nairobi, they were approached by two men dressed as police officers. The officers told them that there was a lot of counterfeit money being circulated and requested to have a look at theirs. Of course you can see where the story is going. When the girls took out their money the men grabbed it and ran, and each of them lost around $400 in shillings and euros. I also learned that day that another Peace Corps Volunteer had returned from the states the day before me. She took the same bus to her site as I do and when she arrived all of her bags full of Christmas gifts and food from the states had been stolen.

So theft is rampant here. I could go on and on with these kinds of stories but just one more example. I was fed up with Nairobi and ready to get back to my site. Finally I was finished with my meetings and was able to leave. My entire time away I had a feeling that somehow someone would manage to get into my house while I was gone. After all, even though I have metal doors with slidebolts and padlocks on the outside, I am a mzungu and the people on my compound, including lazy drunken Moses, knew I was leaving. However, the only times I had managed to lose things from my house was when I had not realized children were able to squeeze through the bars on my windows. Since I’ve kept the windows locked nothing else has happened.
When I came back to my house I noticed something wasn’t right. The metal loops that were holding the padlock on the outside of the door had been chiseled off, but the door was still locked. When I came inside the floor had been swept and everything tidied up. Then I started noticing all the little things missing. Half of my protein bars were gone; the blanket in the guest bedroom; the cap to my water can; several of the books I’ve been meaning to read. Not only that, but someone had left the sugar jar open, and my kitchen, as I learned that night, had been taken over my giant cockroaches. Whoever came into the house obviously had a key so I called Shamala, the landlord from Nairobi who leases me the house. He told me that, yes, he did come in late one night and see I wasn’t home. He needed a place to stay so he just broke the lock of the door then unlocked the door and came in. He has a room he keeps locked in the back with all his things and stayed there. I mentioned to him all the things that were missing and he told me that he had no idea that had happened. Then he remembered that, yes, he did let some people inside and they may have taken/eaten things in my house.

I was pretty pissed and called Peace Corps to tell them about it. I didn’t want to change houses because I undoubtedly would have the same kinds of problems elsewhere, plus I think, break-ins and annoying boda boda drivers aside, my site is just about perfect. Anyway, Peace Corps gave my landlord a call and straightened things out, so hopefully that’s the last time I deal with this kinda stuff. At least in my own house, as I’m not placing any bets that Nairobi won’t get me again.

Christmas in America

2007-02-10T07:35:00.000-08:00

My February 1st resolution is to catch up on my blog. Things have been running pretty much nonstop since mid-December but I'll be relaxing a bit over the next few days and finally have some down time. Right now it's a Saturday morning and I'm sitting on a breezy beach with a notebook and pen. I'm starting to feel pretty useless and figure it's as good a time as any to bring things up to date.

After 15 months in Kenya I had an opportunity to spend my Christmas holidays in Alabama. Thanks to my wonderful parents, who covered the airfare, I managed to catch up with friends and family, recharge my batteries, and get a small sample of how Kenya has changed my perceptions of things back home.

Travel, as always, was an ordeal. The notoriously unreliable train to Nairobi broke down and arrived three hours late. Later, the flight was delayed, then a passenger on board became critically ill, and we had to make an emergency landing in the Sudan. The detour into a war zone only lasted a few hours and remarkably I made it through the first leg of the flight to Amsterdam with a six hour layover still remaining.

I love Holland, and with so much time between flights I decided to leave the airport and walk through the city. I purchased a train ticket from the airport with a departure time of 8:03 and an arrival time in Amsterdam at 8:24, and was amazed to watch the second hand on the clock strike 8:03 on the dot as the train pulled into the station and opened the doors. Then, the train arrived in the city center within a few seconds of exactly 8:24. Western European transport is such a contrast from Kenya!

I spent several hours walking through the city streets of downtown Amsterdam enjoying the brisk air, the historic stone statues and buildings, and the stark contrasts between Dutch and Kenyan culture. Even though it was nine in the morning, I drank a cold Guinness, an opportunity I could not afford to miss, as they are always best when served in Europe, properly poured and on tap. I also grabbed my favorite Dutch junk food: french fries and mayonnaise. Oh, and I ate a lemon cream pastry too. I admittedly had a difficult time showing any degree of self-control the entire time I was home, something I need to do a better job with next time around.

Finally, after another connection, a delayed flight into Huntsville, and a third full day's worth of travel, I made it home. Regardless, the travel was well worth it. My two weeks in the states were the most fun I've had in a long time. Basically, it was a nonstop party with family and friends. The problems I've been facing in Kenya were starting to wear me down, and getting away for a few weeks worked wonders for my sanity and sense of purpose here.

The best part about being home was the opportunity to see the majority of my close friends and family, and my Christmas was the best I can remember since I was given my first Nintendo. For Christmas Eve, my grandmother cooked a delicious southern style holiday dinner. It was amazing and more than made up for my less than stellar Thanksgiving meal. Actually, everything I ate back home was good. I pretty much binged on all the foods I had been craving over the past year: Mexican, Italian, Thai, sugary cereal, pizza…the list goes on and on. One thing I definitely noticed is that the food in the states is heavy and rich in contrast to Kenyan village food. Everything I eat here is farm fresh, organic, and chemical free. The abrupt change in diet (as well as my lack of any kind of self control) left my stomach uneasy and me feeling a bit off-kilter the entire time I was home. I gained almost five pounds in two weeks, and made a promise to myself that I will be more careful in a year's time, when I won't be returning to Kenya to burn everything off again.

So in to Christmas: On the 23rd there was a Christmas party for my Dad's side of the family. Then, on Christmas Eve I went to three church services, a new personal record for one day. My mom had a morning and evening service and then I ran into an old friend who surprised me with a visit. He wanted to go to my previous church for the midnight mass and I decided to go along. I've never felt comfortable at a church in Kenya, as I have the uneasy feeling that I am seen as a source of funding from the entire congregation. Also, from my experiences the majority of the pastors and priests here are corrupt and manipulative. It was a refreshing change to go to a service where there were no expectations for me from the congregation and I actually felt close to God.

On Christmas Day we celebrated with my immediate family, then the day after Christmas we had a huge Christmas party for my mom’s side of the family. Sometimes I find the Christmas season a bit overwhelming, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself this year. Part of it was due to missing Christmas at home the previous year, and part of it was from my experiences in Kenya. It was difficult to appreciate just how fortunate I was until I had a chance to move away for awhile. I have a great family and a comfortable lifestyle without ever having to worry about a lack of necessities. Being in Kenya for more than a year goes a long way towards not taking that for granted.

The same newfound appreciation goes for friends as well. Catching up with them was a highpoint of my time back home. So much has changed. Some of my friends are married, some are engaged, and some have moved or changed jobs. Regardless, I was surprised to see that within a few minutes time it seemed as though I had never left. It was great to just spend some time with my guy friends especially. I’ve made some good friends in Kenya, but around Kakamega almost all the volunteers are women. It was a welcome change to relax with guys I’ve known for years and talk about just about anything.

I also had several great parties back in the states. My parents really went all out and catered a party with help from their friends. The food, as usual, was fantastic and most of my friends and much of my family managed to stop by. I had a great time seeing everyone and catching up with all the latest while sharing stories from Kenya. A few days later I had the best New Year’s party I can remember. My buddy Eric made a huge pot of jambalaya and everyone one else brought a potluck side dish. My parents graciously gave up the house and stayed up all night with my friends eating and talking over bottles of beer and champagne.

Another great part of being home was a visit from my friend Whitney from Dallas. Last August I helped her manage the eight-hour matatu ride from an orphanage in Migori to Kitale, a town near my village. We have kept in touch since and she agreed to come visit me in the states while I was home. She had good time meeting my family and friends and is planning to visit me in Kenya again in June.

Beyond parties, family, and friends I also had an interview with the Huntsville Times newspaper and a visit to ADTRAN, the company I worked at before I left for Kenya. Things there seemed to be about the same as when I left, but it was great to catch up with everyone. I enjoyed my old job but am also happy to have a chance to be doing something a bit different.

So all in all my time in the states was fantastic. When I was home I actually convinced myself that I wanted to return to work in Hunstville post-Peace Corps. It’s so nice to be close to friends and family. Now, one month later, I’m back to the swing of things in Kenya. Despite the setbacks and occasional loneliness I really do love it here. I also realize that I went to the states as a tourist. I didn’t have to worry about debt or deadlines, or long work hours and minimal vacation time. I’m worried that going back to a corporate job and the routine of life in the states will be an even more difficult transition than coming here. At the same time maintaining this kind of lifestyle means being far away from my family and closest friends. I came into Peace Corps thinking it would help me better define who I am and make sense of my life. In a way it has but at the same time it appears to be creating more choices and questions than answers.

I'm in the Huntsville paper!

2007-01-15T01:43:00.000-08:00

Here's the article published about me in the local paper. In retrospect I'm not entirely comfortable with it. I'm disagree about the part stating rural Kenyans know more about American politics then me. Many Kenyans do know a good bit about American politics but the way the editor phrased it is not entirely accurate. Also, the editor suggests that peace in Kenya could be a result of the large number of Quakers, but the reason for peace among tribes is much larger than the work of a single Christian denomination.

African posting with Peace Corps: No elephants, lots to learn
By KAY CAMPBELL
Times Faith & Values Editor
kay.campbell@htimes.com

He's embarrassed now to admit it, but Joseph McMahan had hoped, at least every now and then, a herd of elephants might step through the yard of his little house near a rainforest in western Kenya.

McMahan knows the "Lion King" stereotype many Americans have of Africa isn't accurate. He knows most African people have given up traditional cultural life except for festivals.

But no elephants? Not even a monkey or two?

"It's completely not like that," McMahan said last week during a two-week furlough at his parents' Huntsville home. "Where I live in Kenya is fairly developed with little towns and cities all over. And the people are very well educated. They know more about American politics than I do."

McMahan is serving a two-year Peace Corps assignment. He works as an educator and marketer for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. No one "works" for the Peace Corps, he explained. This U.S . government's international program offers training, health care and support for volunteers who are then assigned to non-profit organizations with programs in developing countries around the world.

McMahan works with the Kakamega Farmer Field School Network to offer resources on growing crops, developing cash crops and connecting farmers with corporations who will buy those crops.

While most farmers can grow the food they need to survive, he said, they need a way to raise cash to pay for their children's high school education and health care.

In his "off" time, McMahan has started two projects on his own, one to get grants to help a network of women growing chickens for eggs and meat, the other to get wheelchairs for the handicapped people he sees in his village dragging themselves along in the dust.

"It breaks your heart to see that," McMahan said. "Some use potholders to protect their hands."

McMahan said he is thriving on the work. Ever since mission trips as a teen with groups from St. Thomas Episcopal church, he's felt drawn to the joy of doing work that mattered with people who needed help. Ever since a post-college European back-packing trip, he's felt lured to places different from his home town.

The Peace Corps offered him, he said, a combination of both service and adventure.

It's an adventure he very nearly didn't have.

A degree from Auburn University led to a good job here in Huntsville with Adtran. Very shortly, he was paying for a car, a house, contemplating a serious romantic relationship. One day it hit him that if he didn't investigate the Peace Corps, an idea he'd had for years, he would be drawn into an inescapable orbit of job-marriage-kids.

"One day I realized that if I didn't leave now, it was not going to happen," McMahan said. "In retrospect, it was probably the best decision I ever made."

His time in Africa has taught him a lot. Never again, he said, will he take clean water flowing out of a tap for granted. Never again will he take free high schools for granted or health care he can access because of insurance.

And never again will he look at his own country in the same way, he said.

"When I tell my neighbors that in the United States you can live in an apartment and not know your neighbors, they say, 'How can that happen?'" McMahan said. "In Kenya, people look out for each other. It's a very community-based culture."

Working with the people of the Kakamega District in Western Kenya, he said, has reminded him of what really matters.

"In this country (the U.S.), we've reached the point where we define a lot of who we are through our material possessions," McMahan said. "In Kenya, they don't have so much materially, but they are very strong spiritually."

Kenya, which is predominantly Christian, has one of the world's largest concentrations of Quakers according to the CIA's World Fact Book. It might be a result of that peaceful religion, or perhaps a natural development of the Kenyans' own personalities, but McMahan has noticed something else he wishes the world could learn from the Kenyans: Peaceful co-habitation with diverse types of people.

"In Kenya, you have more than 40 individual traditional cultures, each with its own language and traditions in a country whose borders were arbitrarily drawn by the British," he said. "The fact that they have been able to co-exist peacefully despite their differences * I think that's kind of unique."

Bike Ride through Tea Plantations and the Masai Mara Game Park

2007-01-13T03:57:00.000-08:00

Before I get up to speed on where things stand since I’ve returned to Kenya, here’s an overdue recap from December. I traveled a bit during the last few weekends before coming to the states. One trip, a bike ride through the Nandi Hills, was fantastic. Another, a weekend in the Masai Mara Game Reserve, was pretty much a disaster, although it definitely could have been worse.

This time I’ll start with the good stuff. A few volunteer friends of mine are living in the nearby town of Kapsabet. One of them, Adrienne, has wanted to go on a cycle trip for months now and we finally ended up with a free weekend to do it. Adrienne and her friend Justina were able to round up an extra bike for me, and I met them for the weekend to cycle around the Nandi Hills.

As we began our ride I knew I was in for a treat. My mountain biking friends in the states (I hope at least one of you is reading this) need to seriously consider visiting me in Kenya. We cycled through rolling hills covered with tea fields for over 50 miles. The fields seemed endless and often stretched to the horizon. It was strange looking across the hills and seeing only two colors: bright tea-leaf green and sky blue. It looked exactly like the Windows XP wallpaper. This was occasionally interrupted by a spots of vibrant colors, where workers wearing kangas were scattered throughout the fields harvesting tea leaves. At one point I stopped to take a photograph, and a nearby worker demonstrated how to properly harvest the tea. The workers are paid by the 5 shillings a kilogram, and the rapid, fluid motions they use to pick the tea leaves is astounding. An experienced tea picker can gather around 12kgs of tea leaves in a day, meaning that, when working very hard and with a lot of experience, they earn 60 shillings (80 cents) per day.

After cycling on a remarkably nice road (Ex President Moi is from the same tribe and his favoritism shows), we turned off the asphalt to a private tea plantation. After a brief chat with the guard he allowed us through the gate. One of the nicer aspects of being white in Kenya is that, although guards and gates are everywhere, a mzungu is rarely questioned and usually allowed to enter with no questions asked. The same preferential treatment does not apply to the locals, and even black Americans are stopped for questions when the white ones are waved right through. I don’t agree with the selective treatment but I don’t complain either.

We entered the tea plantation to visit a scenic overlook and a waterfall that a friend informed us was worth the visit. We asked the guard if we were at the right place and he told us that yes, we were, but it was a 10km ride away. Something I have long since learned is that the people in Kenya’s rural areas are rarely accurate judges of distance (or time for that matter). We decided to risk it anyway, and after riding for over an hour at a fast clip, we came across a tea worker and asked if we were finally close to the overlook. He pointed up a steep hill and assured us, yet again, that it was only about 10km away. At least the second time around was more accurate. We got a bit lost along the way and wandered down several wrong trails to be redirected by helpful tea pickers, but eventually we arrived at a scenic vista overlooking thousands of acres of tea fields.

The tea plantation was remarkable in that all the workers actually live on the farm. There are small villages scattered throughout the plantation offering housing, basic amenities, and even a primary school. There is even a matatu service that carries people from village to village and to work in the fields. The plantation itself was enormous and within it were at least five villages with thousands of people. I was told that the entire plantation is privately owned and I’d imagine whoever owns the thousands of acres of tea plants is probably doing alright for themselves.

From the overlook the view across the tea fields was spectacular. After some exhausted admiration (climbing to the viewpoint on a bicycle was a challenge) we walked down a nearby trail to a large waterfall with a cave set behind it. We walked to the inside of the falls and looked through the water to another panoramic of rolling green fields.

All in all the bike ride was a success and once again I realized there’s few things better in the world than a scenic cycle trip with friends. However, you can’t win every time, and my adventures at the Masai Mara the weekend before drove that point home.

Since I’ve come to Kenya I’ve wanted to go the Masai Mara and see the Serengeti plains. Most of my Peace Corps friends have visited the park but for my first year on site I never managed to find the time. A few months ago I was in Kisumu with Kristy, a friend doing primate research in the Kakamega Forest. While in Kisumu we ran into a woman named Janka volunteering at an orphanage near Migori. I told Janka about my experiences working at the BJCF orphanage and she extended an invite for Kristy and me to go with her group to the Masai Mara over a weekend. She was providing a driver, doing all the planning, and keeping it on a small budget so we agreed to tag along. Kristy asked if she could bring her friend Karen, also working in the forest and she was welcomed to come along as well.

As the weekend approached I began to feel a bit nervous about the trip. Although December technically marks the beginning of the dry season there had been unseasonable heavy rain and flooding throughout Kenya. I was determined to see the Mara anyway and at the last minute we decided to risk it. We agreed to meet in Kisumu at 10 but we were off to a late start. The trip to Migori turned out to be cramped and miserable. The weather was deceptively nice in the morning but by early afternoon the rains returned. I was sitting on the front bench of the matatu right by the door, and every time someone would cram inside rain would drip all over me. Also, the tout would stand outside and get thoroughly soaked, then when the matatu was filled to max capacity he would somehow find a way to cram himself in the car and sit halfway in my lap. After hours of tedious driving we made it to Migori. I was muddy, soaking wet (as were my bags), and in a bad mood. Some days I find the absurdity of Kenya’s public transport hilarious but I just wasn’t in the mood to laugh at it.

We arrived in Migori at 6pm and we still had an hour of travel to meet with Janka. The only available transport into the interior, where her orphanage was located, was via “cockroach”. These are ugly white station wagons that run back and forth from Mirogi town. We asked the fare for the ride to the orphanage and we were told 300 shillings a person. It was an unfair and high price but since there were no other vehicles that late in the day we were in no position to bargain. We sat in the back assuming that, between the three of us and our bags, there would be no more room for anyone else. However, in Kenya there is always room, and soon we found ourselves suffocating five deep in the back row. In the trunk behind us were another four people, and three people were sitting in the front. That’s 12 full-grown adults in a five seat vehicle. Assuming that was everyone, we expected to depart, only to have the driver’s side door open and someone else scoot into the seat and smush the three people in the front over to the left. The final occupant turned out to be our driver, and how he planned to shift gears with such a mass of people in the front row I have no idea. He reeked of alcohol and was visibly drunk, and it was then we decided enough was enough. Even in Kenya you have to draw the line somewhere. We shoved our way back out of the car and demanded a refund, and the man we paid denied ever receiving the money. By then I was furious and made an unfortunate scene that I regretted later. Every once in awhile things get to be too much here and my temper flares. It’s a side of me I didn’t know I had and it’s also something I really try to work on. I had actually been doing much better until this point. After grabbing the guy by the collar and demanding my money while Kristy took his car keys from him, I did get most of my money back. In the end I was reimbursed and we didn’t have to ride in the deathtrap cockroach, so things could be worse, but I felt like I overreacted. I made a big scene over around $14, but being swindled like that really ticked me off.

Luckily Migori was on the way to the Masai Mara, so after a brief phone call Janka and her crew agreed to pick us up the next day. I have done plenty of work with the BJCF orphanage and we were able to stay for free in their guest house in Migori. Exhausted, filthy, and in a genuinely bad mood we crashed for the night, if nothing else at least excited for our trip the following morning to the game park.

The plan for Janka, her driver, and the other volunteer traveling with them was to get to the Mara on Saturday and leave Sunday. That doesn’t leave a lot of time in the park, but Janka is working only three hours from the park and I assumed that with an early start we could get two full days. That was not to be. Janka, her driver, and her friend arrived to pick us from the orphanage at 11. Migori is only one hour from their home, so why they waited until 10 to leave for the day was beyond me. However, I wasn’t driving and it was out of my control, and so I let it go. As soon as we boarded the vehicle Janka informed us that she just had to run a few errands in town. This turned out to mean doing all the shopping for her food and supplies for the trip, as well as waiting in a two hour ATM line to get money. I was fuming but thankfully kept my mouth shut. Finally, at two o’clock we were packed and ready to travel. The road from Migori to the Mara is only two hours away and we assumed there would at least be time for one short game drive before setting up camp for the night. All was not lost.

Or was it? We were informed at the last minute that the road to the Mara from Migori was closed. A bridge was down and there was no way to pass. The only other way to go involved a two hour detour, thus doubling the length of the trip. We arrived at the park entrance around 6pm with just enough time to set up a campsite. The vehicle we drove in was a Land Cruiser with a bench in the back and tiny sliding windows, so there wasn’t much to see and I felt ill by the time we arrived. The entire day had been exceptionally nice with little rain and mostly blue skies, but once we parked at the camp and prepared to set up our tents the rains came. We tried to fashion up a large green tarp to cover the tents, but several eyelets ripped off before we finally rigged it up to keep us somewhat dry.

Beyond the unfortunate travel experience there was tension between people as well. Janka and her friend apparently were not getting along so great. Janka’s friend (I forget her name), gave me a long story that I didn’t really care to hear about concerning the difficulties they had been having. Two Americans randomly assigned to work together in the bush for a six month stint apparently doesn’t always end in a life long friendship. Also, Kristy’s friend Karen was sullen and unfriendly, particular to me, the entire trip. I never figured out why and confronted her about it and she said nothing was wrong. She’s a bit anti-social and was like that from the first moment I met her, so I tried not to take it too personally.

The next day we finally got everyone moving and ready to go around 9. I’m never doing a camping trip again without making sure the people who are coming are actually willing to get moving when there are lots of things to do in a short amount of time. Our park fees were a bit expensive, even as residence, but we thought we had an entire day in the park. Also, a very friendly guide from the night before told us we would be able to get out of the vehicle for pictures as long as we stayed nearby and there were no dangerous animals around, so I was excited about finally starting a game drive.

We debated getting a guide, which is optional, and decided that it would be a better idea in terms of finding the more elusive animals. That proved true. With the help of the guide we saw lions, elephants, rhinos, giraffe, buffalo, zebra, cheetahs, foxes, ostrich, and plenty more. The only problem was the guide was rude, knew nothing about the animals or the park except how to follow other tour vehicles, and, despite what the nicer guide had said the day before, wouldn’t let us out of the vehicle. Even when there was no dangerous animal anywhere to be seen he wouldn’t let us as much as lean out a window, and as I said earlier the tiny sliding windows in the camper shell on the back of the Land Cruiser were pathetic, so we were taking turns peering out of them. Janka was not happy with the way our guide treated us and made sure he knew it. In return he told us that our tickets expired at noon, which I was fairly certain they did not, and we had to be out of the park if we didn’t want to renew them.

Despite all this something else I didn’t like about the Mara was the enormous amount of traffic. For every interesting animal there were at least five vehicles full of tourists in a circle around it. The vehicles are supposed to stay on the marked trails but they drive anywhere they want to, leaving muddy tread marks all across the savanna plains. At one place where a cheetah was hunched, ready to sprint after a pack of zebras, yet another vehicle would come rumbling up to the animal and distract it as it looked as if had been just about ready to pounce. All in all, even though the game is less diverse, I liked Hell’s Gate and Crater Lake better. You are able to walk on foot and there are almost no tourists. However, I do think that a Mara trip, when properly planned and with a decent vehicle and guide, could be a lot of fun. I plan to have another go at it next year when my parents come in hopes I gain a better impression.

So the 8 hour ride back to Kakamega was equally miserable, but I think I’ve already pretty much written the gist of it. I don’t consider the trip a failure because I did see the Mara, and the entire journey ran me under $50. You win some and lose some but there’s definitely something to be said for knowing who you’re traveling with and spending a few extra bucks to do things right.

Pics from November and December 2006

2007-01-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

I should have done this while home over the holidays, but between becoming briefly addicted to MySpace and spending most of my time with friends and family, I just didn't fit it in. Anyway, I'm in Nairobi now and the web is at least somewhat faster than Kakamega, so here's a few pics of various adventures and projects over the last few months.

A cheetah from my brief visit to the Masai Mara park in early December. Every time she was about to pounce another vehicle full of tourists would pull up and distract her.

Tea workers on a plantation in the Nandi Hills. I passed this while on a 50 mile bike ride during the second weekend of December.

The bike ride through the Nandi Hills ended with a panoramic view and this water fall.

These creepy animal costumes were worn by some guys who I imagine were paid a few shillings to dance around outside the supermarket. They were smoking cigarettes in their suits and would blow the smoke out the eyeholes. You don't see that at Disney World.

The Kibera slums outside Nairobi: 800,000 people living in less than 3 square miles.

A Lion at the Masai Mara park. I was just a few feet away and snapped the picture out a car window.

One of the four disabled self help groups I'm working with. This is the only one that has previously been funded and the people remaining have been on a waiting list for several years. I expect the link for the fundraiser to be posted by next weekend!

A sketchy bridge in Central Province. It's at the base of a valley near a volunteer's site

Projects in Kenya, One Month Later

2006-12-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

So I'm back in the states for Christmas and having a great time being home. There's plenty I want to write concerning how things compare and contract with life in Kenya, but I'll save that for later. For now I'm a month behind on updates and want to get up to speed on where things stand since the last time I wrote.

First, work. Part of the reason I'm behind in writing is that things have been crazy busy. Concerning the Farmer's Network, I invited the designers for DrumNet, the organization building an infrastructure to link farmers to markets, to Kakamega for a meeting with the network officials. Six people from Nairobi came to the office and discussed the DrumNet vision. The next step will take place in January, when DrumNet officials will come to the field and train the FFS group leaders to determine which groups will be interested in participating. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone into DrumNet development, and the initial project will attempt to link farmers to a reliable and profitable market for sunflower seeds. Through the FAO implemented Farmer Field Schools, an infrastructure is already in place that closely mirrors the types of farming groups needed for DrumNet. After speaking to Jonathan, the DrumNet chairman, and working with his staff, it has been determined that the Kakamega Network is an ideal location to begin the pilot project for DrumNet. I'm excited, and over the next few months I anticipate good things coming out of this and plenty to keep me busy.

I’m also forced to keep looking for markets for sweet potatoes. I hate this crop. People continue promising to find a market for the farmers, then come up with nothing. An organization called AMPATH is providing food for over 30,000 HIV positive people in nearby Eldoret, and I have a meeting in January to discuss the potential for this group to buy sweet potatoes. A last ditch effort will be to put the potatoes on a radio show that advertises produce. The intention was to do this in December but nothing ever happens on time here so the dates have been moved to January. Furthermore, a new Peace Corps volunteer on the coast is working with the same stupid NGO (The International Centre for Potatoes) that promoted these potatoes to Kakamega. His job is to find non-existent markets for the hundreds of farmers who have been coerced into growing sweet potatoes as a cash crop on the coast. On the plus side, I plan to visit him. Even though there’s little I’ll be able to do to assist, at least I’ll have a good reason to lay out on the sand and soak up sunshine in my spare time.

As for my two proposals, progress is slowly being made. I submitted both the Wheelchair and Poultry project proposals to the Peace Corps office in November, and I've been told that they will both be approved and will be submitted to the headquarters office in DC this month. Getting this wheelchair project knocked out will lift a huge weight from my shoulders, and I pray that for once things will actually go right on this. I recently visited one of the disabled groups to ensure them that funding is coming and also followed up with one of the group members who was given a wheelchair on credit. He was so happy and is able to move about freely in a way he never has before. Unlike my last two visits to the disabled group when very few people were around, this time people knew I was visiting the group. About 50 new people suffering from all kinds of physical disabilities wanting me to assist them. News travels fast. For some unknown reason, these people weren't available for the initial assessment, even after both the group leader and social development officer were informed well in advance. However, I've already submitted the proposal and can't add any new people. One thing I've learned is that saving Kenya, or even doing things efficiently, is out of my hands. I can do my part to assist but I can't save the world, especially when people are seemingly working against me.

As for the poultry project, I’m continuing to move forward under the assumption the funding will come. A few weeks ago I went with the mamas on a field tip to Kisumu, where we visited three poultry projects and learned more about how to successfully start the project when the funding comes. The trip was a big success, and the mamas really enjoyed being out of the village and in the big city. We rented a private matatu for the day and had 12 mamas plus Habakkuk and a livestock extension officer with us for the day. While visiting the various sites the mamas took plenty of notes and asked lots of questions, and I can see that they are very excited about getting started on the project. I am too. This has the potential to be the most fun and rewarding project in my two years of Peace Corps.

After we finished our visits in Kisumu I took the mamas out to lunch, and we went to the Kisumu waterfront for a late lunch. On the Lake Victoria shore there are over twenty small restaurants, basically wooden shacks, all selling the same thing: fish and ugali. The Luo tribe that lives around the lake is crazy about the stuff and all of the restaurants are consistently busy. The server showed us variety of different sized fresh fish, which were negotiated on then cooked to order. The food was great, and for less than twenty bucks 15 people were able to eat four big talapia, plenty of ugali, veggies, and soda..

The day before going to Kisumu I was also with the Wake Up Women’s group attending a Christmas party for the orphans. We had a great time and I brought Lillian, the new leader for the FSD volunteers that drift in and out of Kakamega. She fell in love with the orphans and may work with me on future projects with the women’s group. During the party the kids all received new hand-sewn uniforms that were really nice and made by one of the mamas. I brought a soccer ball for the kids but it was so cheap it leaked from all the seams and wouldn’t inflate, but at least Lillian brought plenty of candy, stickers, and crafts for the kids. They also received their annual bags of dried maize and bar of soap, which reminded me yet again how fortunate I was as a child and how much I constantly take for granted.

So that’s about the latest for work. I’m going to post plenty of pics while I’m home and write about my travels over the past month in another post. Merry Christmas!

Kenyan Thanksgiving (Again)

2006-11-28T01:47:00.000-08:00

It’s hard to believe that a year ago I killed the Thanksgiving turkey (for the first and last time) at the pastoral center in Kitui. Time flies and Thanksgiving has come and gone yet again. Since we weren’t on lock-down this year, I was able to celebrate with a US Embassy family in Nairobi. The food was decent, but unfortunately the prerequisite Kenyan house servants that do all the cooking, cleaning, and yard work for any given expat family have no idea how to make a true Grandma-prepared southern-style Thanksgiving. However, that’s an unfair expectation, because my Decatur, Alabama Thanksgiving is probably the most delicious meal of all time. The other three Peace Corps volunteers at the house were all from the North and, poor souls, they thought the food was fantastic, so I think I’m spoiled.

For dinner we had turkey, but no mushroom gravy to soak it in. Then there were green beans, but they were steamed instead of covered in sauce and topped with fried onion bits...far too healthy for the most gluttonous day of the year. The broccoli was boiled and unseasoned (as opposed to being drowned in Velveeta Cheese) and the mashed potatoes were white. That was the saddest part…no sweet potatoes covered in melted marshmallows. Still, anything beats an ugali Thanksgiving and it was great to be away from site and with friends for the holiday.

I spent three days in Nairobi and most of it working. On Wednesday I met with the president of the Kenya Agricultural Commodities Exchange. Between meeting with him and the branch manager in Bungoma a few days earlier, I made it clear that they actually have to do something for us if they want our membership fee. The plan is now to market our potatoes on their radio show in December. If this doesn’t work then we’ll give up on KACE, but at least we’re going to attempt something soon. I also went with KACE to Karinyaga millers, the company that was supposedly offering such high prices for dried sweet potato chips. The manager told me she learned that the sweet potatoes we are producing have been genetically modified, and it would be against God’s will for her to use them. Her religious beliefs on genetically modified produce would have been good to know two years ago, but she did tell us she was interested in purchasing as much grain amaranth as we could produce. Maybe I can convince the farmers to go through this all over again with another crop.

Even on Thanksgiving Day I had a meeting, but thankfully I was able to duck out around lunchtime. A previous Peace Corps volunteer named Jonathan has lived all over the world, and now he is back in Kenya wanting to set up a network called DrumNet. DrumNet, in theory, will link farmers to buyers to stockists to banks, all using cashless transactions and bank accounts. It seems incredibly ambitious but at the same time well thought-out and potentially feasible. His meeting included creditors, farmers, stockists, IT experts in charge of setting up the infrastructure (it will use text messaging on mobile phones to provide farmers with information), and a buyer. The first buyer is the largest producer of cooking oils in Africa, and the first demo crop will be sunflower seeds. The price being offered is not phenomenal but it is decent and Jonathan wants to use my Farmer Field School network as a pilot program. The Kakamega Farmer Field School network consists of almost two hundred Farmer Field Schools, each with between 20-30 farmers, a facilitator, and a bank account. With this system the infrastructure is already in place for what Jonathan needs for DrumNet to work from the farmer’s side, so I anticipate working with him much more next year.

I spent most of my spare time in Nairobi finishing up the proposal for the disabled groups and, thankfully because I never thought I’d see the day, everything is submitted and finalized. All that is left is for Peace Corps to agree to post the fundraising link online, and I pray that things will go smoothly from this point forward.

By Friday afternoon everything was finally out of the way and I decided to go to a craft fair I had been reading about in the Nairobi suburb of Karen. I heard it was a bit upscale and I was looking forward to finding some nice Christmas gifts to bring home with me. I knew there was trouble as soon as I arrived and a 250 shilling entry fee was required just to look around. Once inside the gate, tents were setup everywhere selling high-end crafts, and except for the occasional security guard or kiosk assistant there wasn’t a black person in sight. Karen is a very strange place. It consists almost entirely of old money descendants of colonial times, referred to now as “Kenyan Cowboys”, and I was surrounded by rich white Kenyans with British Accents. Most of the crafts in the markets were not even made by black Kenyans, but by wazungu, including framed pictures of Kenyan landscapes costing thousands of dollars and pottery costing hundreds. The worst part was that absolutely nothing was negotiable. There were a few things (but not many) that I had seen at the craft fair in Kisumu for a quarter of the price, and it was impossible to get them to budge. I did manage to buy one thing for my sister but that was about the end of my budget. The next time I go Christmas shopping it won’t be in Karen; even the supermarkets there double their prices just because they can.

On Friday night there was a Peace Corps party at the Upper Hill campsite and I had a good time meeting the new volunteers and staying up about six hours past my normal bedtime of nine o’clock. The next day I took a miserable 12 hour bus ride back to Kakamega and caught up with one of the primate researchers from the forest. We are making tentative plans to go to Masai Mara (The Serengeti plains) next weekend with a woman I met in Kisumu who has some extra room in her Safari bus and agreed to take us along free of charge. We’ll see what happens, it’s been raining basically nonstop lately, which is strange given that this is supposed to be the beginning of the dry season. Weather permitting things will work out and I’ll have some great pics to show when I’m home over the holidays.

A Volunteer Visit and a Stakeholder's Meeting

2006-11-19T02:48:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting by the pool at the Golf, the local overpriced tourist hotel in Kakamega. Notebook computer in my lap and a beer on the table, I’m just trying to relax and gather my thoughts a bit. This last week has been busy. Between my poultry project, the wheelchair fundraiser, and working with the farmer’s network it’s been pretty much nonstop lately.

First some good news: My bike is back! Things are so much easier now that I am peddling myself around. The bike mechanic at Peace Corps overhauled everything and replaced almost every part, so I’m hoping it will get me by for awhile without any serious problems.

Last weekend I visited my Peace Corps friend Maria. She lives outside Kericho, the tea-producing capital of Kenya. She lives the quintessential Peace Corps experience. The trek to her house involves a 40-minute matatu ride from the nearest town followed by an hour-long walk on an eroded path into a valley. The path is so bad that even bicycles can’t use it, and during the rainy season it is almost impossible to use even by foot. It’s all downhill to her house, and her rustic wooden cabin is nestled at the base of an amazing green valley filled with colorful birds. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve been in Kenya, and there’s really not much I can put in words to describe it. I’ll post some pics soon although they won’t do the view much justice either. She lives without electricity or water, and gets most of her food from her garden or from the cows and chickens that are being raised by her neighbors. Maria lives in balance with her surroundings and I felt at peace with myself while I was there. It seems to me that often times the materialism and wastefulness in Western culture does more to complicate people’s lives then to make things easier. I sometimes fear that the culture shock of going back to the states will be far greater than the struggles I faced adapting to life in Kenya.

Because Maria lives so far from other volunteers and it’s so difficult to take the path back to the main road, she’s become a part of her community in ways most volunteers have not. Her closest friends are Kenyan, she’s been invited to nearly every house in the valley for chai (tea), and she speaks the best Swahili of anyone in our group. While many of the volunteers are unhappy and meet every weekend to drink heavily, gossip, and complain, Maria is truly content.

The last week was productive. I have the proposal drafted for the Wheelchair fundraiser and hope to drop it off at the Nairobi office on my way to Thanksgiving dinner with an embassy family next week. I also had a chance to schedule some big meetings and make connections that I hope will really help Kenyan farmers. One of these is with the president of the Kenyan Agricultural Commodities Exchange. His organization is supposed to be linking farmers to markets, but despite all the international funding they are receiving to achieve this they have done nothing, as far as I can see, but acquire a list of small-scale producers wanting to sell their crops. I want to sit down with the guy, discuss what KACE is actually doing to help farmers, and see if there is any reason to continue paying an annual subscription fee for their services. KACE also provides daily price updates on what different crops are selling for at various markets throughout Kenya. The prices are high, but the problem is that these are the prices that brochures and traders (e.g. middlemen) are getting. The farmers continue to be paid bottom-dollar.

We had the first annual UN FAO FFS stakeholders meeting in Kakamga last week. Representatives from Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya were in attendance, as well as several of the big fish from the UN FAO headquarters office in Rome. I had a chance to talk with some of them, including a Danish marketing consultant named Esban. I spoke to Esban about some of the struggles we are facing with marketing in the network, and he agreed that a big problem is that so many NGO’s try to assist farmers but do not really understand the market. I told him about my experiences with the sweet potato and we came up with the concept of “NGO-promoted Production Driven Marketing”, meaning that organizations are telling farmers what to grow without actually bothering to see if the prices they have been quoted or the market is realistic. I see this time and time again. There is a historical trend of farmers being promised the world, investing in a certain crop, then finding the market has bottomed out, leaving them worse off then when they started.

Esban and I spoke for awhile and he wants me to act as an in-country marketing researcher to better understand profit margins for various players throughout the supply chain. He wants me to go to open air markets, talk with brokers and traders, and basically try to learn what they are paying, their selling price, what their expenses are, and how many channels the produce goes through from the farmer to the end user. It’s surprising this has not been done before, but middlemen and market brokers often act like a cartel, in that they lock down prices and keep outsiders from getting into their business. I think this is also why KACE has been failing in assisting farmers. If a farmer were to take his produce to an open-air market himself he could very well find he would be unable to sell his crop without first going through one of these brokers. This leads me to think: Why can't the Network itself function as a broker to the farmers, thus giving them better prices? I have been told I will meet some resistance in trying to get pricing information, but since I’m a mzungu I doubt I will be perceived to be as much of a threat. Esban is also willing to give me an expense account for paying people off for information, traveling to the markets, etc. He even wanted to pay me a bit, and I haven’t decided whether to take him up on that since technically I’m a volunteer and Peace Corps would throw me out if they found out. So basically, I get to be a spy, which is pretty exciting. I think my alias will be that of a research student trying to gain information on Kenyan markets for my graduate thesis, while secretly working to overcome a sinister cartel. Very James Bond like.

Another big fish I met is the FAO representative for Kenya. Our farmers have been well trained in Sweet Potato value addition and between the 10,000+ farmers in Western Kenya there is the potential to produce literally tons of nutritious, vitamin A rich flour every month. The problem is there is really no market for it. Meanwhile, the World Food Program, another division of the UN, is sending massive amounts of relief food to refugee camps and starving people throughout Northern Kenya and neighboring Somalia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. Wouldn’t it make sense and be a win-win situation for everyone if this food was purchased from local farmers? Since, in theory anyway, the intention of these UN programs is to pull people out of poverty and improve their lives, it seems reasonable. However, this is not the case. The food comes from the United States. Is it also heavily subsidized, to the point that is more cost- effective for the UN to purchase a shipment of maize or grain from the other side of the world, then ship it across the ocean, then to buy locally. How is the US helping the world with this approach? Or maybe that’s not their intention at all. It seems that buying produce in-country would be a good starting point for a self-sustainable infrastructure that the local government could eventually take control of.

Anyway, I was able to convince the FAO representative that perhaps a small portion of the multi-billion budget of the World Food Program could go to local farmers, and he agreed. Although a date is not confirmed, he has committed to go with me to a meeting with the Kenyan head of the World Food Program and try to make a case. I hope for the best.

So that’s about the latest. Oh, I also finished putting all the network crop information into a database so now I have an idea of what farmers are growing and when it will be ready. I hope to use that to make a case for assistance when I meet the KACE president next week. All in all things are going well, but just as I was thinking I was finishing up on so much I’ve stumbled across these huge new projects. At least keeps things interesting. By the way, I’ll be home in just a month now!

Why I Love My Bike

2006-11-10T04:04:00.000-08:00

I submitted my poultry project proposal for the Wake Up Women’s Group on Monday. The good news is that it has the full support of the guy in charge of funding grants in the Nairobi office. I just hope it can sneak through the system without being flagged, since Peace Corps Volunteers aren’t supposed to be working with poultry due to the threat of bird-flu. Since bird flu in Kenya is nonexistent and I’ve been told that the guy that gave approval has the final say, I’m hopeful things will work out. I should get a definite answer by the end of the month.

I don’t have my bike this week and it just reinforces just how important it is to me. Whereas I’d normally be peddling myself, I’m stuck on boda bodas, matatus, or walking on foot. I hate boda boda because I have to rely on someone else peddling me around. Cycling back and forth to work is one of my favorite parts of the day and sitting on the back of a bicycle while the boda boda guy is talking about how much he hates his job, and why can’t I take him to America, isn’t my idea of a relaxing way to start and end the day. Then there’s the hassle of matatus. A great way to find yourself in a bad mood is to hang around the matatu stage for awhile. First there’s the touts. They shout things like “hey White man! Get in here!” and usually try to grab your bags and even physically pull you into the vehicle. The only problem is that there are about 10 vehicles all waiting to go to the same place, and the most persistent touts are the ones trying to pull you into an empty matatu, which inevitable means an hour-long wait. I’m on to that now and push my way through the touts and pull my bags away from them as I fight my way to the matatu that has the most people in it and will be ready to leave soon. I don’t understand their system, as everyone loses. Each matatu sits idling half full instead of just starting with the first one to arrive, filling it up, then moving on to the next. This is what they do in Uganda. It’s much more efficient without ten matatus with the “every tout for himself” mentality of literally pulling people into empty vehicles.

Once in the matatu, the driver revs the vehicle, lurches it back and forth, and pretends like it’s about to leave for sometimes a good half hour before actually going anywhere. This is one of the tricks they use to fill a matatu, and it can really drive you crazy as you sit in the back, hip hop music blaring, jerking back and forth while the driver acts like he’s about to leave. Another trick they use is done with “assistant” touts. These are the guys that don’t really have a job so they bum around the matatu stage all day, hoping to get a few shillings for helping fill matatus. They do this by sitting in matatus, making them look full. Once people start getting in they slip back out again and move on to another. It’s a clever scheme but I’m on to it. Anytime a matatu is full of younger looking guys in ratty clothes, it’s a good sign that they aren’t actually going to travel anywhere. It’s best to keep your eyes out for mamas, older men in dress clothes, and children, as this is the demographic that will actually be traveling instead of coercing you into an empty vehicle.

Fed up with bodas and matatus, I’ve walked long distances a few times this week. It makes me appreciate how nice it is to go flying by people on a bike, tuning out “mzungu!” and “give me some change!” and the like. On foot you really can’t get away but I’ve learned to look right through people when they harass me...it’s all part of adapting cross-culturally.

So, in conclusion, I miss my bike and want it back. The derailleur broke on a trip out to the rainforest last weekend and I sent it to Nairobi for repair on Monday. The next day I received a phone call. It was Peace Corps wanting to know what I did to tear it up so badly (basically every component is worn out), and telling me how expensive it will be to fix. They weren’t very nice about it. They don’t understand that I live in the rainiest, muddiest place in Kenya and cycling through dust and mud day in and day out takes a toll on a bike. Most volunteers leave there bikes in storage for two years, never use them, and bring them back looking like new. I tried to explain that I actually use my bike rand I miss it and want it back quickly, but I think the message was lost on them, the cheapskates.

Otherwise things are on track and moving. I can’t help but feel cautiously optimistic that all the hard work from year one will start paying off in year two. The wheelchair project is well underway, and I’ve even tentatively found a good market for dried sweet potato chips for the farmer’s network. There’s an NGO making flour for AIDS orphans in Nakuru that claims to be willing to pay 60 shillings per kg of dried sweet potato chips. Of course, the guy that found us the market wants his cut, and I think I was able to talk him down to a 2% commission, which isn’t unreasonable. That leaves more than enough to take a small commission for network operations as well and put plenty of money into the farmer’s pockets. I should have a definite answer on where things stand this weekend but God willing we have finally found a crop that will bring the farmers out of poverty and sustain the network without outside assistance.

Last weekend I went to Eldoret and had a dinner party with some Peace Corps volunteers and medical students from Indiana University. IU has an extension campus in Eldoret, where IU med students work at a training hospital in collaboration with Moi University for two month stints. The IU house, where the students live, is a palace complete with a huge kitchen and an endless pantry of nearly every kind of food you can imagine. I heard a tear-filled story from one of the med students about how they ran out of fresh coffee, and they were forced to drink instant for one day and it just about broke my heart. We made chicken parmesan with steamed green beans and it was one of the best meals I’ve had in Kenya. The next day I cycled to the forest to visit a Peace Corps friend and catch up with some of the primate researchers working out there.

All in all things have been good lately, but on a sad note one of my dogs died yesterday night. Kuja, my favorite little puppy, hadn’t been eating lately. I scheduled a veterinarian visit for tomorrow but it was too late, and I found him dead on my front porch this morning. He was my buddy, but since it’s Kenya and medical attention for animals is hard to get (especially for dogs) I didn’t allow myself to get too attached. At least Wewe, the bad dog that eats mama Nora’s chickens, is still around.

Nairobi Marathon 2006

2006-10-31T04:19:00.000-08:00

In my last post I said I was quite possibly on my last ride in the colonial era train, since Kenya Railways is being purchased by South African Railways and the antique trains are being replaced. Yet, here it is one week later and I’m taking the same night train back to Kisumu again. I brought my laptop with me to work on my poultry project grant, so I’m using the ten minutes or so of battery life this thing has to type a bit and kill time on the trip.

I normally wouldn’t show off the laptop in the train, since it’s four people to a room and I want my computer with me when I wake up the next morning. However, this time around the room is empty except for me, so I’m living the high life. Since I was sitting in a large second class compartment by myself the conductor wanted to move me to a first class room, which is smaller and much nicer. I was enthusiastic about the idea since it’s always been a dream of mine to get a free upgrade, if not in a plane than at least on a train ride. However, when I went to the first class cabin they sent me to and opened the door a plume of cigarette smoke came pouring out, and a mercenary looking guy with beady little eyes and a Steven Segal style mullet emerged from the smoke. I decided that wasn’t my idea of first class, so second class it is with four beds to myself.

So I was back in Nairobi this weekend to run the half marathon. I’ve been training for awhile but I knew no amount of training would prepare me for a race against Kenyans. These guys are insane. Yet another record was broken as a forest guard named Kiprop, from the Kalenjin tribe just like every other non-Ethiopian world record setter, finished a full marathon….that’s over 26 miles….in two hours and ten minutes. No, I’m not making that up. It was the fastest time ever recorded for a marathon in Kenya, and I was able to watch him run by in a road-runner like blur and take first place. The top ten runners all finished the race in under 2:15, and it was amazing to see. After the race the top finishers were so exhausted they couldn’t even stand, and had to be carried by the medical staff to a place where they could pass out on the ground.

The most incredible part was that the guy in first place had never run a marathon before. He lives in Kapsabet, which is less than an hour ride from my site. About six months ago a friend lent him running shoes and he decided to enter a 10k race, where he placed 10th. Now, after only a half year’s worth of training, he won the Nairobi marathon in a record-breaking time against some of the fastest runners in the world. He has become an instant celebrity and I wish I had been there for the party waiting for him when he returned home.

As for my race, 597 people finished ahead of me, but I was in the top five wazungu and I beat the goal I had set for myself and trained for. I wanted to run a half marathon (that’s 13.1 miles) in under one and a half hours. That’s probably important if I’m ever going to break my long-term goal of a three-hour marathon. I wasn’t very optimistic about it since there were thousands of runners and I had to spend my first mile working around the slower ones that had wedged there way to the front of the starting line. Then, once I was passed them and worked up to my normal clip, I found it hard to breathe and was getting chest pains. Nairobi is around 6000 feet above sea level and more than 1000 feet higher than Kakamega, so the altitude was definitely a factor. I kept running and the chest pains faded a bit, so it just became a matter of tuning out the pain for as long as I could and trying to keep up my pace until the race was finished. The problem with that was that I had no idea how long I had run, and there were no mile markers on the track or people to tell me how much further to go. I was dying and it felt like the race would never end, when finally I made it to the finish line and cursed under my breath about how something could be so satisfying and yet so painful at the same time. Completely exhausted and barely able to walk, but at least better off than the half-dead top finishers (1:01:21 for the half!), I finished the run in 1 hour, 29 minutes, and 47 seconds. Next time it’s a full marathon and I hope to break three hours.

I was proud of myself. The only other Peace Corps volunteer to run finished the race in two hours and forty minutes. Of course, she had just been diagnosed with stomach worms just a few days before and had to stop along the way for a toilet break. All in all I think that she and her worms were the real champions of the day and I told her that. I also suggested that if she had really been serious about the run she should have just crapped her pants and kept on going, but given her condition she didn’t find that as funny as I did.

So not much else to say. Still waiting to find out if Peace Corps will fund my poultry project, still waiting for the last of my paperwork to get the wheelchair fundraiser started, and still hoping to find markets for my farmers network where they will not be taken advantage of by middlemen. Some progress is being made with that at least. I finally found a market for the dried sweet potato chips the farmers have been trying to sell, at 10 shilling a kilo. That is an eighth what they were expecting but at least they have a way to sell of what they have instead of letting them all go to waste. Next week should be busy trying to get my proposals submitted, and I’m looking forward to being done with the writing and the research and actually starting the projects themselves.

Foreign Service Life, Kitui Again and a Train Ride Home

2006-10-24T05:00:00.000-07:00

I just returned from training the new volunteers in Kitui followed by several meetings in Nairobi. I had a great time. It felt good to get away, gather my thoughts, and come up with a plan of action to work out some of the issues I’ve been having lately; now I’m in a much better mood. Today is a Muslim religious day and also a national holiday. It shows how much I know about it that I can’t even say which one it is. Regardless, I’m enjoying the time off by catching up on emails and updating this blog before I’m two weeks behind again.

So I forgot to mention in my last post that I stayed at the house of an American embassy employee named Craig. He is married to Zelda, the sister of one of the Peace Corps medical officers. I met Zelda in Mombasa (see photograph with seven-foot Sudanese refugee) and she wanted me to visit her place in Nairobi. Peace Corps volunteers often stay at embassy houses, but this was a first for me. Craig and Zelda live in a huge, beautiful Spanish-style home in an upscale, gated community. They also have a private guard for their home and a personal housekeeper. The contrast between Peace Corps and Foreign Service is remarkable. The children of Foreign Service families go to an elite private international school in Nairobi and are taught to be fearful of the non-wealthy parts of Kenya. For instance, an embassy family went to visit a volunteer friend of mine in a village with their fourteen-year-old son, and boy was absolutely terrified when he accompanied the Peace Corps volunteer to the market. He had been taught it is extremely dangerous in the rural areas, which I think is a real pity for his sake.

Many Peace Corps volunteers end up in the Foreign Service. Craig was in the Peace Corps in Oman in the 1970’s, and most of the other embassy employees I’ve met have had similar Peace Corps experiences. I’ve thought a lot about it, and for now it is not something I want to do. It seems to me that in third-world countries most Foreign Service workers are detached from the reality of life for the average citizen. I’ve spoken to many Foreign Service employees, and I’ve been told that they spend a lot of their time on the “cocktail circuit”, wining and dining with the upper-upper class and key policy makers. I can see the importance of working with the most influential people, but I would feel guilty driving in my shiny new Land Cruiser from a ritzy party to my mansion house in a place where the majority of people have so little. I’ll try not to get too much into politics, but I would also not like having to represent the interests of American foreign policy at this point in time. Maybe in a few years my opinion on this will change, but historically it seems that the U.S. acts in their own self-interests with little regard to the well-being of affected countries. Then again, if it wasn’t for my country I wouldn’t be in the Peace Corps, so I can’t complain too much. Regardless, I do think I prefer working at a grass roots level with the people who need it most.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time with Craig and Zelda. The food was great, and I even had real bacon for breakfast, the first pork product I’ve even eaten in Kenya. Craig is a Chess Wizard and he gave me some pointers while beating me twice without even using his queen, and there was plenty of beer and wine in the fridge, which in retrospect didn’t help my chess game. I’m welcome back anytime, and I really appreciated their hospitality. I look forward to seeing them again and staying at what is basically a five star resort home. Quite a change from Shimanyiro village!

So on to Kitui. Part of my change in mood is because Kitui was such a different experience for me than it was a year ago. I came into the country confused on what to expect, a little overwhelmed, and knowing nothing about Kenyan culture. Looking back I’m surprised by how much I have changed, and being where I was as a trainee really drove that point home. I loved having a chance to share my experiences with the new group, and I walked through some of the most rural areas in Kitui with little trouble communicating in Swahili. I spent Sunday night with my host family and had a lengthy conversation with my host mama that I was never able to do as a trainee. However, training itself hasn’t seemed to change. The trainees, as always, are ready to be done with it (I can relate. I thought my two and a half month stint in Kitui would never end!). The small business development volunteers don’t understand why they have to learn so much about agriculture, and I pointed out that in the rural areas, small businesses almost always involve some type of farming. They seemed disappointed by that, but I guess it wasn’t really what I was expecting as a SED trainee either. The trainees also feel that the technical training is about useless. I had felt the same way, but looking back there was a lot I learned about Kenya just by how inefficient the training was. Plus, the language and cultural training gained in Kitui were extremely valuable, so I suggested they do their best to tough it out for the remaining month, as from there on things should improve. I got to be friends with several volunteers and am looking forward to seeing where they end up.

While I was in Kitui the town was celebrating it’s 50th anniversary of the Catholic church. Many of the missionaries and priests who had been in Kitui during the past fifty years were there, and they ended up staying at the same place (the Kitui Pastoral Center) that Peace Corps placed me while I was talking with the new volunteers. I thought it was pretty funny, as the majority of those staying with me were Irish Catholic Priests. Half of them were named Patrick and they drank heavily. Some stereotypes definitely hold true.

I left early Monday morning from my host family’s house to Nairobi, and had several meetings there. I picked up my registration packet for my marathon next Sunday, learned about another cash crop, an oil-producing plant called jatropa, and met with APDK for a final time to gather the last of the paperwork needed for pricing. I only need a consent form from one more group and I will have everything needed to being the project. Meanwhile, I’m finalizing the proposal should have everything completed soon.

Last night I took the night train from Nairobi to Kisumu. Kenya Railways has recently been bought out by a company in South Africa, so this could be the last time I’m able to take the colonial-era train, as I hear it will be replaced soon. It feels like going back in time riding on it, and I’ll miss the experience. Of course, things are not like they used to be. At one time the train had electricity, what appears to be an intercom system or music, and even air-conditioning. However, blown out bulbs, the rusted fans, and the rotted speaker indicated that they have not been used for quite some time. As of now the only means of lighting is a flashlight given to each room and air conditioning consists of an open window. The meals are served on antique dishes with a worn Kenya Railways logo, the faded remains of colonial elegance. The train is a historical relic from another era and it’s a shame to see it go.

Now it’s time for lunch then I hope to write some emails. I’m looking forward to being back in the states in just two months time!

Long overdue

2006-10-18T22:47:00.000-07:00

I’m overdue for an update but it’s been crazy busy lately. Also, I’ve been a bit frustrated and discouraged, which has drained my motivation to write since I don’t want to sound overly cynical. I’ve lost a lot of idealism since I’ve arrived and my opinion of human nature is probably at an all time low right now, but I’m learning to roll with the punches and keep an optimistic attitude. I’m still confident that over time, in their own special Kenyan way, things will work out for the best, and despite everything I don’t regret for a minute my decision to be here. Anyway, I won’t dwell on frustrations right now. Development work is truly an up and down roller coaster ride, but on a positive note it’s rarely boring.

Instead of going through the last few weeks chronologically I’ll start by discussing where things stand on some of my projects. First, there’s the Wake Up Women’s group. I’ve written about them before but to summarize they are a group of 12 African Mamas, plus Habakkuk (who I like to tease by introducing as a Wake up Woman). The group sponsors 15 orphan children living with relatives, and they try to get what little money together they can by contributing their savings towards school fees, medicine, etc. They are currently unable to take care of these kids beyond occasionally providing a bag or dried maize or a bar of soap, and with the children growing to the age where pricey secondary school fees are required, they need income in a big way. The group has really wanted me to help them fund an orphanage, but the last thing I’m going to do is tie myself economically to a project in Kenya with no way out.

So with that in mind, we’ve had several meetings over the last month where I’ve encouraged the women to discuss various ways they can earn money to assist the orphans. I feel that if a project is in the hands of the women it at least has a chance of being able to continue after I’m gone. Over the last year I’ve determined this is really the only effective means of carrying out development work. To put it bluntly, I feel forty years of handouts has done little to help Kenya economically (except line the pockets of the corrupt and cripple work ethic), and people need to be able to help themselves. I emphasized this importance of a self-sustainable project to ensure long-term success, and after several weeks of discussion among the mamas they decided on a poultry project. I e-mailed this suggestion to the Peace Corps director in charge of handling grants and he felt this was a good idea. I then conducted a two day feasibility study detailing the potential profits that can be made, and determined that one chicken house with 100 chickens sold for meat and eggs can earn around $2,000 profit per year. Beyond the chickens the women are also growing chili peppers as a cash crop, and I am hopeful that between these two projects they will be able to earn enough money to both assist the orphans and improve the financial situation of their own families.

The feasibility study was conducted with assistance from Lori, a Crisis Corps volunteer living in the nearby town of Bungoma. Crisis Corps is a six-month program available to returned Peace Corps volunteers. Lori’s job is to provide training on income generation to communities seriously affected by HIV/AIDS (e.g. all of sub-Saharan Africa). Prior to coming to Kenya she was a volunteer in the Kalahari Desert of Namibia, and needless to say her experiences (no volunteer within a day’s travel, the only means of transport hitchhiking, cell phones and internet nonexistent) were completely different than mine. Her training was excellent and the women really enjoyed it. The way it was presented really allowed the women to take control of the project and come up with some good ideas.

After working with Lori, conducting a dozen meetings with Wake Up Women, and receiving collaboration and assistance from Ministry of Agriculture livestock extension officers, the women were very excited and the proposal was ready to be written. The total cost of the project is around $1600, with the women providing a 25% community contribution, leaving the amount of funding requested at $1200. With this information on hand, I went to the Peace Corps office in Nairobi to confirm everything.

Please keep in mind, as I continue this story, that Peace Corps admin has been kept in the loop every step of the way.

Anyway, I talk to my supervisor, and he informs me that he recently discovered that grants through the Peace Corps cannot involve poultry because of the threat of bird flu! Now, first off, there has never been a reported case of bird flu in Kenya. Secondly, poultry is a means of existence for the people living in Western Kenya. Also, the worry of bird flu actually coming to Kenya occurred during the last bird migration, but it has been six months since then and there has been no news that a threat is still imminent. The problem is that back during the bird flu scare there was a directive from Peace Corps headquarters stating that no poultry projects are to be funded, and it has yet to be lifted. Now I have to try to find funding through other means, because I’ve gone too far with these women not to assist, and if bird flu actually does become a serious threat Western Kenya there will be a lot more problems than the failure of this poultry project, trust me. As it is, nearly every Luyha (the tribe I live with) family has at least a few chickens on their land and more than likely walking around in their house as well.

Now onto the wheelchair project. As I wrote earlier, one of the groups was rescheduled because nobody was there when I brought APDK out for the last visit. The social development officer claimed that she was not aware that she was supposed to organize the group, even though I felt it had been made very clear to her through previous discussions. Luckily, I was able to convince the mobile clinic team from APDK to come out again, and the meeting was rescheduled for Oct. 11th. When the time came out a second time and went with me to the field, once again there was nobody there. Every other time APDK has gone out to a site in this area there has been around 70 people, so you may be wondering, as I was, why it is that when I am with them to truly provide assistance there is nobody.

As it turns out, (and this is just the theory from APDK, but certain people have confirmed it) the Social Development officer is upset because she isn't being involved in the exchange of funds, hence she is unable to get her cut of the money. It also seems that the last time we went into the field, she drove us into the bush where there was nobody and the entire group was waiting somewhere else. This time she simply didn't inform anyone to come, although she swears she did. I find it strange, because who wouldn’t attend a meeting for a chance of free mobility? I confronted her about this and of course she got very offended and defensive and denied everything. I get so tired of people here working against each other because of their own greed and self-interest.

The good news: I called the District Officer, who as far as I can tell actually is an honest person, and he was extremely upset. He made some phone calls and directed people to go through the villages and bring the disabled to the mobile clinic. After some time people came and around 25 were diagnosed, many of them children with correctable problems and people crawling in the dust in desperate need of mobility. As I said, things work out in their own special Kenyan way and the rest of this project will be done directly with the District Officer and without the Social Development women. Just imagine where things would be right now if I wasn’t on the ground and the money was thrown blindly into Kenya with the expectation it would be used as intended. It becomes very difficult to trust anybody, although thankfully for my sanity there are a few exceptions.

I’m in Central Province right now, and I visited the last disabled group yesterday. Jean, a Peace Corps volunteer in this area, is wanting to help in the fundraising effort with her friends from the states. She was in the U.S. on vacation at the one time APDK was available to visit her group so I volunteered to make an appearance. Jean’s group had been informed for a month about my visit, but when I came with the mobile clinic to her location, once again, out of 80-100 people needing assistance, only six were there. You are starting to see why I am frustrated? John, the network chairman, was apparently confused about the intentions of APDK and thought that the mobile clinic would drive to each and every individuals home, which not only would take a week but is also simply impossible. We did manage to evaluate the six people and I went with APDK to a nearby disabled group that was much better organized. This group has around 15 people on a waiting list for rehabilitative equipment, and with the consent of Jean we concluded that for now we would assist the six people that came for the fitment in her original group plus the 15 or so people waiting in the other group. Now it’s a matter of gathering the required paper work (official, itemized prices from APDK, signed letters of consent from the local government, copies of group registration certificates) and the fundraiser will finally be able to start. The good news about this effort is that 100% of the funding will be used as intended, which is rare here. Once these disabled have mobility we are going to move to phase two, where with assistance from APDK and Peace Corps volunteers they will receive training on a skill that can empower them economically.

Now onto the network. There is still no market for sweet potatoes even though they are being heavily promoted. A group in Bungoma recently received a grant from the Kenya Agriculture Research Institute to plant 50 acres of the crop, which will further saturate a market where brokers are currently buying the commodity for less than the cost it takes to grow it. At least it is useful as a food crop, but farmers really feel the sweet potato will pull them out of poverty. As such, I am still looking into other cash crops for farmers. Recently the Kenyan papers have been raving about an Aloe Vera processing plant in the remote area of Lake Begoria. The articles have been discussing how farmers are making so much money growing aloe and selling it to the factory, which was build with 13 million dollars assistance from the European Union. I discussed this with my friend Paul, a retired engineer working with the Pokot tribe in Northern Kenya, and he decided to drive out there with me and see if it could also assist the people he is working with.

The drive to lake Begoria was beautiful. We drove along the rim of the Rift Valley past Eton, where Paul Tergat, the fastest runner in the world is living. From the high vantage point was a spectacular panoramic view of the Rift Valley below. After driving into the valley and up and over the other side we arrived in the remote and sparsely populated area where the Aloe Vera plant was located. When we finally arrived at the plant we were surprised by how small is was. Also, there was nobody there. After walking to the building and looking through the windows, the factory was completely empty. What was going on? Where did the 13 million dollars go, and how were farmers making money selling aloe to an empty warehouse with no employees?

After some time of shaking our heads in amazement, a man came to the gate. He claimed to be the manager, and he said that while the plant was being built, the Kenyan Wildlife Service declared Aloe Vera, a plant that can be easily produced commercially and was seen everywhere on our drive through the semi-arid region, as an endangered species. As for the farmers making so much money with the crop and the article in the paper, I assume that the journalists never actually visited the plant and simply relied on somebody’s inaccurate story of where things stand. The manager seemed confident that over time things would work out for the best. Anyway, there was nothing there that would be beneficial to my farmers now.

I went with Paul to Lake Begoria and the trip was great regardless. While there Paul offered me an invitation for four days to Lake Turkana with his son, who is coming to visit at the end of October. Lake Turkana is something I've wanted to do since I came to Kenya, and here, falling into my lap, was an all-expenses paid trip with a great guy over a short enough amount of time that I know I would get away with it....unless something happened to us. However, if I got caught up there I'm out of the Peace Corps, no doubt. I had mentioned perhaps making a trip up there someday to my Peace Corps supervisor and he told me anywhere north of Kitale is off limits due to security issues, as stated in directives from the US Embassy. Paul has worked there for years and has never had a problem, and I know it would be a fantastic experience, but with as much as I have at risk on the off chance something happens I had to decline. I guess it will have to wait until my service is over.

To make up for it I’ll be running the half marathon in Nairobi on October 29th. I've been training quite a bit and setting my goals high. I want to complete the run (13.1 miles) in
under an hour and a half. It's hopelessly ambitious but we’ll see what happens. I worry the altitude of Nairobi (5700 feet) will kill my chances.

So just a few more things to catch up on and then I’m done. Last week I was running past a school yard and as usual kids shouted "mzungu!". One of them in particular said it in a way that really annoyed me. You know, not friendly or cute but rude, mean, and insulting. I've really been trying to watch myself but notice that about once every two weeks I react in a way I shouldn't, as if it builds up and then I need to let it all out. I chased the kid and he fell over trying to run from me and finally jumped through some bushes, and I thought it was pretty funny. I yelled at the kid "sema mzungu tena!' (say mzungu again!) which he didn't, but about a thousand of his friends were nearby and they all thought it was hilarious to get such a reaction and I swear about a hundred people started yelling "mzungu" at me. I hate this place sometimes, but I guess I got what I deserved. Now I can't run by the school without being harassed even more. Part of me wants to make a career out of this and the other part is sick of being treated like an outsider because of the pigment of my skin.

Last weekend I had some monkey watchers from the forest over for dinner. They sit in the woods all day log with binoculars and a log book recording monkey behavior, and they will continue doing this for a year. They were very appreciative to have a chance to escape from the forest for awhile and we had a lot of fun. The weekend before I was in the rainforest with several friends, including my Dutch friends Gergo and Mirjam, Paul, Cheri (my Artemisia contact from Kitale), and various other people they know and work with. We had a great time and once again I saw a spectacular sunrise view and watched people get completed freaked out by the bat cave.

That’s all for now, I need to try to write more often! I’m in the Eastern town of Thika now and waiting to be picked up by Peace Corps. They are driving me to Kitui to meet the new volunteers and I get to talk to them about my experiences. I’m excited and will do my best to remain optimistic yet realistic about what to expect here.

Latest Pics

2006-10-08T04:51:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I posted an update, but as I was getting started I saw a few raindrops. That inevitably means the power will go soon so I'll start with some pics from the last few weeks. Maybe I'll luck out and post an update after this:

This is a giant termite mound in front of Lake Baringo, a beautiful lake in the desert that I stopped to visit on my way to an aloe vera processing plant.

This was taken in Migori during the assessment of a disabled group.

A school yard outside Kisumu. I passed this on the way to the medicinal garden with the Kakamega FFS Network officials.

A view out my back door after the rains

My dutch friends Mirjam and Gerco enjoying breakfast with the puppies.

Yet another group picture from the forest. My dutch friends and a group from Kitale

A great blue toracco lands on a tree branch in the rainforest.

Fundraising – Step One

2006-09-29T00:59:00.000-07:00

It’s around 8 at night, and I’m sitting on my couch thinking about this junky old laptop I pieced together from scrap computers and how useful it’s been. It’s funny that my Y2K compliant computer would probably be in a dumpster right now, but instead it’s become cutting edge technology in Shimanyiro Village. Writing is therapeutic for me, but I couldn’t imagine being stuck with pen and paper. I’ve all but forgotten how to write by hand and my handwriting is terrible. So anyway, here’s the latest:

I had my first two meetings scheduled with disabled groups this week, and it was typical hit-and-miss in terms of actually getting things accomplished. The first one was on Monday in Migori, and all it all it went really well. The second meeting was scheduled for Wednesday in Kakamega, but despite all the preparation and planning it didn’t actually happen. I think everything will work out in the end but Kenya can drive you crazy if you let it.

I’ve been working this week with APDK (The Association for Physically Disabled in Kenya), an excellent organization that I plan to collaborate with for a fundraiser. If only I had gone to them first instead of wasting my time with the corruption and nonsense of Benson and KPDK. I learned a lot about accountability and trust in this country through that experience and don't want to give up on helping the disabled. Thousands of disabled people in Kenya crawl on the ground or make due with improvised walking sticks and crutches as best they can, and I want to do something to help. I’m very close to having a proposal drafted and I’ll be sending out all the details in the next few weeks. The intention of the fundraiser will be to raise money towards assisting five disabled groups with rehabilitation equipment and income generation.

The first step is already underway. APDK conducts mobile out-reach clinics where the assessments of persons with disabilities are provided, measurements are taken, and the proper supportive appliances are recommended. They are a non-profit organization, and after explaining that fundraising through Peace Corps requires a 25% community contribution, they agreed to conduct these clinics free of charge. The first mobile clinic was scheduled on Monday in Migori, and as I said it went pretty well.

Nothing here seems to go exactly as planned here, and I went into this project expecting stumbling blocks along the way. I wasn’t disappointed. With assistance from the BJCF orphan’s home, probably the most efficiently run place in this whole country, the disabled group was organized and ready by 10:00, the time APDK committed to arrive. At 11:00 APDK had still not shown up. I was a mildly irritated but not concerned. It is typical for things to start “African time”, which is generally an hour or so later than scheduled. However, by 12:00 I was getting angry. Why hadn’t they arrived? I had already committed wheelchairs to this group in the past and the project fell through, and I couldn’t stand to see it happen again. The problem with aid work in Kenya, I reasoned, is that you have to depend on Kenyans to get anything accomplished (terrible, I know, but like I said I was angry at the time). By 1:00 the anger was gone, and I was just plain depressed about everything I was trying to do. Around 1:30, as if sensing that I had finally lost all hope, the APDK truck arrived. Nobody else seemed too concerned that they were more than three hours late, and once again I had to ask why I allow myself to get stressed out when nobody else in this county gets worked up over something as petty as time.

It turned out APDK at least attempted to make it by 10. The problem was they brought a team of six in a pickup with seating for five, and there were not enough seatbelts for all 4 people in the back row. At one of the thousands of roadblocks the police lay out on any given day, this was noted by a police officer who decided to arrest the entire car. Surprisingly, he did not ask them for a bribe or write them a ticket. He simply wanted to waste their time for three hours by detaining them and harassing them a bit before letting them continue on their way.

So once they arrived things went great. The team that came to access the disabled group was top-notch, and included physical therapists, an orthopedic surgeon, and several others trained in accessing the needs of disabled people and fitting them for proper equipment. They stressed that providing the physical equipment is merely the first step, and training for economic activities such as microfinance and small business is also important. Once the disabled have mobility, APDK feels that an essential part of rehabilitation is to integrate them into the community through providing them with a means of employment and a sense of purpose. I very much like this long-term, sustainable solution. Pastor Fred, Steve James’ Kenyan counterpart in charge of operations at BJCF, was also impressed. He informed APDK that he will be happy to continue working with them and the disabled group, meaning that long after the initial funding for the equipment these people will continue receiving service and support.

The majority of people in the Migori disabled self-help group are adults, and APDK also noted how important it is to address the needs of disabled children. Oftentimes children with disabilities can wear low cost corrective shoes or undergo minor surgeries that can provide them with a lifetime of mobility without the use physical equipment. The collaboration that was made between APDK and BJCF has the potential to have a huge impact on the local community. BJCF is in the process of building a community clinic that will provide free medical care to orphans and the very poor in the area. It is due to be completed in November. At the same time, APDK is not currently working in Migori, but plans are underway to expand into the area. APDK was very impressed with the clinic and it appears as though APDK and BJCF may start working together in finding disabled children in the area and correcting their disabilities before they become lifelong problems. How great is that?

Eleven people were assessed on Monday. Several of them are requesting "business tricycles" which are equipped with a carrier, lockable box, and umbrella which allow the user to operate a small business. One man is a cobbler and another works at tailoring, so giving them the mobility to get into town where business is best, as well as a workspace for their trade, is a very good thing. One child, named Job, has Cerebral Palsy and was brought from a nearby Peace Corps Volunteer’s compound to the event. He is now connected with APDK and will receive physical therapy and medication through this organization, while with the fundraising money he can receive a wheelchair. Perhaps the most amazing story is of a woman that has been crawling on the ground for more than a decade. To my surprise she didn’t need a wheelchair at all. She has an issue with her hamstrings that can be corrected with minor surgery. Even more incredible, there is a clinic in a nearby town that provides this surgery free of charge. All that is required in terms of funding for her to regain mobility is the transport to the clinic and a brace that she needs to wear while she recovers from the operation. The total cost of providing this woman with the ability to walk after spending her entire adult life crawling in the dirt? About $15.00. Apparently this is all too common. Many children can be kept from a lifetime of disability for less than the cost of a tank of gas.

So my next meeting was scheduled for Wednesday. This disabled group was the first one I had spoken with, and I was eager to get them fitted and move along with the fundraising. I have been working with the District Officer on this project and he was excited to hear that a team from APDK was finally coming to visit this group. Earlier this month I had made a trip to Busia, about two hours away, to visit with the regional APDK office and confirm everything. I also spoke with the local social development officer to ensure everything would be in place for the event. When Wednesday came things started well. The APDK crew was supposed to arrive at 10, and unbelievable they arrived at my office at 10:00 sharp.

Then things got confusing. Apparently the District Officer had told another disabled group that an APDK crew was coming to fit people for wheelchairs. This group was waiting on benches outside, and now I found myself in a situation where an entirely unexpected group of people wanted service and were expecting me to sponsor them for equipment. I explained the situation to APDK and they agreed to evaluate the group but make no commitment to providing them with equipment. As I watched them do this I realized just how much of a demand is in this country for assistance to the disabled. After giving it some thought I decided that depending on the total amount of funding required for first four groups, perhaps I can add this one as well. I will want to make sure the source is anonymous though, because the last thing I need is people in my village realizing that I am a source of funding.

So after accessing this group we were finally able to leave for the interior village where the disabled group I intended to assist was waiting. I piled into the car with a team of five doctors and the social development officer and we were on our way. After driving for about half an hour down a bumpy dirt road we arrived at the location where the group was supposed to be waiting. When we saw that nobody was there it suddenly dawned on the social development officer that she forgot to inform the group that they were to meet today. The group consists of about 20 people living all over the place and it would have been impossible to gather them together at the last minute. Thus, the entire day was wasted and we had to reschedule. I made a comment about how difficult it is to get anything done in this country, which I felt bad about later (but not really because it’s true), but at least there is a plan B. The meeting with this group has been rescheduled for October 11^th. God willing things will work this time.

So that is my week in terms of the wheelchair project. Beyond that I met with the Kakamega Network officials in Kisumu on Tuesday to visit a medicinal garden, and I feel they were given a lot of good ideas to work with in terms of crops to promote to network farmers. Yesterday we had our monthly executive meeting, where I think it finally dawned on the officials that they have to watch their spending and start making money if the group is going to survive. I also had a chance to catch up with several volunteer friends during my travels, including some of the new volunteers working in Migori. One of them actually has a background is physical therapy and is excited about working with APDK in the future. I’m also training for a half-marathon at the end of October and I’ve been running a lot. I’m up to about 8 miles now so I still have a ways to go in a month’s time but we’ll see what happens. As for now I think I’ve written enough but I’ll post an update again soon.

One Year , Kenya Believe It?

2006-09-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

Well it’s been several weeks since I’ve written, the reason being I’m swamped with projects and Peace Corps stuff. It’s unfortunate that when I have the most going on I also have the least time to write. Right now I’m sitting in the network office studying cash crops and need to take a breather, so I’ll try to as best I can to bring things up to date so I won’t have so much to remember the next time around.

Last week I enjoyed three days in Kisumu for mid-service medical, and I can officially say I’m both amoeba and worm free. Many of my friends didn’t fare as well, but parasites do make a good story, so I was a little disappointed to miss out on all the fun. I put off the tri-annual report required by Peace Corps until the last minute, so I had to sit in the office and type it while everyone else went out to lay by the pool. It killed me.

I made it to Kisumu just in time. I arrived in the morning and by the middle of the day all matatus in town were on strike. The same kind of shake down day I wrote about was happening again in Kisumu, and the drivers and touts decided to go on strike. Apparently the police finally came to a shocking realization that nearly all public transport in Kenya is unroadworthy. The matatu drivers, however, do not feel that they should be fined (or pay a bribe) just because their windshields are cracked, the doors fall off when opened, their mufflers are missing, the seat belts don’t work, the speed governor is mysteriously broken, the registration is outdated, the tires are bald, etc. etc. etc. Basically everyone who needed to use a matatu (I’d say that’s a good 90% of Kisumu) was out of luck, and taxis and tuk-tuks decided to triple their fares. There were a few shining examples of matatus that had either paid a hefty bribe or really and truly had nothing wrong with them, but when they attempted to drive down the road the touts and drivers of the problem vehicles threw rocks and broke windows until the roadworthy vehicles either became unroadworthy or came to the realization that a strike might not be such a bad idea. This continued for days, and we were stuck in Kisumu with no way home until Peace Corps admin finally got tired of paying for hotel rooms and gave us a ride. The good news is that we had extra time for a “one year in Kenya” celebration. Kisumu has some really great places to eat (for Kenya) and we went out for dinner and drinks and had a great time.

So allow me backtrack a bit and talk about what else has been going on. A new public health volunteer has moved close to Kakamega. Her name is Jessica and I spent the weekend before last showing her around and introducing her to other volunteers in the area. Her village wants income generating activities and I think that some of the cash crops I’ve learned about will be very useful to her project. I’m glad she’s here because so many people living near me are leaving. Adrienne, probably my best friend here, is getting a site change because of problems with her living situation and her supervisor. It looks like she’ll end up moving to the coast, which is great but means I’ll rarely see her. Another volunteer living nearby just got a site change too, and still another is in the process of trying to move. Also, the volunteer living the closest to me recently decided to go home and be with her boyfriend, so she’s gone as well, and yet another went home and was supposed to be back two weeks ago, but has yet to return. My guess is he’s not coming back.

I’m having my fair share of problems with my projects, mostly due to lack of motivation from the network or corruption. However, I think I have the best site in Peace Corps. About a third of volunteers go home early (although in my group it’s looking like half), and about another third have to get site changes, usually because of security or disagreements with their supervisor. These are things the Peace Corps recruiters fail to mention, and I’m glad to be where I am. I feel blessed that, despite the frustrations, my project is promising and nothing is so bad that I can’t tough it out. I just hope I can stay in that lucky minority of volunteers for the second half of my service.

So there’s plenty of progress being made with cash crops too. One of them, artemisia, has more potential than anything else I’ve worked with. Artemisia has very effective anti-malarial properties, and I found an organisation that is buying it from farmers for pharmaceutical use. Representatives from this company came to our network office and discussed its cultivation. They informed us that Artemisia has very good earnings potential (I calculate it to be about $400 per acre in five months time) and they are willing to sell our farmers artimesia seedlings so that we can begin growing the crop.

The reason I am interested in this crop, beyond earnings potential, is that I have been told that farmers and the local community can use the leaves as an herbal remedy for malaria. When I mentioned this to the representatives from East African Botanicals, they informed me that this is incorrect. They claim that artimesia, in unprocessed form, is dangerous for human consumption and the leaves must first be exported to Switzerland, where they are made into a medication that is then imported back to Kenya and sold at 500 shillings (around $7) per pill. This is pretty typical of the way things work here, since it makes the product (called Coartem) inaccessible to most people, where well over half are living at less that 100 shillings per day.

When I visited an organisation called World Vision/Challenge Farms in Kitale, I met a woman named Cheri who has received artimesia seedlings from an organisation called Action for Natural Medicines (www.anamed.net). She gave me volumes of information from the organisation concerning the medicinal properties of raw artimesia leaves as a low-cost and effective treatment for malaria, and she is even using the leaves in tea form to treat the children at her orphanage.

I started wondering if the reason East Africa Botanicals is discouraging unprocessed artemisia is simply to keep market demand high for their high-priced anti-malarial drugs, which is just plain evil. Then again I can’t say that my experiences in Peace Corps have done much for my opinion of human nature. I can see first hand how little is really being done to treat diseases that are endemic to areas where people don’t have a lot of money (On a related note, Constant Gardener is a great book)

I wrote the founder of Anamed, a doctor living in Germany, and he directed me to his American counterpart who gave me contact info for several people in Kenya already using unprocessed artemisia to treat malaria. I visited one of them in Kisumu, and she claims a nearly 100% success rate. I have another meeting with a doctor who has been promoting the drug next week. Also, thanks to Anamed, I have read dozens of scientific studies and press releases about the medicinal properties of the plant, as well as its apparent lack of side affects. I have concluded that everything East Africa Botanicals had to say concerning the danger of the plant was a lie. If unprocessed artemisia can act as a safe and effective anti-malarial treatment, then there is no reason it should not be encouraged throughout Africa, where malaria claims the lives of millions who cannot afford imported medicine. I have purchased seeds and have detailed instructions on cultivation, as well as proper preparation and doses for malaria treatment. Habakkuk has started a nursery for the crop and I hope to educate additional farmers soon.

I’m also making progress with the Wake Up Women’s orphans group. I have met with them several times over the past few weeks and gave them chili pepper seeds to grow as a cash crop. They also want to start a poultry project for income generation and to get eggs and protein for the kids. I have another meeting scheduled with them next week to go through all the details, including what anticipated expenses and income will be as well as how the money will be accounted for, and a Crisis Corps (basically a six month extension of Peace Corps) volunteer is living nearby and has offered to assist me. I hope to be able to get enough information to apply for grant money to assist with this project soon.

Also, I was severely disappointed in my work with Benson and the Kenya Programme for Disabled People, but I have made alternative plans and am in the process of helping several disabled groups with wheelchairs. Fundraising effort and all details coming soon! I have two meetings next week with the disabled groups and professionals who will fit them for equipment and provide me with itemized costs to finish the project. I’ll keep everyone up to date.

So enough about work. The last weekend was a lot of fun. I went on a 70 mile bike ride around the outside of the rainforest, then through the middle of the woods back into Kakamega and to my house. On the way I stopped to visit several volunteer friends and even carried a mattress on the back of my bike to drop off with my friend Seth. The ride was beautiful. It is so amazingly scenic, and there is so much that I miss driving by in a matatu. The only problem with going on bike is the “how are you?” and “give me money!” and “mzungu!” I hear constantly. At least the back way through the rainforest was peaceful, as the only people I came across were the occasional mamas carrying branches on their head. The forest was thick with clouds of butterflies and chattering monkeys filled the trees. I’m going to spend a weekend there with my tent and a good book in the near future.

So that’s the latest, now it’s time to get back to researching artemisia, coordinating the fundraiser, and drafting the grant for Wake up Women. It’s going to be a busy week, but a fulfilling one too.

Shake Down Day

2006-09-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I traveled to the nearby town of Bungoma to visit a lawyer who is working to register the Kakamega Network as a company. To reach Bungoma I take a matatu to Mumias, alight (This is a British word. It means “get out of the vehicle”), then take another matatu to Bungoma. On a good day the trip takes about an hour. It might take an hour and a half if matatus are a problem or many people alight along the way.

However, last Thursday was an exceptionally bad day for matatus. The Police decided the time had come to crack down on public transportation. This apparently consists of soliciting plenty of bribes, commonly referred to as “kitu kidogo”, or “a little something”. As my overpacked matatu neared Mumias, touts in passing vehicles began making frantic hand gestures at our driver. The message was clear: it was shake-down day. Basically every public transport vehicle on the road has some kind of violation, but I was assured that even if they are squeaky clean and brand new the police will get their kitu kidogo regardless. Our matatu driver, realizing the impending danger, immediately turned off the road and dumped the passengers.

Thus we had to walk into town, only to discover that every matatu in the area had mysteriously vanished. Shake down day for matatus means big business for boda-bodas. The only remaining option for those without a private vehicle was a bicycle taxi. We had no choice but to take a boda-boda to the next village, where we hoped matatus would be waiting. As we rode through the outskirts of town the missing matatus started to emerge. Hundreds of them were hidden behind buildings, and many more were in parking lots, raised up on jackstands, as if to imply they were out of service and not actually used on a daily basis. As we continued on our bike trek we passed the police headquarters, which was full of impounded matatus and tuk-tuks (three-wheeled taxis) that had been caught off guard.

Finally a matatu drove by, saw us on our bikes, and opened the door to hurry us into the vehicle. We piled in and thought we could continue to Bungoma with no further problems, but we were sadly mistaken. We drove just a few miles when the hand signals from passing Matatus returned. The police, realizing that matatus were no longer coming into Mumias, had set up check points on the road to Bungoma as well. However, our driver was determined. He veered off the tarmac onto a dirt road, and we went rumbling into the interior villages on a very long and elaborate route to bypass the road blocks. After traveling an additional hour out of the way we finally made it back to the tarmac road leading to Bungoma. The driver had a smile on his face, proud of himself for outsmarting the police. Then, as we waited for two matatus to pass so we could merge back onto the tarmac, we realized something was horribly wrong. Both of the passing matatus were empty except the driver, the tout, and a police officer escorting them to the station. Thus we were caught red handed by the police, who glared at us as we were emerging from our scenic route in an obvious attempt to bypass the roadblocks. The driver immediately turned in the opposite direction of the passing matatus, gunned the engine, and ducked behind a building to hide.

After some time it became clear that the police already had their hands full and did not bother to pursue us. We snuck back onto the tarmac and the driver, now fed up and complaining loudly, continued down the road. Finally, we crested a hill with Bungoma in sight. Home free? Not quite. We were taken by surprise by yet another check point waiting for passing vehicles. The driver slammed on the brakes, but with the police just ahead of him and nowhere to turn he realized he’d been caught.

At this critical moment the driver decided to take a chance. He knew that if he stopped the vehicle, all the passengers would be taken out and he would be sent to the station for considerable harassment and a substantial bribe. Instead, he had the tout stuff an envelope with money, which he threw out the window as he ignored the policemen’s demand to stop and blew past the road block.

The ploy worked. The police were too preoccupied with the bribe to bother following us, and finally, more than three hours after we started our trip, we made it to Bungoma. Unfortunately even more police were waiting at the stage, so our driver ducked behind a building yet again to empty the passengers and lay low until tomorrow.

On my return trip from Bungoma the police were no longer around. However, most of the matatus had given up for the day or were at the station. Thus, I had to ride 26 deep in a 14 seat vehicle. Thank you, Mr. Policeman, for making the roads safer. It was raining outside and the matatu was leaky and wet and smelled horrible. How they had managed to stay on the road throughout such a day was beyond me. Regardless, I made it back in one piece with a story to share. On the next shake down day I’ll be taking a cab.

BJCF, Kitale, and Back to Site (Finally)

2006-08-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

It was unfortunate to leave the coast but there was still plenty to do before settling back into the routine of work in Kakamega. A group of visitors from the states had arrived yet again to work with the Brittany James Children’s Fund Orphanage in Migori, and I went there to visit for a few days. I did this for several reasons: First, I wanted to follow up on the sweet potatoes Habakkuk taught the farmers to grow many months back. Although I recently learned they are not yet hugely marketable, at least they are nutritious and inexpensive to grow. I was happy to hear that the farmers are having huge successes with them and even a nearby under-funded orphanage is now using them as a staple food for their children. Second, my guitar from the states arrived in one of the BJCF containers and I was eager to pick it up. I’ve tried to learn to play the thing on at least three separate occasions and every time I end up distracted and set it aside. The way I see it it’s now or never, since my evenings are pretty much free for the next year and a half. I can proudly say I’ve been practicing every day this week. The other reason I went to visit the orphanage is to assist Whitney, a social worker from the states who is looking into working in Kitale with an organization called World Vision. More on that in a minute.

Steve James’ orphanage continues to grow. They now have over one hundred children and BJCF is in the process of building a clinic across the street. The clinic will staff teams of doctors from the states working in shifts year round and provide free health care for the community. Steve’s project is coming along well. One only needs to look at the dismal conditions of the district hospital or the homeless street kids in town to see the impact he is having for those he can help. My only concern is self-sustainability, which I realize more everyday is critical for the long-term success of a project. Steve is working to address this with farming, poultry, and livestock projects, but it will only go so far. The orphanage and clinic, as things stand right now, will be dependent on outside funding for the entirety of their existence. Thankfully there are an ample number of sponsors and funding does not appear to be an issue any time soon, but I’m skeptical that the Kenyan government will ever step in where people like Steve have left off.. The enormous amount of foreign aid coming into the country no doubt helps discourage any initiative from the government, and therein lies the grey area that I wrestle with often. It’s inhumane to watch people suffer and do nothing to help, but I feel projects with the eventual goal of running without outside assistance should be a focal point of aid work in Kenya. Surely Kenya needs to be able to stand on its own some day. So anyway, that said I really feel God is at work at BJCF and his projects are leaps and bounds beyond most of the projects dependent on foreign aid I’ve come across.

After spending a few days at the orphanage and toughing out yet another unfortunate stomach bug I left to escort Whitney to Kitale. Kitale is about two and a half hours north of Kakamega, and since I love it there I was happy to help her out with the hassles of public transportation and travel to Kitale. Kitale is a long way from Migori and on the way we stopped in Kakamega. While there we met with the Wake up Women’s group so I could get some ideas from Whitney about what to do with them. I am determined to help these orphan kids but I don’t want to throw money at their organisation ‘till kingdom come, and even though they want me to build them an orphanage I'm not going to tie myself into a project like that. After speaking with Whitney I am going to try to use what I am learning through farming as a business to develop a self-sustaining way to assist the children. I have a meeting with Wake up Women next week to develop a needs assessment, and then I want to apply for a grant to purchase some land to grow cash crops in order to generate revenue to help the kids. I’m also thinking about a poultry project and will have more to say on the subject once I’ve pieced everything together. I trust Habakkuk more than enough to know that he will keep the money going towards the children even after I leave Kenya, and that’s saying a lot.

After our stopover in Kakamega we went to Kitale the next day and met with the World Vision group. They are supporting street kids and have a great orphanage program that is more like a halfway house in that the kids can come and go as they please. Nearly all of them get off the streets eventually and stay there, and young girls that were forced in prostitution, or young boys that were huffing glue and begging for handouts, seemed genuinely happy. The staff was great and the woman that is raising the funds has been living in and out of Kenya for years. We ended up spending the entire day with her and her adopted son, a refuge from Namibia who has become completely Americanized. I am going to work with her on growing medicinal plants and sweet potatoes with the help of the Farmers Network to further assist the children, and I may have even found a market for some of the dried chips we have been unable to sell.

While in Kitale I made some great connections, including meeting a man working with the Pokot tribe in the Northwest wilderness. I may schedule a weekend sometime soon to travel with him and visit his projects. He also gave me the contact info for an organisation looking for farmers to grow a crop called artimesia that is used as an anti-malarial medication. I contacted the organisation and have a meeting scheduled next week.

We stayed the night in Kitale and went to nearby Saiwa Swamp national park the next day. Whitney gave up a trip to Masai Mara to visit the orphanage and I wanted to take her somewhere fun, plus I’ve wanted to go there anyway. The park is very small and was set aside as a reserve for the last remaining few of an endangered species of antelope. African swamps are apparently full of bugs and biting ants. At one point we stopped to admire millions of ants crawling across the path in what seemed like a river, only to find them crawling all over us as well. I fared better than Whitney and was only bitten three or four times, but these were no ordinary ants and had giant pinchers. They bite so hard that their torso rips off their head when you try to pull them off. Also, although the park had planks across the swampy parts, in many places the planks were broken or missing, and try as we might we’d find our feet soaked with Kenyan swamp water filled with God knows what. I’m just glad I’ve got my midservice medical exam coming up soon.

Regardless, the swamp was a lot of fun. I saw monkeys, including what I think was a species I had not seen before. He had just jumped across the fence with a maize cob he had grabbed from a nearby farm, and he stopped to observe us watching him, while standing upright and eating his meal. There were also platforms throughout the park with excellent views of the swampland, and as we were about to leave we saw one of the endangered antelope running for cover in some nearby trees.

The next day I dropped Whitney off at the Kisumu airport and I’ve been busy with my projects ever since. Lots going on including progress with the wheelchairs, a farmer field day, and meetings and training days coming up soon. Tomorrow I’m off to Bungoma to visit the lawyer and it’s nice to be back in the swing of things once again.

Pics - Mombasa, Coast and Saiwa Swamp

2006-08-30T00:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a few more pics from my August travels:

Here's a view of the Indian Ocean from Mombasa. I passed through here on my way to Kilifi and loved the culture and landscape.

Here I am at Heller Park with the sister of the Peace Corps Medical officer, her daughter, and seven foot tall sudanese refugee they are sponsoring.

My view (when I wasn't under the water) for three days at Diani Beach

One of those giant leafy plants that looks like it could eat you at Saiwa Swamp national park in Kitale. Whitney, an expert awesome photographer, took this picture.

Pics - Maralal Camel Derby

2006-08-30T00:09:00.000-07:00

Well the Maralal Camel Derby was great fun, and although I lost my Ipod (a.k.a. my link to sanity) during my whirlwind tour of Kenya at least my camera made it back. Here's a few pics from the trip:

Elephants in the wilderness of Nothern Kenya. So you don't have to go to a game park after all!

Samburu children on the roadside as we wait our turn to ford the flooded road

Samburu road block, waiting for the cattle to cross

Here's my champion camel, isn't he just precious?

I'm hoping I don't get bit or spat on in this photo

The start of the camel race

Trotting to the finish line at the end of the camel-athlon

Two of the FSD girls, Kim and Noel, who joined me for the trip. They thought it would be funny to run the race in school girl uniforms and got quite a reaction from the crowd.

The winners...me, my camel, and my Samburu camel handler. Third place ametuer camel, first place ametuer camel-athlon.

PADI Open Water Dive Certification at Diani Beach

2006-08-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

I’m back in Nairobi from the coast and I miss it already, it's such a fantastic place to be. After my work with Soren in Kilifi I made my way South (involving four Matatus and a ferry ride) to Diani Beach. Several Peace Corps volunteers from my group were meeting there and the timing worked out perfectly so I could attend the four-day dive certification class and make my way back to Nairobi in time for my meetings there. A dive certification has been on my things-to-do-before-I-die list for some time and with the resident discount I am officially certified for several hundred dollars less than if I’d done it in the states.

Kilifi and Malindi, to the north of Mombasa, are full of Italian tourists. In fact, instead of the “how are you?” that I get all the time in Kakamega the kids shouted “Ciao!” at me, no doubt because of my Italian roots and complexion. At Diani beach the majority of tourists were German, and many of the signs were written in both German and English. Diani has the best beaches I’ve ever seen: clear blue water and perfect, white sand. It was also insanely expensive. The cheapest hotels were over a hundred bucks a night (with a resident rate) and it was almost impossible to find a meal for under ten bucks. Luckily I’m a Peace Corps volunteer. There was a campsite across the road from the beach for about six bucks a night and an easy walk away from a beach resort where we could spend the day pretending we were staying at the resort hotel and relaxing in their cushioned lawn chairs. Concerning the food, all the Kenyan staff had to eat somewhere, I reasoned, and I found a shack on the beach where a decent meal was less that fifty cents.

Speaking of Kenyan staff, one thing I found unfortunate is that every tourist staying at the luxury hotels was white, while the only Kenyans were the underpaid staff and people trying to hawk souvenirs on the beach. It was great using Swahili with them, as it was completely unexpected. A Tusker on the beach is 200 shillings, which means about a 150 shilling profit. I wonder how much of these enormous profit margins make it back to the staff (who I would guess are earning around 100 shillings a day) and how much of the money is simply going into the pockets of the wealthy, Indian hotel owners. I’d hope that at least the tips help.

Concerning diving, it was a lot to learn in a very short amount of time. A dive certification can take an entire semester and count as class credit, and we had just four days to learn everything. I spent most of my time in a pool and later in the ocean, or reading the book and studying buoyancy control, dive tables, and safe diving practices. My first dive in the ocean was amazing. We stayed on the inside of the reef, and even there I was surrounded by brightly colored coral, tropical fish, and an assortment of sea life. The conditions were not good on the outside of the reef due to choppy water but I plan to come back in January for another dive further out, where it is easy to spot larger fish, sea turtles, and even dolphins and whale sharks. The visibility was great as the water is warm, blue, and crystal clear. The world is two-thirds water, and now I feel I have that much more to explore. I just worry I’ve sucked myself into a money pit but now that I’m certified the dives are not terribly expensive and I plan to rent the equipment.

So now I’m in Nairobi. I ran into the FSD group on their way to various beach locations and safaris, and had a chance to see them off. Kakamega won’t be the same without them but there’s definitely less distractions from my job now. I also had four meetings today. I’m working on setting up my fundraiser through Peace Corps for disabled persons, I had a meeting at the FAO headquarters, and I managed (hopefully) to square away a market for fresh sweet potatoes. Tonight I’m off to Migori to spend a few days with the visitors from the states working at the BJCF orphanage, and then finally it’s back to my site. This has been a much needed break and I feel completely refreshed and am looking forward to getting back to my project.

Unfortunate Market Info, Mombasa, and Coast Life

2006-08-14T07:28:00.000-07:00

I have given up on the hopelessly corrupt Kenya Program for Disable People and after several meetings in Nairobi I finally came across a legitimate organization for the disabled (detailed email and fundraising effort coming soon!). Also, after speaking to three different Nairobi-based marketing organizations, I have concluded that the market for sweet potato chips has dried up. This is particularly troubling. The entire network has been thoroughly trained in growing and processing sweet potato chips with the expectation that there is a very good market for the value-added cash crop. In fact, due to the previous volunteer preaching the word of Sweet Potato and plenty of encouragement from the FAO, sweet potatoes are the only focus crop the network currently has. I’ve been working at diversification since I came on board and finally some success is being made, but it is surprising to me that the network made it as far as it has with this all eggs in one basket mentality.

Here’s how I think it happened: Someone, somewhere told the network that a miller in Nairobi was paying 80 shillings per kg of dried chips, which is a ridiculously high price. The Kenya Agricultural Commodities Exchange is said to have confirmed this, and the network was told the market was there as long as we get certified, which after an extraordinary amount of effort was completed through the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) and Rhoda Nungo a few months back. Meanwhile, the previous volunteer’s farming-as-a-business training, all of the posters on the walls of our office, and everything discussed in the field encouraged farmers to pull up their sugarcane and start growing orange fleshed potatoes. Many of them listened, and I am afraid they are going to get burned for it. Certificate in hand, I spoke to the KACE office in Nairobi, who then contacted the mill only to learn that they are no longer purchase the dried chips. I later learned that the most they ever purchased was 2 tons, while our network currently has almost 7 tons of chips to sell. There is one other organization that is using dried chips in the nearby district of Busia, but despite all of their efforts they are only selling around 300kg a month and the supply from Busia farmers far exceeds the demand. Due to this they are buying up potatoes at only 5 shillings per kg, which is keeping the farmers about as poverty-stricken as they are with sugar cane. My only hope as far as the chips are concerned is that we can create our own market with the grant money I was approved of through the Ministry of Agriculture. Then again, six months have passed with no definite word, and I’m not incredibly optimistic the funding will come through.

On a more positive note there’s a chance I can find a decent market for the fresh potatoes if not the dried roots; Lord knows we have enough to sell. I have an appointment scheduled in Nairobi next Monday for a market buying potatoes for 700 shillings per 98kg bag, which isn’t much but better than nothing. It certainly isn’t the 8,000 shillings per bag promised to the farmers for dried chips in the past.

Now on to more positive things: I love the Kenya Coast. It’s just beautiful and life is good here. People are very chill and relaxed, and I am surprised by the diversity. People on the coast are about half Christians and half Muslim, with a few Hindus here and there as well. Beyond mere tolerance everyone gets along very well…its hakuna matata at its finest. This weekend I played soccer on the beach with a mixed team of Christians and Muslims, and the people playing were Swahili, Somali, Indian, and Omani (plus two wazungu). Anyone that thinks black Africans all look similar is mistaken. After a year here I can distinguish between a Kikuyu and a Luo tribesman, and it’s not difficult to differentiate a Sudanese from an Ethiopian from a Somali. Something else interesting: While Kenya was under control of the British the coast was actually ruled by the Middle Eastern country of Oman. When Kenya achieved independence in the 1960’s, Oman gave back the coast while England relinquished the mainland. As a result there is a distinctive Arab flair to the coast and it feels like a completely different country than Western Kenya.

Because the train from Nairobi was full I took the night bus to Mombasa. I was a little nervous about it because it is not recommended by Peace Corps, but I had no problems and actually slept quite well. I contacted a Peace Corps volunteer staying in Mombasa, and even though she was gone for her Close-of-Service conference she left me her keys and I was able to crash at her house that evening. Peace Corps is great for travel connections. After unloading my things I took a matatu to the old town to look around. I started at Fort Jesus, which was a Portuguese fort build to fight for domination of the spice and slave trade against the Arab city-states that dotted the coast in the 1500’s. The fort changed hands many times and has a long and bloody history, but I found it interesting and was treated to my first view of the Indian Ocean from the top of the fort.

Afterwards I went into old town and had a fruit drink called “skud”, which is banana, passion, and pineapple blended with avocado juice and homemade ice cream. It was one of the best drinks I’ve ever had and all the food I tried on the coast (a fish curry called Biriani, Chicken Tikka, Coconut Beans, kabobs) was amazing. I wish the culinary culture of the coast could somehow find its way to Kakamega. I then started wandering around the streets of old town, and was surrounded by Muslim culture: men wearing skull caps, white robes, and sandals, women wearing black robes called burkas that cover their entire bodies except for a narrow slit for the eyes, and young girls with henna paintings on their hands and feet.

As I was wandering though the narrow streets I came across a group of wazungu women and a skinny jet-black kid who was almost seven feet tall. I stopped to listen as a man came up to them and warned them not to continue down the road. He said there were drug addicts everywhere that would not hesitate to kill them and take their money. A bit concerned myself, I decided to stop and listen. After the guy’s spiel one of the women told him he was being ridiculous and to bugger off. It turns out he was a tour guide who did not like people walking through the old town without paying for his service, and was just using fear tactics to scare people into going with him. The assertive woman that told the man to leave has lived in Mombasa for 18 years, and the other two women she was with, a woman named Zelda and her college-aged daughter named Ariel, turned out to be the sister and niece of Sylvia, the Peace Corps medical officer for Kenya! It’s a small world and once I told them I was Peace Corps we hit it off well. We walked with the woman living in Mombasa down the perfectly safe road to her very nice house and she treated us to drinks and told us a bit about her project working with orphan children and drug addicts. She then excused herself and I spent the rest of the day with Zelda, Ariel, and the beanpole kid. The kid turned out to be a Sudanese refugee named Joseph who had escaped to Kenya. He lived at the airport for three months with nowhere to go and was taken care of by sympathetic airport employees. He was eventually found and assisted by Zelda, the sister of the Peace Corps Medical Officer. Zelda is married to an American Embassy guy and is living in Nairobi. She put Joseph into a secondary school in Nakuru where he is a star basketball player. He enjoys the sport because he claims it is so easy to dunk the ball, and starting up at the guy I have no reason to doubt it. He was the nicest kid and it breaks my heart to know how many similar cases are still stuck in the horrors of Southern Sudan.

At the recommendation of the woman from Mombasa we went to Heller Park, named after an environmentalist who 30 years ago converted an old gravel quarry into a game park. It was a nice hike and we saw plenty of Hippos, Buffalo, Snakes, and Crocodiles behind fencing as well as birds and monkeys everywhere. There was even a giant Galapagos turtle roaming around and I went for a ride on his shell. Afterwards, we went back to Mombasa for dinner and I took a terrifying Tuk-Tuk (three wheeled taxi) ride back to the PCV’s house to call it an evening. I have Zelda’s contact info now and a free place to stay the next time I am in Nairobi, so all in all things worked out pretty well.

The next day I left for Kilifi and to visit Soren, a PCV living on the coast. Soren is also working with the FAO but as a public health volunteer. He wanted to know more about farming as a business and how it can help the Kilifi Network farmers, and I was more than happy to meet up with a volunteer living on the coast. As soon as I arrived we piled into the back of a pickup truck and went to the field, and along the way we passed hundreds of small farms full of cashew nut and coconut trees. The coconut trees are over 50ft high and have notches cut into them, enabling a barefoot farmer to shimmy up to the top and throw coconuts to the ground below. There is also a tree here called the baobab and it is beautiful. They are ancient, grizzled trees with trunks that must be 15 feet across, and they are considered by many to be sacred. The field day was a bit low key compared to Kakamega, without as much singing and dancing, but it was a good experience, and I had a chance to fill myself with “madafu”, or fresh coconut milk. After our day in the field we went to a bar overlooking the crystal clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean, enjoyed a few drinks, and called it a night.

The following day was fantastic. Soren lives within walking distance of the beach and I laid out on the white sands and soaked up sunshine. It was low tide and I could walk into the sea for what seemed like miles without it ever becoming deep. Meanwhile I was able to look down and see sea urchins, brightly colored starfish, and an assortment of other sea animals that would be very bad to step on. I’m extremely tempted to get dive certified while I am here. We stopped for lunch at a resort hotel wanting 1500 shillings for a buffet lunch, but using Swahili we convinced the guy that we were not tourists we were able to eat for 500 shillings each, and the food was great. The price is negotiable for everything but a newspaper in this country. We went back to the beach and I read a book while a group of Kenyan women were standing nearby tenderizing an octopus by hurling it against a rock hundreds of times.

On Sunday we went back towards Mombasa and went to the public beach for a game of soccer. I then went into town to watch Pirates of the Carribean 2, a great movie, and went back to Kilifi for a great dinner too. I’m in the Kilifi FFS Network office now and I just finished a meeting with their network officials that went really well. Life on the coast is good.

Maralal Internatinal Camel Derby 2006

2006-08-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

I finally made it back to civilization after one of the 5 most memorable experiences of my life. For those of you who don’t want the detailed account, here’s a quick summary of what I took home this weekend: 1st Place Camel-athlon, 3rd Place Amateur Camel, DNF (Did not finish) Professional Mountain Bike Race, 13500/= (almost $200) in prize money, cactus-related injuries, and a severely battered body. I’ll be away from site for the next 3 weeks, and it’s a pity because I don’t have my camera cable with me. The pics are great.

Anyway, I spent the last week getting things in order for my upcoming adventures and think things in Kakamega will be fine until I return. I keep finding cash crops with a lot of potential, and in September I’ll be busy learning about the markets and spreading the word to the Network. In the meantime my time away from site is off to a great start. Six of the FSD (Foundation for Sustainable Development) volunteers that I have become friends with joined me for the camel derby, and we left Thursday Afternoon for Nakuru, the midway point between Kakamega and Maralal. A map will show a much shorter route, but I was warned by many and forbidden by Peace Corps to take it due to recent skirmishes with Pokot-tribe bandits and automatic weapons. We were limited on time and decided to go by matatu from Kakamega to Nakuru instead of bus, which was a genuinely terrifying experience. The road is just pathetic and Kenyan has some terrible drivers. We were going down one particularly treacherous hill, and a BMW came bearing down on us after trying to pass three trucks on a blind curve. Luckily it swerved off the road and barely missed us, while the guy driving the Bimmer smiled and waved like it was no big deal at all. Several similar experiences left me vowing to avoid matatus on the Kisumu-Mombassa route whenever possible, while Laura, one of the FSD volunteers, sat in the front seat and screamed at the driver every time he tried to pass anyone.

We finally made it to Nakuru and stayed at the Mt Sinai Hotel, which for about $2 per person isn’t bad as long as you are not bothered by wet, dirty towels (I don’t even want to know about the sheets), no soap or toilet paper, and a freezing cold shower that doesn’t work in the morning. On the plus side we were given rooms on the roof with a great view of Lake Nakuru, and the nearby restaurant, called Subway but in no way related to the chain, had some of the best food for the money I’ve eaten here.

The highlight of the following day was the six-hour trek into the wilderness of Northern Kenya. We started with a matatu to Nyaharuru, which was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve been on. We drove along the rim of the Rift Valley and looked down at a spectacular panoramic view of rolling green hills dotted with Acacia trees and tin-roofed houses. An hour later we climbed out of the valley into fertile plains and the town of Nyaharuru. The more I travel in this country the more I realize how fortunate I am to be here. Peace Corps volunteers living in places like Mali have practically the same scenery everywhere they go, whereas I am doubtful anywhere else in the world has as much scenic diversity and beauty in such a small area as Kenya.

Nyaharuru is a nice town with a beautiful waterfall called Thomson’s Falls. I was able to see it on the return trip but the trek to Maralal was a huge hassle, as everyone went their separate ways in Nyaharuru to buy groceries, use the ATM, and wander around. Large groups of people are so difficult to organize and I was getting frustrated as the only bus of the day pulled out of the stage to Maralal before we had everyone together. We ended up renting a private matatu because there was no other way we would be in Maralal in time for the derby. Noel, one of the FSD volunteers, is fantastic at bargaining prices and she was able to convince the driver to take us for almost the same price as if we were using a public vehicle, while he initially wanted to charge us triple the cost.

We started the ride to Maralal on a freshly paved road and were surprised that roads in this part of the country were well maintained. Then, thirty minutes later, we got what we expected: bumpy dirt (and eventually mud) roads for the next four hours. As random pieces continued to rattle of the matatu, it was incredible watching the scenery change around us. The foliage continued to grow sparser and the plains, covered with cactus trees, thorn bushes, and prickly shrubs stretched to the horizon. Surprisingly, it was on this terrain that I saw my first elephants. Scraggly trees broken to pieces from elephant damage started to appear and then in the nearby distance we saw a very large herd of elephants. Like the hippos, they were absolutely enormous and larger than what I have seen in the zoo.

After passing the elephants the landscape grew more barren, and among the sparse trees and bushes were herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. Guiding these herds were the Samburu people. They are closely related to Masai and are nomadic pastoralists who have maintained their traditions despite the influence Western culture has had on the majority of the people in the world. They wear traditional clothing, which in most cases consists of brightly colored robes and beautiful, ornate beaded jewelry. The women wear thick rings of beads around their necks, and both men and women have elongated ear lobes. Their skin tone is ebony black and the women are tall, slender, and graceful. The Samburu diet consists almost entirely of milk and meat, as very little vegetation edible for humans can grow in the area. We saw several groups of Samburu herding their animals down the road, and we were told many of them are fleeing from Pokots, who are using machine guns to steal cattle from neighboring tribes.

Finally, after hours of driving though the bush, we began seeing camels in the distance and realized we were close to Maralal. There is very little rainfall in this part of the country, but for some reason there were scatted rainstorms the entire time I was there. We even had to wait for some time to cross one particular section of road that had become a river. While waiting for other vehicles to cross I realized there was about a 50/50 chance of becoming stuck in the middle, as half the vehicles crossing stalled. Luckily we made it and finally I arrived at the Yare Camel Club and Campsite. I played a game of Ultimate Frisbee, registered for the Camel-athlon, and finally called it an evening.

My intention was to do the Camel-athlon only. It was significantly less expensive to register for than the Camel-only race, and I was trying to watch what I spent. Then I realized that most of the Peace Corps volunteers who had come to the event weren’t going to do anything but watch, and some of the Samburu people had been walking through the desert for over a month to be in Maralal to rent their camels for the event. Since the intention of the Camel derby is for it to be an income generating activity for the Samburu people, at the last minute I decided to do the Camel race as well.

The first thing I noticed about camels, besides how ugly they are up close, is that they hate people. They bite, they make a horrible throaty-gurgling sound, and the only way to get them to move at all is to beat the heck out of them with a stick. The next thing I realized is that the top of a camel’s hump is way too high. I was at least 12 feet off the ground sitting on a moldy couch cushion strapped around the camel’s hump with rope. Two large branches tied to the animal’s sides functioned as support, and it was a challenge just to stay in place. In fact, one guy was thrown off the camel at the very start of the race and staggered off deciding to no longer participate in the event. As for me, I hung on tenaciously while Charles, my Samburu camel handler, ran behind me smacking the camel in the butt with a stick. Occasionally the apathetic camel would grumble and stop moving, and no amount of additional stick-whacking would get it to move. Then, a few swift jabs between the hind legs were enough to get it going again.

Things were going great at first. I promised Charles a healthy tip if my camel won, and he was determined to have the winning camel. For the first part of the race I was in first place, and then I was passed by a kid that had six people surrounding his camel and whacking it. Apparently the fastest camel is the one that is beaten the most, because there was no way I could keep up. Then the rain started. Something else I learned last weekend: camels HATE water. Despite all the stick whacking, the race pretty much came to a halt until the rain let up. Even after the showers the camel was hesitant to move, and I quickly learned why. Camels have no traction for wet ground, and the entire pack was slipping and sliding across the race track. Off in the distance the first place camel slid sideways and dumped the rider, and for a brief while I was in first place. Unfortunately the first place camel was down but not out, and near the finish line he gained the lead again. As I approached the finish line I was in second place out of at least 40 camels, when a slippery puddle just a few meters from the finish line tripped my camel up. We slid and fell over, and as I remounted the camel and yelled a camel came from behind and took second place. My camel made third, which was still a good showing and made me 10,000/= richer.

After the camel race I felt like I had been severely beaten. My shoulder blades and arms hurt from trying to stay in place for the hour-long 10k ride, my feet were rubbed raw from chafing against the rope (never wear sandals when riding a camel), and most of all my butt and lower back hurt from trying to sit on top of the thing. I kept sliding off the camel to the bottom of the hump where it was more comfortable, but my handler would yell at me to get back on the top. Even as I sit here five days later I am still sore. Honestly there is no way I am going to ride a camel again, and those camel safaris through the desert that used to sound so fun sound like absolute hell now.

Regardless, I had registered for the Camel-athlon and was determined to follow through with it. It was only a 3k camel ride and I decided to tough it out. The Camel-athlon was divided into two groups: a team that consisted of 3 professionals (one runner, one camel rider, and one cyclist) and a novice class that completed the entire event with a single person. The race was fairly easy, with only a 5k run, a 10k bike ride, and a 3k camel. Several of the girls I traveled with decided to dress up for the event and wore Kenyan school girl uniforms that looked ridiculous. As for me, I decided to go for the prize money and I took the event seriously. The individuals ran alongside the teams and I did my best trying to keep up with the team runners. Something I’ve learned is that you will never, ever win again a skinny tall Kenyan in a matching spandex track suit. The winning guy had to have been running sub-five minute miles, and he left a road-runner like trail of dust behind him as he left me far behind. On a positive note, I was the fasted mzungu on the course and finished first place for the individual event and another 3500/= up. It helped that I had my champion camel and handler helping me through the final stretch.

That night I had a delicious camel burger for dinner. If it wanted to bite me I figured I may as well bite it too. Then I passed out at 9:00 feeling like a dead man. I slept restlessly as I could not find a comfortable position, and when I did doze off I dreamt I was in a boxing match and loosing badly. The next day I could hardly walk and popped a few Tylenol, which helped. The problem was that a 42km professional mountain bike race was scheduled that day, and I had found someone willing to lend me a nice Gary Fisher bike for the event. Honestly there was no way I could say no to a mountain bike race in Northern Kenya and decided to give it a shot despite my broken body. The race started off well, although of course the spandex-wearing skinny Kenyans were far in the lead. Nevertheless, I wasn’t in last place, and all I wanted to do was finish the race anyway. About 10 minutes into the race the rain came back, and it wasn’t long before I was covered head to toe in muck, which isn’t too bad in itself. Things didn’t become extremely unpleasant until about halfway through the race, when a shallow looking puddle turned out to be three feet deep. It swallowed my bike and threw me over the handlebars. I hopped back on a bit bruised but with no serious injuries, and kept peddling through the mud. Eventually things became so mucky that I had to push my bike instead of ride it, and at one point I lost traction and slid into a cactus. I actually had a cactus branch break off and remain stuck in my stomach, as well as blood pouring out of my arm from various puncture wounds. Muddy, beaten, bruised, and bloody I finally decided to quit 25km into the race. The remaining 20km consisted of five loops around a campground that was so muddy it had basically become a sloppy foot race while dragging the bikes through various mudholes. I finally couldn’t take anymore and walked off the course while cameras from Kenya National Television zoomed in on me. Now the whole country knows I am a quitter. Regardless, I was in the race to ride a bike and I wasn’t going to win, so why trudge a bike through mud for the next two hours? Personal challenge be damned, I had already won a camel-althlon the day before.

After the bike race I stuck around for prize money and awards, and was able to find a ride out of the desert the next morning. I made it as far as Nakuru, spent the night once more at the lovely Mt. Sinai Hotel, and have spent the last two days in Nairobi. I’ve done a lot of work on wheelchairs and for the network since I arrived, but I’ll save that for another day. As for now I’m about to catch the night bus to the coast and God willing I’ll be in Mombasa by morning. I’ll write again soon!

Latest Pics!

2006-07-25T23:18:00.000-07:00

Pictures! I made it this far yesterday then the power went out. Keep your fingers crossed this will post:

These are my puppies, Wewe (black) and Kuja (tan). Wewe (pronounced WayWay) is really terrible and is trying to eat Kuja in this picture. I finally gave them each their own bed and that helped a bit.

Here I am with the group of volunteers I met enjoying the sunrise view over the rainforest from the highest point.

Here's the view a bit later as we walked down the hill to the bat cave. Isn't it beautiful? I can ride my bike here.

Here's the bat cave. Hundreds of eyes peering out through the darkness.

Typical view from the back of a Matatu. 20+ people in a 14 seater

This is Mama Agnes harvesting maize in my back yard

Mama Agnes, Mama Nora, and some neighbors sorting out the harvested maize. Most of it will be ground into flour for Ugali.

This is the Medical Day I helped out with. It was sponsored by a British group. Some of them are in this picture. The guy with the hat in the middle was a drunkard who followed us around, and that's a Kenyan Red Cross team that worked with us.

I like this picture becuase it reminds me of what will happen to my project if I don't get people motivated to help themselves. This is a Peace Corps project, an orphanage for AIDS orphans, that failed as soon as the volunteer left. I wonder how many projects suffer the same fate...

Here's my first car! I don't think there are any left in the states (I haven't seen one since I sold mine), but there are at least two I've seen in Kenya. I miss my Capri.

Wazungu Wengi Wamefika Kakamega

2006-07-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

As I’ve adopted Kenyan English I’ve noticed a downward trend in my speaking abilities, as more and more often I’m saying things in very simplistic and grammatically incorrect ways. For instance, I’ve found myself asking “How is you?” or something ridiculous like “The rain, it will come today, isn’t it?” The accent I’ve adapted to make myself understood is equally ridiculous, and I’m pretty sure my writing skills is getting worse as well, isn’t it?

I can pretty much say goodbye to every last bit of Spanish and German I’ve learned in the past. I even find myself struggling to remember the names of girls I’ve dated or old friends, simple vocabulary words that are not understood by Kenyans, or teachers I’ve had. My Swahili is continuing to improve though, as is my knowledge of African culture, so at least I’m gaining knowledge that is useful here but will not be so helpful when I go back to the states. I am also planning to start studying for graduate exams soon. I feel my knowledge of Kenyan tribal customs will not be so helpful, whereas the English grammar I’m forgetting might have come in handy. It’s reassuring to know that, regardless, I can still recite the names and weapons of every teenage mutant ninja turtle, as well as their theme song.

So it’s been a fun week. Work with the Network is coming along well, but there will be a lot of waiting before things pick up again: waiting for chili seeds to grow, waiting for the lawyer to get back to us, waiting for the grant money to come, etc. etc. It’s a way of life here. In the meantime I’ve found other ways to stay busy. There’s been a lot of wazungu around Kakamega lately, and I’ve been collaborating with them on various projects. A group came for a medical mission last Thursday and I helped them out. It wasn’t in any way sustainable but it was fun to hand out medications prescribed by doctors and count out pills with a group of attractive British girls and their dry, sarcastic sense of humor. A mother of one of the girls was here as well, and she was energetic and hilarious. She was a VSO volunteer for three years in Sierra Leone in the late sixties, with stories about Peace Corps volunteers she would not share except that she was “a naughty girl back then”. The organisation the girls were with is also building houses for people here, and I was invited to go out in the field with them to see the progress. I may do that tomorrow just to see if the money is actually being used the way it was intended. I grow more skeptical about any kind of outside funding every day. I have stories about naïve wazungu from the states and where their money actually goes that will drop your jaw, and I am in the process of finding the donors of one particularly rotten church leader, but I will save that story for another day.

On Friday I met with the regional sales director for a fertilizer often used by our farmers, and spoke to him about getting wholesale prices on the fertilizer to sell through our network. Things worked out well, and I think I have found another income generating activity for the network. The director was an Indian who has been in Kenya for many years now. Nearly every successful businessperson I’ve met in Kenya is either an Indian or from the Kikuyu tribe.

There is also a volunteer organisation in Kakamega that brings in volunteers from the States for 2-6 month stints, and I have become friends with many of them. I spent Wednesday at an orphanage one of them is working with hoping to get additional information for my women’s group. While there I learned that the primary caretaker at the orphanage has used the funding to purchase a very nice laptop computer with a pricey ADSL internet connection (an Internet café is very close by), while the children are sleeping 4 to a bed without mosquito nets. Typical.

On Friday evening I met the volunteer group in town. A lot of the group is college-aged, and many seem to be spending the summer working with this organisation as a “Peace Corps Lite”, testing the waters to see if it is something they want to commit to longer-term. Some of them are older and just doing it as a change of pace from their jobs in the states or as a way to spend time in another culture while helping out, and maybe a few of them were looking at it as an escape into the wilderness and are a bit disillusioned. Anyway, we met in town because there’s a great Indian restaurant I wanted to go to, and I wanted them to join me. It is on the outskirts of town, and we saddled up on Boda Bodas and rode out to the restaurant, which of course was closed. We then went back into town for dinner and to my place for a party.

The party was great. There was plenty of Tusker and the volunteers brought all kinds of tasty breakfast stuff for the morning. The next day I was extended an invite to the rainforest with them (after getting about one hour of sleep), and I tagged along with their group. The supervisor of their organisation, Peter, was basically raised by a Peace Corps volunteer. He worked as a house boy for a PCV that decided to stay in Kenya, and because of the influence he gained from the PCV he has committed himself to working with a similar program. Since I am also Peace Corps he likes me and we have been working together on ways to make his program better. I have been supplying him with materials used by the Peace Corps for training, and he even wants me to help find organisations around Kakamega that could use a volunteer. I’m also convincing him to steer away from two month terms to something longer term, as it’s almost impossible to get much accomplished in a mere two months in this country. Anyway, because of my assistance and because, for the most part, I’m a likable guy, my transport to the forest, the nice banda I slept in, the guided tours, and the meals were free.

The rainforest was even better than the last time I went. We had plenty of rain throughout the evening and a layer of mist covered the trees the following morning. We left for a sunrise hike at five and made it to the top of the highest point in the forest just in time to see the sun crest over the hills in the distance. The view was phenomenal, and luckily I had my camera with me and got in a few good snaps. On the way back we went to a cave that was dug in search for gold many years ago. It is now the home of fruit bats, and as my flashlight shined through the cave the walls sparkled with hundreds of pairs of eyes glistening in the darkness. When we made it back to the campsite the monkeys were awake and very active, and we ate breakfast while blue and colobus monkeys swung from tree to tree overhead.

So that about sums of my week. Beyond work good things are coming up, including a camel derby and a potential Scuba diving trip. I’m sure I’ll have plenty more to write about soon.

My two sides

2006-07-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

Allow me to complain, I’ll feel much better. Sometimes I get pissed off about the way I’m treated here. Because I’m white I get so much attention. For instance, I hear “How are you?” about a million times a day. Many people feel that order to sound more like a mzungu, this question must be asked through the nose, which makes it twice as irritating. Speaking of mzungu, if I am not being asked how I am, then surely someone is shouting “mzungu mzungu!” at me instead. Usually it’s little kids, and there are about a trillion of them in this country. There seems to be a Kenyan primary school every hundred yards and all it takes is for one child on a school yard to see me off in the distance and shout “mzungu!” before everyone comes running to the fence to shout and gawk. Oftentimes I find myself on my bike right before or after school, which means that I have to ride by miles and miles of children walking down the road, all wearing matching school uniforms. It’s pretty much guaranteed I will be asked how I am about a hundred times as I ride past and kids will point out that, yes indeed, I am still a mzungu. If I respond to the “how are you” question with only answer children understand (I am fine), then one might think that would be the end of it, right? Wrong. Responding results in one of two things…he or she will just ask “how are you?” again as if I didn’t just say I was fine, or all the other kids that would have left me alone start asking “how are you?” as well. Sometimes I just ignore the question and go on my way.

Of course, with kids the whole “how are you” thing really doesn’t bother me that much; being called “mzungu” from a five-year-old isn’t so bad. It’s not that difficult to tune out, and they are just kids after all. What annoys me is when teens and adults yell “mzungu” or ask “how are you” through their nose. They know it is rude and they do it anyway because they think it is funny. Groups of Boda Boda drivers or matatu touts are the worst, acting like idiots because they want to show off to their buddies.

Then there’s the perception that white people have tons of money. I’ll admit that, compared to the average Kenyan, this is generally true. This image isn’t helped by the fact that wazungu drive around in shiny new Land Cruisers and tourists think nothing of handing a hundred shillings to someone on the street. I really don’t think this handout mentality, common in both tourists and by aid organizations, has been very beneficial. On my bike ride around Mt. Elgon with another PCV I had someone ask for one of our bikes, as if one of us would just hand it over and walk the rest of the way.

Concerning money, I can’t help everyone that asks, especially in my village. If I give one person some loose change then I will be hassled for money by half the village next time I go out. I try to remember this but having people yell “give me money!” or making a beeline in my direction to ask for a soda or 10 shillings gets on my nerves. Sometimes I’m not especially nice to people who harass me for money, and I inevitably feel bad later about getting angry with people who in all likelihood are living hand-to-mouth and have nothing. At least in my village and around places where people know me they have stopped asking.

Something to point out: Kenyan Mamas are the nicest people on the planet. I am almost never bothered by them at all. They smile and greet me and it seems genuinely sincere. In fact, if you look at most of the problems here: corruption, rape, drunkenness, laziness, discrimination, etc. it is almost never Mamas that are causing the problems. I think women hold Africa together (probably the rest of the world too) and putting more women into politics would go along way towards fixing the world’s problems.

I have had something really offensive happen several times. There are some Dutch volunteers, two girls, who I was friends with in Kitui. When walking by a group of guys one of them came up and said “give me one”, as if because I am with two women I have a spare that I can just hand out to anyone I please. I ignored the demand and we went on our way. I was with two female volunteers in my village the other day and I had the same thing happen, except he was persistent. This time I explained to the guy that he could not handle mzungu women because they are used to being treated with respect and won’t be pushed around. I also pointed out that in my culture women are not property to be given away. I’m not sure he followed me but he peddled off on his bike and left us alone. What I’m wondering is how a Kenyan would behave if another guy came up to him while he was walking with two women and said “give me one”. I would imagine the guy asking the question would get punched in the face, which seems fair to me. Of course, this would never happen with another Kenyan; since I’m a mzungu the rules don’t apply.

The rules do apply when I’m doing something wrong though. For instance, if I’m in Nairobi and fifty Kenyans are crossing the street when the light is red, and I do it too, someone will be sure to stop me and point out that I shouldn’t cross. Or if I ride my bike down the main road instead of the congested Boda Boda road in town, which is done by Kenyans all the time, people won’t hesitate to shout at me and point out I’m on the wrong road.

In my village there’s a few of the Boda Boda guys who really get on my nerves. I came back from the village some time back with a pineapple, and as I was going through town I saw one of the orphan kids walking by in tattered clothes and no shoes. I decided to give him my pineapple, and for the at least the next month the Boda Boda drivers yelled “give me matunda” (Swahili for fruit) every time I passed by, which was at least twice a day.

About a month ago my puppies were missing, and I found out they followed some visitors off my compound and into the village. I spent a good hour looking for them and began asking people “Umeona mbwa ndogo?” (Have you seen puppies?) Finally I asked somebody who had seen them and we were able to track them down and I carried them back to my house. Now every time I go past the Boda Bodas a few of the guys shout “Mbwa ndogo!” like it’s the funniest thing ever. It really pisses me off but the worst thing you can do is react to it, so I try to let it slide.

So I was in a sour mood today and I went for a run. A Boda Boda guy passed by and shouted “mbwa ndogo!”, to which I responded under my breath with some Good ‘Ol American curse words, then shortly after a group of kids started running after me shouting “mzungu!”. There is always somebody who wants to run with me and as soon as I outran the kids some guy in his late teens decided to run right beside me, shouting something I couldn’t understand in the local tribal language. As I continued to ignore him he laughed at me and I used a few curse words on him as well. I made it back to my house in a worse mood then when I started to run, and realized that I need to change my attitude. I have good days and bad days, and I notice that my good days are when I don’t take things personally or too seriously and maintain a sense of humor. I decided to rest for a few minutes and then do the same run again with a different attitude.

I ran again (albeit at a much slower pace) with a forced smile on my face. When people asked “how are you” I would respond “fine” and wave. I passed a group of boda drivers that I could tell were about to start shouting something at me and before they had a chance I said hello to them in Swahili and kept running. I had some kids start running next to me, and when they tired out I taunted them in Swahili, telling them they were weak and tired and to keep going. They tried and couldn’t keep up any longer, and I heard them laughing behind me like I had made their day. Before I knew it I was in a genuinely good mood.

I wish I could keep that positive attitude all the time but I let myself get worked up when I shouldn’t. Part of the problem is that the longer I am here the more I expect to be treated like a Kenyan. Even though I am definitely treated differently in my village and Kakamega town than I first got here, I am still a mzungu and thus an outsider to most people. I need to realize that it will be that way until I leave and make the best of it, and appreciate the rare Kenyan friends that treat me as an equal.

Cycling, Campus Life, and Visitors

2006-07-15T05:32:00.000-07:00

I had a pretty good week. It took awhile, but I finally met a Peace Corps Volunteer who is a cycling fanatic. The good news is that he lives an hour from me, the bad news is that he is leaving (his two years of Peace Corps service ended this weekend). At least I got one good ride in and I'm hopeful that the newest group of volunteers might include someone with similar interests. We started our cycling trip near Webuye, which is only 30 miles north of Kakamega, and rode 50 miles on dirt roads through the isolated villages on the hills surrounding Mt. Elgon on the Ugandan border. The ride was intense. Using my extremely trendy heart rate monitor/GPS I was given as a gift before I left, I could see I burned 4300 calories, and I pigged out on a huge plate of junk food (french fries and somosas) without any guilt. I love cycling.

The ride was beautiful. We were at over 6,000 feet the majority of the ride, and on the equator that makes the daytime temperature about perfect. The "roads" between these towns are perfect for mountain biking and foot traffic but terrible for anything else. On one particular stretch on one of the better roads there were matatus at one time, but they continued to flip over as they attempted to climb the eroded and insanely steep inclines, and thus no longer take that route. As a result the people in the area live in isolation, with at least a ten mile hike by foot to the closest road that is accessible by vehicle. On our entire ride, the only cars we saw while riding through the hills were a few shiny new land rovers driven by wazungu; no surprise there.

So I really wish I had some pictures to post but I'm having trouble with either my rechargeable batteries or the charger, and need to get to Kisumu or another real town that sells decent batteries before I'll be able to take pictures again.

I made it back to the office on Tuesday. This entire week I have been excited about the grant money we are supposed to be getting from the Ministry of Agriculture. Every day we were promised that the money would arrive the next day, and by Friday we realized that if we are getting money at all it will be at least August. (Apparently being approved for the grant and promised money doesn't mean we will actually get a check..this is the Kenyan government after all) We'll see what happens, I'm just rolling with the punches and learning not to be so upset with all the hassles that are part of working in this country.

Speaking of hassles, the wheelchair project continues to be going nowhere, but I will know more in the next few weeks and won't jump to conclusions. There's still a chance things will work out and if not there is a plan B in the works.

On Wednesday I went to Kisumu to learn about an NGO called IIRR that is providing training classes for self-help groups. The training classes seemed relevant to some of the projects I am working with, particularly the business management and monitoring and evaluation classes. Then I found out the price is $1,500 per person for three weeks of training. What kind of non-profit charges that, and in this country?!? $1500 is about 5 years worth of wages for some of the farmers I work with, and I was told the intention is for grant money from other NGO's to cover the costs...whatever.

I also met up with Adrienne and her friend Stella. Stella is a college student at Maseno University, which is about 20 minutes outside Kisumu. After the pointless meeting with IIRR we left to visit her campus, and I had a chance to see what college life is like for the students there. In many ways things are the same as the states...dorm rooms, heavy drinking, and cramming for exams. In others it is quite different. The girls dorms consist of either 4 girls to a room if you are lucky, or eight all crammed into a single room not much bigger than my bedroom. There is a small locker for each girl and enough room for maybe three outfits. The guys have it better in that they have dorms with 2 to a room. I actually slept in one of the guys dorm rooms and stayed up talking politics, sports, and everything else. The students are extremely idealistic and ambitious and I only hope they can maintain their beliefs as they enter the real world and change things for the better here.

That evening we hiked up a hill overlooking the campus, and had a great view of the surrounding countryside and Lake Victoria off in the distance. The hill was a giant boulder field and the landscape was so different than anything I would see back in the states, or even in Kakamega which is just a short drive away. I was told that somewhere in the hills is the home of Mama Pink, who is named after the color of her Chang'aa, illegal distilled liquor that tastes like diesel fuel and is a favorite among the college kids. Her business is best during the second half of the semester when funds run low and beer becomes too expensive.

We also went to a movie that evening. I saw "The Divinci Code" which isn't that good. Reading a book first almost always ruins the movie. The only consolation is that even though the movie theater consisted of a 19" television screen and we were watching a bootlegged movie that was obviously just a camcorder brought to the theater, the price was only 10 shillings so it was hard to complain.

On Thursday I went back to Kakamega to meet up with PCV's Dan and Jean, a retired couple from San Franciso. Dan is a computer genius with several books published and he agreed to come to Kakamega to help me with my database project. He made some tweaks to the code and now I have a really good program for keeping track of what the farmers are growing. Dan and Jean are also good cooks and we ate really well the two days they were here. Another PCV, Tony, was also at my place and we had a great time. Now Tony is on his way back to Kisumu and Dan and Jean went to the rainforest. As for me I think I've typed enough for one day, but expect to hear more soon.

Lawyers and Camels

2006-07-09T03:41:00.000-07:00

Things are back to normal after IST and our 4th of July party. On Tuesday I took the night train back to Kisumu and decided I won’t travel via bus ever again if I can help it. The train appears to date back to colonial times and it felt like going back in time to ride on it, but at least the ride was pothole free. Also, unlike the night bus that stops every hour, turns the interior lights on, then fills with hawkers trying to sell ballpoint pens and plastic combs in the middle of the night, I actually got a few hours of sleep.

Nothing else very exciting happened this week, but a lot of things are happening in the near future. On Thursday I went to Bungoma to visit a Lawyer and give her a draft constitution for our company to become a company limited. I am hoping our Network will get some buyers soon for chili peppers and sweet potatoes, and I would like to get some contracts to ensure that if our farmers start growing cash crops there is a guaranteed market and price for what they are growing. Beyond contracts, becoming a company limited also limits our liability in case of legal issues. The intention is to be limited through privately held shares (we’re not on the NASDAQ yet), and it will be interesting to see how well it will all come together. Anyway, I have a meeting with the lawyer again in a week to finalize everything.

Beyond the company limited I have been told we will know for sure where we stand on our grant money from the Ministry of Agriculture next week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a check so we can get started on the flour project but we’ll see. It doesn’t appear to be that easy to get project money from the Kenyan Government, so even though it’s been promised I’m not holding my breath.

Now onto the fun stuff: There’s a “Camel Derby” in the Northern Kenyan desert in the first week of August, and I really want to be a part of it. Right now I’m just waiting on security clearance from Peace Corps. It includes a Camel Race (with an amateur class), and a bike/run/camel triathlon, and it’s been put together as a fund raiser by a returned Peace Corps volunteer living in Kenya. Also, there’s a volunteer working with the FAO on the beach in Kilifi, and I’m hoping I can go from the Camel Derby to the coast and spend a week or so soaking up the sunshine and helping a bit with the coast FFS groups. I’m also tossing around the idea of meeting a few other PCV’s near Mombasa to get SCUBA certified or going North to visit a volunteer working near the beautiful Swahili island of Lamu. Peace Corps work is not without its perks.

Cross Sector and Independence Day

2006-07-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last week was “Cross Sector”, which consisted of two days of language training for the first year volunteers followed by three days of training with everyone discussing what other volunteers in my region are doing with their projects. Language training was a lot of fun and something I’ve been missing out on lately. Henry, a hilarious guy and a great teacher, was one of the language trainers, and he told me he’ll be spending some time in his home town near Kakamega soon and I should be able to get some more language lessons soon.

Something I’ve learned about language: I now feel very comfortable with basic “survival” Swahili and can carry on simple conversations without a problem. However, it seems that the more I learn about a language the more difficult it becomes, and without a teacher I’ve hit a wall with Swahili. There are so many different noun classes that change the structure of the word or sentence in different ways, plus the many assorted prefixes, tenses, infixes, and suffixes that can be placed within a single verb. It really becomes a bit overwhelming. However, here are a few tidbits from my latest language training:

Mwafaka…pronounced phonetically with a soft “aa”, it means “proper” or “correct” and is a lot of fun to say, especially since the accent is placed on the second syllable, e.g. “Unajua Kiswahili Mwafaka?” (Do you speak proper Swahili?)

And here’s a Swahili tongue twister: “Wale watu wa Liwala wala wali wa Liwala wao” (Those people of Liwala eat their rice of Liwala)

So language was fun. Our Cross Sector was in Webuye, which features a very stinky paper mill and an equally smelly water treatment plant. I was skeptical about staying there for a week but the hotel was great. It had a very cold swimming pool (because it’s rainy Kenyan wintertime at a fairly high elevation) but we spent a lot of time in the water regardless. Plus the food was great and I stuffed myself three times a day, so it will be an adjustment going back to site. Also, the World Cup is in full swing right now and even though I would have cared less about it back in the States I’m really into it here. I’ve realized Soccer is a great sport to watch because it goes for 45 straight minutes without timeouts and commercial breaks, plus everyone (outside of the US of course) is completely into it. The bar in our hotel was packed for the Ghana/Brazil game, where unfortunately Ghana was beaten 3-0, much to the disappointment of Kenyans supporting their home continent, but then Brazil unexpectedly lost to France so they got what they deserved and won’t be playing in the semi finals.

For our site visit the Business PCV’s were supposed to visit a village bank, but then the manager of the Bank informed our Coordinator that unless we knew Jesus and proclaimed that we were saved we would not get to see his project. Therefore, at the last minute my site was chosen and I worked with Habakkuk to set up meetings in the field with some of our groups. We had all kinds of great sweet potato products for lunch, plus lots of the usual singing and dancing, and also John Amisi, the guy who is in change of the Moringa tree project, came by for a visit, so all in all things went really well.

Speaking of knowing Jesus, there were signs all over Webuye for “Compel Crusade for Christ” which is an evangelical group preaching at various churches throughout Western Kenya. They turned out to consist of a large number of Southern Baptists from Louisiana who were staying in the same Hotel as the PCV’s. I sometimes wonder exactly how these people are helping, since so many previous missionaries have done such a phenomenal job in changing Kenya to a Christian nation. After living here I’m honestly not sure who is left to convert, and as far as I could tell that was the only reason they are here. Also, why is it that Western Nations have the monopoly on evangelical mission work? In most of the countries missionaries go to the people, in general, have much stronger religious beliefs than the countries that the evangelists are coming from. It seems like Africans and Latin Americans should be going to Europe and the US to evangelize as well, since so many people in developed countries seem to have lost their faith and spirituality. I’m not saying evangelical mission work is bad, there are a lot of missionaries that have done fantastic things, it’s just that so many groups come here to stay in fancy hotels, go on Safari, and briefly venture out into the village just long enough to brag about how many souls they have saved, while not actually doing anything to demonstrate what it means, in my opinion, to be a Christian. Between that kind of mentality and the NGO’s that throw large amounts of handout money around without regard to self-sustainability, it becomes easy to grow skeptical about how effective most aid work really is, but I’ll save going into this any further for another day.

After our Cross Sector we had a fantastic 4th of July party over the weekend of the 1st. It was held at the amazingly nice International school in Nairobi and the roughly 5,000 Americans living in Kenya were invited. There were hamburgers, hot dogs, apple pie, cold beer on tap, a chili cookoff, and tons of great prizes in a raffle. Plus, for the first time ever, a Peace Corps team beat the Marines in Tug of War!! I was on the winning Peace Corps team, which is undoubtedly why we won. I also had a chance to visit with the newest group of volunteers that have arrived in country, and one of them, Jessica, is living with my host family. We had a good time talking about Mama Veronica, Junior, and Jackie. Jessica is enjoying Kitui, but much like me and everyone else who has ever stayed there she is ready to get out. After the party at the International school we had an after party at a bar in Westlands, and all in all is was a fantastic time. I had a chance to plan several collaborative projects with other PCV’s, including meeting up with one of the volunteers on the coast. He is working on an FAO project as well and I plan to schedule a visit to his site in August. Who knows? Maybe after learning a bit about what he’s doing I’ll lay on the beach for a few days or get SCUBA certified.

Jessica, the new Peace Corps volunteer staying at my old host family, told them I would be at the 4th of July party in Nairobi so they called to let me know they would be in town that weekend as well. On Sunday I met with them for lunch and Mama Veronica brought me a shirt she made. Mama Veronica is amazing and it was great to see them again. Now I’m waiting to take my first Kenyan train ride back to Kisumu tonight and then I’m back to Kakamega in the morning. That’s all for now but I’ll write more soon, enjoy the fireworks back home!

Pics - Italy

2006-06-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pics from my trip to Italy, plus to keep things relevant to the theme of the blog, a bonus pic from Sweet Potato Training:

This is the Sweet Potato Value Addition Training class with farmers from Navakholo. There were more than 60 farmers in the class. Here I am making "Crackies", which is deep fried sweet potato flour. Now on to Italy:

My sister and me in Ancient Rome, surrounded by ruins

The first in my "Things you won't find in Rural Kenya" Series: Jewel Covered Ipods, only$1500

A typically grandiose and decadent Cathedral in Rome. It's overwhelming

I just liked the name of this store; it's Rome in a nutshell

Jana with my family at the Roman ruins. Since Jana hates getting her picture taken, I had to post this

Here is one of the bodies from Pompeii, the result of a volcano that blanketed the town in ash. It's amazing how well preserved the casts are

A 2000 year old street in remarkably well preserved Pompeii

Cash Crops and Tear Gas

2006-06-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

It’s business as usual in Kakamega, which is why I haven’t written much lately. I’m still waiting on the grant that will get things going on flour processing. I’ve been told the money is coming in July but since the funding is coming from the Government of Kenya it’s hard not to be skeptical. I also now have a certificate from KARI (Kenya Agricultural Research Institute) saying we certified and trained in Sweet Potato Value addition, which will be helpful in finding markets in Nairobi.

I’ve been doing research on other cash crops that have the potential to make a lot of money for the farmers here. One of them, Passion Fruit, yields over $500 per acre per month when cultivated properly. That’s almost enough to convince me to buy a large plot of land, cover it with passion fruit, exploit the extremely cheap and readily available local labor, and reap the profits. Of course, with that kind of mindset I could probably rule out any invitation as a guest speaker for future Peace Corps events.

Seriously, passion fruit does have a lot of potential here. There are trucks coming from Uganda to purchase it, and as of now they are buying every piece of fruit they can get their hands on. The problem is input costs. Even though a single plant can continue bearing fruits for up to seven years, the initial costs of the seedlings, fertilizer, and preparation of the land is too much for most farmers to be able to afford. Another issue is security. Raiding the passion fruit shamba (garden) would be a favorite pastime for school children, who I already see stealing from sugarcane fields and running alongside cane trailers pulling out as much cane as they can grab.

There is one potential solution to the funding issue. Our Network has recently started a loans committee for farmer groups, lending out up to about $400 per group with only 5% interest. It is something being implemented by the FAO. They want to use our network as a pilot program to see if it will work. What concerns me is that it will just take is one bad growing season or one slump in the market for groups to start defaulting on their loans. Regardless, the cost to start up an acre of passion fruit is also around $400, so after I’ve done a little more research on the market there’s a chance we can get somewhere with this.

Another even more promising crop that I’m already working with is the African bird’s eye chili pepper. There is a market in nearby Eldoret, where they are being flown for export to Germany. They are the spiciest little peppers anywhere, even hotter than Habernero. Just looking at them wrong will make your eyes water. Needless to say, security from thieving children is not an issue and they do a great job keeping other pests out of the shamba as well. The peppers are easy to grow, drought resistant, and supposedly can earn a farmer around $400 per month off a single acre. Some of the peppers making their way to the European market are being processed and sold for sauces and food, but they are also being exported for use as tear gas. It’s a great feeling to know that, with help from the farmers, I could assist European police with riot control, or provide the German military with an effective weapon should they get the urge to invade Poland again. After all, that’s what the Peace Corps is all about. Come to think about it I’ve found a solution for keeping children out of our passion fruit fields as well.

The way I see it though, the demand for tear gas peppers has to come from somewhere, so why not western Kenya? It’s a ton of money that both the farmers and the network needs. I’ve had a specialist for these peppers come speak to the network chairman, and I have managed to convince about ten farmers to start quarter acre test plots. If the market is as readily available and profitable as I have been told, then we are really on to something. The first harvest for these peppers will be in about five month’s time and I’ll know then if the crop is worthy of being promoted throughout the network.

Finally, there is a tree called Moringa Oleifera I am working with. Its pods and leaves are the most nutritious vegetable on the planet. It reduces blood pressure, controls diabetes, and even boosts the immune systems of people with HIV/AIDS. I’ve been mixing a spoonful of the dried leaf powder into my food everyday and feel great. Google it if you are skeptical or bored. There is an organisation nearby that sells the seeds in bulk, and I have purchased enough to make around 50 bags that the network is selling for a very low price to farmers. I’ve also created a brochure about Moringa that I am including with the seeds, and am keeping a log of all farmers who are purchasing the seeds. I am hoping a Moringa specialist will be able to come and conduct a training session on the crop. As of now there is not a huge local market for Moringa, but it does a great job targeting malnutrition and I am promoting it for household use more than anything. The Moringa foundation, where I purchased the seeds, is currently applying for a grant to being processing and selling Moringa products. If that is successful, then the market for Moringa would create another cash crop.

I've also been doing a lot of brainstorming on what I can do to help orphan children here, particularly the Wake Up Women’s group I have been working with that has been so determined to start an Orphanage. I recently visited an organisation in Kisumu called the Pamoja foundation, and I really like what they are doing. They find host families for orphan children, then monitor their care and make sure they are getting nutritious meals and are going to school. They also provide sessions for the kids on HIV/AIDS education, assertiveness training for the girls, etc. The children are taken care of all the way through secondary school, and the promising kids are even helped out with University fees. Right now it is only costing about $30 a month to sponsor each child, which is much less an orphanage would cost. With the Pamoja foundation, the host parents are part of the organisation and they attend regular meetings. They have become their own community of “Pamoja Parents” and they check up on each other and work as a team to make sure the kids are well taken care of. I really like the concept and may try to adapt the same principle to the Wake up Women’s group here in Kakamega. The most important issue for such a program to work would be a reliable and honest contact person here in Kenya, and I know I would have no problem trusting Habakkuk with that role.

An important point was brought up by my visit with Pamoja foundation. Kenya is an incredibly community-based culture. Family, friends, neighbors, and relatives all look out for each other in a big way. When a kid is sent to an orphanage, that group becomes their community. After they are finished with secondary school (which still leaves them very unlikely to find a decent job), their community is gone, and where do they turn to if they run into trouble? The more I think about it, the more I like the concept of leaving the children in the village while making sure their needs are met. I’m planning to do a little further research on how the Pamoja foundation, so stay tuned. If things fall into place in a way that might lead to a sustainable project then I may start my first fundraiser in the near future.

I haven’t even started talking about the latest updates with the Wheelchair project, HIV/AIDs education, and the community based organisation I’m working with near Eldoret, but I’ll save updates on those projects for another time. Things are going full-throttle now and I love it. I met in Eldoret this afternoon to talk with several Agronomists concerning cash crops, I have a meeting tomorrow with the CBO I’m assisting nearby, then it’s off to Webuye (the stinkiest town in the world: a raw sewage lake on one side of the road, a paper mill on the other) for a week of Peace Corps “Cross-Sector training”, whatever the heck that means. After that it’s off to Nairobi for a 4th of July party at the International School. All Americans living in Kenya are invited so that should make for a good time. I’ll give an update again when I return from Nairobi.

My first robbery

2006-06-12T02:11:00.000-07:00

I used my trip to Italy as an excuse to finally get my house cleaned up. It’s a trick I learned from my mom; there’s something serene about returning to a spotlessly clean home after some time away. I’m temporarily fooled into thinking it’s the way I always live.

Thus, I was surprised to come home and find a box of cereal and deck of cards emptied out and spilled across the floor, my soapstone chess pieces out of place, and the stuffed moose I received as a gift from returned Canadian friend resting against the kitchen door when it had previously been sitting on a cabinet shelf on the other side of the house. However, nothing appeared to be stolen. The back door had remained padlocked while I was away and the front door was locked, so my best guess was that wind gusts from the small plane of glass missing in the back door somehow blew threw the house and made the mess. As for the moose, it wouldn’t be unlike me to absentmindedly move it, and maybe I let didn’t leave the chess pieces set in place after all? Oh, and perhaps I did spend all the change I thought was in a box on the table, so I let it go, but not before professionally replacing the missing pane of glass with cardboard and duct tape.

After being away from site for two weeks I needed to restock my pantry and bought, among other things, a loaf of bread and a bunch of bananas. I then went away for the day and came back to find the bread almost gone and the bananas missing, except a peel on the floor. Also, my camera was out of the case and switched on. Again, the door was locked, and I had been told that nobody outside of the owner, who lives in Nairobi, has a key. Was I going crazy? If someone was getting into my house why was nothing important stolen? Maybe I went through more bread then I thought during the previous evening. Maybe I had left my camera turned on and out of the case without thinking.

The next day I finally had a chance to sit down and download the pictures off my digital camera. I watched as the downloading pictures came up on the screen: the last sweet potato training class I organized, pics from Tuscany, Rome, and Pompeii, and around fifty out of focus pictures of the inside of my house…

Ok, something is not right.

I decided to contact Absalom, the house owner living in Nairobi. He agreed that I had a serious problem and he is going to change the lock on the front door as soon as possible. The windows are barred and we deduced that besides someone else having a key there is no way this could happen. Until the front door lock is replaced, I am padlocking the front door as well. I remembered that awhile back I noticed the house key was missing from my key chain. I don’t know how it happened and I never found it, so Absalom sent me a new key from Nairobi. My theory is that the key fell somewhere in the yard, and the kids on my compound discovered it, recently realized that it is the door key to my house, and have been using it to get in. Who else but children would play with my cards and my chess set and take a bunch of pictures in my house but steal nothing of value? I wasn’t too upset about it and actually felt pretty good in terms of fixing the problem and having lost nothing too important. Feeling fortunate, I decided to call it a night. Now, hanging on a nail in the wall by the back door is my trendy and cool L.L. Bean toiletries bag that has, among other things, my toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, sunscreen, and most importantly my malaria medication. It was gone. Now I was getting a little peeved. I needed a glass of wine. (I had reacquired a taste for it in Italy), but then I realized that box I had just purchased (classy, I know) had disappeared as well.

The next morning I had Absalom talk to Mama Nora and Moses and the other adults on my compound, and my kid theory remains. Absalom and Moses are both security guards (although Moses is retired) and I was pretty amused listening to them talk about various interrogation techniques. The one they decided to go on is to pretend there is a police investigation underway and to scare the kids into confessing with threats of prison sentences. Absalom then confidently assured me that if he were in Kakamega he would have my things back the same day. He went on to tell me of how he suspected a garden worker has stolen things from his house some time ago. It was only a hunch, but to find out he went to the worker’s house and beat him mercilessly until the worker finally confessed and gave Absalom his things back. I hope the same technique is not used on the kids.

So I’m honestly disappointed. I should know in the next couple days if I’ll ever see my toiletries bag again (the only thing I really need that is missing), and with my medication replaced and key being changed I guess things are ok. I built these kids a swing though. I give them toys and candy and play with them in the yard. If it does turn out to be the children it’s a just another disillusioning relationship I’ve had here in Kenya, like the guy who wants to be your best friend, and once he feels the moment is right acts for sponsorship to America or a new cell phone. There are so many people like that here that it‘s difficult to ever know people’s true motives or let my guard down.

Italy and Back

2006-06-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

Well, Italy was great and it was nice to see my family. If I’ve gained nothing else I’ve at least come to realize how important my family and long-term friends are. I’m half a world away from anyone who has known me for more than a short time, and seeing people from the States who are able to relate to me from life before in Kenya was a nice change.

I knew beforehand that going to Italy would be a culture shock. The tremendous wealth in Italy and Vatican city was such a contrast to the tin roofed shacks and run down Chinese bicycles in my village. Hot running water (that you can drink straight from the tap!), reliable electricity, and paved roads are just a few of the things I’ve learned to do without. White people everywhere; that was a bit strange too. I’ve been around Kenyans so long now that sometimes I’m almost surprised to look down at my arms and see pasty white skin. I also anticipated a culture shock coming back to Kenya, but the strange thing was it almost felt like life was back to normal once I got off the plane and onto the streets of Nairobi. After eight months this place feels like home to me, and I have so many projects to get back to that by the end of the trip I was actually looking forward to returning.

I started the trip with an Ethiopian Airlines flight though Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia) to Rome. The brief amount of Ethiopia I was able to see from the sky was enough to make me want to visit. The landscape is completely different than what I have seen in Kenya...very dry and mountainous, and the people are beautiful.

After arriving in Rome and I immediately made a beeline for McDonald’s. I ate an Egg McMuffin for breakfast and it was heavenly. During my trip I also had a BigMac and a Fillet-O-Fish supersized extra value meal. I rarely eat fast food in the States but after months of organic, natural, and flavorless Kenyan food there was something extremely comforting about greasy processed American fast food.

After finding my way through the largest train station I’ve ever been in, I caught a train towards Montepulciano. I met with my parents and sister at the station and drove in a rental car into the hilltop village. The Tuscany region is covered by small towns. They are perched atop rolling hills and surrounded by stone walls. The towns are old, and most date back to Roman times with medieval architecture built over the ancient Roman ruins. We had a chance to go to several of these towns, and before our time in Tuscany came to an end they all started to look the same: impossibly narrow roads winding though rows of ancient stone buildings, gigantic medieval churches, usually the burial place of a Saint and filled with priceless artwork and sculptures, and thousands upon thousands of tourists. It is always easy to spot Americans in the crowd; just listen for the people making the most noise. Another giveaway: North Americans are the only people who will wear white socks with their tennis shoes. Europeans wear colored socks, usually black. Try it the next time you travel abroad and I guarantee it’s a giveaway 99.5% of the time.

Of course with tourists come the people who make their living on tourist dollars. Souvenir shops and street side vendors are everywhere. There’s so many it’s a wonder they can all stay in business. The majority of souvenirs are ridiculously tacky: who, after visiting the tomb of St. Francis, doesn’t want a Pope hat or a St. Francis shot glass? Perhaps the worst of them are the souvenir shops that are actually inside the churches themselves. Doesn’t even Jesus speak out against this?

I apologize if I’m sounding skeptical. Italy really was fantastic. I’ll move on now to the best part of Tuscany, the wine. All of these small towns have wineries, where free samples are readily available. I had a good time going from shop to shop with my father, tasting various samples, and moving on to the next. By the end of the day all the wine started to taste the same and it became difficult to walk in a straight line, but it really was a lot of fun. I couldn’t understand why people were swishing the wine around in their mouth and then spitting it out, it seemed like such a waste.

There’s also a type of liquor called Grappa. It’s made by taking the leftovers after the wine is made; the vines, leaves, and pulp, and distilling it. It’s about as strong as whiskey and tastes like rubbing alcohol with a slight grapey aftertaste. Samples are readily available at most of the small wineries and it doesn’t take long to decide that one’s Grappa tolerance has been exceeded. The funny thing about it is that Grappa is available for different prices and qualities, much like the wine. All Grappa tastes the same, so I don’t really understand the point. I did try one type of Grappa, Grappa with Herbs, which tasted different, but not in a good way. It was the most vile thing I’ve ever tried and it is obviously intended for use as a gag drink and not something people would seriously enjoy. After trying a small sample I enjoyed a Grappa with Herbs aftertaste for the rest of the day.

The food was in Italy is fantastic. Typical noodle-based Italian food from the states (Lasagna, Spaghetti, etc.) is generally just a first course in Italy, followed by a second course, which is generally a meat dish. My personal favorite was the wild boar but all the food was great. It had also been quite awhile since I’d had cheese and I definitely had more than enough in Italy to last me awhile.

After a relaxing time in Tuscany we drove to Rome, where I met up with Jana, a German friend of mine living in Southern France. She had never been to Rome before and accompanied me and my family to Rome’s fantastic sites. The city is incredible and I was amazed by the elaborate fountains, ancient pillars which were once topped with Roman emperors, but are now topped with statues of St. Peter, Roman buildings dating back to before the time of Christ, and beautiful, yet overwhelmingly detailed and decorated churches. One of my favorite sites was the Coliseum. I had a chance to go inside, listen to a guide describe the gruesome gladiator battles that took place here, and see a museum full of priceless Roman antiquities. The culture of the Romans was incredibly developed. I find it strange that, with as much as the Greeks and Romans were able to accomplish, about 1200 years followed where progress and enlightenment practically came to a halt. Why, after the fall of the Roman Empire, did people not adopt the knowledge of Roman times and continue progressing? I’m sure there’s an explanation and that’s something I want to look into.

Another site definitely worth visiting is the Pantheon. It’s a huge stone building located right in the center of Rome. It is topped by what was the largest dome in the world until the 1960’s. In the Pantheon a group of monks were singing, and the acoustics in the building are just incredible. It dates to before the time of Christ, yet is perfectly preserved thanks mostly to the fact that, although it was originally built as a temple for Roman Gods, it was converted to a Catholic Church and thus preserved through the centuries. The same good fate cannot be said of the majority of ancient Rome, which lies in ruins but is still fascinating to walk though.

We also went to Vatican City. The line into the Vatican museum, which is where the Sistine Chapel is located, was three hours long, and my parents decided to skip it since they have been there before. Instead we walked on to St. Peters Basilica. St Peters is the largest church I have ever seen. It is in a stone courtyard surrounded by pillars with room for 400,000 people, and the church itself is so gigantic that it is difficult to find a sense of scale. Only when I walked directly up to one of the carved marble angels on a small section of the wall and saw that it actually much larger than I am did I start to grasp the enormity of the building. It is longer than two football fields and the roof must be at least 100 feet overhead. Every space on the wall and ceiling is covered with paintings, carvings, and sculptures from the master artists of the Renaissance. I wish I could say it felt like a spiritual experience to be there, and perhaps it was to an extent, but the church was filled with tens of thousands of camera-wielding tourists and the elaborate building was really just too much to take in for me to feel especially close to God.

One other place worth noting in Rome is a crypt where thousands of monks had their bones changed into artwork in medieval times. Bones from deceased monks have been arranged into designs, patters, and pictures. At the end of the tour is a plaque stating “What you are, we once were. What we are you will become.” The intention is to exhibit human mortality, and I found it very strange and unsettling.

After a few days in Rome my family had to catch a return flight to the states. It was great to see them, and reassuring to know I’ll be catching up with them, as well as friends from home, again over Christmas. Once they left I stayed in Italy for another two days to meet some of the people working in at the FAO headquarters in Rome. My meeting was scheduled in the afternoon before my flight left, but I had sent a confirmation email and never got a response. I then called the person I was supposed to be meeting and he told me he would be in touch sometime later in the day to finalize our meeting. More on that in a moment.

Once my parents and sister left for the States I had a free day before meeting with the FAO the following day. With help from Jana, who works as a travel agent, we were able to book a ticket to Pompeii and spend the day there. Pompeii is an ancient Roman city of 20,000 people that was destroyed by a volcano in the 1st century A.D. The remarkable thing about the city is that it was covered in volcanic ash and left perfectly preserved until it was rediscovered in the mid 1800’s. Since then the city has been excavated and now sits, uncovered, as the best preserved ancient city in the world. We took a tour of the city and walked down the cobblestone streets through what was a very developed town. Pompeii had running water, beautiful homes with tiled floors, painted walls, and swimming pools that are still intact, fast food restaurants, a supermarket, public baths, two theaters, a gymnasium, and a coliseum. There was also a Red Light district with stone penises carved into the walls throughout town pointing the way. This was apparently done because of the language barrier of sailors coming to Pompeii’s shipping port.

Of course, the strangest thing about Pompeii is what became of the many people who were in the town when Mt. Vesuvius exploded. As the volcanic ash covered the town it also covered its people, who were then perfectly preserved under a blanket of ash for 1800 years. When they were found, only skeletons remained in the ash. Plaster was used to fill the places where the people had died, and the result is a perfect impression of what the person looked like in their last moments. Facial expressions, the texture of the clothing, and even the hair style are all perfectly visible in the plaster casts. It was creepy and also sad to see the looks of people crouched to cover themselves from the ash with a terrified look on their faces.

The next day was when I needed to meet with people from the FAO, but I had never heard back and was unsure of what to do. I decided to go to the FAO headquarters office and test my luck, but when I arrived the guy I was supposed to meet was not in, and security would not let me enter the building without an escort. I was pretty disappointed, but decided to make the most of it and visit the Vatican Museum since I had missed it with my parents. I arrived late in the afternoon and the three hour line I had seen when we walked by in the morning was gone. I was able to go straight into the museum and was surrounded by priceless sculptures, paintings, tapestries, and artifacts. I had anticipated only Christian relics and artwork but there were also ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Greek displays. The museum is enormous and it quickly became clear that there was little time to see everything. I breezed through room after room, looking at walls and ceilings covered with priceless paintings, and I finally made it to the Sistine Chapel, the highlight of Vatican City. The Chapel was smaller than I expected, and was so cram filled with chattering tourists that there was hardly a place to stand. The body heat from the thousands of people made it feel like a humid day in Kisumu, and I briefly looked at Michelangelo’s famous painting and left to see other equally fascinating exhibits that were not as crowded.

I made it back to Kenya, but not in time to catch the bus back to my site. I spend the night at Upper Hill Campsite and had a chance to speak to a guy traveling from Cape Town to Cairo by himself. He had some great stories and even gave me a book on trans-African travel to read. I think I’ll do the same thing, but preferably not alone, when my stint with the Peace Corps is complete.

Now I’m in the office waiting for our executive meeting to start, and I’ve written enough for now. I’ll give an update on where things stand here in Kenya in a future post.

Quick note from Italy

2006-05-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

Not much time to write, only 10 minutes left on the card, which may come as a relief to the folks who just check out the site for pics. After a bit of an ordeal with overbooked and accidentally canceled tickets I made it to Italy in one piece and more or less on time. It is such a culture shock to be here. Great food, beautiful buildings, white people everywhere! The culture here is incredible and I had almost forgotten how much I love Europe. Why is there not a Peace Corps Tuscany? It is great catching up with my parents and a little weird knowing I will be back in Kenya for another year and a half before I know it. My project started picking up a bit as I was about to leave though. I got a bit worked up about how slow things are going and spoke to everyone in a meeting last week. Unbelievably, it actually helped. We successfully finished the sweet potato training by teaching another 65 farmers last Thursday and Friday, and the village boards are out in the field now. Thus, things are coming along a bit better than the last time I wrote. I actually realized how much I enjoy my site now that I am away and I am looking forward to getting back and watching things further develop.

So I will update again soon. I cannot believe how fast this Internet connection is! I have cards and a few small gifts to give my parents for some friends and family back home, so although I did not have enough money and packing space to get gifts for everyone some of you should be expecting packages soon. I will get the rest later!

Frustration with the Network, an Agricultural Trade show and a trip to Eldoret

2006-05-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Not an extremely eventful a week but here's a quick recap: Perhaps the highpoint was finally balancing (more or less) the finances for our Network. It was a huge ordeal but now things are in order and it should be a lot easier to keep them that way. I also noticed from the newly balanced budget something that I had expected all along: We are currently spending about twice the amount we are getting monthly from the FAO, and as a result we have just a little over a year left before our money runs dry. Also, there's little we can do in terms of cost cutting since we are running at a bare minimum as it is. Thus, the only way to keep the network operation long-term is to start increasing our income generating activities. My goal is to bring this network to self-sustainability before I leave, and I'm starting to realize that I really have my work cut out for me. The volunteer before me put everything into place and got the ball rolling, but he did it with plenty of outside funding from the UN. It seems I'm now left responsible for something much more difficult to accomplish. People are much more willing to work with money coming in from an outside source. Now that the network is being weaned off outside funding, I'm seeing a potentially big problem. I've mentioned this before, but out of our 10 network officials I'd say there's about three that actually do anything beneficial to the network, and the rest seem to just be in it for the money they get for travel expenses and attending meetings. In these meetings, most of the officials talk plenty about getting things accomplished but do nothing. Most Kenyans are very non-confrontational, so this issue isn't really being addressed, but something needs change if the network is going to survive. I'm afraid it might be left up to me to shake things up a bit, which I'm not looking forward to, but I didn't come to Kenya and leave so much behind just to see things fail.

So back to my week, we had about 30 visitors come visit the Network from India. As I mentioned, our network is considered the golden child of all FFS networks in Africa and visitors are always coming from all over the world to see how it operates and model their networks after ours. Our network officials told these visitors, as they do all the other visiting groups, of things we are supposedly doing: We are generating income from renting sweet potato chippers to the farmers (the money never makes it back to the network). We are updating village boards with the latest agricultural prices on a regular basis, so farmers are aware of pricing and have some leverage again middle-men. (the village boards, no matter how many times I've pleaded, are still sitting in storage). We are maintaining a crop database to provide buyers with information on what we are growing, which in turn allows us to sell crops at harvest time at a much better price to larger markets. The commission we get for setting up the commodities exchanges is going back to the network. (There has only one trade in the history of the network and it didn't work out. The database isn't being maintained because the information is not coming in from the field) Etc. Etc. Etc.

So I'm a bit frustrated right now, because there's so much talk and so little action; so much that can be done and needs to be done and isn't being done. I guess if things were running perfectly I wouldn't need to be here though. I have a meeting scheduled soon to discuss these issues and I hope things improve soon. The Sweet Potato processing grant money I applied for is coming in July and I'm worried that we'll be making the same kinds of lies about things we are not actually doing with that money as well unless things change.

The rest of the week was spent preparing for and attending an agricultural trade show in Kakamega. Our network was in the show and we demonstrated various value addition techniques, hybrid breeds of bananas, and ways we are supposedly (but not really) assisting the farmers with market information.

At the trade show I had a chance to walk around to all the different booths and displays, and I found some very promising cash crops. I also purchased some demo seeds for various cash crops and will have some of the more motivated farmers in the network grow samples in order to see if the market demand is really as promised.

After the show I left for Eldoret, where I am working with Adrienne on getting a youth group established as a registered CBO (community based organization) that is wanting to do community outreach work. Things went well and now officials have been elected and subcommittees are being formed to evaluate various needs in the villages and start working towards ways to help. Today I am meeting an agricultural officer in Eldoret concerning a potential market for Passion fruit and then I'm headed back to Kakamega. That's about all for the latest.

Italy in just one week! I'm really excited about it.

The latest and greatest and new and improved BIGGER pictures!

2006-05-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

The last week has been productive, with plenty of time spent on Sweet Potato Value addition training for the farmers. The training is a good thing because its the first step towards the goals of the grant proposal I worked on several months ago. I was recently told by a contact in Nairobi that we have cleared the final hurdle in being approved for the funds and the money should arrive in July.

Now from the training, about 80 farmers are experts on drying chips for creating flour, and also making juice, chapattis, cakes, donuts, sweet potato onion bites, greens (from sweet potato leaves), etc. In fact, I had basically become a sweetpotatoarian for the last week and it’s nice to finally have a breather, but training for even more farmers will continue again in a few weeks. Things got a little shaky with Rhoda, who is a sweet potato value addition expert from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. She has a reputation for being very slippery but I finally convinced her to lead the classes. She gave us a long and detailed list of the exact materials and ingredients she wanted to have and because this is Kenya there were some issues in getting the entire list of items together in time. Luckily, with some last minute panic purchases and the quick assembly of a proper drying rack, we were able to keep Rhoda happy and complete the course work. Habakkuk compared Rhoda to “riding a bicycle with trays of eggs on the back”, in that you have to be very careful with every move you make around her. He’s absolutely right and I think the analogy is hilarious. I really get along well with Rhoda though. I have a lot of respect for African women living in a male dominated society that don't take any crap. She’s not a pushover and doesn’t put up with people wasting time or doing things in a way she doesn’t agree with. Furthermore, she’s very intelligent and her opinion is respected enough that she can get away with it.

After our training we had a visitor from an FAO employee working in Mali. The Kakamega FFS network has become a benchmark for other Farmer Field Schools, and, for better or worse, much of our time is spent showing visitors around. She was a Dutch women named Susan who has lived in Mali for the past few years and she gave me the contact information of her boss, who is living in Rome as the supervisor for FAO West Africa. He was in the Peace Corps and is an American and I am very excited about the opportunity to meet him. More on that in a moment.

Life in Mali is very different from Kenya. According to Susan there is about a 20% literacy rate and the poverty is even more extreme than here. From what I gathered Mali consists of many nomadic tribes living in a scorching hot desert so they have a valid excuse for being so poor. Using irrigation and teaching proper farming practices, Susan is helping reduce the level of poverty in Mali, and her job sounds very tough and rewarding. We showed Susan several field schools and there was the usual singing and dancing and lots of sweet potato products to eat. As usual I had garland placed over my neck as a “guest of honor”. The novelty has definitely worn off.

Next week will be cram-packed with visitors yet again. On Monday there will be nearly 30 people from India who have flown to Kenya just to visit the Farmer Field Schools here, and it has been a challenge to find ways to handle such a large crowd. On Tuesday we have visitors yet again as well as a Loans Committee meeting, followed by an Agricultural Trade Show Thursday and Friday. Hopefully I can actually use Wednesday to catch up on a few things.

Now back to meeting this FAO supervisor. The FAO headquarters is located in Rome, Italy. My parents had initially planned to visit me in August. Unfortunately, things came up preventing them from making it at that time and last month they informed me they could possibly arrive in May instead. Soon afterwards my sister, who has just graduated college, decided she wanted to come as well. May was the only month that would work for everyone, but by then we were very short on time. Tickets, vaccinations, passports, visas, and the costs of last minute travel became an issue, and my parents decided to visit me next year (with more adequate preparation time) instead. Meanwhile they want to see me and celebrate my sisters graduation, and I will meet them in Rome for a week. While there I’m also going to visit the FAO headquarters, which works out well because I don’t have to use as much vacation time, since part of the trip is work related, plus I will meet people who may prove useful if I decide to make a career out of what I am doing now. I can’t say that at this point in time my long-term aspirations are geared toward agricultural sustainability work in third world countries, but then again I’m not sure what my long-term aspirations are and it’s always good to keep my options open.

Oh, I almost forgot. I just finished a very interesting book called “Guns, Germs, and Steel”. In 400 pages, it basically sums up the entire history of human development over the past 13,000 years and does a fantastic job explaining why societies have developed into the “haves” and “have nots” that we see today, while disproving any racial theories. I highly recommend it to anyone who might find this kind of thing interesting. A really good fiction I just finished is “Life of Pi”. It’s about a kid stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger, a Hyena, a Zebra, and a Baboon. I want to sit down soon and tally up all the books I’ve read since I got here before I start forgetting. I think I’m averaging over a book a week now.

So that’s enough rambling. To make up for it here’s some pictures from the last few weeks:

Here I am at the entrance to Crater Lake park with two PCV's, Shelia and Adrienne. It may appear that we started here from the pic, but our guide tried sneaking us into the park from the lake and we had to walk back to the gate to pay the entrance fee

So there is wildlife in Kenya if you know where to find it! In Crater Lake game park you can walk right by it without being in a vehicle. How cool is that? The long-necked animal in front is called a Giraffe, those stipey horse things are known as zebra, and I forgot what the ginormous antelope-type animals in the back are called.

A typical view from the park. I have about a hundred pics but I'll spare you with just a few.

Here we are in Sweet Potato training learning to cook greens (surprisingly tasty) from the leaves of sweet potato vines. That's Rhoda with the brown cap amd elephant print dress leading the class.

Here's another pic from the same day of training. Here we have the potatoes chipped and they are being dried on a rack before being ground into flour.

IST, Naivasha, and Sweet Potato Training

2006-05-02T00:43:00.000-07:00

In Service Training couldn’t have happened at a better time. I was getting pretty tired of the way things had been working out lately and it was fantastic to be able to catch up with my Peace Corps friends and take a break in Nairobi for a week. Also, I managed to start stop being sick about the time that training started, so I’m feeling much better now.

We had our IST at a convent in a really nice part of Nairobi called Karen. Karen is named after the woman who wrote “Out of Africa”, which I thought was a really boring movie. Maybe the book is better. Anyway, while in Karen we walked from the convent to the ritzy colonial lodge Karen stayed at the turn of the century. It’s amazing how much things have changed since then. The area surrounding the lodge was once full of game, and Teddy Roosevelt even stayed there for a hunting safari where he killed hundreds of Elephants, Lions, etc. Now the surrounding area is paved and covered with businesses and large houses. Karen seemed more like a Colorado resort town then a Nairobi suburb. We went out to a bar one night and it was not what I expected at all. There was not a single Kenyan in the place. Instead it was full of wazungu wearing designer clothes and buying plenty of expensive drinks, and there was a DJ mixing bad 80’s music.

Anyway, IST was productive. During this time I got plenty of resources on applying for Grant money to fund small projects, as well as information on HIV/AIDS education, various small projects, and leads for collaborators and facilitators willing to assist with initiatives at our sites. On a side note it’s a bad idea to put 40 PCV’s who have been living in the bush for the past five months in a convent. The compound was beautiful and really relaxing, but the sisters were not too happy with the volunteers. The first night, when several groups of volunteers stayed out past one in the morning, a nun brought everyone together to tell us that we had to be in the compound by 10:00. The next night everyone did as she said and did not go out. Instead we stayed in the Gazebo on the compound but apparently made too much noise. It turns out she didn’t just want us in the compound by 10, but asleep as well. As a result, without any warning or setting any ground rules beforehand the Nun declared that Peace Corps was never allowed to stay at the Convent again. We all found it very unfair because we weren’t out of control or anything. Regardless, we got to hear lectures from the Country Director and several other people about the way we behaved, although they only heard the nun's side of the story and we didn’t know we did anything wrong until it was too late.

So being banned from a convent was an unpleasant part of our training but all in all it went well. To be honest I’m glad we are banned from a place where we have to be as quiet as church mice and in bed by 10. Hopefully Peace Corps admin will do a better job planning where we will stay next time.

After IST concluded nobody went back to site. A lot of people went to the Upper Hill campsite, but I wasn’t up for heavy drinking, which our group has unfortunately become famous for. Instead I went with two volunteer friends to Hell’s Gate National Park. The park is located near Naivasha, which is where the volunteers had training until just one year ago. It’s an incredible place and so much better than Kitui I can’t even put it into words. Regardless, I think Kitui has its high points as well. After staying there for training anywhere else they post us in Kenya is a huge improvement, whereas I could see people being more let down with their site if they trained in Naivasha first.

We arrived in Naivasha from Nairobi in the early afternoon and stayed at a place called Fisherman’s camp. The first thing we did was take a boat across Lake Naivasha to Crater Lake game park. This park and the nearby Hell’s Gate park are the two of only a handful in the country that allow people to walk around without being in a vehicle. Once we made it across the lake to the park we were almost immediately greeted by three giraffes hiding behind trees. I thought this was fantastic and took tons of pictures. However, as we walked past the trees the landscape opened up to broad, open plains teeming with game. It was absolutely incredible and for the first time I felt like I was in the Kenya I’ve seen on National Geographic. Herds of Zebras, Giraffes, Impalas, and Gazelles covered the landscape. There were also huge Antelope looking things (I forgot the name) that are apparently the largest in the world. Beyond all this were monkeys running across the plains and Hippos on the lake shore. I never expected to be so close to such exotic animals and it was amazing to just walk by a Zebra heard or a sleeping giraffe as opposed to snapping pictures out a car window. The park features a large crater, which has a soda lake set in the middle. To be honest it was a huge letdown compared to the game we walked through. The lake was more of a large, stinky puddle than anything scenic or worthwhile. Late in the evening we made our way back to the campsite. The only issue was the boat motor. For quite sometime we could not get it to start, and meanwhile the hippos, which the guide assured us were “f*ing crazy”, saw us in the boat and were slowly swimming closer and closer. Thankfully the motor finally caught and we left the shoreline before being attacked by hungry hungry hippos.

Back at the campsite we slept three deep in a two person tent and I think maybe I pulled off a solid hour of sleep. The next day we rented bikes and went to Hell’s Gate National park. Hell’s Gate was equally amazing. The landscape was beautiful, like a tropical Wyoming or Montana. Huge rock bluffs jutted out of the ground and as we rode our bikes through the parks Zebras, Giraffes, and Baboons watched us curiously from the sweeping green plains.
About a mile into the park we saw people rock climbing and we stopped to watch. It didn’t look to difficult and all the safety gear was there, so after an invitation I ended up climbing a rock face and Adrienne, one of the PCV’s I went to Naivasha with, climbed as well. After the climb we continued on our journey and made our way to a river cut deep into the rocks. We left our bikes and hiked through the river valley. The river was fed by hot springs and we stopped and soaked ourselves under an amazing hot spring water fall. After a long day of hiking and biking we went back to the campsite, and left early the next day for Eldoret. The original plan was to climb nearby Mt. Longinot as well, but we decided to save it for another time. On the way to Eldoret we stopped at a prehistoric site we saw in a travel book that was just off the main road. It was called Hydrax Hill and was basically just a circle of rocks. There was nothing too interesting about it except it was the remains of stone huts from thousands of years ago. We had a picnic at the top of the Hill and had a great view of Lake Nukuru, which is full of pink flamingos, so it was worth the stop.

In Eldoret I had a chance to catch up with the puppy I gave to Adrienne. Adrienne made the mistake of leaving it in the house for the entire week she was gone, and she trusted one of the people at her compound to let let the puppy out and feed it. The puppy appeared to be well fed but it apparently forgot to be housebroken while Adrienne was gone. The house was a mess and it look awhile to get the smell out and everything back in order. The Kenyans on Adrienne’s compound insisted that it become an outside dog and I think Adrienne was inclined to agree.

The next day we met with a recently founded church group of young adults Adrienne has started working with and we tried to convince the group to get tested at a VCT center for HIV/AIDS. VCT’s are all over Kenya and available for free, but the stigma of AIDS is still preventing people from knowing their status and getting tested. We also polled the group for what they are wanting to do together and determined that they are interested in community service work. I’m assisting with getting the group registered as a CBO (community based organization) and we will work with the group to try to get them involved in several of the potential projects we learned about in IST. These include grants available for water sanitation and doctors willing to set up an “eye camp” where free eye care and glasses are provided. I also hope to teach some farming as a business classes with the farmers in the group.

So I made it back to site on Sunday and met with Habakkuk in town. We finalized getting everything together for our Sweet Potato value addition class, which started yesterday. The class is going well and I am in town today getting certificates made for the participants. The Kenyans I have worked with love certificates and I’m certain the majority of them will be hung proudly on walls and kept forever.

So that’s all for now, I need to get going. I’ll write again soon and hope to post some of my pics from the last week in the near future.

When it rains it pours

2006-04-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

I’m in Nairobi now with some time to kill before our In Service Training (IST) begins tonight. I took a night bus (meaning very little sleep last night) because I’ve got meetings scheduled later today with the FAO and with Benson, my wheelchair contact, before IST begins. Anyway, here’s a quick recap of the last week, there’s been plenty of frustrations.

Work is pretty much the same. I’ve been working with Rhoda on setting up a sweet potato value addition training class, and it looks like we’ll be conducting training from May 1st through 6th in three different districts. There’s lot of preparation involved for this and I left it to Habakkuk to help me get everything squared away while I’m gone. I’m really hoping things will work out because Rhoda is extremely difficult to get ahold of and I don’t want to miss this opportunity. Rhoda is the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) expert on Sweet Potato processing and once she has trained our farmers to her standards she will also be a very good connection for finding markets to sell through.

I also had a chance to send out an email to the primary benefactor for Sally Orphanage, a guy named David from Belgium. He replied with a lengthy discussion of how Molly, the caretaker at the orphanage, is a liar and cannot be trusted. He says that his contact in Nairobi is very trustworthy and that it is Molly that is the problem. David tells me he is going to pull funding from this orphanage because he’s tired of Molly, and so the effort I put into assisting really didn’t amount to much, except possibly helping to shut down an orphanage, which is not something to feel particularly good about. I’m sure there’s a grey area between Molly’s story and David’s, but what bothers me is the kids that will be unable to finished school, or may even be back out on the streets, because of bickering between people and issues they have no control over.

So with the Sally Orphanage disaster on my mind, I attended an Easter party on Saturday for my own Orphan’s project, the Wake up Women’s group in Kakamega. I had a chance to talk with Agnetta, the caretaker for Brenda who has AIDS, and it appears Brenda will begin ARV’s to treat the virus this week. I also listened to the caretakers discuss how badly their organisation needs an orphanage, as the kids are currently disbursed and living with distant relatives or neighbors. I suggested they start with some income generating activities, such as a poultry project, that can be used for nutrition and income before thinking as far ahead as the expenses and time involved to start an orphan’s home. However, this group is determined to get one. I had to listen to every women in the group pray that God will work through me to assist them in getting an Orphan’s home, and then even the kids started saying the same thing. It really made me feel uncomfortable because I don’t see how, with everything else I’m supposed to be doing, I will be able to set up an orphan’s home in Kakamega for these kids. While in IST this week we should be covering various possibilities for grants and funding so we’ll see what happens.

So on to the wheelchair project. I found a private donor through Peace Corps friends to cover the $5500 clearance/storage costs to get the container of 550 wheelchairs released and sent to Nairobi. I was even sent a text message confirming it was taken care of. Then, after telling so many disabled people wheelchairs were coming, I get another text message. It turns out customs wants an additional $2500, which seems to just be a random number they are throwing out to see how much they can milk us. It’s frustrating to me how much the Port of Mombasa is going out of their way to prevent this from happening. I told Benson there was no way I would throw an addition $2500 in or help him find somebody who would. The cost is to the point now that it’s almost better to start over than to try and clear these. I met with Benson over Easter and he agreed to make his way to Mombasa, which he did yesterday, to try to straighten everything out. I’ll be meeting him in his office today to see where things stand.

So on top of all this I’ve had a nasty vomiting/dysentery/fever thing and I had to be hospitalized and rehydrated Sunday night. They haven’t been able to identify what’s causing it but I think I’m slowly starting to recover. When it rains it pours but I’m confident things will start looking up again soon.

Even More Pics

2006-04-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

Here's another set of pics to add to the ones I just posted. Might as well do this while the web is actually fast (comparatively) for a change:

Here is a matatu Stage in Kampala, Uganda. I have no idea how it's possible to find your way through here or maneuver a matatu out of the pile

This is the Nile River in Uganda. I wish I could have gotten some pics while rafting but very few cameras could have survived the trip.

I have puppies now! The mama dog in my compound gave birth to a litter of six. Unfortunately only these three made it but the remaining ones are doing fine. The one on the right is my favorite and the other two will be given to other PCV's

Sweet Potato Graduation 2006: A big festival for farmers who have been educated on planting techniques. I wish I could just sit in the back at some of these things but I'm always put up front and given special treatment. Fun for awhile but annoying on a regular basis. Here we are being given the usual garland necklace as part of the festivities.

This is Habakkuk, the chairman of the FFS Network and a close friend of mine. The three kids on the left are his, while the three on the right are his siblings' children

This is Homa Bay, a beautifully scenic village on Lake Victoria.

While visiting some Peace Corps friends in Rongo, a village in the Nyanza Province of Western Kenya, this bird landed on the fence outside. It's called an African Flycatcher. A flock of them live in the mango tree in the backyard, and they do a great job keeping the bugs away. This is the dominant male of the flock.

This is Mickey Freeman. His name sounds American, and that's because he is named after the Peace Corps volunteer who worked in my position before me. He's the son of Habakkuk. The kid is huge and not even one year old: proof that good farming practices and nutrition pay off.

Pictures!! -- Finally

2006-04-19T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well it’s been an interesting week and there’s plenty to write but I’ll start with some pics for a change. The electricity finally came back after taking a one month holiday, and with it my ability to upload the pics off my digital camer; the things I took for granted.

Starting with my visit to the Brittany James Chirdren's House:

Here’s Steve James, the founder of BJCF, with one of the Orphan girls in his lap

This is a pic of the welcoming celebration we received

from the Children when we arrived at the orphanage

On one of the visits into the surrounding community we stopped at a Church that is receiving funding from BJCF. An all too familiar sight, whenever large groups of wazungu congregate in a Kenyan village building the windows fill with curious children.

The orphanage is always bustling with activity. Here the roof is being added to the new girl’s dormitory (it was finished on the same week this picture was taken) and in the background women are drawing water from the well and carry clothes to be washed.

Can you find me in this picture?

Now onto my own Orphan's group back in Kakamega, The Wake Up Women's Group. This is a secondary project of mine I'll go into more detail on in my next blog post:

This is the Wake Up Women's Group members and children posing for a picture

Here we are serving the Children lunch for an Easter Holiday party. Everyone else is apparently fine, but this very lunch put me in the hospital with a nasty stomach bug that I'm still fighting

This is Brenda, the HIV positive little girl I'm working with. She has an infection on the left side of her face that has caused it to swell (an opportunistic disease caused from her weakened immune system), and as soon as the medicine she has been given for this clears the infection the doctor will put Brenda on ARV's (antiretroviral drugs), which may even be able to bring her health back to that of a normal ten year old kid.