Slow news day

The clock is ticking on the days left before returning to the UK for a short while. At this point my to do list seems to have taken on a life of its own and I am wondering if I’ll manage to get everything done in time. As I’ve been through this process a few times now I’m not unduly worried. Things have a habit of unravelling one day then coming back together the next. As I’ve said before the unpredictable nature of days out here makes it a more interesting place to be.

The rain is becoming a little patchier. I think it is now in wind up mode – threatening to pour down then quietly disappearing leaving a somewhat hot, sweaty night behind. I will have to look up the requirements for our maize in what remains of the growing season. Duncan is still making a morning pilgrimage to the plots and is working on a mid December harvest. I am disappointed that I won’t be here to see it come in. I’ll have to make sure Ian and Hilda take lots of pictures.

We have two new visitors staying with us – two young women from Denmark, (our first visitors from there). They promise to be a blessing to us as school winds down to the end of term and the children get less inclined to study. Given the examination overkill that we have experienced in the last month I’m surprised any of the children want to come to school at all. They will, hopefully, enjoy the more practical ‘curriculum’ that we have prepared for them for the next two weeks. In the run up to the Cisco team’s visit at the end of the week the teachers and pupils will be preparing to paint the classrooms, enjoying some mini ‘sports afternoons’ and doing some Art work. It should give us all a nice opportunity to wind down.

A good read

If you have been following my blog you may have drawn the conclusion that I enjoy reading. You would be right. I like devouring books. I blame my Mum and Dad and the library at RAF Tengah in Singapore, (to which I was a regular visitor for a couple of years at an impressionable age). Reading occasionally feels like a guilty pleasure – a real indulgence. I justify it on the grounds that it's one of God's greatest gifts for unlocking your mind. In the absence of TV and a broadband Internet connection I am greatly blessed here in Kosele by having time to read.

Sunday is a good day for reading. We usually have very few visitors requiring payment of any kind, (which I am responsible for as Mary, our manager, has week-ends off). I find it very difficult to resist the temptation of buying a new tome to get through when I am travelling. On my way to Kenya in October I bought a book called Africa – Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden, who has made Africa a life's work in a number of roles but principally as a journalist.

If you only ever read one book Africa read this one. Since first coming to Kenya in 2002 I have been fascinated, shocked, amused, moved and overwhelmed by Africa. As a result of being a participant in development in Kenya I have become a keen student of African politics and history. Africa – Altered States, Ordinary Miracles achieves the extraordinary feat of making a very complex historical, political and cultural narrative immensely readable. The chapters in the book move from one country to another, each one casting light on, for me at least, previously half understood details. No wonder the Independent review said it is 'a remarkable, ground breaking achievement, capturing the complex texture of a rapidly changing continent. It is also terribly moving'.

With the festive season rapidly gathering momentum, (in Europe and America at least), go mad and add this book to your list for Santa. Even better – rush out to the shops and buy it for yourself now as an early gift. You won't be disappointed, (though you may end up having a few late nights).

Back on the farm

It’s been another good day on the farm today – ooh aar. A group of people from a church in Kisii, (our closest ‘big’ town), visited today to find out more about Farming God’s Way (FGW). One way or another I’ve had a fairly office based week so far so it was nice to get out and do something practical again.

We started the training with a tour of the latrines and the farm. Starting a tour with an in depth look at the toilets might not seem like the obvious way to get going but our visitors seemed suitably impressed by the Ecosan latrines and the compost we make from them. On then to the farm… It is difficult not to gloat over the cobs of corn that we have on the FGW plots – they really are huge. Having a field full of the evidence that FGW really does work gets our training off to a good start. We are really hoping that a very, very large number of people in our area will adopt this method of farming but will not go out on the stump shouting its praises. We are hoping that leading by example will stimulate real interest in FGW.

The best part of the training is the ‘science bit’ at the end of the hole digging. (For a fuller explanation of the steps involved in setting up a FGW plot follow either one of these links) –

http://www.hopeandkindness.org/ProjectFarming.htm – (Our website)

http://www.farming-gods-way.org/home.htm – FGW site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avlBtPSipa0 – FGW videos

The experiments demonstrate how wasteful traditional approaches to farming are and help to explain why so much of Africa’s topsoil is being deposited in oceans! Our visitors seemed convinced by the demonstrations and I am optimistic that some of them will be Farming God’s Way in the next growing season. Pastor Peter, who led the group, has promised to let us know how his church members get on and I hope that we will be able to post pictures of good harvests on our website in the coming year.

It's a crazy world

It’s been a long day today. As ever a collection of unpredictable things to deal with and a to do list a mile long. I’m not complaining – I like being fully occupied and appreciate the fact that every day is different. I’ve been continuing to grapple with the problem of longevity, (of Hope and Kindness, not me), and have finally finished Built to Last, (the book that I have been drawing inspiration from). As I have blogged previously it has been a very stimulating read and has generated a lot of doodling on my planning pad.

I haven’t been consciously abstaining from news but had been news free for about a week until this afternoon. The transition from news junkie to news free has been easier than I would have thought a few months ago. Very few withdrawal symptoms. I did have a quick flick through the Standard, (Kenya’s ‘other’ daily newspaper). It would appear that Kenya is winning in the fight against Al-Shabbab. It will be interesting to see how much media space this has generated in the West. The press in Kenya is, understandably, full of news and views on the situation. Opinion seems fairly mixed about whether Kenya’s involvement in the current war in Somalia is a good or a bad thing. It is certainly very significant for the Horn of Africa. It’s difficult not to be pessimistic about Somalia’s future prospects, and very hard to imagine what life must be life for the average Somali. We live in a crazy world.

In a couple of weeks I will be heading back to the UK for a bit of a break before returning to Kenya to start a new school year in January. I always find it difficult readjusting to life in the West after a few months over here. I will be flying back via Dubai and will, I am sure, find the ‘Dubai Experience’ as perplexing as ever. Dubai is a miracle of modern urban and airport design – a temple to all things buildable. Like most airport terminals Dubai seems to lose its charm after a couple of visits. Once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. Having said that it is impossible not to be impressed by it’s sheer audacity – common sense says that it shouldn’t be possible to build such a structure in such an unpromising and inhospitable location.

Wikipedia contains some interesting facts about Dubai. “Currently, human waste is collected daily from thousands of septic tanks across the city and driven by tankers to the city's only sewage treatment plant at Al-Awir. Dubai's rapid growth means that it is stretching its limited sewage treatment infrastructure to its limits. Because of the long queues and delays, some tanker drivers resort to illegally dumping the effluent into storm drains or behind dunes in the desert. Sewage dumped into storm drains flows directly into the Persian Gulf, near the city's prime swimming beaches. Doctors have warned that tourists using the beaches run the risk of contracting serious illnesses like typhoid and hepatitis.”

“The Burj Al Arab (Arabic: برج العرب, "Tower of the Arabs") is a luxury hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates managed by the Jumeirah Group and built by Said Khalil. Its construction started in 1994 and ended in 1999. It was designed by Tom Wright of WS Atkins PLC. The hotel cost $650,000,000 to build. At 321 metres (1,053 ft) and 60 floors, it was the tallest building used exclusively as a hotel until being succeeded by Rose Rayhaan by Rotana in 23 December 2009, again in Dubai. The Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 280 metres (919 ft) out from Jumeirah beach, and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. It is an iconic structure, designed to symbolise Dubai's urban transformation and to mimic the sail of a boat.”

From the sub-slime to the ridiculous!

It will be great to catch up with my family again but anticipating the return journey from a developing country to a developed country via an over-developing country always makes me more acutely aware of the sheer injustice of Kosele’s existence on the margins of sustainability. Tomorrow we have a group of visitors coming over to see what Farming God’s Way is all about. I pray that their visit will inspire them to audacious visions for their own communities. Somewhere between Kenya, Somalia, Dubai and the UK there must be a place where people live in peace and enjoy rich, fulfilling and sustainable lives. That would be an interesting place to visit!

Good News

I’m really hoping that this will be the last blog about the war against the termites. The moat around house 4 is now deeper, (down to the foundations), and we have applied the serious chemical treatment. A last few survivors are trying to escape through cracks in the floor of the house but there has been no new activity outside. Looking on the positive side of the whole thing it’s reassuring to know how deep the house foundations are. Jared, the guy who has done the digging for us, is one of the hardest working people on planet earth and it took him a long time to finish the digging.

Further good news – this time about the Landrover. The clutch has now been fixed and the test drive only revealed one funny noise from under the vehicle. The guys didn’t finish working on it until quite late so we haven’t had a chance to really do the final inspection in daylight, but things are looking good so far. Mary, Ian and Hilda will be taking a trip to Kisii tomorrow so we shall see.

We had an unexpected visitor today. When we first started our work in Kosele in 2002 a number of young people from Kisumu, (our nearest very large town, about ninety minutes drive away), stayed with us. One of them was a young man called Nick. We lost contact with him after he returned to Kisumu in 2003 but earlier this year he got in touch to say that he was working as a mechanic for CMC, one of the largest car dealerships in Kenya. CMC are agents for Landrover and Nick is very close to finishing his training with CMC – making him a fully-fledged Landrover mechanic. It was really good to catch up with him again and great to know that he has done so well for himself. In the current gloomy economic climate, both here in Kenya and the rest of the world, it is encouraging to hear a success story.

The battle rages on!

The battle against the termites continues. They will have to go on the list of questions for God, (along with mosquitoes and bed bugs!). House 4, (where Ian and Hilda are staying), is beginning to look like it has a moat around it. If it rains tonight it might well do. The termites seem to have stopped trying to invade from inside the house and have switched their attention to a patch of earth to the left of the porch. It doesn’t look like there is any alternative to the serious chemicals tomorrow. This is, to be honest, slightly disappointing. One of our neighbours came over to suss out the problem first thing this morning, (hence the moat that has now been dug around the house). This evening, armed with the sprayer that we used on the maize in the battle against stalk borers, he sprayed the most lethal smelling stuff down the various termite holes. It would certainly have put me off burrowing any more. It might be fairer to leave our final assessment of the first stage of the battle until the morning –perhaps the stuff takes a while to work.

There was great excitement this afternoon for a number of the boys in our school. Following an initial visit by a local mechanic to assess the situation with our broken down Landrover, what seemed like a small army of mechanic’s assistants turned up to start dismantling the gearbox and clutch. Watching mechanics fix cars is a popular spectator sport in Kenya and our lads stood and watched in time honoured fashion. I’m not sure what the fascination is. There is usually a lot of noise. To be fair to the mechanics there didn’t seem to be much cursing but nearly all the parts that needed to be removed seemed to need the encouragement of a hammer. It was fascinating to watch. First the front seats came out, followed by the gear stick, bulkhead and assorted bits of the floor. As I type what remains of the gearbox and clutch housing are hanging under the vehicle. The head mechanic has assured me that it will all be fixed by tomorrow evening.

We seem to have hit a bit of a dry spell for the last couple of days. This is a bit more like the pattern of rainfall that we are used to at this time of year and will, most likely, come as a relief to a number of our neighbours. It seems that there is often no happy medium in Kenya – there is either too much rain, causing flooding, or too little. Duncan and I took a walk to Kosele this morning and couldn’t help noticing that in a number of our neighbours’ fields the maize has grown tall but shows little evidence of cobs. That said there is still optimism in the community that this season the harvest will be better than the last one. We have already heard reports of people picking and then boiling the maize that they have in their fields at the moment. This is not such good news. It means that maize is being harvested before it has had time to fully mature and dry. The high cost of maize in the local markets has driven some of our neighbours to this poor state of affairs. We will pray that our area enjoys the right combination of sunshine and rain to bring a good harvest from what remains of the maize. It would be good if the rain stays away until we’ve sorted the termites out though – we don’t want to have to build a drawbridge for Ian and Hilda.

Hakuna Matata (there are no worries!)

Life here in Kosele is never dull – there is always something happening that keeps you on your toes. Having had a really up, efficient kind of day yesterday it was back to situation normal today. It isn’t entirely discouraging – just highly unpredictable. The school is back in exam mode again. We have a supervisor back on the scene, (but no armed guard this time). Now that the KCPE, (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education), is over and done with the other classes get their opportunity to shine. It’s a shame the powers that be can’t!

According to our planning the pupils in classes 3, 5 and 6 should be doing zonal exams next week. The pupils in class 7, (who are now the ‘pre-candidate’ class, as they become KCPE ‘candidates’ next year), should have started divisional mock exams yesterday. All of these exams are set externally and the papers should be delivered to the school. For reasons, which were not entirely clear today, the class 7 exams have been postponed until Thursday and the other classes started their exams today, (instead of next week). Given the early start for the majority of the school a teacher was despatched to Oyugis to buy exam papers for the pupils in classes 1 and 2 to ensure that all of our end year exams are conducted this week. You have to remain nonplussed by it all – it’s life as normal out here. Nobody seemed to expect an explanation and none was given. No parents will come to the school to complain tomorrow and the children don’t seem to mind. I couldn’t imagine a response like that in the UK!

To add insult to injury the clutch packed up on the Landrover this afternoon so it had to be towed back to base.

The termites, (see yesterday’s blog), seem to have been shaken but not seriously deterred by the hot bath last night. They are still excavating a small amount of soil in the house, (though there aren’t as many termites in evidence as there were yesterday). One of the side effects of the anti malarial drug that I take is that it gives you very vivid dreams – I'm anticipating dreaming about the house sinking into a huge hole in the ground and then being eaten by monster termites in the near future, (the dreams seem to take a couple of days to catch up). Fortunately they don’t seem to want to eat any of the other buildings so we don’t have too big a problem to deal with.

As the day draws to a close I wonder what will happen tomorrow. It makes sense to plan ahead but it can drive you mad if you take it too seriously. ‘African time’ really is at a different location on the time, space continuum. Some days it seems crazy, some days it doesn’t. According to wikipedia hakuna matata is a swahili phrase that means "there are no worries". Under the circumstances it's the only sane way of thinking.