Rural Kenya

Rural Kenya, what a beautiful place! We spent 2 weeks in the western part, Nyanza province past Kisumu near Lake Victoria. The Australian Government DFAT Travel Warnings said:

• "We advise you to exercise a high degree of caution in Kenya at this time due to the high risk of terrorist attack, civil unrest and high crime levels.
• We advise you to reconsider your need to travel to Kisumu in Nyanza province and the Nairobi suburbs of Kibera, Mathare, Kasirani and Eastleigh due to high crime levels.

But I bet they never have any fun on their travels. They've never chatted to real Indonesians and asked them what they thought about the Bali bombings the week after. I'm sure they were miles away from the tsunami too and have never been through a Madagascan military check point with machine guns waving about. You know what? They've probably never even left Australia. Well- best of luck to 'em. Kenya was great. We drove straight past one the hotels where lots of people were killed in the post election violence. We drove through several youth peace marches. Kenya is fine- they don't want the violence either.

So... back to rural Kenya- it really is a beautiful place! Let me show you...

Walking through farms with the late afternoon rain setting in.

A guava flower

A tree full of Weaver bird nests.

Beautiful local kids.

Funky house art. Actually, the houses really fascinated me 'cos they weren't made from bricks or timber- they were constructed with a scaffolding of light timber, then filled in with a mud/cow manure mixture. When that dries it was rendered with a manure/coloured clay mixture- a perfect canvas for all sorts of pictures! I was also really impressed that, unlike the village houses here, almost everyone had a tin roof!

Agriculture was also much more mechanised than anything I have ever seen here, with bullock teams used to pull ploughs and even this tractor!

AND, I heard my first donkey brey- which had me giggling for the next 10 min! I used to play a piece on piano the went 'sweetly sings the donkey at the break of day, if you do not hear him this is what he says...Eeeawww! eeaaaw! Eaw, Eaw Eaaawww!' well- my piano playing didn't come near to the noise these donkeys made. Donkeys are firm proof that God has a sense of humour!
So, contrary to what you are now thinking, I didn't go to Kenya for holiday- it was actually for 'professional development'. Yes, we did do some work!
Every morning we would be woken by the 6am news on the radio. We'd get up, have a lovely brekky of pancakes of donuts, or french toast and hot Kenyan coffee with our hosts and the team for the day, then about 9am we'd set off walking and walk and walk carrying lots of equipment til we stopped for a substantial lunch, then we'd walk and walk again until it got dark or we got rained on- whichever happened first :)

I was accompaying the guy who did the water management plan for the demonstration farm here in Malawi tolearn what I could as he prepared plans for several farming valleys in Kenya. (yes- I know you'll be reading this Prof!).

It really hit me while i watched him work in Kenya that the success the demo farm has been this year actually wasn't cos I put together a good cropping plan and threw money at it- it was because (thanks to the Prof) we had a handle on the fundamental stuff- harnessing the resource of water instead of letting it destroy everything. As we trudged up and down each valley in Kenya, he tried to talk me through what he was doing and seeing- what was driving his decisions- which is when i realised how much hard work it is. Not just the walking and lugging laser levels, but seeing what's really in the landscape and interpreting it correctly.

This planning is essential and fundamental to man living in harmony with his environment. To get the most out of it without destroying it ie-good farming. All the other 'management' stuff we promote in the 'environmental management' field (trust me- Im the author of many an EM Plan) are just bandaid solutions.

This method integrates everything...which has consequences for me....
so back to some photos!

Using the laser level in 'tiger country'. Nah not really- but the guys were in there for a few hours hacking a path- which the cows promptly decided to utilise!

2 members of the 'agricultural committee' taking a breather.