Salama sana

Salama sana!

We awoke this morning at 6 to find the power off, which meant that the water pump was not working, either. Our four candles, attached to the lids of empty coffee cans as a base, provided enough light to boil the milk for coffee and cut up a pineapple. There was plenty of water in our "emergency" bottles so hakuna matata! It was growing light outside, but to open the shutters would have invited the cold breeze to enter so we drank coffee by candlelight and the day began. Shortly after dawn, the power and water were back on, and now at 11 am, the sun is shining and birds are singing outside. A few minutes ago, a little robinchat hopped in the open front door, walked around under the furniture and then hopped through the sitting room, on through to the kitchen and out the back door. I guess he didn’t find anything of interest.


I’m waiting for my ride to Molo...Samuel has been delayed this morning, trying to catch up on work that piled up over the past week while he and his daughter Jane were entertaining visitors from the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. The Foundation, which is part of the larger Slow Food association, was founded in Florence in 2003. It "coordinates and supports projects worldwide, but its most significant commitment is focused on developing countries, where defending biodiversity not only means improving peoples’ quality of life, but can mean guaranteeing life itself. The Foundation’s main project, both economically and organizationally, is the Presidium Project. There are currently 300 Presidia in 47 countries around the world, set up to protect small producers and save quality artisan products. The foundation helps to improve production methods, train producers and develop the local international market for their products." (from the Foundation brochure) Examples of these projects are the Wenchi Volcano Honey in Ethiopia, Tibetan Yak Cheese in China, and Abjosh Raisins from Herat, Afghanistan.

As Slow Food members, John and I had never heard of these important projects until we went to the Terra Madre meetings in Torino in 2004 and 2006. We were surprised to learn that Slow Food is not just about getting together to enjoy good food with other members, but that these Presidia projects were in place all over the world to support local farmers and artisans. It’s been exciting to see some of these projects at the Salone del Gusto in Torino during the Terra Madre meetings, and to read about them in the Slow Food publications. We think that this is a really important part of the Slow Food movement, and I had an opportunity to learn more first hand here in Molo.

As a recent graduate of Slow Food’s University of Gastronomic Science in Bra, Italy, Samuel’s daugther, Jane, is hoping to be able to use her training here in Kenya to work with local groups that are producing food products specific to their regions. She identified 3 food communities in the Molo area as projects that might qualify as Presidia projects by Slow Food. she did research on a specific type of green pumpkin, a local chicken with a bald neck and on the stinging nettle, all of which are grown and harvested by local farmers and then wrote a project proposal which she submitted to the Foundation. Last week Serena Milano and Jean Luca from the Foundation arrived to visit these and other projects that NECOFA supports here in the Molo area.

Jane invited us to go with her a few days before their arrival to visit the groups and to offer the farmers an opportunity to practice their presentations on us. The farms were far apart and we spent all day traveling and visiting, but we learned a lot and had a great time. One aspect of the presentations was tasting the products. For the chicken presentation that meant killing the chicken. I couldn’t watch and we didn’t have time to wait for it to be roasted, but I did hear later that it was delicious.

The visitors also came here to Michinda to see the 4 K Club school garden which FKSW supports, and the chicken project which FKSW funded in August. John Kariuki, a young Kenyan who is one of the three international Vice Presidents for Slow Food, was also here for the visits. I haven’t heard the final decision about whether or not the chickens, pumpkins or nettle will become Presidia projects, but it sounds like the week was very productive.

Speaking of food, many Kenyans sell produce and other edibles from small shops which they own. They also sell any and every other kind of item imaginable. Many, many people are entrepreneurs, and these small businesses constitute a significant portion of the Kenyan economy. You can find little shops in small towns, big cities and all along the roads in between. The shops might be in large clusters outdoors or they can be tiny adjacent spaces in a building beside the road. You might see one little kiosk miles away from any others, set up in front of a house where the owner is selling cabbages, or potatoes, or onions from their own garden.

Shops may be freestanding structures, constructed of wood, mud, stone, brick, plastic sheeting, corrugated metal roofing...anything that can accommodate a roof and a counter. Doors may be part of the structure, but many shops are not sturdy or secure enough for a door, so the vendor packs up everything at the end of the day and takes it home for the night. Some shops sell a huge variety of things, not necessarily related. Some may have only one product, like shoes or clothing. Other shops may have just a few items for sale, like a bunch of bananas and a few mangoes. Many shops stay open after dark, hoping for a few last customers, but many don’t have electricity. I love driving through a town at night and seeing the golden glow from the paraffin lanterns in these shops, like twinkling stars that have come down for a visit.

The other day, on the way back to the office after lunch, I saw a small kiosk between the restaurant and a petrol station at the edge of the parking lot. It was painted the bright Safaricom green of the Nairobi based mobile phone company. I needed to purchase air time for my phone so I stepped up to the window. The kiosk was about 2 feet square, made of wood, with a wire screen across the front and two steps up to the window. Inside, a young woman stood, and she smiled as I approached. I asked if she had a 1000 shilling Safaricom card. She said that all she had were two 250 shilling cards. I bought the cards, and she closed up shop for the day. I wondered how long she had been standing in her tiny kiosk, waiting to sell those two cards, and if she had sold others earlier in the day. I also wondered how much she had made on my 500 shilling ($6.25) purchase and if that would buy food for her family for the evening meal.

Every shop or business has a name. Some are combinations of people’s names, like the JoyPat Driving School, or the MaryDan Butchery. Other names are remarkable for their creativity and often defy a "logical" interpretation. But I know that each and every name is derived from something meaningful to the owner and can give a potential customer (or bypasser like me) a hint about what is, or has been, interesting enough to the proprietor to give the name to his or her shop. I am often entertained as we travel from place to place on long rides just by reading shop names. Some of my favorites so far on this trip:

Back to Eden Grocery
Pimple Pub
Blessed Budget Base Furniture
Beverly Hills Butchery
Rapture Machinery
Sunrise Cake Clinic
Mama Woolly Hair Salon
Dimples Restaurant
Born Winner Car Rental
Bubbles Butchery and Canteen
Hilarious Mascot General Store
Sweet Banana Hotel
Mongo Bongo Furniturers
Chill Out Beauty Salon
Fruitful Vision Center
God’s Favor Cafe
Radiant Supermarket
Nameless Bar
Silent Restaurant
Uncle Sam’s Kinyozi (barber shop)
and my current favorite...Dirt Foe Laundry

For those who don’t own a shop, driving a matatu, the small 12-15 passenger mini-vans which serve as long distance cabs, provides income for many young men. I’ve only seen two women drivers in all the thousands of matatus on the roads, and John and I rode from Nakuru to Nairobi with one of them. Matatus are eveywhere, speeding here and there, weaving in and out of traffic, trying to reach their destinations as quickly as possible. They all have names, too, and the name is usually written in large letters on the side doors or diagonally across the back window so as not to block the driver’s view. "Blessed Ride", "Fish Bone", and "Barack Obama" are some we’ve seen recently. Jordan was surprised the other day to see a matatu in front of us with the name "JORDAN" in large purple letters on the rear window. But I think the name that has given us most pause was one we saw in Nairobi last month with the name "Titty Twister" adorning the side and rear doors.

Here in Molo, another of my favorite businesses is the portable samosa cart. Samosas are small, deep fried triangles of dough filled with meat and/or veggies. They’re delicious and we often have them with tea in the morning or afternoon as a little hot snack. You can find samosas everywhere, including on the street in little samosa carts. These are ingenious vehicles. They look like a cross between a little car and a baby buggy, with a windshield of glass at the front, behind which the steaming hot samosas are displayed, three wheels, and a long handle like baby buggies or lawnmowers have. The carts are pushed by men in long white coats, like a doctor might wear. Built into the body of the cart, beneath the samosa compartment, is a little drawer which serves as a charcoal burner to keep the samosas warm. There is even a "tailpipe" for the smoke from the charcoal. You see the men in the morning heading out along the side of the road with a cartful of golden brown samosas, selling for 10 shillings apiece ($.08), and at the end of the day, hurrying back to someplace with their empty carts.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last message was our Inauguration Day Celebration on January 20th here in Elburgon. Our Terra Madre Safari group arrived back at the Hotel Eel in the afternoon of Inauguration Day from a four day trip to the Masai Mara game reserve. We took showers and convened in one of the hotel conference rooms, ready for the Inauguration, which was to be televised live at 8 pm Kenyan time. The hotel staff had brought in a television and set it on the bar. Tables with white table cloths ringed the perimeter of the large room. Samuel had said that he had invited a few friends and that the NECOFA staff would come, but it looked like he was expecting far more guests than that.

We took chairs right in front of the TV and as we watched the dignitaries in D.C begin arriving for the event and the huge crowds gathered on the mall, the Hotel Eel Conference room began to fill with people. There were at least 50 guests, the women wearing traditional costumes or dresses and many of the men in coats and ties. The headmaster and teachers from Michinda School were there with their spouses, and many others, whom we knew and some that we didn’t. As we ate the delicious dinner prepared by the hotel, Kenyans and Americans together shared great delight and high hopes as President Obama was inaugurated.

Samuel then rose to suggest that we celebrate the historic event with some muratina, a traditional Kikuyu drink made with honey, water and the fruit of the muratina, or sausage tree. One of the older men had prepared a batch of muratina for the occasion and someone produced the large plastic keg from behind the bar. We had seen these fruit in the Masai Mara hanging from trees but had no idea that they had any value as food or drink. The sausage serves as the fermenting agent, can be dried after brewing a batch of muratina, and then used over and over. The custom is to drink muratina from a cow’s horn, and so Samuel passed out the few horns that he had been able to bring and the brewer immediately filled them from the keg. The rest of us filled our glasses. It is also the custom to take a sip of muratina and then spit it on your chest. This is considered a blessing. So, all together, we raised our horns and glasses to President Obama and sent our wishes and hopes for a long and prosperous Presidency. Then all together, we spit on our chests.

We danced the rest of the evening to African music, forming long trains around the room and having a great time. We Americans had some instruction from a few of the young people who didn’t think we moved quite as fluidly or gracefully as we should. After a few glasses of muratina, though, they seemed content with our progress as we did our best to keep up with the pace and the grace. As the number of dancers slowly dwindled, we headed for bed after a joyous, and unusual, evening.

Now, back two weeks to the beginning of this trip...on January 8th, four days after our arrival in Kenya, John and I and two of our Terra Madre Safari participants traveled to the community of Edonyio Sidai, about 2 hours south of Nairobi. Edonyio Sidai is one of the five communities in which FKSW has been been supporting education since 2004. At that time, the 35 nursery school students at Edonyio Sidai attended class in the community’s church. The school committee’s first request was for a nursery school classroom. In 2007, FKSW provided the materials and labor for the classroom and when we visited last year, we were able to see the handsome new stone building. But we also had a surprise...the community had built a second class adjoining the first so that the first graders could also stay in the community for school instead of walking several kilometers down the Rift Valley escarpment to the only primary school in the area. We learned then that the community planned to build additional classes for the 2nd and 3rd grades, too, and when we arrived there in January, the next two classrooms were underway.

We have seen the Edonyio Sidai community become increasingly involved in the education of its students. The parents have now built a playground and play equipment, a traditional Maasai mud and stick building to serve as the school kitchen for the nursery feeding program, and toilets for the students and teachers. They have also paid for teacher training for nursery teacher Moses Kipaliash and hired a second nursery teacher to help with the growing number of students. Impressed with this effort, the FKSW board agreed to the committee’s request to provide the materials and labor to complete the fourth classroom and to install a water catchment system for the school. The water system, which consists of gutters and a storage tank to catch rainfall, is now in place, and the community has finished the 3rd classroom. It will be necessary, however, to raise additional funds before we can help to complete the last classroom. FKSW also supports twelve students from the community with scholarships to attend primary school.

In December, Samuel, delivered scholarship funds to the 22 students FKSW supports in the two communities at Archer’s Post and Kachuru in Central Kenya. Although John and I really enjoy visiting these communities, they are quite a distance from Nairobi and the trip easily takes 4-5 days. We had decided not to take the Terra Madre Safari participants there this year, and so asked Samuel if he might visit the communities for us. We all agreed that it would be advantageous for him to meet the members of the school committees, the students and the parents since he does the coordination and communication with them when we are in Oregon.

Samuel decided to make the trip an "exposure" opportunity for several people to travel along with him to a part of the country where they had never been. Lucy and Rose who are NECOFA staff, Anastasia, a woman from the Karunga Women’s Group (a Molo Wool Project participant), and Stanley and Grace, two members of the Kirepari community that FKSW supports at Lake Baringo were the five lucky travelers. Anastasia called home every 20 minutes or so to tell her family members about what she was seeing as they traveled. They had to stop to buy her more airtime when her phone ran out of credit. When asked for her thoughts at the end of the trip, she said that she had never imagined that an uneducated person like her could ever "go touring". Before the trip, she had thought that "she didn’t know anything or have any skills", but after visiting the harsh environment and meeting the pastoralists in the two communities, she said she realized that she knew a lot and was very lucky to have the life she does. Stanley Lemukut, the chairman of Kirepari community had similar comments...he realized after visiting these isolated, arid communities that even though Baringo is not an easy place to live, they "have gold there...the lake on which we live and all the water we will ever need." Lucy and Rose also expressed amazement at how people live in other parts of Kenya and how harsh and desolate the environment can be. They could drive for many miles without seeing a house, a person or even an animal. All agreed that their own living situations, as challenging as they might be at times, were significantly better than what they had seen and that they have "no right to complain about anything."

Samuel has previously provided these "exposure" opportunities to members from the Kirepari community at Lake Baringo with unexpected results. In December of 2007, he took a group of 15 men and women from Baringo to the Busia Agricultural College for a week’s training to learn about different agricultural projects, like beekeeping, chickens, biofuel and raising bananas and other crops. He also arranged for an "exchange" visit for the women from Kirepari to visit another women’s group at Lake Bogoria to see the kitchen gardens they were growing. The Kirepari women and one man came back from these trips so motivated and enthusiastic at what they had seen, that they started a community garden and individual household gardens on their own, even though agriculture is not a part of their tradition. They are now also raising chickens and providing training to others on the island who wish to follow their example. Before the visits, they were not even able to imagine these activities as part of their lives, but in an environment where fish is their only dependable food and where a large percentage of the population suffers from malnutrition, they are improving the quality of not only their own lives, but of others’ as well. FKSW has provided funding for these "exchange" visits, for seed for the gardens, for pumps to irrigate the crops and for the chickens at Kirepari.

The fifth community with which FKSW has been involved is Aitong, in the Masai Mara. There, 6 students receive scholarships to attend primary school from FKSW donors. We are not able to visit the community on every trip to Kenya, but Kicheche Safari Camp, located nearby, manages development projects there, and so we bring the scholarship funds to the project coordinator and she brings us photos and letters from the students.

I leave Kenya for home 3 weeks from tomorrow. I want to write as much as I can while I’m here... it’s so much easier...and so I’m trying to send out a letter a week. On Thursday, we go to Lake Baringo for 3 days and there will be a lot to tell after that visit, including the report on the medical camp which took place a month ago now! I also want to write about our trip to Rwanda...maybe in the next letter. The letters become an archive for FKSW and are the only journaling I do, so I figure I might as well share them, especially because many of you have asked me to. Because I only sent the first one last week, I’m trying to cover 3 months in one and I know that makes each one very long. So read what you like and leave the rest, or ignore completely! But thank you for letting me share these experiences with you and thank you to all of you who have supported FKSW over the years, and continue to support us today! It is because of you that we are here and even have these wonderful stories to share!

Kwaheri ya kuonana.

Gwen