Mukeu agriculture projects encouraging

It was fun to see Kami's past projects still effective and in place in Mukeu area.

The milking/feed storage barn that the Canadian team organized to build in 2009 is still standing(!) and functional. The plan was to build it as a template for farmers to model. Well... it turned out a little bigger and more expensive that we may have originally thought, but GOOD NEWS! We have been told that farmers stop by to see it, get ideas and work on their own systems with these new ideas. One farmer replicated the barn on a smaller scale and built it "just down the road", so the idea just may have "worked"?!

The deworming program Kami started in 2009 and continued in 2010 moved forward again last week. We headed out with Mike to re-visit farms targeted for the program. Again we offered the first de-worming treatement free if they agreed to follow-up.
It was great to hear that the farmers noticed a difference in their livestock after the previous deworming treatments. Some continued deworming because they saw production increase, their livestock looking better and understanding that feed is used more efficiently.
Education is important for any program to be effective. For this program we explained (thanks to Mike's interpretation for us in Kikuyu!): how the drench/injection works, why it is important, what it means to them (greater production, healthy animals and profit) and why the practice needs to be continued. Thank you Mike (and brother Geoffrey!) for helping this program be effective and for following up with the farmers when we are gone.

The fodder shrubs introduced & provided in 2009 at our workshop (held for area farmers) are still growing! Well, not ALL of them (some drown in a flood), but we saw some! They are growing, being cut and fed to livestock as a rich protein source, used as a "fence" boundary, potential wood fuel source, and do not take away from the existing species of plants.  Learning to harvest seed needs to be demonstrated and practiced to further benefit this program, but we were excited about what we saw.  Yipeee!!!

Our new "project", thanks to wedding donations (!!), is ready to begin. Mike Njihia, our sponsored student for an A.I. Breeders program is set with supplies and ready for school! "African time" is not always "Canadian time" so we try to be patient as the course start dates changes... for the 6th time?... But Mike is excited and looking foward to it. So are we!

Current and past projects

Mike "dressed" for A.I. profession

Deworming program continues!

Maize tug-of-war

Fodder shrubs from 2009 project, still growing (!!!)

And producing seed

Our 2009 barn project, still working well

I still remember how!

We had a mini-safari and little camping weekend

This weekend we left for Lake Naivasha with Shaun, Sharon & Zach. It was 3 days full of fun.

Not too far from Nairobi, we enjoyed the greenery, lake and animals of Africa. A very special treat!

We would have to say that the animals were most awe-striking. We could have stayed and watched them for days.

Camp Carnelly is where we set up for the weekend. Thanks to Sharon's organization, we rented a couple bandas (cabins) and enjoyed the quiet surroundings, our super friends, some big rain and a large grassy area in front of the lake where we stayed.

We assumed there were hippos around but didn't see any... until the last night.
We went down to the lake front after dark and watched a big hippo graze around the boating area. We were a short electric-fence away from a multiple-tonne animal who could kill us if she felt like it, but thankfully she was more interested in eating grass. She was so neat to watch. HUGE!
We figured out why hippos come out of the water and eat at night: they don't want anyone to see their physique! Little, stumpy legs and big, bulging bodies. And the noisiest grazers you will ever hear. That was a fun event to experience together. Sorry, no pictures, we didn't have our camera with us :(.

On Saturday we headed for Crescent Island. A once-island that we drove to and, with a guide, went on a walking safari. There aren't any big cats or elephants on the island so it is relatively safe (if you use common sense).
Wayne tested the limits. He said to our guide, "After we ride the giraffe, I want to wrestle a Cape Buffalo." Bernard (our guide) quickly responded, "Oh NO, you can't! They are VERY dangerous, they will kill you!"  Wayne tried again a little later asking Bernard, "After we are done, can we swim with the hippos?" who quickly responded, "Oh NO, they kill more people than lions every year!" ... poor Bernard... he probably thought he had a winner of a group, his work cut-out for him and likely thinks Canadians are mad (meanwhile the rest of us split a gut).

It was a-MAZING to walk beside a huge giraffe... watching him eat lunch at the top of a tree, mingle with the zebras, stand a safe ways back from the cape buffalo, see all the brand new wildabeest babies run with their moms and watch all these species co-exist together... really incredible. It was a safari to remember. Asante sana tena Shaun & Sharon!

Pictures of Lake Naivasha trip

Camp Carnelly's - Lake Naivasha, Kenya

we saw a hippo that came out of here

Wayne's big dandelion 'wisher'... or fancy broom

hippo skull

Wayne, Kami, Sharon, Zach & Shaun
Crescent Island, Lake Naivasha - walking safari !

Sharon, Shaun, Bernard & Zach

we met Gerome

"whoa! here he comes"

Cape Buffalo

a wee zeebee

up close & personal

love birds?

"My eyelashes are as long as Wayne's"

impala

wildabeest

warthog family

waterbuck

not an out-of-the-ordinary-site when driving in Africa

Wayne's Sudan adventure

Some of the interesting stuff that I experienced while up in South Sudan.


How I got to be a part of this neat experience: we are staying with friends of Kami's, Shaun and Sharon Rix. Shaun is a pilot for Samaritans Purse (the christmas shoe box organization). Samaritans Purse (SP) is focused mostly on refugees fleeing their home land in North Sudan. The north is wanting to cleanse the nation of anything but Arab descent. The refugee camp I was helping supply was Yida, about 8 miles from the north, south border. The UN has reluctantly done activity here (in way of supplying food and other support) because it is so close to potential artillery. But the people have built shanties so SP has been doing all it can to save lives. We brought some sourgum seed up on one flight and the SP lady on the ground said, "just wait till the UN guys take off". 

 So I was invited to help out at the hanger one day. While I was there, it was suggested to Shaun by his superior that they could use my help. I said "yes of course", trying to hold in my excitement, "but let me ask Kami first." Kami is such a great wife so she said of course I could go.

The camp has 60,000 people in it right now. There are others camps that are over 160,000. I am amazed at the need and craziness of humanity. I was privileged to see people displaced and totally reliant on outside help. These people are displaced because their own government wants them dead. I wish I could do more... I felt a great deal of urgency. I was up there for only part of a week, the pilots are active up there almost every week. And then there are SP people on the ground full-time, helping in distribution, education, different ways of sharing the gospel and medical.

My job was to help shuttle supplies 20mins flight from Rubkona straight north to Yida. I helped by packing supplies on and off the plane. I was in Sudan only three days and was sore all over from loading and unloading.


The runway in the picture was cleared by hand, roots and all, and then a land cruiser packed with people went tire width by tire width and packed the area. The runway is not 100% so the already hard to fly DC-3 is piloted by very focused pilots when landing and taking off. The white and blue dots are the tarps that the UN and SP hand out to the people to put roofs on their huts.


I found it amazing that we were flying in a plane made in 1945 and that it is still useful today with major engine replacements and cockpit overhaul. If my rememberer is right, a payload would be about 3500 pounds.


The pipe and black square things are to assemble "squatie-potties" to try and create some form of sanitization along with a lot of soap bars.

Wayne went to Sudan...

And they are OFF!...

Runway (Sudan)

unloading

loading

Cargo:
 "Plumpy Nut",  a fatty,  nutritious food supplement

Sudan refugee camp

"Hello?"  tame little guy

leopard kittens

Hard workers, home at last