Walking the fine line

December 6 -8, 2011

Finally! After three weeks we have at long last seen the top of Mount Kenya.

Well, it’s been a quite eventful week, so this entry might turn out a little long – but don’t worry, intermission and an abundance of pictures will be included.

Oh, and before we get started, I better add a disclaimer: I will completely unbiased speak highly and positively about Action Aid in this entry. We have yet to meet a critic, but I will be sure to let you know when or if that happens.

Most of Tuesday was spent extracting has much information as possible from the participants of the meeting. We hung around the Action Aid office and made friends with the logistics coordinator as Charlotte had managed to gather the important intel that relief food distribution would be taking place this week.

Outside the Action Aid office in Isiolo

When I’m new to a work place, asking for any sort of favor always comes with a certain amount of apprehension. People are working hard and have their own business to attend to without having to take time out of their busy day to help me or go out of their way to accommodate my wishes. Being an intern is always a balancing act walking the fine line between getting as much out of it as possible and being a pain in the ass.

Anyway, the logistics guy is a man made of smiles and “ah, my friends”-attitude and so it was not that hard asking him for a favor. “Relief distribution you say? Ha, now doesn’t that sound interesting? Perhaps we could go with them.” Soon enough we had made arrangements for Wednesday. Francis was going to Meru to pick something up, so it suited everyone excellently that we could spend the morning with AA.

Tuesday night we went to the same restaurant as the previous nights. It’s one of those local places that you would never think to go into if you were alone. They seem to have no written menu, but their customers are recurring and the food always more or less the same, so who needs a menu anyways? You get rice or spaghetti or both with chapatti(a kind of pancake), maybe some meat(goat or sheep probably), a soup/sauce, a couple of potatoes and if you’re really lucky, fresh tomatoes. They have amazing tomatoes down here by the way. I don’t know how they do it, maybe it’s the sun or something, but they really are quite awesome. The combination of foods may sound a little strange, but it really was quite good. According to Francis, the owners are Muslim and since they don’t like to waste food, they will only serve until they run out, so if you come later in the day, like we did, you get what they have left. I like that concept. But a word of warning though, if you do not like to stand out, do not go to a restaurant that mainly serves the locals because you will be stared at!

A view of the prayer rooms at the hotel

The internet at the hotel was quite fast and I of course had to take advantage of that to catch up on my TV-shows(don’t judge me, I’m an addict!). It did mean a later bed time than usual though so getting up early Wednesday morning proved a little difficult. Up I got though and after having jammed most of our things into Charlotte’s backpack and a plastic bag kindly provided by our new friend in the hotel restaurant, we headed across the street to the Action Aid-office at 8am. We had met our “guide” Thomas the day before and when we saw him in the morning he said to just take a seat while they waited another minute for the truck to be fully loaded. Yes, you guessed it, 8am and another minute quickly turned into well past 9. We’re starting to get used to it, so we spent the time wisely by sitting outside watching the beautiful view of the nearby mountains, observing the flight patterns of the birds and discussing the behavioral patterns of humans.

Waiting

Finally, we got the go and we mounted the waiting truck. Thomas job is to monitor that the distribution goes accordingly and he did a good job acting as our guide along the way.
Before heading to the FDP(food distribution point), we stopped at a nearby warehouse to fill up the truck with 50 kg sacks of wheat. Fastest way to fill up a truck: raw man-power.

Relief food warehouse

WFP supplies the food and Action Aid distributes it

The FDP is only 10-12 km outside Isiolo, but way into nowhere land along roads marred by heavy rains and scorching sun. It had rained the night before and the truck did manage to get stuck for at least 10 minutes at one point.

Thomas, the driver and a local assess the mud-pit we then got stuck in

People seemed to come from nowhere to help and we got out of the mud. The route was indescribable really. I don’t understand how that truck managed to get through some of the places we did. One of the nursing students had at one point during the first week commented that the matatu drivers knew exactly where the wheels were. We laughed at that comment, because of course he knew where the wheels were, but I must take back my laughter(it was more a snickering than a laughter, but whatever). The truck driver knew exactly where the wheels were and somehow we managed to make it to…well, not quite the FDP. We tried to take a short cut through some grass to avoid the road, but that was a bad idea, as the ground underneath the grass was still wet under the surface and the truck was stuck again. So Thomas and the community’s Relief Committee assessed the situation and deemed it suitable for distribution.
This particular distribution was a so-called FFA – Food For Asset – situation. FFA means that the members of the community have done some work that may be initiated or assisted by Action Aid, but ultimately benefits the community. The work is rewarded with relief distribution in the shape of wheat, beans, vegetable oil, CSB(some kind of porridge) and sometimes salt. You get an amount of food according to the amount of hours you have worked. It’s a pretty good system, because to avoid the long term dependency on relief food, the community works for itself to grow food that will feed them a couple of months down the line.

In this particular community 216 households had worked a total of more than 2500 hours. In addition to these beneficiaries, 43 had been named most vulnerable and therefore receives relief food “free-of-charge”. Most vulnerable in this case seemed to be mostly elderly men and women, who are unable to work. It is the community itself that identifies who are the most vulnerable.

As we had gotten closer to the original FDP, the amount of people had increased. They don’t come running towards the truck like you see in the movies, but approached patiently as the word got around that we wouldn’t make it to the site.

The community leads the truck towards the FDP

Once the truck was good and stuck, the unloading began, mostly by women. I was pretty darn impressed. We hadn’t tried to lift the sacks, but carrying 50 kg on your upper back/lower neck cannot possibly be a comfortable exercise. But the women were crazy strong and so the truck was unloaded. To make it as fast and efficient as possible, the distribution point is divided into four and we were both impressed with the structure and system. No one was rushing, no one was being knocked over, no one was running off with items that didn’t belong to them. Thomas said it does happen that someone will try to run off, but this particular community was quite disciplined. And they really were. They listened to the instructions and adhered to the system.



The community listens to instructions from Thomas and his assistant

As we were to return to Nanyuki that night we opted to head back to Isiolo with the truck once it had been emptied so we could drive back with Francis rather than attempt the matatu exercise and not know when we would be home. Unfortunately, we missed the actual distribution, but the day had been incredibly educational nonetheless. I certainly have a much better understanding of the system now and gain an increasing appreciation of the work that Action Aid does and the way they do it.

INTERMISSION

OK guys – time for a break. Stretch, get some coffee, go to the bathroom or whatever you need, we still have a way to go. You can relax your eyes for a bit before we continue with some pictures from the distribution site:

Thomas explains while the preparations for distribution continues

From the American people

A colorful gathering

Ready to start again? Good, then let’s continue.

Thursday morning we were picked up at home by Francis, who had promised to take us to some of the projects Action Aid is involved in. First we went to a town that had gotten water with the help of AA by building a wind-driven pump.

The town itself is beautifully situated with a view of Mt. Kenya and the other mountains surrounding the area. We were greeted by a young man, who is the chairman of their community committee, as well as a small group of kids, who like most other Kenyan kids, thought we were some strange creatures. We took pictures of them and they found it especially intriguing to touch my bare arms. They did return the favor with a song and it was so adorable(remember, I’m a girl). I’m just sorry we didn’t have time for me to run to the car, get the video camera and get them to do it again!

After a short stint at the office, we headed out to visit Solomon and his family. Solomon was a police officer for 13 years, but hated it, so at some point he started farming instead. He is one of the more active and innovative farmers in the area and has managed to get to where he is now with the help of Action Aid. The family(Solomon, his wife and two boys aged 14 and 7)lives in a small house(some might call it a shack, but it was really cozy) and has 2 ½ acres of land on which he grows maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes, kale, spinach, onions, beans(green and others) and probably other things that I’ve forgotten.

Solomon leads us through one of his maize fields

They are pretty much self-sufficient with most of their food and then sell the excess. They are able to keep so many crops because of the AA-supported irrigation system. In addition to the crops, the family had a few so-called multi-purpose cows, which means that they can be used for both dairy and meat. As for the innovative part of things, the family cooked using biogas they make themselves. In the field next to the house, they have a biogas tank in which they use the dung from the cows to convert into biogas for cooking.

Biogas tank

The tank traps the methane from the dung and then the dung itself becomes manure and is used as fertilizer for the crops. How awesome is that? Well, it’s pretty cool, I have to say(and yes, it might be a little weird to be so excited about cow dung).
But the biogas is not all. Solomon has one of those fish farming ponds I mentioned in the last entry. In central Kenya, fish is traditionally not really a well-selling commodity, but there is a large incentive to try and change that perception as fish is a good source of nutrition. So besides eating the fish himself, Solomon sells them at the local market and reports that it is getting easier.

Francis, Solomon and Charlotte discuss the pond

After spending almost two hours with the family, we headed to see the solar fence a different community has build(again with the help of AA) around their fields to scare away elephants that otherwise have a habit of wrecking havoc and destruction in the fields. The fence is 60 km long and is powered by a simple solar panel no more than a 1 x 1 meter. It takes nothing more than that to keep the large animals away.

Electric fence

Our two guides said that they had heard that a couple of elephants were hanging around just outside the fence and asked if we wanted to see them. You don’t say no to that offer, so we headed outside the fence with them only to learn that they had moved too far away to reach now. Instead we left with a standing invitation to spend the night with them to see the elephants at night when they will typically come closer to the fence(yes, I realize the contradiction of seeing at night).
We headed back towards Naro Moru for us to take a matatu home, but as Francis needed to go a different way, we stopped in the middle of nowhere to catch a matatu from there instead. We got in, got to Naro Moru and were then told to change to a different one. As a local got the same message we chose to believe it was ok and followed suit to a more run-down vehicle. After a sofa was strapped to the roof we headed off towards Nanyuki(yes, I too wish I had a picture of that). First indication that something might be not quite right was the fact that the floor under our feet was so hot we could feel it through the soles of our shoes. We sat right behind the driver and apparently that meant right behind the engine. We did not make it much more than 10 minutes out of Naro Moru before we pulled over and couldn’t move further. After a bit of engine CPR(it honestly did look like he was giving it heart compressions) it became apparent that they had run out of gas – which is obviously hard to detect when your entire dashboard is out of order.
We sat in the car waiting for somewhere between 20-30 minutes and watched the sun creeping closer towards the horizon. On the bonus side, we did see Mt. Kenya emerge from the dramatic clouds to be painted in a deep orange from the setting sun. Too bad we were in a freakin’ matatu otherwise I would have 50 pictures to share. Instead you will have to make do with this picture taken before we boarded the matatu:

So eventually we got back on the road – for maybe five minutes until we stalled again. Then we got going again until we stalled again 1 minute later. This pattern continued for the entire trip back to Nanyuki and it got increasingly dangerous as the car would stall in the middle of road or going uphill. It was completely ridiculous but we sort of figured that as long as the other passengers did not try to run for it, we would be ok. We did also eventually make it back to Nanyuki – two hours after leaving the original site of departure. The trip from Naro Moru to Nanyuki will normally take 20 minutes. It had obviously gotten dark, so we took a taxi home as walking around in the dark is a big no-no.

I think this story has gone on long enough. I will let you rest and see you next entry for the stories from Friday.

Random facts:

-          Mosquitoes are attracted to dirty socks

-          Elephants not only fear fire, but also bees

-          You can have a wedding for 600 guests for approximately 100.000 KSh

-          If the malaria doesn’t kill me, the scratching of the bites probably will!

-          Sweet potatoes is a drought resilient crop that will often be co-planted with bananas