April/May stories

This tortoise sat in the middle of the road, larger than a soccer ball. We thought he was a big rock at first.

During rainy season my practice of always wearing sandals comes in handy. Its always good to check for holes in a situation like this. And I found one shortly after this picture. But it was still passable. 

This river crossing situation was not so passable and I did not have to walk it to recognize this fact! The car-size wash-out renders this road impassable now for motorbikes and cars. The road used to run from left to right  in the picture with a drop off to the right as you crossed. 

A storm approaches the busy market-day streets of Ewuaso (Monday), the larger town 10km from our house.  10 minutes later the downpour started. The streets cleared.  All the people crowded under the awnings shoulder to shoulder as we zipped easily through the now empty street and out to the road that would take us across the river before it swelled with the floods.

We had a series of 2 managers trainings with these two. It was good to have some progression and to get more than just a tiny bit of material covered- two things that seem elusive many times in our work. These two are eager and participatory learners. We try to use a facilitative approach as opposed to simply giving out information lecture-style. Learning how to translate information and organizational tools that are developed in a Western context into the Maasai context is always a challenge and our Maasai colleagues are the experts we rely on.
 One of the more simple examples: When writing employee policy, prescribing that the hours of work must be 830-500 p.m is a ridiculous. No-one here will abide by that or could abide by that even if they wanted to.  Family crisis, home responsibilities, or transportation crisis are normal and take priority over work either culturally (family and relationships come first) or by force (weather and rough roads). Writing a policy of an estimated 40 hour requirement per week, with flexible hours dictated by circumstances is more realistic in this context.  

I removed buckets and buckets of weeds and grass from my little garden over the last couple weeks. 

On the left, there's tomatillos, then a patch of orchard-style planted Moringa (needs to be harvested again soon!), and on the right a row of hot peppers- producing like champs!

Doug made a bright yellow hot sauce with his habaneros. If you're looking for a big cry and a nose flush, all you need is a quarter teaspoonful of this stuff. Its not such a sell with most of the neighbors, but there are a couple. What is it about men who like to grow hot peppers and like to do so in abundance!

A while back, Doug's brilliant fix it job made the farm next door's 10,000 liter tank usable after years of sitting there with a big crack. Last week, at 4 a.m. in the morning, the farm worker who sleeps in a house 500meters away was awakened with what sounded like an explosion.  The tank had split completely in half! All 10,000 liters came exploding out and broke down the chicken fence, flattening the thigh high grass in a large diameter.  Doug realized that during his fix job, he'd drilled a hole at what he thought was the end of the crack to keep it from running, but it was impossible to know what was under the surface.  Turns out the crack went under the surface for a mm or two.  After a month during which the tank was filled with water and was becoming useful around the farm again, The pressure of the water in the tank finally caused the hidden crack to run and split the tank in two.