I had this idea a couple of weeks ago that we could talk to some of the farmers taking the classes at the resource centre and post a few short biographies about what they had on their farm, how the centre has helped them, etc. I kind of figured it would be a fun way to share a little bit of information about what’s going on at the centre from the perspective of the people who are directly benefitting. So I geared up to take some notes, a few pictures, and put together a short blog about it.

I was totally unprepared for what happened.

The response was overwhelming. The students were ecstatic to have a forum to tell their stories and tell the world about the great work that the Luari Community Resource Centre is doing form themselves and for the community. My idea for a short blog with a few notes about local farms grew into a full afternoon of interviews and discussions. These people have stories and they want you to hear them.

Peter Wafula Sitati

CMC Chairman

“In my 5 year vision, if I will be in good health, I am trusting that I shall be more active and richer and be able to assist other people in the community. I hope our friends from Canada will continue assisting me, the community, and the LCRC to eradicate poverty, etc., as they have already done for our youth.”

Jafetha Khayka

CMC Secretary

“There is a water problem in the community, but this center will bring water to the community that will help the community tremendously. The next dry season, the whole field will be green. Bringing the water should help the center become self-sustaining because we can grow crops year round.

Hudson Lomosi

CMC member in charge of bursaries and scholarships

“Another thing that’s a problem is women who are HIV and AIDS victims. When their husbands die, they are kicked out of their homes by their husband’s families who blame them. These are the people who rent small rooms in markets. If we could make a home for them, we could be training them with skills and guidance and counseling and make them self-reliant.”

Dominic Chitayi

LCRC Farm Attendant

“In my role as farm attendant, I’ve been able to act as a role model to my friends. It’s out of my commitment to my small farm that I have gotten this chance. Now my friends that I have been working with have also been motivated that anything you do, do like it’s as if you’re the only person in the field and you will get success in what you do. They are struggling because they don’t think you can make something out of nothing, but I’ve shown them that self-commitment can get you what you want.”

Naomi Njuhi Ndegwa

LCRC Secretrary

”As a woman, I believe the centre is going to help us so much. Most of the times we have been undermined by men, we have no say. At the center we are told that as a woman we are somebody. I can apply what we learned to improve the standard of living for my family and children. I can have money to send my children to school. It will be a very good way for raising my children because I’ll have no stress about having money and making sure they can get an education.”

Maurice Ochango

LCRC Caretaker

“I have enjoyed very much working at the centre. I have learned so many things, like farming, keeping poultry, and soil formation. I have learned conservation agriculture – new methods of farming that you can use so that they don’t spoil the land.”

Gichuru Hudson

Teacher

“The center has helped the community. Such a center is rare and is usually very expensive. This one here is almost free! It can help so many people. In future most of the school dropouts can come here to learn new skills. It’s going to help a wide range of people of all ages who can’t get education through other means.”

Alfred Makocha Abuko

Class Leader

“At the centre, I’ve learned about farming as a business and to be a serious business farmer. The centre has given me competition that causes me to work harder to make a better farm. It has also made me busy because I know I have to work hard to keep ahead of the competition. It has also let me socialize with different people of different walks of life. And it’s made me eager to come to Canada!”

Flora Koko Wasike

Mama Flora

“First impression for the women is when the girls came in August for the leadership training and what they learned has really changed the thinking of the women in the community. Most women thought that there was some specific work for women and specific work for men. Now, for example, you find there are more women than men learning at the centre. It’s really changing the attitude of the community towards women. Computer lessons and other such lessons, if the women can be given first priority to learn, it can change the community at large.”

Carolyn Andia

“After 5 years, I will complete my courses here I will be so different from what I am now. I will be exposed to much more, like computers. I would like to have a poultry project on our farm that will be a role model to the community and that will teach the community on how to benefit from poultry keeping. I will improve our farm by planting different types of crops and by having a water pump to get irrigation from the stream. Then I will have a very nice portion of land. I will get income to make machines to help irrigation.

Congratulations to LCRC and I encourage it to get a lot of computers so that everybody can learn skills and everybody can benefit from them. If in 3 days we’ve learned what we did with only a couple of computers, imagine what we could do if we had more!”

Festus Wasike Chepkisier

“There are so many other things to talk about. Not just myself but also for the whole community. I personally am so glad to have this centre that has connected me to so many people of the world and for getting friends from Canada. I’m also eager to visit Canada and to learn more from my friends in Canada. It has also changed my lifestyle and understanding towards different races and towards different people from different countries.

Your friends who read about the resource center are so welcome with their support and advice and to learn more through the Internet or by visiting the center personally. You are very highly welcomed.”

Jane Kauka

“At the centre, I have learned more about farming, cattle keeping, poultry keeping, and compost manure. I have changed because I used to not plant at the right time time, I was plowing very late, so I could not get enough food. Now I will plow early and plant in good time to get a good harvest. Because of what I have learned, I have to change.”

Margaret Wanjiro

“I have learned about computers and I would like to be a computer engineer like Ryan. (Ed. note: good choice!) I would like to visit Canada and learn how they practice agriculture.”

Mary Welomba Sakaya

“I have also learned how to harvest water and how to open a Facebook account, how to use the Internet to learn about other countries; you ask questions and the answers just come!

I pray God to help those who organized this centre and I wish the centre to expand, teach more people, start computer lessons, and so much more. God bless you.”

Monicah Kisia

“Five years ahead, I want to learn more and advance even more in these areas. Even my own children should know that their mother can know this information better than them!”

Owen Witende Murunga

“I hope that the centre expands to help many of our community members gain knowledge on agriculture production and how to produce food and be self-sufficient. I hope it can provide basic education and expand basic amenities like access to clean water and a health center. I also hope that this centre will help the community strengthen its relationship between us and the Canadian people. We shall have a strong friendship – maybe some of us will come from this place and visit there!”

Wilson Mulongo Wambasi

“My five year vision is to continue as a farmer. To have more students in this centre through my organization, to campaign to bring more students to the centre. For the centre to continue with its assistance to students.”

Our time in Lugari is flying by. No two days are the same, but we have settled into a pattern of sorts. Morning brings a hearty breakfast with some combination of hard boiled eggs, sweet potatoes, Kenyan pancakes, fruit, etc., and a pot of hot water for coffee. When breakfast is finished, we head to the community center by foot or by pikipiki (motorcycle) where we help out in the field or office or maybe head out to visit a local farm.

Sometimes we have guests visit us for breakfast.

We’re learning a stunning amount about rural life in Kenya from our farm visits and from sitting in during the afternoon classes at the center. Everybody has a farm, even if you have another job (which are sadly few and far between). Most, if not all, of your daily meals are prepared with food grown within 50m of your home. The farms all have a dizzying array of produce and livestock: from kale to fish ponds, geese to bananas, everything in between and a whole lot more. The crops are grown in a patchwork of small plots since many farms measure no more than 3-4 acres.

The community center’s current focus is to help farmers make the best use of limited land and to try to move away from pure sustenance farming into crops that can provide both food an income. It’s a special place because the vision, ambition, and effort is entirely homegrown. We, of course, have little to offer in terms of educating farmers about farming, but we have been able to talk to the class about a few things that we do know about: Canada and computers.

We took one class last week to talk about the homeland. People were astonished that so few Canadians lived on farms and that we had no real staple food. They thought beavers and moose looked pretty funny.

This week we took another two afternoons and taught computer basics: from opening and closing a Word document (yesterday) to browsing the Internet and setting up e-mail and Facebook accounts (Ed. note: I fully recognize that the latter may not actually count as any kind of step forward).

Many of the students have never used a computer before, so we were absolutely astonished by how eagerly and competently they took to trying everything and anything we threw at them. Both classes ran well past their scheduled end time because nobody wanted to walk away from the two computers we’d set up for them to play with. The excitement they felt was contagious. New ways of working and communicating and learning were unfolding in front of all of us. Unfortunately the center will be left with only one computer when we leave, and that one is primarily for the use of the center’s staff. It will be very, very sad if the enthusiasm that filled the classroom today were to erode because access to computers is so scarce, but the reality is that the center is on a very stringent budget that simply has no room for another computer (let alone the full lab of systems they dream of building one day). Michelle and I are already envisioning a used-computer drive that could go a long way to fulfilling the center’s ambitions.

This weekend we spent most of our time exploring the family compound and the beautiful landscape that surrounds it. The land has a timeless quality that makes you believe it’s been like this forever.

We feel fortunate to have landed in this place and at this time. The community center has the potential to do great things for this community and we’re lucky to have played a small part in these early steps it’s taking. But no matter what we’ve done, it’s the people here who are making the difference. We want you to meet them. Our next post will give you that chance.

See if you can spot it.

Maybe it was when the chicken laid an egg on Michelle’s foot, or maybe it was the six squawking geese roped together under the back seat, but either way our taxi ride from the Kenya/Uganda border wasn’t one we’ll soon forget.

A trip to Uganda wasn’t originally in the plans, but Khayanga’s brother Juma was headed that way, so we decided to tag along, if for no other reason than to collect one more stamp for the passport.

A Ugandan “taxi” is the same as a Kenyan matatu; a mini-van with rows of seats for passengers. They fill an important niche for efficient, low-cost transportation. Our four-hour ride from the border to Kampala was 13,000 shillings each (about $4). Of course, they tend to carry more than just passengers, and often that day’s market prizes join you for a ride; hence the egg-laying hen and goose brigade.
We spent one very full and enjoyable day wandering the busy streets of Kampala. There are people and cars piled in every direction, but the city nonetheless feels safe and welcoming. We stopped at a fantastic little coffee shop that specializes in local coffee and even offers an all-day “Coffee Safari” to a nearby coffee grower.

Getting around Kampala is fun! (And mostly pretty safe…;)

We also had a chance to visit the beautiful Baha’i House of Worship that’s built on one of the seven hills that make up Kampala—the only one of its kind in Africa, and one of only seven currently standing in the world.

We visited the temple on Juma’s recommendation. The family is Baha’i, and on Sunday before we left we had a chance to join the children of the compound for their own prayer service. The service takes place in a humble mud shed on the property. The children first decorate a makeshift alter with freshly-picked flowers, then guide themselves through a series of songs and stories. When the service was complete, they gathered outside and played in a dusty field, allowing us to join them. It’s hard to pick just one thing that we’ve loved most about our time in the village, but spending time with the children is certainly a strong candidate.
We left Kampala early today (although it still took an hour and a half to navigate the traffic out of the city) and headed for the town of Jinja, famous for sitting on Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile. We took a boat ride out to the marker denoting the official source: it was with a touch of reflection and a maybe even some feeling of accomplishment that we looked back northward to where our journey started a month and a half ago.

Our boat captain was educated and intelligent, but when he graduated from university there were no jobs of any kind waiting for him. After working odd jobs in and around Kampala, he returned home to Jinja to work for himself. He has his own boat and another he’s fixing up to attract more customers, but the tourism business is fickle and even at the best of times only offers a meager living. Sadly this theme is all too common and although we’ve heard it many times, it never ceases to break our hearts.

Our hotel here is lovely—if a visit to this part of the world is ever on your list, we can heartily recommend Gately on Nile. I’m writing this post from a balcony where the serene view of Lake Victoria has been swallowed by night and replaced with a chorus of animal sounds, some of which I can identify, but most of which I absolutely cannot. Geckos and other scurry-ers are darting along the stucco walls. Tomorrow will be an early-ish morning as we try to make our way back to the community center in time for the afternoon classes. We’re excited to get back to our friends in Musembe, but our brief taste of Uganda has left us wishing we could have spent much more time here.

I’ve got blisters on my fingers.

Yes, despite being awarded the “Golden Hoe” today at the Lugari Community Resource Center (thank you, thank you, hold your applause), my city-boy hands still aren’t quite up to a full morning of turning the soil at the center’s demonstration field.

The LCRC is the brainchild of Khayanga Wasike, a friend of Michelle’s who she met at a BCCIC development drinks in Vancouver. Khayanga is from the town of Musembe, where the center is located, and where we’re staying with Khayanga’s family. The center has many ambitious goals, but currently focuses mainly on training farmers to make better use of their land by planting new and different crops, rotating their fields more often, composting, etc. Most Kenyans farm entirely for sustenance, so trying something different can be very daunting. The demonstration fields allow these farmers to see different crops being grown and harvested which will hopefully compel them to try growing the crops themselves. Better crops not only mean more food for the farmers and their families, but will also hopefully turn into money-making ventures that can provide much-needed income.

Khayanga’s family has been extremely friendly and accommodating. We’re staying in her hut at the family’s main compound. Dung hut. Despite what you think (and what I thought when I first heard it), it’s nicely-appointed and very comfortable. (No, there’s no smell.) All of our meals are being provided and are hearty local fare, usually built around ugali and a stewed vegetable with meat and maybe some potatoes or bananas on the side. We watched the ugali being made last night in the smoky kitchen of the main house. Corn meal is slowly mixed into a pot of water boiling over an open flame until it becomes stiff enough to hold its own shape—a similar consistency to Play-Dough. When it’s ready, you break off chunks of ugali with your hands and use it to scoop up the veggies and meat on your plate. Tasty and very filling.

Our last day in Lake Nakuru national park was lovely and relaxing—lots more water buffalo and impalas, and a visit from a pair of rhinos as the day drew to a close.
Our departure from Nakuru was much less relaxing. We boarded the “Eldoret Express” which was scheduled to leave at 8:30. “Or maybe 9.” But actually 10:30, after we inexplicably switched buses at the station and watched while our bags didn’t. As the time wore on, we realized that nobody seemed concerned that our bags were stranded in the first bus, so I got out to do it myself. But there was no room in the storage compartments of the new bus. So I hoisted them up the side of the bus to Michelle, who was hanging out of an open window and hauled them into our seats. It was a cozy two-hour ride.

When we finally made it to Eldoret (the biggest town near Musembe), we were switched to yet another bus which actually had room for our bags. Which was mostly good, except for the mayhem that ensued when we finally made it to Musembe. White people getting off a bus causes a lot of excitement and many people quickly converge to help you carry your bags. As we were crossing the road with a team of helpers and the bus pulling away, I heard Michelle behind me: “Where’s my bag?” Our eyes shot to the bus now disappearing in the distance.

“Oh.”

Thankfully, we happened to be at a corner used by motorcycle taxis. Once we explained the problem, one of the drivers took off after the bus. He returned about 10 minutes later with the bag slung over his shoulder. As helpful and industrious as we are learning to expect from people here.

By the time our bag arrived, we’d been met by Festus, Khayanga’s younger brother who has been our friend and guide during our stay so far. Our conversations over meals and during walks have been mutually enjoyable and enlightening. And he has a motorcycle, which is a welcome sight at the end of a long, hot day. (Mother’s note: the ride was very slow and safe.)

There is so much more to write about this town and the resource center, but I’m still trying to absorb it all. The generator has shut down for the night and bedtime beckons. Until next time.

For information about the center: http://www.whisca.org/

The “Startled Muzungu” is (apparently) a face I make when something has gone terribly wrong in our planning (or lack thereof) and it’s not clear that there is any sort of easy way out of whatever mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. The Startled Muzungu has made an appearance twice on this trip: once on our first day when we slept through all of the boarding announcements for our flight from Frankfurt to Cairo and the plane was moments away from pulling away from the gate, and again yesterday when we first arrived at our lodging within Lake Nakuru National Park.

We’d spent the previous night at a decent hotel in the town of Nakuru and had made arrangements to spend the next two nights at the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya Guest Houses inside the park itself. We arranged an early-morning game drive that would drop us off at the lodge, where we would spend the next day and a half relaxing while herds of water buffalo meander by the lodge’s fence.

We were getting quite hungry by 2pm when we were dropped off at the guest house. We unloaded our bags from the safari truck and waved goodbye to our driver as he left through the locked fence that keeps guests in and wildlife out. Eager for a bite to eat, we followed the host as he took us on a tour of our cottage.

“Here’s your room…here’s the eating area…here’s the kitchen…”

“Looks great! Is there a restaurant?”

Silence.

“No. You cook yourself.”

Silence. Stares. The Startled Muzungu.

“We have no food with us.”

Silence. Stern, annoyed look from host. I start working on plan to stretch a few slices of beef jerky and some Tic-Tacs through two days.

Now, to be fair to us, the Lonely Planet makes no mention of needing to cook for yourself, and every other lodge we’ve stayed at has had some sort of restaurant, which is important when you’re sealed off from civilization and surrounded by wild animals.

“What is your driver’s phone number?”

Thankfully we copied it down.

“I’ll call him. Maybe he can take you into town.”

Which, thankfully, he did. We raced along the bumpy road out of the park and into the city to Tusky’s supermarket.

“Shop fast. They may not let us back in if we are late.”

20 minutes later we were leaving Tusky’s with three big bags full of supplies, including important staples like Skittles, popcorn, chocolate bars, and ice cream. (Some real food, too.)

And now we’re here, very comfortable and enjoying the meandering buffalo.

Yesterday’s game drive was enjoyable. The lake is home to a dizzying array of birds, and we finally saw some white rhinos which allowed us to check off the last of the Big 5. (No sightings of the much more elusive and endangered black rhino.) We also had another fabulous lion encounter. On to some pictures!

Our 4-day safari ended with a morning drive in Amboseli, then a long haul from Amboseli to Karen, a town on the outskirts of Nairobi named after Karen Blixen of Out of Africa fame. While in Karen, we took a trip to Carnivore, a renowned restaurant that’s either awesome or disgusting, or most likely a little of both.

Carnivore, as the name suggests, sells just about any kind of meat that’s legal to sell. (There’s a note at each table that the Kenyan government outlawed the sale of game meat in 2004 (zebras, giraffes, who knows what else?), but that they’re lobbying strongly to bring it back.)

The servers make their rounds with spits of meat of all kinds. We were pretty adventurous, trying camel, crocodile, and ostrich (although we did draw the line at ox whoosie-whatsits).

It distinctly did not all “just taste like chicken.”

From Karen we hired a car to take us to Lake Naivasha, where we’re staying now. On the way we stopped at a giraffe sanctuary that is working to revitalize the population of the endangered Rothschild giraffe, but focuses mainly on providing the cutest photo-ops in the world.

We’re at a comfy campsite at the edge of the lake where hippos apparently graze in the evening, but we haven’t been lucky enough to see them yet. There is an electric fence to keep them away from guests. Lake Naivasha is next to Hell’s Gate national park, another entry in Kenya’s absolutely fabulous national park system. Hell’s Gate is very cool because you don’t have to be in a vehicle to visit it—you can walk or, in our case, ride your bike through the park.

Common sense and the animal’s natural trepidation when they see people are the only limits to how close you can get to the wildlife.
Which means sometimes you can get awfully close. There are hyenas, leopards, cheetahs, and even a couple of lions in the park, but apparently you’re not supposed to be worried. I spent a good chunk of time thinking about how to use the bike in self-defense. (Which is about all it was good for, especially when the pedal fell off. Sadly this event didn’t end up documented with a photo because at least one of us was really annoyed when this happened.)

Hell’s gate features a hike through a gorge to hot springs and vents powered by the magma not far below the surface. The hike was long and hot, but very worthwhile. Despite our long absence from real exercise, the guide was impressed at our pace, so we felt pretty good, until the long, grinding ride out of the park (turns out the ride in was all downhill), which was made even more fun with a wobbly semi-repaired pedal.

So now we’re biding out time at the bar/restaurant at the campsite trying to stay awake until it’s late enough to go to bed (getting close now!). We stayed in a banda last night, but we figured we’d go all out and do the tent thing tonight.

Hey why not?

PS – I updated the map at chapnet.ca/africa with more information about where we are/have been/will be, and I added a marker for our current location. Enjoy!

We traveled from Tsavo East to Tsavo West yesterday and from Tsavo West to Amboseli this morning. The parks are very different—Tsavo West is very hilly and bushy; finding animals is sometimes tricky, but the landscape is rugged and beautiful. Amboseli sits on the plains at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro and offers views of animals as far as the eye can see. The ground here isn’t the rusty red of the Tsavo parks, so the elephants are dressed in their more recognizable greys.

We realized how lucky were were to see three of the cats on the first day—we haven’t seen any cheetahs since, although we did have a good close-up of a leopard (who unfortunately moved into cover before we could get our cameras ready). Watching the leopard disappear into the grass only a few meters away was a fantastic demonstration of how well hidden it is when it stalks its prey.