Getting’ Cookin’

I am... without power and water for the moment (big storm), but still smiling. :)

**NOTE – today’s entry will have some portions that are a bit graphic. Skip it if you like.

OAF Update
Things at the nursery are going well, we finished shelling all the maize cobs and have our initial weights (of the not-quite-dry kernels) in for all of the plots. This is great, as even if something does go wrong from here forward we at least have data indicating directionally which fertilizer configuration is working out best. We’re hoping to have the final weights (of the dry kernels) in on Friday, after which we’ll compare the data to the information we’re getting from the large-scale fertilizer trial that Allana is conducting in the field. We’re getting closer to helping farmers access good fertilizer!

Allana is quite a rockstar – she’s also making great strides with our harvest survey in Kakamega, so we’ll soon be getting data in about the impact that OAF is having on farmers in that district. This will help us understand the increase in yields that farmers are having as a result of our program, and enable us to continue to fine-tune the program as we look to scale to tens of thousands of farmers.

We also have a slew of other projects kicking off with the arrival of the new staff. We are working on standardizing many of our practices, testing different components of our maize program, and looking to improve our child health offerings. I’m really excited about the potential of these programs to make a difference going forward; as we increase in scale the impact of these programs is going to multiply quickly!

We’re also going into the harvesting phase of the maize season, so a lot of work is being done to prepare for farmer repayment. It requires a lot of logistical planning – field officers must weigh and quality check the maize bags that farmers are giving us as repayment, must collect them at various pick-up points, and trucks need to then collect the bags and transport them to the cereals board where they will be sold. So things are quite busy here, and we are all looking forward to a successful closing of this maize season.

Weekend Update – Graphic, Skip if You’re Squeamish
This past weekend the OAF team (minus Paul) went to Marech, a town approximately 4 hours away from Bungoma. It’s really not a far distance from Bungoma, but the roads are so bad that we averaged about 25-30 kilometers per hour. Despite bouncing around the drive went well, largely because before leaving Allana propped her laptop up against a boombox and recorded songs onto a tape so we could actually play them in the car. Thanks Allana! She and I had a great time dancing away, particularly on the way back.

We stayed at a field studies center that was made up of many huts with thatched roofs and a central building for cooking and eating. We split along gender lines, with 4 guys in one hut and 3 girls in another. The first night, we (the girls) hardly slept because we kept hearing mice (and saw one scurrying on a ledge above us). I kept thinking of when I lived out of a car and road-tripped around the United States in 2002; most of my friends were shocked that I not only survived, but actually had fun sleeping in a car and not having daily access to amenities like showers, my kitchen, etc. (it was worth it to see 40 of the 50 states!). There I was, cowering under a mosquito net, in a hut without electricity, listening to the mice and talking with Allana and Anushka about whether we should move to the car for our second night. But by the morning, we were seasoned veterans and decided we could handle it just fine. The guys, of course, laughed at us for not having slept well – they’d slept like babies, apparently!

During the day, we went on a hike; I’m either really out of shape or definitely affected by the altitude, but it was tough! Andrew and I soaked ourselves in a gold-filled river (seriously, people pan for gold there, and there were tiny flecks of it all over the sand). And when we got back, it was time…

[Stop reading now if you’re against eating/killing animals]

Ever since I was young, I’ve believed that if you’re going to eat meat, you should be ok with the whole process of how a piece of meat gets on to your table. I think it started when I was in Brazil as a kid, and my sister saw a cow strung up in an outdoor market and decided she was going to be a vegetarian (she lasted a few days before caving so she could have Brazilian barbecue). From the time I was around 10 or 11 years old, I wondered what it would be like to live on a farm and participate in killing your food. Culinary school gave me some exposure – we had to break down large pieces of meat and scale/clean fish, but it wasn’t really the same.

Well, I got my opportunity – we bought a live goat and someone had to slaughter it for our dinner. I was really nervous, but had told my colleagues before we’d even left that I was going to try to do it, so since I’d made a public commitment I had no choice but to follow through! It was a pretty intense experience, but luckily our hosts told me exactly what to do. I won’t go into gory details, but I will say that apparently I made history at the camp that day – women here aren’t allowed to participate in killing animals, they’re not considered “strong of heart” enough. After killing the goat, we strung it up and skinned it (I helped with that a bit too), then it was broken down for cooking. I then got to help with cleaning all of the meat (literally all of it, including the organs) and preparing it. I learned to do traditional Kenyan nyama choma (you boil, then grill the meat), as well as an Eritrean red sauce preparation (so yummy!). We also cooked the other bits (the organs), which involved a fascinating way of braiding the intestines, then boiling and sautéing them (yes Dad, I can show it to you sometime). We also made some yummy cabbage and rice. According to my colleagues, the meal was a great success!

A Not Fun Update – Also Graphic, Skip if You’re Squeamish
Unfortunately we had a pretty serious and upsetting incident happen this past Monday. I debated whether to include this, but it’s a part of life here and I figured it’s better to be open and honest than pretend these things don’t happen.

A brand new field officer was on his way to his first Monday meeting, and in an effort to get there quickly, he and his field manager decided to hop on a motorbike (it’s a pretty common form of transportation, you just hire a guy to drive you where you need to go). The details aren’t completely clear, but apparently the driver went to pass a boda (bicycle taxi), lost control of the bike, and crashed into a truck. The field manager and officer both fell off, but unfortunately the officer fell into the path of the truck and was killed. Even worse, it turns out that the two were actually brothers (it’s also pretty common that our staff are related but we don’t always know it; they don’t want to influence the hiring process so they don’t tell us until much later, sometimes months after having worked with us).

So Monday was a pretty tough day for all of us here at OAF. We’re putting together policies to hopefully prevent this from happening again (field staff will need to wear helmets and should never have more than one passenger per motorbike, for example), and expatriate staff (like me) are not going to be riding motorbikes unless there’s no other option. But we will need to ride them from time to time, since with many of our sites there really isn’t another feasible option to get there. We have a lot of spare helmets though, and are taking steps to ride with drivers that we know. We’re ok, and will continue to be ok, but please send us positive thoughts if you can. It’s appreciated!

The Fun Stuff/Highlights

• Killing and cooking a goat from start to finish – wow!
• Paying about $4 to have someone fix my roof – no more wet bed after a rain!
• Getting closer to identifying a good fertilizer combination for our maize program
• Tasting chang’aa (the locally brewed alcohol that I’d previously sworn off). Our host, Sammy, promised it was safe and that he’d seen the process of it being made. It was actually a bit disappointing – though it smelled a bit like tequila, it tasted mostly like nasty water and didn’t seem to be very alcoholic. But we felt like we’d done something bold by just trying it!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Seeing the OAF expat and Kenyan staff pull together to make our jobs safer, take care of each other, and continue pursuing the goal of helping rural farmers lift themselves out of hunger

I Still Wait for the Sun

I’ve been given feedback that my blog inspires anxiety attacks from friends who don’t want to read through to the end to find out whether I have malaria, have been robbed, or have had a Kenyan child. Therefore I’m going to start each blog with a Facebook-style “I am…” – here goes!
I am... doing great, nothing to worry about!

This week’s title directly quotes a text message I got from Evans, our nursery manager. It had been raining, so I texted him to see if we were going to be putting the cobs from our maize experiment out to dry. I found it so poetic, it made my morning…

OAF Update
Though we did have rain, all your well wishes must have come through because we have now successfully harvested all the maize from our fertilizer experiment at the nursery. The cobs were huge – much bigger than what I’m seeing in the field. This is likely due to several factors, including 1) the soil at the nursery is more fertile because it has not been used as much as our farmers’ land has; 2) Evans, our nursery manager, does a great job of making sure everything is done properly (planting, fertilizing, weeding, etc.). 3) The nursery is less afflicted by common problems you’d see in the fields, like striga weed (a nasty weed that kills the maize) or pests. Although at first look this might appear troublesome, I believe it represents a real opportunity for our farmers. Many farmers don’t follow our guidelines well; they don’t space their seeds properly, or burn the seed with fertilizer during planting, or don’t weed the way they should. Many farmers also have infertile soil caused by years of planting; we are developing training tools to educate them on composting and improving the fertility of their soil. So hopefully we will continue to see significant improvements in maize yields over time, especially if we identify good fertilizer options for farmers as a result of our trial! We shelled most of this maize today and are now finishing the drying process; once the kernels have reached the appropriate moisture content we will be able to weigh them and see which fertilizer configurations fared best. We’ll also compare this information with data we’re getting out of a field trial that Allana is running in Bungoma, so should be able to make some intelligent decisions regarding future inputs that are provided to our farmers.

I’m also very happy to report that two new Program Associates, Anushka and Jeff, have arrived here in Bungoma. I’m working very closely with them, and they are already off and running on several important projects. Unfortunately for Anushka, she came down with malaria her first day here (though she's on the mend). She's been a trooper! They also managed to see a circumcision ceremony within days of their arriving – welcome to Kenya, guys!

I’ve also come to the unfortunate realization that I am a terrible farmer (no big surprise I’m sure). I was in the fields yesterday in Kakamega, and helped with harvesting some maize for an experiment there (I was primarily there to observe the activities). Although I did ok at pulling the maize off and separating it from the silk, I realized that either I’m allergic to maize or some little buggers that live in the fields love me, way more than they like everyone else. My hands are covered in little bumps, they’re a bit itchy and painful but will go away in a few days (that’s what happened last time). And I shelled maize today at the nursery – although Evans said I did “good work”, I was definitely not as fast as he was. Good thing I don’t have to grow my own food (or yours)!

Learning to Drive – Again
In other big news, driving in Kenya is quite an experience. In fact, it’s so scary that I didn’t attempt it for my first two weeks. First of all, it’s British style – you drive on the left (aka the wrong side of the road). More importantly, it’s worse than any video game you can imagine. There are constant streams of people walking along the side of the road (including tiny children), boda bodas everywhere (bicycles carrying passengers on the back; sometimes they’re carrying sugarcane stalks that make them 8 feet wide), matatus (vans that are completely overloaded with sardines – I mean people – and driven by people who even Kenyans call “bad people”), tuk tuks, motorbikes, other random drivers, and of course, tons of ridiculous potholes and random speedbumps that you can’t really see until it’s basically too late. No one really stays in their lane (not that there are any marked, anyway). People just swerve all over, basically trying to avoid potholes and all the other things. I had decided I wasn’t interested in trying to drive (why be the one killed by a mob for hitting someone when it can be someone else), but seeing Delvin (the 10-year old son of our housekeeper) happily learning to steer gave me resolve that if he’s so excited to drive here, I can do it too.

So last Thursday, Aug 7, I found myself needing to go to the nursery. It’s about 10 minutes away, and I just needed to run in, make sure things were going well, and leave. And the car was free, which meant I could avoid the dreaded matatus. I took a deep breath, stuck the key in the ignition, and off I went. After making it there and back, I realized two things: 1) if you clutch the steering wheel hard enough, your knuckles really do turn white; and 2) if you basically drive down the middle of the road, it’s really not all that bad. And with that, I became a free woman! Later that day I drove into town with Anushka to do some shopping. A few days later, I drove four of us into town to run errands. And yesterday, I drove 1 ½ hours to Kakamega (part of the drive I’d done with Paul to Kisumu, a horrendous drive full of potholes and speedbumps). I then drove between a bunch of fields we were visiting (this is real off-roading, seriously). And then drove home. I seriously did a jig when we got back – driving here takes serious concentration, and I was exhausted!

The best part of the driving story, however, has to do with a mishap. No, I didn’t hit anyone or anything. And no, luckily no one was hurt. But I did manage to get the van stuck in a ditch. In my defense, I hesitated and wasn’t sure we should move forward (we were taking a short cut from a farmer’s home to a main road, and from there were going to be driving home to Bungoma). We had been driving along a really rough patch, and were facing a part where the dirt pretty much dropped off on both sides of the road and narrowed quite a bit. I wasn’t sure we could make it, but everyone (including our facilitator) thought it was worth a shot (and I did agree to try). Unfortunately, we realized we should’ve gotten out and looked at it before charging forward – as you can see from the photo, we ended up with a wheel hanging in the air. Oops!

It took two men and many children to get us out. I’d like to see AAA do what they did – they actually fixed the road by digging up dirt from the middle and filling the ditch! Crazy – thank goodness we had help, I think this would’ve been a much different post if it had been up to us mzungus to dig the car out on our own.

The Fun Stuff/Highlights

• Receiving my first pieces of mail here – the postal service actually works! Thanks Mom, Dad and Kelly, you guys rock!
• Sitting on my bed, wondering what animal had peed in it, and realizing my ceiling leaks when it rains really hard
• Hanging out with Mama Rebecca and hearing her joke that her daughter is going to be a “thief” because she’s going to law school – funny how people make lawyer jokes even here!
  Making tortillas from scratch for the first time (you can’t buy them here, and I made tacos for dinner) – yum!
• Watching Paul put ketchup on the risotto I’d made – I know my ancestors were turning over in their graves
• Pushing our van out of a ditch (see Learning to Drive – Again)
• Not killing my colleagues while driving them to and from Kakamega
• Hiking up Sangalo Rock and feeling as winded as if I’d hiked Mt. Kenya. Don’t the rocks look like a woman whispering into someone’s ear? (see photos below)
• Being told “good work” by Evans, our nursery manager and a 25-year farming veteran
  Seeing first-hand the power that our work has to improve the lives of our clients!
  

What a Weekend!

This one’s full of fun stuff, so I’ve split it into sections again. Make sure you read “Snippage”, this is probably the most unusual part. Also, scroll down to see my earlier posts (there's one in between the two long ones that covers OAF fieldwork). Enjoy!

OAF Update
You know how I said things can go wrong/ be unexpectedly challenging here? Well, right now weather is wreaking havoc on two of my projects. Okay, so I’m exaggerating a bit, but it is proving to be challenging. I was supposed to be harvesting maize from our nursery for our fertilizer experiment today, and instead it’s been raining all day so we have to postpone. Not only does this push our deadline out further, but it means the maize that was drying really well on the stalks is now getting very wet and risks being damaged (it could spoil, the drying process will now take longer which means there are all kinds of increased possibilities for loss). To dry maize, you first dry it on the cobs on tarps in the sun. Once it’s ready (which I need help determining), we then shell it and dry the kernels on tarps in the sun. Unfortunately it hasn’t been all that sunny lately, so this process is taking a very long time. This affects our farmers too – they’re in the process of drying maize, and it’s taking much longer than expected due to the weather. This is bad for them because a longer drying process means increased likelihood that their food supply will shrink due to spoilage, theft, animals eating it, winds sweeping it away, etc.

This has also been a challenge for the soybean experiment I’m working on – it’s taking us longer to dry the beans, and I’m having trouble making sure our house staff doesn’t mix up the batches (we’ve separated them for experimental reasons). Every extra day means another chance that something will go wrong. Keep your fingers crossed that we have a bit of a sunny patch, please!

In more positive news, I was able to help out with work we are doing to help farmers increase the organic matter that they are putting back into their soil (this helps with water management, which improves their yields). We are looking to roll this out very soon, and hopefully it will make a difference for farmers who can afford only minimal fertilizer inputs.

First Night Out in Bungoma
On Friday night, Andrew, Jake, Paul and I decided to head to a local bar (it’s in a strip mall called Shariff Centre). To my surprise, the place is actually fairly big and has two pool tables. It was pretty fun – highlights:

• Realizing that in Kenya, men dance with each other as closely as they might with women (well, ok, not quite that close if you’re imagining any groping). They hold hands, shake their hips around at each other, and will get up and dance together without any girls. I actually love it – it makes me want to dance with them. Good strategy!
  
• Dashing to the TV to watch a news story with the caption “Circumcision Tragedy”. It’s circumcision time for certain tribes in Kenya (for the Bukusu, a dominant tribe where we live, it happens every even year in August. For more insight into this tradition, see the “Snippage” section below). To our horror, a circumciser had accidentally severed the end of a boy’s penis. Then to our greater horror, a picture of the town we live in came on – it had happened here! In true mob justice fashion, the circumciser was beaten up (lucky for him he wasn’t killed – seems like severing a penis should be worse than stealing a radio, see my July 28 entry). And surprisingly, most people in the bar just laughed and laughed – Kenyans laugh at absolutely everything. I can’t get the image of the boy’s face out of my head – awful.
  
• Although I’m nowhere near as good as I used to be, I did end up winning all the one-on-one pool games I played, putting the men in town to shame (and beating my male colleagues). A table of people nearby was clapping and cheering for me – it was pretty funny. I have no doubt Paul is going to put me in my place soon enough (he’s quite good, and I did win a few games because someone scratched on the 8 ball), but it felt good nonetheless! And it was fun to have one of our staff members, Sammy, buy me a beer to celebrate.

Trip to Kisumu
Saturday afternoon, Paul and I hopped into the van and endured hours of avoiding potholes, bouncing over random speedbumps, and ignoring police checkpoints (they only stop the matatus, not private vehicles) on our way to Kisumu. Apparently it’s the third largest town in Kenya (I haven’t confirmed this). On the way we stopped in Kakamega to say hi to Ian, another OAF expat (his house is much nicer than ours!). He highly recommends eating Indian papads, he’ll have you know – they make a great snack!

On the way the headache that I’d had all day kept getting worse (possibly due to being tossed around the car). I’d also been suffering from congestion, a sore throat, and coughing. Allana had been sick too, so I figured it was either that or allergies. But when I started feeling warm, I got worried. Andrew (OAF founder) had asked me earlier if I’d had a fever, because a fever and flu symptoms are signs of malaria. And apparently Jake (another OAF expat) got malaria in his first week here. It’s much more common than I’d expected. Paul and I started making plans to go to a hospital and have me tested if I didn’t feel better when we made it to Kisumu, and began making fun of my pending demise (his tour book said if untreated, within 24 hours you can go into a coma). I was trying not to think about it (everyone here seems to have had it), but it was a bit unsettling.

As we entered town, Paul made the grave error of asking me to be his navigator (I guess he really had no other option). Amazingly, despite the lack of any decent street signage and the general chaos along the streets, I was able to get us to our lunch destination (I’d decided I was more hungry at this point than malaria-ridden). We arrived to a set of small tin-shacks along the edge of Lake Victoria, and as soon as we stepped out of the car were set upon by Kenyans luring us into their shacks to have the local fish fry dish. We went into one that looked like it had seats on the lakefront (turns out, they all did). We had fish with ugali (a stiff starch mixture that you press with your hands and use to scoop up food) and sukumu (a green leafy vegetable much like collard greens or kale). Kenyans eat ugali every day, if not twice per day. They believe it gives you energy, and that if you don’t eat ugali you’ll get sick. Well sure enough, after the ugali I felt a lot better and decided I didn’t have malaria. I told Paul if he woke up the next morning and I was in a coma, to throw me into the van and take me off to the hospital. And that was the end of my malaria scare.

After lunch, we went to the Kisumu Beach Resort to look into getting a room. Unfortunately the place has definitely seen its heyday. We used the toilets outside reception (literally, outside) when we arrived – I couldn’t breathe in or I would’ve puked, the stench was so strong. We ended up getting a little hut with two small beds – under one mosquito net. Oh well, at least it had running water (better than where I’m living), and was “self-contained” (meaning it had a bathroom, rather than having to go outside and share one). After relaxing for a bit, we decided to go into Kisumu for dinner at the nicest restaurant in town (Florence Restaurant at the Imperial Hotel). We each had three courses and beer/wine for $50 total (I felt guilty, it seemed really expensive relative to everything here). I had an avocado and prawns starter, vegetable soup, a local chicken and banana dish, and of course a glass of wine. Man, we were stuffed!

After dinner, we had two options – an expat-friendly bar, or one that the guidebook noted is “full of men” and not so “appealing” for single females. Luckily Paul was willing to keep me away from the hordes of men, so we went to Mon Ami. It was pretty mellow at first, and we amused ourselves by sipping Tusker (the popular local beer) and guessing which girls were prostitutes. After a bit, the place became crowded, men started dancing with each other (see First Night Out in Bungoma bullet 1), and we decided to dance as well. A group of girls was dancing nearby, and I told Paul I miss my girlfriends – you guys are fun to dance with! Lo and behold, one of the girls walked over and said, “I told my friends you dance better than they do.” We started laughing – she was very funny, and we ended up hanging out with her the rest of the night. She seemed very surprised by my dancing until I told her my mother is Brazilian – then she thought it all made sense! Her name is Fanice, she’s from Kisumu, and I tried to be a good wingwoman and have her dance with Paul (though it did mean I ended up being groped somewhat by a very eager and much-shorter-than-me Kenyan who I think was hoping he’d get lucky – why are guys the same everywhere you go?). Unfortunately for Paul he couldn’t get lucky either (remember, he had to share a mosquito net with me), so nothing too exciting happened in the end. Though I was quite surprised when Fanice asked me if I’m on Facebook (I love that even Kenyans use it!). Hopefully I have a new friend in Kisumu – we’ll see if she and I get in touch!

On Sunday Paul and I got up and went to an agricultural show in Kisumu (this was the impetus behind our visit there). Unfortunately it was a bit of a disappointment; I was hoping to make some good local contacts and gain some knowledge about local agriculture, but many of the participants were not as related to agriculture as I would’ve liked (for example, there were booths for all the local mobile phone companies and even one for the electoral commission of Kenya, which I found a bit amusing). I did, however, spend some time talking with a representative from the Kenya Seed Company about organic matter (see OAF Update, above). I found it pretty helpful. Paul and I also spent some time looking at a local NGO that works with rural farmers (but not in the areas where we operate). They have some interesting approaches to agriculture and health that I would like to keep in mind for potential future program possibilities (such as planting of high-nitrogen crops that can be used for improving composting, and education on alternative medicines that poor farmers can more easily get access to). After the fair, we did some quick shopping for things to make for dinner once we got back to Bungoma, and headed off over the potholes and speedbumps once again. We had a nice goodbye dinner with Moises (a colleague who is leaving Bungoma to supervise our program launch in Uganda), and then…

Snippage
I know this is the part you’ve really wanted to read – there’s nothing like participating in a traditional circumcision ritual to really make you feel like you’re millions of miles from home! Circumcision ceremonies are a very big deal among various tribes here in Africa. Where I live, there are many members of the Bukusu tribe. They practice circumcision every even year in August. It goes on for the entire month, with many circumcision ceremonies being held daily. Each family identifies sons who are ready to have it done (I’ve heard varying ages but think it’s somewhere between 10-16 years old). Because many families have lots of children, it’s possible to have as many as 3 or 4 sons having it done within a single household. It appears that each household does the ceremony independently, though many within a neighborhood will hold them on the same day (so the villagers can move from ceremony to ceremony). Increasingly, villagers are beginning to realize that the traditional process has its flaws, and more children are being taken to hospitals for their circumcisions (this is happening more in the towns than in the rural areas). But it’s still done during the same time period to maintain tradition.

When I arrived, I was told that circumcision time was coming – it’s such a big deal that it actually interferes with our ability to work with farmers on some projects; they basically are so wrapped up in the ceremonies for the month that it is tough to get them to focus on anything else. In fact, the first week I was here we saw children running through towns wearing beads and being followed by other kids who were yelling, singing, and waving tree branches. I quickly learned that the ones wearing beads were practicing for the big day, and soon saw this happening everywhere.

The process is basically as follows:

• As early as 5 or 6pm the night before, festivities begin. The boys are painted white (with the inside of a cow’s stomach, I believe), and begin dancing.
  
  They clang bracelets together and wildly wave what I can only describe as pom-poms made of some kind of animal hair and basically jump up and down while a crowd dances around them in a circle, singing a song about the knife to come. This goes on until midnight, when the boys go to bed (unless they want to keep dancing).
  
• At 5am, the boys head to the river, where they get naked and splash around to get wet from head to toe. They then stand at the riverbank and are covered with mud (taken from a “special” part of the riverside), also from head to toe. A good deal of mud is caked onto their heads and faces, apparently partly to comfort the mother who is watching (so she is less aware that this is her son who is about to be cut with a knife). They then return to their homestead.
  
• The boys then wait out of sight until the circumciser arrives (the circumcisers make very good money during this period, and are running around from house to house all morning doing the slicing). Once the circumciser(s) show up, a couple spots are marked on the ground where the boys will stand facing the sun. An aunt goes running off to get the boys, and they are dragged to the spots on the ground where they stand staunchly as the circumcisers prepare them in a flash and then whack! It is done.
  
• Once finished, the boys continue to stand still as the onlookers rush up and inspect the handiwork. Then they are seated on small stools, and blankets are wrapped around them, while the partygoers begin dancing around them again and singing.
  
• Note – if a boy “shakes” or otherwise shows any indication of fear/pain, he is shamed in front of his village (and according to the song that is sung, he will never marry, though apparently that isn’t really true).

So my experience went a bit like this:

• Since it was our colleague Moises’ last night here (he moved to Uganda on Monday to start a new district), we had dinner together and wished him goodbye. I was a bit sad, he’s really knowledgeable and a great guy, we’re definitely going to miss him.
  
• Around 7:30pm, Paul and I headed out to meet Barasa, a member of One Acre Fund who lives in the Luuya sublocation of Bungoma (about 20 minutes away)
  
• We sat and had tea with Barasa’s family, where they regaled us with stories of the circumcision tradition. Back in the day, a boy was circumcised after killing a lion (it showed that he is a true warrior). These days, the boy must take the knife without flinching to show that he is carrying on that warrior instinct.
  
• Around 9pm, we headed off to participate in the festivities. We went to the first homestead, where we came upon two boys painted white, dancing away in front of a crowd.
  Paul and I felt awkward – we (the “mzungus”) were getting as much attention as the dancers, and we didn’t want to take away from their moment or get in their way. At the same time, everyone was clamoring for us to take pictures of everything, so in true mzungu style, we had our cameras out and lightbulbs flashing pretty often. I jumped right in and started singing and dancing with Barasa’s sisters – it actually was pretty catchy, just as they’d said!
  
• After a little while, Barasa told us to go inside and pay our respects to the men of the family. They were sitting around a small pot on the floor, drinking out of long reeds. The pot was filled with a dark sludge, which we learned was busa – a homemade alcohol. At least it wasn’t the famed chang’aa, a home-brewed alcohol that is known for making people go blind and even die. I politely declined, but Paul was brave and gave it a taste. He said it tasted like sake – I figured I’d trust him on it.
  
• We hung out with the men for a while (the entire time, I had chickens under my seat – I figured if the boys outside had to face the knife, I could work on facing my bird phobia. It got me through). At one point, the revelers outside came in, banging drums and singing away. It was pretty wild, having that many people and all that commotion in a tiny mud hut!
  
  
  
• I decided to go back outside – after all, the dancing and singing was more fun than watching people sip busa.
  
  I stopped long enough to catch my breath, when I noticed a large group of people standing a couple hundred feet away over a big fire. I asked Barasa’s sisters about it, and they seemed a bit frightened. They told me they’d never seen that before, and hesitated to see what it was. Great, I thought – they’re preparing to roast the mzungus that have interrupted the traditional ceremony! But no, it was a group of teenagers (most drunk on chang’aa) who were lighting torches to walk over to another ceremony. Barasa gave the ok, and we followed along.
  
• One young guy, clearly drunk on chang’aa, kept lowering his torch and accidentally swinging it at people – he hit a young boy on the neck with it. So I kept trying to keep away from him. A couple times, he set bits of ground on fire as his torch either swept the ground or a piece broke off, so I put them out as I followed him. Barasa thanked me for looking out for the forest – little did he know I was really just looking out for myself – my unwashed hair would’ve gone up in flames!
  
• We made it to two other houses, where we observed the boys dancing away and paid our respects to the elders.
  
• At midnight, we went back to Barasa’s. Paul and I were planning to go back home for a few hours (we had to pick up Jake and Adam, two of our colleagues, to bring them back for the real fun in the morning). But Barasa convinced us it wasn’t safe to drive with the chang’aa-swilling teenagers roaming the forest with torches. So his mother kicked his brother out of bed and gave us places to sleep, complete with mosquito nets. Needless to say, given the animal noises, festive singing still to be heard in the distance, and imaginations hard at work thinking about the pending snippage, neither of us managed to sleep much.
  
• At 3am, we got up and left to pick up Jake and Adam. Poor Jude, Barasa’s brother, had to get up and go with us (as ordered by Barasa and his mother) in order to make sure we were ok. We grabbed Jake and Adam, but didn’t manage to make it in time to watch a bull get slaughtered. We were, however, escorted to the front and given seats to watch the entire skinning process up close (it seriously felt like we were VIPs – we were taken past a bunch of people and set up with the best seats in the house). The process looked exhausting – it took the poor guys quite a while to take the entire skin off (they did it in one piece, cutting from a leg to the back, then going to another leg and cutting the skin back).
  
  Five boys were lined up, watching the entire process without moving or batting an eye. Three of them were from the night before, and two had decided that they wanted to go ahead and get circumcised too (apparently if you’re on the younger side your family may not force you to get it that particular year, but you can choose to if you want to). Imagine that – they just up and decided they wanted to have a guy whack their most private areas with a knife! Check out the picture, I think some of them may have been reconsidering.
  
  
  Just before the cow’s stomach was slit open, Barasa got up and led us off (great timing!).
  
• We went to see another homestead, where we didn’t see the boys but rather got up close and personal with a huge team of circumcisers. They posed for us holding their knives – pretty threatening. I’m glad I’m not male, especially Bukusu!
  
  
• We then went running over to a home next door where two boys were about to face the knives. We were told the circumcisers had not yet arrived, so Barasa led us to the spot where the boys were waiting. They were standing very straight, chests heaving, naked and covered with mud, while some guy stood over them raising a massive knife and singing. The guy with the knife sang some words, then a few people standing to the side sang a refrain back. This went on over and over. Barasa made us take photos and video; we felt awkward but totally obliged.
  
  Then we ran back to the viewing location, where we found the circumcisers had arrived.
  
• Things happened very fast all of a sudden – the aunt went racing off, then came running back ahead of the boys, who were being dragged by a couple men toward the spots where they were to stand. They were set in place, then stood there looking straight ahead while the circumcisers ran up, fiddled with them for a second, then raised their arms and whack! It was over.
  
  I didn’t even realize at first that it was done. Everyone rushed up to take a look, and sure enough, they were bleeding a bit and the deed had been done. They just stood there, facing straight ahead and not moving, while people looked closely at their wounds. Then they were seated on stools and wrapped in decorative blankets.
  
• As soon as this was over, we were on the move again. Barasa wanted us to see the part before the actual act – the smearing of mud at the river. We trekked off to the river, where we watched five boys leap in and out of the water, then stand with their hands on their hips as they were covered head to toe in mud.
  
  We ran off ahead of them to be ready for their arrival at the snippage zone.
  
• Once again, things happened quickly once the boys were ready. The circumcisers had already arrived, so all was in place. We were again placed at the very front so we could document the process with our cameras. This time I got a much better look – ouch!
  One of the boys seemed to bleed quite a lot, but again, neither flinched. I guess we saw many warriors that morning!
  
  
  This video sums up the overall experience pretty well - watch for the grandmother doing the shoulder shrug at the end - I love her!
  
  At least there was no circumcision tragedy to report…
  
• After watching our second set of circumcisions, we went back to Barasa’s house and had tea with his mother. She told me she had noticed my dancing, and that everyone had “appreciated it very much”. We unfortunately did not have much time to visit, and rushed off to get back home for work, arriving around 8:45am.
  
• Around 9:15am, I was off to hit OAF’s Monday meeting with field directors and managers. The meeting went very well, despite my lack of sleep. And so began another week, which I will cover in another post. I can’t imagine it will be as eventful as this past one!

The Fun Stuff/Highlights

• Forgot to mention – had a great dinner at Mahesh Patel’s place last Wednesday. He runs a local business in town (there’s a sizeable Indian population here). He made limeade (which we put cumin into, it was very different but pretty good), curried mutton, vegetables, and a couple kinds of Indian flatbreads. He also made a fruit salad of banana, apple and mango in milk and sugar – it was really good! Hassan (a Muslim man who owns a local restaurant that we frequent often) was also there, as well as a friend of Mahesh’s who was visiting. Yum!
  
• Working on getting over my bird phobia. I sort of have to here – they’re everywhere. We have geese at the end of our dirt road that I have to pass often when going shopping – man, they’re scary when they honk at you! Birds wake me up every morning around 6 or 6:30am (unless it’s the old woman next door doing her dishes outside my window that gets into my ears first). When you visit farmers, there are almost always chickens hovering just underneath your chair. And Friday when I was working in the field, I ended up being surrounded by chickens scavenging for ants – including a rooster who seemed none too happy about my presence. He kept puffing up his chest and crowing directly at me – you can imagine how terrified I was! Here are a couple pics (note how close they are to me – those are my feet!)
  
• Playing pool, beating all the guys, and getting cheers from the crowd (see First Night Out in Bungoma)
  
• Seeing images of a boy whose penis was severed in a “Circumcision Tragedy” on the news (see First Night Out in Bungoma)
  
• Being tossed into the air as we hit potholes and speed bumps all the way from Bungoma to Kisumu (about 2 ½ hours). Thankfully Paul saw most of them in advance
  
• Being swarmed by an unbelievable number of mosquitoes while leaving our hut at the Kisumu Beach Resort (not nearly as swanky as it sounds, this is a budget place in Lonely Planet) to get into our car and head into town for dinner. Within the five to ten seconds we had the doors open, at least 30 mosquitoes (it seemed like way more, I have no idea) hopped in with us. Paul tried to spray them with his mosquito spray, but we couldn’t ventilate the car because more would come in – so we ended up coughing and choking our way to dinner while frantically slapping at the mosquitoes with our flip flops
  
• A lovely candlelit dinner with Paul at the nicest restaurant in Kisumu (see Trip to Kisumu
  Being told by a local (and new Facebook friend) that I dance better than her friends do (see Trip to Kisumu)
  
• Singing and dancing along to traditional circumcision rites (see Snippage)
  
• Being told by a Mama that she enjoyed my dancing at the circumcision rites and that it was noticed and appreciated by all the partygoers (see Snippage)
  
• Watching a freshly-slaughtered bull get skinned at 4am as a sacrifice to some circumcisees’ grandparents (see Snippage)
  
• Seeing the traditional Bukusu circumcision actually happen – from boys getting naked in a river to being covered in mud to standing in front of a crowd while a knife comes flashing down (see Snippage). Wow.

Thanks for reading – as always, I hope you’re well!

Fieldwork

On Tuesday I spent a lot of time in the fields setting up an experiment that we’re running to test fertilizer configurations. This is pretty important because fertilizer prices have spiked in recent years, to the point where many farmers can no longer afford to use it. This, of course, means their yields are significantly hampered. For us (One Acre Fund), it means our cost to serve farmers has increased. If we can find a cheaper and still effective (or possibly more effective!) configuration of fertilizer/top dress, we will be able to serve more farmers and/or improve their yields even more. This is very representative of the care that OAF takes in providing services to poor farmers; the organization is very systematic and works hard to do the best job possible for clients.
Being in the fields was really interesting, as it really brought to light many of the challenges that rural farmers face. Even though all the fields I visited were in the same area, the differences among them were pretty obvious. Even within one farmer’s field, the differences in terrain, soil composition, prevalence of weeds that destroy crops, moisture of the soil, etc. were striking. I also gained further appreciation for how insanely difficult subsistence farming is (though I already had a huge level of respect for the farmers here). Many of the farmers toil in their fields all day, without shoes, with minimal (and unclean) water, and little to eat. I spent 6 hours trekking around in my comfy sneakers, and my legs were quaking by the end of it (not to mention I developed either some kind of rash or got a bunch of bites all over my forearms – it’s going away but was a bit painful yesterday). It was heartbreaking to see some of the farmers’ fields (particularly fields of farmers who are not part of OAF). I’m beginning to be able to tell what healthy maize plants look like, and it was obvious that many farmers are going to be struggling to feed their families. But despite all this, they are some of the most generous and hospitable people I have ever met. Several invited me to come in and have some food or something to drink; we were so busy that we had to decline (not to mention I didn’t want to eat their limited food).

Yesterday I went to the OAF nursery to take a look at the maize that we are growing there (this is sort of a control for the experiment we’re doing with farmers in the field; we can better control the conditions in the nursery and make sure that all the steps we’ve told farmers to take are actually being followed, so we’ll be able to compare this data with what we’re collecting in the field). The difference between our carefully cultivated maize and what I had seen the day before in the fields was amazing. Apparently the nursery soil is a bit more fertile (the land was idle before, so it hadn’t been stripped of its nutrients the way the farmers’ shambas (farms) have. I’m actually in charge of the nursery experiment, so please cross your fingers that I manage it successfully and that we get good data to help determine what fertilizers we should be using with our clients! So many things can go wrong here, as I’ve already started to see.

Tomorrow I’ll be in the fields again – I’m working on a project to see if we can come up with a good way for farmers to recycle their harvest waste (the stalks from the maize plants, for example) into organic material that can be used to replace the nutrients that are depleted from the soil. This is really important; an unfortunate consequence of our success in improving our clients’ crop yields is that their fields are being depleted of nutrients more quickly than before, meaning future yields may be negatively impacted if the nutrients aren’t put back. Therefore I’m going to be looking into ways to help the farmers compost the waste from their harvests. I’m a bit nervous – I’ll be heading to the fields by myself, which means taking a matatu (the dreaded crowded vans) to get to a marketplace where I am meeting the field officer, then hiring a crew of casual laborers (and hopefully an interpreter), then taking a boda (bike taxi) to the farms to experiment with ways to set up compost piles such that farmers will actually comply. It sounds a lot easier than it is, believe me! I’ve tried to think through it though so hopefully all will go somewhat smoothly (very smoothly is way too much to ask for).
I may be going to Kisumu this weekend with Paul, another OAF employee and a classmate of mine from Kellogg. Apparently there’s a big agricultural fair there (and possibly some interesting nightlife). And on Sunday, I’m in for a real treat (read: shock). Paul and I are going to attend a traditional circumcision ceremony, where a 10-12 year old boy is painted white, runs around naked while we chase him waving tree branches and singing, is then covered in mud and sliced while a bunch of people watch. I can’t quite decide if I’m going to be horrified, fascinated, or squeamish (probably all three). Stay tuned for that update!