This morning, I was in an ambitious mood, and decided the time was ripe to do some weeding/planting.  OH NO! IT"S HAILING!!! Ok, back to the update.  If you don't remember, I planted a mango tree seedling and some basil about 3 weeks back.  Upon telling my staff that I planted a mango tree, they laughed and asked if I planned to stay in kenya for 30 years, I thought they were asking me to stay for 30 years and felt pretty good about how much they liked me.  Turns out they don't like me and I think that they think that I'm an idiot, now I see where they are coming from:  mango trees grow notoriously slow, and even slower in the conditions where I stay.  Long story short, this seedling is growing painfully slow.  It is what it is, I knew that I likely would not be around to reap the benefits of this tree, but, at the very least, some day, 30 years from now, I hope a child will be pretty stoked to have a mango tree in their compound. 

On to the basil update.  The planting instructions called for a depth of 2.5 or 5 cm, something quite shallow, at spacing intervals of 15cm.  First, I tried to actually poke small indents in the soil 15cm from each other, this was a pain.  Eventually, I decided to make a furrow and line the seeds in the furrow, with the intention to do some thinning at a later point, after germination.  After two weeks, I hadn't seen any germination, but I also didn't really know what I was looking for, so I decided to take some of the remaining seeds and try to germinate them in a more controlled environment, in this case a plastic container.  I didn't make holes or do anything, just put some dirt in, broadcasted the seed, and sprinked a bit of dirt to cover, and IT WORKED!  After that worked so well, I decided to germinate a few more seeds in another container, just in case a few didn't make it through the transplant.  and the power is out...ok, back...Check the picture below, I'm feeling fairly confident that I may have at least one basil bush in the near future.  Also, there was a bit of germination in the field, although the seedlings are tiny, probably because my suspitions were true, and I planted them a bit deep.  Anyways, success!

Feeling good about the status of the basil, I decided to expand the garden a bit, and try out some other herbs and a green.  The new herbs are dill and mint, the green is spinach.  The herbs I decided to germinate in plastic bags then transplant, the spinach went straight to the field in a furrow.  I didn't get a picture of the furrows, but it's not so exciting (YET!), just some dirt.  I did include a couple of the mint and dill bags, but again, not so exciting, just a couple bags of dirt.  That's my Sunday.

 

The garden, not much to see. Mint Basil Dill Progress of the mango tree seedling, some small growth. Still the same size.

A couple of the original basil seeds, germinated.  I think this is basil...???

From Lauren.

I look terrifying.

Kisii get's some pretty incredible rainbows, and a lot of them.

This past weekend, the group in Kisii travelled to Kisumu to celebrate my and Lauren's birthday.  The plan was to have a One Acre Fund gathering on Saturday in recognition of the birthdays and the upcoming departure of a colleague.  Due to some pretty unfortunate events, we had to cancel the party.  HOWEVER!  we did get some pretty legit mexican food.  BOOM! YES! MEXICAN FOOD IN KISUMU!!  This place was in the parking lot of a gas station, and played a mix of Kenyan and generic club music, very Mexican.  Anyways, not too much else.

On to picture time:

• on our way to Kisumu
• diversion, where the bridge was washed away due to heavy rains
• crazy straws, because there is no birthday celebration without them
• as we start the journey back, note the dog is not ours, it's a colleague's, but it was riding with us on the way to the grocery store.
• the goat is ours, well it was lauren't birthday present, and our house girl, lillian is taking care of it; her fortune with us is uncertain, the goat's not lillian's, lillian is staying.
• lillian's birthday message to lauren

 

 

As a follow up to the PBS segment, I'm posting some pictures from the day and before.  The NewsHour piece was great in highlighting the nature of the work and the impact we have on the ground, but I did think there wasn't much said about our field staff, and how excellent they are. 

A brief summary: in Nyanza, a field director/sr. field manager manages anywhere from 2-6 field managers, who in turn supports 5 field officers, who supports ~400 farmers each.   All of the field staff come from the area they work in, so they are directly working with their friends, family, and neighbors.  The field staff are the nuts and bolts of the the One Acre Fund.  I have immense respect for the staff, how hard they work, and the impact they have on their communities.  With that being said, here are some pictures of the staff!

with captions, only for evan though.  all you other kids aren't allowed to read them!

Stephen Siangwe, taking a break from writing receipts The future of Farmers United, in Gesure sublocation Eric and Dennis, managing CAN delivery.  Eric and I have worked together since my first days in Kenya; at the time, he was employed casually, but Eric is the man and keeps it real, so we brough him on full time as a scout and jack of all trades.  Dennis is our newest promotion; he started as a field officer about a year ago, and was promoted a few weeks back to field manager.  This is something like a dream team. Agnes, holding the top dress training.  Agnes was Dennis's field assistant, but was promoted, along with Mellen, to step in to Dennis's sites. Richard!  One of the 5 field managers in Kisii District.  Richard started 2 years ago as a field officer, was promoted last year to field manager.   Dennis, Eric, Mellen, and a faciltator, submitting a payment.  Mellen is Dennis's other replacement.  Yea, Dennis is a G, 2 people needed to be hired to fill his place; Agnes and Mellen are legit too. Agnes, doing some training. Patrick, one of our older Field Officers, holding a training for Stephen's farmers. The farmers Patrick trained.  This was the first group, there was another group about this size in the afternoon.

Anne and I.  Anne's the Sr. Field Manager for Kisii District; Anne supervises all the field managers and is responsible for the successes (and failures) of the district.

Team shot.  Office staff and a random group of others.  RIP Patrick Nyamisi.

The provincial management team.  This team represents 4 districts, supporting over 17,000 farmers.  They hold it down. Staff photo from our staff party.

 

PBS Newshour

http://cironline.org/reports/business-fund-puts-african-farmers-road-market

no captions, figure nobody is actually going to see this...

if you want some commentary, make a comment...

Last time mugging...but I can't make any promises...

VOMIT!  speaking of which, i travelled to Dar last Thursday (3/6) on the ferry, aka the barf boat.  This trip was particularly rough, and people were yakking everywhere all over the place.  The boat smelled like puke, little black plastic bags of vomit lined the aisles, and all you could hear was people hurling into said bags.  yea it was gross, i was extremely happy when we reached Dar.

The cheetahs Mlulu spotted in the middle of nowhere.  Mlulu radio'ed this out, and there were about 10-15 cars there in a couple minutes, but none when we arrived.  It was awesome.

Mount Kilimanjaro is barely visible directly above my dad's hat.  That hat was like underwear to him, at first it was constrictive, but after a while it became part of him...

 

Whatcha looking at, harte beast?

A couple weeks ago, my parents and sister came through TZ and we went on Safari through Lake Manyara, the Serengeti, Ngorogoro Crater, and Tarangire.  Some quick thoughts/observations:

Gigantic Baobob tree in Tarangire.

 

Our car and driver, Mlulu.  Mlulu was recommended by Andrew, and was awesome.  He spotted the Cheetahs out of nowhere in Serengeti, and our radio was off the chain "Mlulu, huko wapi?" (Mlulu, where are you?)  I ended up meeting his whole family and getting some delicious Mbuzi (Goat) when I returned to Arusha.  

 

Wish I got a better picture of this bee eater, alas.

Dung Beetle

look closely there's a lion hunting a zebra.  in actuality, there were 3 lionesses hunting this zebra, it was gnarly.  Unfortunately, my camera ran out of battery right here, so this is the only snap I got.

Serengeti, we were there during the Wildebeest/Zebra migration, looked like an awesome party to a zebra at, minus the lions knocking off a zebra or two each day. 

 

Zebras, rubbing up on each other in Ngorogoro.