Reflections on Kenya

To continue the story of our visit to Tanzania and Kenya, here are some reflections from the part in Kenya.  We drove on lots of winding, steep roads up and down the mountains in Western Kenya.  It was refreshingly cool.  At one point, the temperature outside was 13°C!

Here are a couple crazy things we saw going on on the roads:

There are lots of brightly colored tea plantations in Kenya too.

In the area of Kenya where we visited, World Renew is working with the Anglican Church's development organization.  With them, we had fun visiting some individual farmers at their homes and hearing what they have been doing.  The first area we visited was around Nakuru.  The people we visited were the lead farmers in farmer groups, chosen by the members of their groups to pilot these techniques.  They were mainly focusing on growing more and better vegetables for family consumption and for sale.  So, one technique they used was to make "wet gardens."  They took sacks, sewed them in a circle, and put a perforated pipe down the middle and filled the sack with soil.  You can transplant vegetables all over the sack and then water by pouring water into the pipe that goes down the middle of the garden, from the top to the ground.  It is very productive and they can grow more vegetables on less space and with less water, using this technique.

They are also using a gravity-fed drip irrigation system.  All of the parts are available in Nakuru, so they can fix the system if it breaks.

The water comes from a pond that they dug and lined with the material used for greenhouses.  They use a hand pump to pump that water into the tank on their irrigation system.

The farmers we visited are living on land that used to be part of a big sisal plantation.  The land was divided up and given to the families of the people who used to work on the plantation.  Sisal looks kind of like yucca and the fibers from the leaves are used to make rope.  The sisal factory is still going now, but on a much smaller scale.  We passed by it and you can see them carrying the leaves and drying the fibers in the photo below.

One of the farmers we visited has come up with the idea of using the waste from the sisal factory for mulch in his garden.  He asked the factory if they would give it to him and they did.  So he used it to mulch the watermelon that he planted.  There is a huge market for fruit, so he will be able to make a lot of money from selling the watermelons when they are ready.

The farmers have also been starting their seedlings in nursery beds, like the farmers I've been working with in Uganda.

The second day of visits to the Anglican development work, we went north to Baringo, in East Pokot.  On the way, we stopped by the area where the Anglican church had their offices.  They were on a lake, but the water level has risen over past years and destroyed their buildings.

The climate and area of Baringo is very different from other places we visited.  It was much drier and filled with lots of acacia trees.  The people there have traditionally been pastoral, herding animals, but in recent years, since they can't migrate as easily during the dry season, people have been relying on food aid during such times. 

However, the community that we visited has been trying out agriculture to support themselves.  For example, they have planted a variety of crops, not just maize, have planted indigenous species of grass that they can sell for people to feed their animals, started beehives, and learned better techniques for storing food so they could hold on to their maize harvest and sell it when the price is good.  Unfortunately, this year there has been a serious drought.  The next chance to plant is April and there are people (farmers) who are already going without food or eating only once per day.  We visited the farm of one of the model farmers.  Her farm is the best in the area, but already things are drying up and if it doesn't rain, she will probably lose the whole harvest.

She had also dug a pit for storing water for irrigation, but the water is all gone.  It's hard to see the scale in this picture but the pit is probably twenty feet deep.

Despite these serious hardships, the community group told us about all the ways their lives have improved in the last seven years, since the Anglican development organization started working with them.  They used to have less than 1% of their children in school, but now it is over 50%.  They used to have only one church in the community, with less than 50 people there on Sunday, but now there are seven churches, all with many attenders. 

With the help of the Anglican development organization, they built a borehole for the community, which is the only one for 20 km around.  It had to go 140 meters deep to get to water.  In the picture below, you can see the spouts on the right where people get water and the building on the left that houses the generator to run the pump.  This pump broke at one time, but a group within the community is in charge of caring for it, so they paid for fixing it themselves.

We heard about how the community members used to steal livestock from neighboring tribes, but now they are the ones who are initiating peace in conflicts, rather than causing it.  They told us that now they have the power to improve their own lives in the future.  Their goal for the future is to form an overarching community group that has the ability to give loans to the smaller groups so they can move ahead with the different project ideas that they have.

It was so encouraging to hear about how empowered they feel, but also heartbreaking because even with all their hard work, they are going hungry because of drought, which they cannot control.  We pray that God will provide them with rain and help them to hold on to the hope that they have gained through the transformation they have already achieved in their community.

Market and Soroti Town

I took some pictures while at the market this week so you can see a little bit of what it looks like where we go shopping for our food.

Here are some videos of us biking from our house to do errands in town.  I just took little snippets of the ten minute ride.  In the first video you can see the famous Soroti Rock.

Here is a picture of Ugandan fast food, taken from a bus.  When you travel by bus or taxi people run up whenever a vehicle stops to sell food and drinks to the passengers.

A while back we had our back bumper broken off of our vehicle because of kids jumping on it and it needed to be welded back on.  While we were waiting, we took this photo of a man welding parts for a window.  Do you like all of his protective gear?

The Wolf and the Lamb

Yes, at times even the wolf and the lamb lie down together as if it we were already in God's New Creation.  Caleb is becoming much more well behaved, and at times he is right next to the baby goat or to the chicks, and he doesn't attack them.

I took my chameleon out of its cage so I could show you how cool it is when it eats.  I think it might be pregnant with eggs, but I'm not sure.

We have six new chicks which are very fun.  More are on the way.

These hens all wanted to lay at the same time the other day.

This goat is not ours, but we saw it during our travels last week, and it is very pregnant!

Reflections on Tanzania

As we mentioned before, we had the opportunity to take a learning trip to both Tanzania and Kenya where we got to visit programs that World Renew has in those two countries.  It was a very interesting and informative trip and we want to share some of our reflections and things we learned from the experience.  First of all, we found that although there are differences between Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, there are also a lot of similarities.  We think we would be very comfortable living in any one of them (although there are pros and cons of each one :) 

We drove ourselves across these countries and we were super impressed by the nice main roads in Tanzania!  They were in really good condition with clearly marked lanes and road signs.

Although it wasn't particularly informative, we really liked this sign, which we saw quite frequently.  It reminded us of something that would pop up in a video game, like Super Mario.

There area we drove through was also very beautiful, with hills and plains and vast stretches of fairly uninhabited land.

We stayed in Musoma, which is right on the southern side of Lake Victoria.

We heard about wonderful transformation in the communities that we visited.  There are so many great stories that I cannot share them all.  The first community told us about many ways that their self-help groups, facilitated by World Renew, have changed their lives.  These groups started through the church, but include both Christians and non-Christians.  And the church has been helping to meet needs in the community, even helping send the children of people who were not part of the church to school.  This has brought the community together and attracted people to work with the church, even if they were hesitant to do so before.

We heard about transformation in relationships within families as well.  Trainings about how we all have equal value in the eyes of God helped people to see that men and women have equal value.  One man said he used to think he was the boss in the home, but now sees his wife as his partner and they work together and make plans as a team.  And now both girls and boys are being sent to school, not just boys.

Another great thing in this community was that they used to have to travel 10 km to go shopping, but they started up their own shops and created a center in their community so people can get supplies from close to home and be investing in their own community.  The man on the right in the photo below started this shop for grinding grain into flour.

As we were leaving, the members of these groups told us that they don't need money, they need empowerment.  They have gone on exchange visits to other communities and the exposure to how they could better their lives was what encouraged and empowered them.

In the second community we visited, we heard many similar stories.  Both communities had village savings and loans groups (VSLAs).  In this second community, some individuals had used their loans to buy solar panels so they could start business charging phones.  Others were able to buy motorcycles so they could use it as a taxi around town.  This benefited the person owning the motorcycle since they charge people for rides.  But it also benefits the community because they have transportation right from their village, rather than having to call someone from far away to come and get them.  Some people have even started a business raising pigs.

Before we walked around the community, we met in the church to hear stories.  And of course, there was great singing and dancing.

Several people started businesses selling clothes or getting a sewing machine for fixing and making clothes.  The lady on the left in the photo below was able to use this to put three kids through school and one has since become a teacher.

Before the community had people owning motorcycles, they had to carry sick people or women about to give birth on stretchers to a clinic 11 km away.  So, they decided to build themselves a clinic.  Here it is.  They're even using gutters on the roof to collect rain water.

Here is the room where they store medicine and the bed where a person stays if they need an IV.

It was especially wonderful to hear their hopes and plans for the future.  They told us that in the future, it is their dream to have a paved road to their village and electricity and running water for everyone.  Then, their village will be as good as London (England).

Before we left Tanzania, we had a quick visit to a pastor who has been farming using a technique called "Farming God's Way."  The main aspects of this technique are disturbing the soil as little as possible, planting with proper spacing in rows, and covering the soil with mulch.  This pastor has become a proponent of the technique and has been teaching lots of people from his example.

One of the things he does is to grow these greens and then sell it by the "U-pick" method to people who then go out and sell it directly to customers.  His buyers are assigned their own section so they have motivation to take care of the plants in it so they produce more.  Some have been bringing their own mulch to put around the plants in their section.

It is a challenge to find enough mulch for a large farm.  But he showed us some maize he planted without mulch:

And then the maize where he had mulched:

He said that at least after he harvests the maize, he can use the stalks and leaves as mulch for the next season.  For him, it was just a challenge when getting started to find the initial input of mulch.

You could also see a very stark difference between his lush garden and the neighbor's land where the soil was hard as a rock and just had some short, dry grass growing on it.  He said that his land used to look the same before he started this new farming technique.

I learned from him an interesting technique for protecting the maize from getting destroyed by birds.  He ties the top of the cob with a leaf from the plant so the birds can't get in:

He also designed his own contraption for doing irrigation:


So all in all, a very good trip.  We enjoyed Tanzania, learned a little Swahili, and saw great things that God is doing in the communities there.