Down on the farm

It’s a hot sweaty night in Kosele, despite the rain we’ve had. I hope this isn’t the start of a hotter, drier spell. We still need another couple of weeks of rain for the best yields on our farm.

Although I hadn’t planned it, today has ended up being a down on the farm day. Our Monday morning planning sessions are becoming very fruitful now. Mary and Duncan are both really getting the hang of what they’re for. As a result of the school closure due to exams we have a larger army of child labour to exploit than usual for the next three days. Weeding and land clearance will be happening as well as bean harvesting. I can’t wait to see the bean harvest figures. They will be our first proper harvest on the new land we have acquired.

The ‘big green tractor’ trundled off to one of the local primary schools today to fetch more grass for mulching our Farming God’s Way, (FGW), plots. We have done really well in our quest for one hundred per cent mulch cover. Our God’s Blanket is really thick on most of the FGW plots now. It’s amazing how much grass you can squeeze inside and on top of a Landrover – not to mention down your shirt, trousers and throat. The kids swept into action once we’d got our precious load back to base and we soon had the mulch sorted. Even the smallest children pile in to carry off big bundles of mulch. They really enjoy themselves playing with the grass.

After dealing with the mulch I found myself doing guided tours of the farm for the head teacher at the school we got the grass from, followed by the District and Area Education officers. They were all very enthusiastic about what they saw and I am hoping that their enthusiasm will give me opportunities to take the FGW training into some of the local schools. The two education officers had to put up with a somewhat extended talk through the principles of FGW due to a downpour that lasted a couple of hours. I am a bit of an evangelist for FGW and they are both keen on developing it so we had a very fruitful time together. One of the great things about the training is that it gives opportunities for a number of very effective experiments to demonstrate the science of this method of farming. Kenyan school pupils have relatively few opportunities for direct experience of scientific experiments, data gathering and analysis so it’s really exciting being able to share ‘doable’ science with influential and keen education officers.

Mr Dedans, our head teacher, confirmed the possibility of a police officer turning up at school tomorrow to supervise access to the exam area. He did reassure the kids that there was no need to worry about being arrested. The new exam desks that Joseph has made look very impressive in the exam room and the grass in the school compound was ‘slashed’ by some of the boys in Class 7 as part of our general tidying up for the exam supervisor’s arrival. Slashed is probably a bit of an exaggeration, (although it is the term that is used for cutting grass). The lads just tried to beat it into submission with the slashers, (long bits of metal shaped a bit like hockey sticks with a sharp edge). I think the grass won really.

The exam supervisor turned out to be a really nice guy. He is a teacher in another primary school and is very keen on farming. He also did the farm tour and made some really helpful suggestions about plants that act as weed and insect repellents. I will be arranging a visit to his farm to see the tissue culture banana trees that he is growing, (it sounds like he has a small forest of them – five hundred altogether). This is REALLY exciting news as we have been planning to grow tissue culture bananas for some time. They are specially prepared to make the seedlings that they are grown from disease free and consequently higher yielding trees. The local, ‘indigenous’ trees are generally not disease free and do not produce very high yields.

Must try to get an early night tonight, (though I suspect the heat might make it a bit difficult). It’s a big day tomorrow and I, like the Class 8 pupils, want to make sure it goes well.

Aiming high

On Tuesday our oldest pupils will start their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education, (KCPE), exams. The exams last for three days and will be conducted under the most stringent security conditions to avoid cheating. None of the teachers except the head teacher will be allowed on the school compound. All the pupils except the members of class 8 will be at home for the duration of the exam period. Mobile phones within earshot of the exam room will be confiscated and I am sure that someone told me a policeman will be in attendance as well. It would not surprise me.

Our ‘candidates', (as they are now called), must be the best-prepared group of students I have seen. They have been drilled since at least August and have sat three mock exams in the last four weeks. I’m actually very proud of them. One of the mock exams they sat recently was the divisional mock. Our school came 13th out of the 131 schools in our division. We came 2nd out of the 22 schools in our zone. Out of 3649 candidates our top pupil, Kevin, came 3rd in English. He came 85th overall, (he is our only pupil in the top 100), with a score of 395 – 5 more marks would gain him admittance to a prestigious National High school. The results are encouraging and show improvements in maths. We can do better in future but are heading in the right direction. We are top school in English in our zone and 4th out of 131 in the Division at English. If this sounds a bit like boasting I suppose it is but I think the pupils and their teachers deserve a pat on the back.

The candidates have also been well prayed for. There was a day of prayer in Kosele, (our local village), on Thursday that was attended by many local schools. The other pupils in the school prayed with them on Friday and our church prayed for them today. This might seem like spiritual overkill but it is very encouraging to see that the spiritual dimension of our young people’s live is taken so seriously. The KCPE exam is a very big deal in Kenya and is a significant transition point for all of the young people taking it. Despite the possibility of cheating and corruption the marks will be eagerly anticipated and will feature prominently in the national press when they are released. Asking for God’s favour at such a time is the right thing to do. It seems to have been done very well.

Tomorrow, in addition to checking that all the final preparations have been made for the smooth running of the KCPE exams, I will be working on a cunning plan to spend some time with the teaching staff. Assuming the teachers will actually be allowed onto our compound at all, it should be a good opportunity for us to prepare for dominating all the exam performance tables next year. I hope we don’t have to resort to an excessive amount of subterfuge to ensure our meetings can take place. It will be difficult to disguise the fact that the teachers have arrived for work. Our compound is not very big and the teachers tend to be quite well dressed. Disguising them as a group of itinerant labourers come to erect fencing would be a bit of a challenge. I am hoping that sanity will prevail and that it will be possible for us to work in peace, without disturbing the sanctity of the exam area or incurring the wrath of the police officer. The police in Kenya are usually armed. We will need to be careful in our discussions about aiming high.

Coincidence?

I love it when a plan starts to really come together. I’ve been planning to do some serious management and leadership training with our team in the home and the school and have been reading my way round books by Stephen Covey, (The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People) and John Maxwell, (Developing the Leader Within You). The basic shape of the training has been kind of emerging over the last few days but needed resources to give it legs. I was made up yesterday when I managed to buy three John Maxwell DVDs and two Stephen Covey audio books in Kisumu for less that £10. They are just what I need.

It is always tempting to write off the various leadership/management gurus as clever people who are very good at mining the personal development market for all its worth – helping people to scratch their various aspirational/ego itches. In the case of the two writers I have mentioned I would have to say that this is not true. What they write and present are genuine servant leadership principles. Putting into practise what many people simply preach. Once again I find that resources are lining up with our growth and development needs. Very encouraging answers to prayer. Many people would write ‘answers to prayer’ off as coincidences -  When I stop praying the coincidences seem to stop happening.

Carrying on the biblical theme I had a real moment of revelation today which helped me, in a matter of minutes, to write a personal mission statement – something I have been mulling over for some time with varying degrees of frustration. Having made a start on my new resource collection I was inspired to write the following in my notebook:

“The key to our future success and longevity lies in bringing up a new generation of Kenyan leaders of Hope and Kindness. I will, therefore, invest my heart, time and resources into identifying them, equipping them and trusting them with the future of Hope and Kindness.”

Having a personal mission statement might sound a bit pompous or pretentious but I find it a really helpful tool for focusing my time and energy. This version might need a bit of tweaking but it felt like a real leap forward today. Thank you God for the gift of ‘coincidences’.

Highway Code

Today Duncan, Mary and I made our postponed trip to Kisumu, (nearest big town about and hour and a half away). Following a last warning by a local police officer we have had to get the cracked windscreen on our Landrover fixed and Hamir, the owner of a good garage in Kisumu called Silverline Motors, offered to fix it for free. We set off at 7.30 a.m. to make sure we got to Kisumu early.

Driving in Kenya is an interesting experience. You have to drive very defensively and assume that everybody else on the road is out to get you. The national papers frequently carry stories about horrendous pile-ups involving buses and matatus, (mini bus taxis – pronounced ma ta too). The constant carnage on the roads is a national scandal.

Our Landrover is a very old vehicle. It was made in 1987 and has seen some pretty tough action on unforgiving roads. You don’t really steer it. It’s more like sailing, as the steering is probably the most fatigued part of the vehicle. It’s quite safe, once you get used to it, and we regularly have it tightened up. With a top speed of 80 kph, (50 miles per hour), we aren’t exactly setting land speed records on any of our journeys. Driving defensively basically means driving fairly slowly.

The most harrowing thing about driving to Kisumu is the buses. They come hurtling towards you as they race to Nairobi, hell bent on being first there and making a quick turn around for the return journey. I have visions of the bus drivers as drug fuelled speed merchants who never sleep and have a casual disregard for life and limb – especially other people’s. The roads between Kosele and Kisumu aren’t very wide and the drop off at the side of some stretches would be enough to give the Landrover a serious shaking at the very least. In addition to the break neck speeds the buses travel at the way they ‘crab’ across the road is also very worrying. Nearly all of the buses that come towards you look like the body is set at a slant to the chassis – a kind of extra side swipe capability to make sure they get you one way or another. The only thing you can do as they come past is grip the wheel firmly and try to maintain a position just your side of the white line down the middle of the road. Sometimes this manoeuvre feels a bit to close to playing chicken for comfort.

The other problems on the roads are; the matatus, (minibuses that provide a fast ‘bus’ service between towns), white taxis, all the other drivers, motor cyclists, pushbikes and potholes. The matatu drivers are probably nice friendly, home loving kind of guys when they aren’t matatu driving. Unfortunately that probably isn’t very often. The only way the matatu operators can make a living is to pile as many passengers as possible in per journey and to get from A to B as fast as possible to maximise the number of journeys in a day. They too probably stay awake on all kinds of concoctions and hardly ever sleep. They tend to fly up and down the road in packs, racing each other to the next passenger and beeping their horns at anything or anybody that gets in the way. They have inspiring names like ‘Determination’, ‘Never Say Die’, 'Terminator', ‘Jesus Saves’ and the like.

In England white van drivers are, stereotypically, the worse drivers on the road. In Kenya it is, to be honest, hard to differentiate to this extent. I do think, however, that anybody who has the desire to own or drive a white taxi, (these days usually the estate car version that I have blogged about previously), should automatically be barred from driving for life. I have had similar thoughts about white van drivers in England. The economics of operating a public transport vehicle make it impossible to drive safely and make a profit. Speed and turnaround time are of the essence. The white taxi drivers are sneakier than the matatus. As they are generally quicker and less easy to spot in the rear view mirror they can kind of creep up on you. Once rammed up your rear bumper they blast the horn for you to get out of the way so they can squeeze past in the space between you and the oncoming traffic. This is particularly hazardous if you are, at the same time, trying to pull out into the road to avoid the cyclist carrying a wide load on his passenger rack, (like a door frame or settee – I kid you not!).

The rules for driving at night in Kenya are the same as stated above only more so. We were a bit late getting away from Kisumu tonight so it was dark after about the first half of the journey. Three extra hazards present themselves at night. Pedestrians, cyclists and speed bumps. (Actually the speed bumps are also a problem in the daytime, but they really come into their own at night).

As you drive along a road at night in Kenya people and bicycles kind of loom up out of the dark at you. The people are spookier than the cyclists, though usually less dangerous, (apart from those who have a death wish and seem to wait for you to be driving along before they dash across the road). In the early evening you have the impression of some large, ghostly army on the move, made up of every kind of individual. All with the sole purpose of freaking you out and getting you to crash into the vehicle approaching from the other direction.

The cyclists are also a nightmare. More likely to be carrying passengers than wide loads at this time of day, none of the bikes that you pass have lights. There is an almost uniform look to bicycles in Kenya. Most of them are made in China and have black frames. They tend to be pedalled by black people and to carry dark coloured passengers. They are, to all intents and purposes, the ultimate stealth weapon – invisible until you are on top of them, at which point they force you into evasive action.

The west could learn a thing or two about traffic calming from Kenya. Kenya is home to the most effective speed bumps in the world – capable of forcing vehicles to go from 60 to 0 miles per hour in seconds. They come in a variety of forms. The most irritating type consists of two to six thin, shallow bumps with a tiny gap between them Whatever speed you cross them at you feel your teeth rattle and get the impression that your vehicle is going to shake itself apart before the crossing has finished. Then there are the mountainous bumps – only passable in first gear at very low speed. You kind of crawl up and over this type of speed bump or risk serious damage to your vehicle. The most lethal kind is the ‘vigilante’ type. This speed bump is usually made of a combination of mud, rocks and occasionally concrete and is put up by members of a community once they have got completely fed up with the Grand Prix that races through their town or village every day. They are erected without warning or signposts and are just the right height and shape to make every passenger in a vehicle crack his or her head on the roof if passed over at speed. This often happens. The vigilante speed bump must, I imagine, be made in the dead of the night, (perhaps that’s what all the people on the move are doing), as this gives maximum advantage to surprise the following morning in the war against reckless driving.

Having said all of this we did get home safely - shaken by the last bit of rough road and surprised by the number of new, deeper potholes, but otherwise OK. I was, at least, able to see all of the hazards described above with extra clarity thanks to the new windscreen, and was able to dodge around obstacles with ease because of the newly tightened steering. Thanks Hamir.

Without land you are not a man

We learnt yesterday that we had to attend a meeting of the Land Board today to formalise our most recent land purchase. The Land Board is a type of court which sanctions land transactions, after carefully checking that all family members are in agreement about the sale. Land is a hugely important matter in Kenya. While we were waiting for the proceedings to start I was chatting to a Kenyan guy about the case he was involved with. He told me “without land you are not a man – however big or small the land”. This explains the formality and significance of the Land Board. Proceeding were supposed to start at 10.00 am but didn’t get off the ground until midday. (We had anticipated the delay and all brought books to read). It is always interesting watching a crowd gather in Kenya, whether it is for a church service, a football match or a land board. Peak numbers are usually achieved about an hour and a half after the official start time.

I had expected to be kept all day by the Land Board but, due to some miracle, our case was called first. The Land Board members, (about 12 of them), checked that all parties were present, (me, Mary and Ian on our part, plus two members of the family selling the land and their witness). There were questions about whether or not the full payment had been made for the land. It hadn’t so I wrote out the two cheques required after a brief discussion about whether this was acceptable. The Chairman then made sure that we were aware of the problems that might be caused if any family members who were not at the court decided they had been cheated. The seller and her son assured the Board that all the necessary agreements had been made within the family and I explained that we had met the family in August. This satisfied the Board and we were told that we would have to return next Thursday to collect the official approval form. As we walked out of the meeting I got the impression that the crowd had grown in the few minutes it took for our case to be heard. I couldn’t imagine a crowd in England waiting as patiently as they do in Kenya. Admittedly the weather was very nice for hanging around in but nobody seemed bothered by the fact that the start was delayed by two hours. Only us mzungus, (white people).

The lady with the malnourished baby has not come to see us today, so I am assuming that she and the baby are improving. I really hope so. I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like to watch your child’s health deteriorate so badly and know that you are unable to do anything about it. I am passionate about Farming God’s Way because I believe that it is a very powerful tool for the poor in Kenya. Something that can lift them up from the desperate conditions so many of them are living in and give them a hope for the future.

Where there is no doctor

Day two of our Farming God’s Way, (FGW), training has gone well. Yesterday we holed out, (dug all our holes and furrows). Today we planted out and covered the plot with leaves, twigs and grass, (mulch or God's Blanket). We have planted in faith, prayed for a good harvest and rain and – guess what – as I type we are having exactly the right type of rain. A gradual downpour - not too heavy and designed to really soak into our mulch. An encouraging start. Today were also the day for the science bit – demonstrations of the why behind not ploughing and using mulch. The demonstrations worked well on the training DVD, were obviously doable in the field because we did them in Lesotho and they worked on our plot today. The next step, (apart from the bumper harvest!), is to make sure that the team I have just trained can do the same for our church members.

I’ve written before about the ‘playing at God’ problem of our work. Making the right response to people’s requests for assistance is very challenging. Making sure we don’t create dependency but at the same time being compassionate is a really difficult juggling act. A young mum came to see us late this afternoon with a very young child suffering from severe malnutrition. Instinctive response is to rush the child to hospital but that didn’t feel right in this case. Further investigation revealed the fact that this lady had a younger baby, one month old, (which is why the older child was no longer being breast fed), and a husband who had just started a new job. Our standard reference for a second opinion in cases like this is a remarkable book called “Where there is no doctor”, which is specially designed for situations where there is no doctor! The child had the classic symptoms of kwashiorkor – swollen legs, sores, bulging tummy, and swollen face. We decided to invest in the ingredients of a local ‘super food’, which mothers in our area use to build children up. Creating this wonder food involved a trip to the market in Kosele to buy some Omena, (small dried fish) for the food mix, vitamin tablets and an anti-biotic. The other ingredients were available from our stores - rice, groundnuts and porridge flour. As we don’t have a blender the ingredients were sent to the local posho mill to be ground into flour.  While all this was happening the little lad happily munched a few bananas and was already starting to look like he had perked up.

The lady and child will be coming to see us on Saturday for a progress report and we are confident that there will be a significant improvement. I’m sure that we made the right decision but it’s not easy. What if we got it wrong? I’m sure the lady will be back quickly if the child takes a serious turn for the worse. Then we can start to consider the alternatives. In the meantime we can only pray for the child and for wisdom the next time we find ourselves in the same situation.

Hoe, Hoe, Hoe

I've had a quite tiring but very rewarding day today. Our plans to roll out Farming God’s Way to our church members got off to an excellent start. Altogether ten of us spent the best part of the day, (from 9.15 a.m. to 2.15 p.m.), transforming a 10 metre by 10 metre patch of land into a Well Watered Garden. The reference to a Well Watered Garden comes from Isaiah 58. The garden itself is a 6 metre by 6 metre demonstration plot designed to encourage members of the community to develop an interest in Farming God’s Way, (FGW). One of the most important principles of FGW is that the land is not ploughed. Today we put our backs into hoeing the land into shape. It was hard work but there were, fortunately, a good number of hands to do it. Seeing mzungus, (white people), out digging in the fields is a novel experience for most of the people in our community. It is, to be honest, a novel experience doing it. I think I'll have to get a hoe with a specially long handle to keep my back in shape.

I was, initially, quite nervous about running this training. Having had a great week in Lesotho at the beginning of August learning a lot about working and training with a local community I was fired up and well motivated to get going. The main aim of the training this week is to help members of our church to understand how to do the practical bit of FGW and to start them off on a training track that will enable them to train other members of the church.

As well as the practical tasks, (which you can see details of on our website if you follow this link http://www.hopeandkindness.org/ProjectFarming.htm), there are some important biblical principles behind FGW. These focus on care for the land, abandoning traditional practises of witchcraft and ancestor worship, and living a godly lifestyle. The trainees were a very receptive and responsive group – including a curious onlooker who joined us to see what was going on and ended up staying for the whole training session. Grant Dryden, the driving force behind FGW, describes it as “the Bible with boots on”. From our experience today it’s a very apt description. It was most encouraging to receive the rain that we prayed for during the late afternoon – just enough to prepare our holes for placing fertiliser and seeds in tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s session includes a lot of the science behind FGW, with some great practical demonstrations of the benefits of this type of conservation farming. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m also looking forward to forthcoming visits from Cisco teams – one at the end of this month, two in February and one in March. These teams of volunteers from Cisco, the global ICT company, always go the extra mile to make sure their visits bring maximum benefit to the children and our neighbours in Kosele. This evening I was able to join a conference call via call back from Cisco, (Webex), from Kosele for the first time. I still find it quite mind blowing that it is possible to do this – even though I was an ICT teacher for most of my teaching career. The rapid growth of ICT and communications infrastructure in our part of Kenya is very impressive and will open up many opportunities for our young people. It’s very exciting.