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