Traffic lights!!

Who woulda thought this ol' town of bicycles and blackouts would ever be counted as worthy of traffic lights?! Well a set has arrived!
The first few days people gathered 'round to watch in awe as the lights changed from green... to orange... to red... to green...
a few days after that the bicycles were starting to get the hang of stopping on red and going on green.
Unfortunately the trucks and minivans who often pass through town doing 100km+ haven't got the hint yet...and the lights go out when there's a black out too, which doesn't help matters!!
I guess all changes take people a while to get used to.

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.

Rambling

Can you believe...("YES" I hear you say!) ...that my parents had all their luggage stolen on their bus trip from the mine to the airport?
They pretty much boarded the plane to Europe with the clothes on the back and their hand luggage- which thankfully contained passposrts, wallets and cameras.
What a way to start the holiday! Well, they did some major clothes shopping once they got to London, and today...they'd be having lunch in Italy I think? hopefully having an absolute blast :)

Today I had a language lesson this morning and am hanging out with my colleagues kids this avo and watchin 'spongebob squarepants' - I can't wait! seriously. I love spongebob.

The meeting Ive been waiting months for is happening tomorrow afternoon. Too good to be true? I hope not. The plan starting next week is that once Ive done a few days orientation in the TLC office and spent a few weeks heading out on the back of motorbikes with some of the guys, I will be facilitating the development of a TLC farm property as a demo farm and training centre. Some of the existing ideas for the site are constructing a training area and accommodation, demos for water management, crop diversification, agroforestry, house gardens, animal husbandry, low input maize growing methods, as well as seed trials and the tourism potential of setting up a ‘real’ village on the site- lived in by the workers but suitable for tourist groups... So heaps of potential!! I’m heading up there this Friday (its about an hours drive away) to have a look at the property and start feasibility planning and, at some stage soon I’ld like to go and have a look at other similar projects around the country to see what works...what doesn’t.

Im really struggling with the role of ‘westerners’ in an environment like this- our attempts to ‘help’ come complete with huge cultural packages- usually, it seems, for worse. I spent all Friday at ‘development training’ where a bunch of people- easily classified as amongst the worlds poorest spent time brainstorming ways they could reduce their poverty. They came up with a great list-
send your kids to school,
get an education yourself,
work hard, farm and plant extra to sell,
work together to solve one problem in the village at a time,
use initiative-don’t wait for handouts,
start a small business,
learn a trade...
They have great ideas of what they can do. Are they doing it and its not working? Or are they not doing it- and if not- why not?
I suspect our/my expectations and agendas are vastly different than theirs. We're aiming for ownership, self empowerment and sustainability - which Im fast realising doesnt gel with the bigger permeating culture here (of Africa?) - and its patron –client- culture. The wealthy are obliged to help the poor (whom they have relationship with) that is their duty. Im not convinced that ‘economic stability’ or standing independently on their own feet is the goal at a national level let alone a village level. The culture is very much about dependence and /or interdependence. Has it always been that way? Or is it a cultural coping mechanism in abject poverty? Someone asked me last week- can you improve the lot of one group of people in Africa in the setting of another group of people? I dunno. I almost feel guilty for being here- being arrogant enough to think that I have something to offer- and yet people here DO starve, are dying from preventable diseases... and the system isn’t working- so maybe there is a place for outsiders to ‘help’...I guess the question for me is –what should that help look like? Maybe Ive had too many months to think about all this :)

Famine Relief

Everything is green. The crops are standing tall, but the people are hungry. Harvest is still a month or two away- although there is some green maize being harvested and sold now. How do we respond?
The bad news is that in rural Malawi the 'hungry season' is an annual event- as regular as Christmas. The good news is that this year it has only hit proper in late January and will probably run through to mid March- as opposed to previous years where several bad seasons in a row have meant the 'hungry' started in August and continued through to April the following year. 9 months is a long time to ration maize porridge and scavenge for every meal. Can you imagine?
The worst hit are those who can't farm and are dependant on their relatives for thier survival. No welfare system here. A person's social network is their insurance, welfare and superannuation all entrusted to family ties and reciprocal giving relationsips carefully built over a lifetime.
So how do we 'outsiders'respond? How are decisions of how much to whom made?
A proposal was put forward at our team meeting yesterday- developed based on reports from the 120 villages we work in, in consultation with the major chiefs.
The development arguments against providing aid in the form of food handouts include:
-it sets a precedent and expectation for the future;
-its a bandaid not a long term solution; and
-a well developed system has to be in place to ensure it actually gets to those most in need- the elderly, the sick, the orphaned and child headed households.

Arguments in favour of providing the aid include:
-it is plain wrong to sit and watch people suffering and not respond with compassion when we have access to (comparatively) such enormous resources;
-the team is responding to requests based on years of relationship with these villages rather than applying a prepacked 'solution';
-as our work now forms a regular part of the village life we have been factored in to the kinship obligations. there is an element of expectation that if we can help, we will. even a small effort is appreciated and reinforces our solidarity in their hardship;
-the food will be distributed to where it is most needed through these relationship'; and
-the amount- based on our available resources and an understanding of the extent of the acute problem (reported by chiefs) is small. enough to tide people over, not enough to create dependance.

I had never actually though through HOW you would decide how much to give and where. relationship, budget, extent of problem, our capability. Our efforts will target the 120 villages that we work in and supply enough maize to supplement the rations of those most vulnerable for a week or two closer to harvest. We will source and purchase the maize, deliver it to the villages and the chiefs will record its distribution and ensure it is getting to where it is most needed.
As a new comer, I would like to give more- I guess partly to salve my conscience and make me feel good that Im 'helping'. But i can also see that short term solutions are exactly that- and the long term work of TLC in providing farming training and low cost inputs - although harder to measure the outcomes, is contributing to a long term, grass roots solution. I think the decreasing length of the 'hungry' is proof that real progress is being made.