An Interesting Week

Last week was very interesting--a week of changes and transitions, unexpected events, and beautiful sights.

It all began on Monday morning with a simple morning meeting. We were wrapping up the Millennium Village project, and this meeting was a progress update, and assessment of what was remaining. William, the business advisor on the project, and I knew that most of the facets of the project were completed on our end, and it was a matter of putting together the final deliverable. The others in the meeting agreed, and we all decided how to package the information. The project was rapidly coming to an end, one month early.

William was rolling on to a dairy project. It just so happened that the dairy team was having a two-day offsite meeting at Lake Naivasha with all of the field staff. The offsite was another progress update of sorts, mainly a chance for all those involved to come together, agree on what was remaining in the project, and how best to accomplish those tasks. The country director told William that he should plan on attending the offsite. Unexpectedly, the attention turned to me. The country director asked what I was working on, other than the Millennium project. My response was, “Not much.” I mean, I had a couple of small papers I was writing for the horticulture team, but my consistent focus had been the Millennium Village since arriving.

“Well, maybe you should come with us to Naivasha,” said the country director. He and William were going to find out if there was room in the budget for me.

Later that day, I was told that I was indeed going to the dairy offsite, and that we would leave Wednesday morning. Back to cows!!! I had a feeling that this would lead to a longer term project, but I wasn't certain. I checked the computer to see what documents I had from my prior project in Zambia. These might come in handy to refresh my memory.

Tuesday evening, on my way out of the office, I ran by the country director. Someone had told me that I should be ready to leave the office at 7:30 am the following morning, and I wanted to confirm. The director said that he and a couple of others were leaving at 7:30 to visit another project, and that he would then be dropped off in Naivasha to meet the dairy team for lunch. I had two choices-to leave early and visit the other project, or to leave later with the rest of the dairy team and go straight to Naivasha. Since I wasn't all that busy, I was all for leaving in the early group. The director agreed, saying that I might be some help on this other project.

In hindsight, that turned out to be a great decision. In the car ride, I find out that this other project is a farm, near Lake Naivasha, that is looking at a new project and the related financing. This meeting was to meet the owners of the farm, look at the operations, and get a general feel for their seriousness and commitment. I read the preliminary document that had been prepared by TechnoServe, made some comments, and looked forward to seeing the place.

And what a place it was.

We pulled into the farm, which was massive, and were greeted by some steep stone stairs, and Panther sitting on top of the stairs. Panther, we were told, was a family dog, a mix of local breeds, and the only remaining survivor of leopard attacks. The family had lost 8 other dogs to leopards. I began to think...this could be really interesting. Leopards?

The house was built into the side of a large hill (some might call it a small mountain). I should mention, Lake Naivasha and this house are in the middle of the Rift Valley, so the landscape is incredible. We climbed the stairs and entered the living room, which was set up for tea and coffee. All of us introduced ourselves, shared some stories (including the story of the dogs), and “talked business.” The family room was sprinkled with various farm products--almost like a show-and-tell. Amazingly, a bookshelf had be laid out with some homemade dairy products: cheeses, butter, strawberry jam, yogurts, etc. These were all on display for us to taste, and take home. I had never tasted homemade yogurt before, but after that strawberry yogurt, it will be very hard to buy any mass produced yogurt again.

Then the owners said we should go and “see the farm.” We climbed back down the stairs, with the faithful Panther leading the way, and got into the pick-up. The owner and our director were in the cab, and the rest of us got into the back of the pick up, and held on. We drove and drove and drove. No roads, a spattering of trails, and a ton of bush driving. We spent probably two to three hours driving around the farm, and I have a feeling we saw only a small fraction of the place.

Any time you live outside of the major cities in Africa, one of the main issues you have to face is water. Getting access to water is a problem; it is not like you can just hook up to a municipal water supply. So one of the focuses of our farm tour was the water source, and what the family had done to secure the source.

The owners had built a spillway and dam combination on a local river. The dam slowed up the river and created a pond. The side spillway was adjustable, controlling the flow of water diverted to a second pond.

The diverted water from the dam-spillway combo ran to a second pond that was the actual source of water for the farm's irrigation. The owners showed us the pumping station that they had built themselves; in fact, most things on this farm they had built themselves, including the house. The pumping station and pond provided the water for irrigation; most of the water used for household consumption was provided by capturing and storing rainwater.

The pond was situated in such a convenient location that hippos had taken up residence. Hippos aren't really a bother, we were told, except that they can demolish fences on the farm. Most fences that are secure enough to contain cattle are no match for a three ton beheamoth. Not to mention the fact that they are very dangerous. But when it comes to the crops, hippos don't really do any damage.

More damaging were the wild pigs and warthogs that stroll on to the farm. Both the pigs and the warthogs burrow under the fences, and ravage through the crops, digging them up along the way. At one point, the farm was growing lots of potatoes, but the owners got tired of feeding the pigs, and gave up.

We continued exploring the farm, seeing cattle, cranes, secretary birds, ibis, and beautiful vistas left and right. It was an incredible afternoon, and I was very glad I decided to tag along. We were a bit late getting to Lake Naivasha and the dairy meeting. We had not anticipated a three-hour tour of the farm, but none of us wanted to cut that short.

Lake Naivasha turned out to be beautiful as well, although most of the two-day affair was spent in a conference room. But that is a story for another day.

On Friday, after returning from Naivasha, I spoke to the team leader on the farm project. It appears that she could use my help. So, going along for the ride was a good move for many reasons; it looks like I will end up working on this project, which should be very interesting and challenging. Hopefully that was not my last visit to the farm.