When Hippos Charge

You're a grand old flag,
You're a high-flying flag!
...haven't you ever heard of whistling in the dark?

Thanksgiving started off - awesome.  We made the drive to Lake Naivasha, where we'd rented a couple of cottages right on the hippo and flamingo infested water.  We celebrated on Friday after a full day of from-scratch cooking.  Come to think of it - that phrase should come underlined, bold, and in italics to really get my point across: FROM-SCRATCH COOKING.  The all-caps is for the extra oomph it took for Jake to get the turkey head clean off the body.

Dinner was amazing.  It was a classic feast with excellent company.  The highlight was definitely the butternut squash soup with cashew cream garnish.  (Did you know cashews could make cream?  Whoa.)

So much tastiness...

Saturday, while the rest of the crew watched a movie, David and I decided to join my boss and another girl for a hike around Crater Lake, not far from where we were staying.  The hike started around the edge of the lake in front of a pretty fancy looking hotel that had lots of diplomat cars parked outside.  About twenty meters into the hike, we noticed a hippo submerged in the shallows.

I liked when they'd twinkle their ears.

Hippos are vegetarians.  But that doesn't stop them from being the deadliest animal in Africa.  Seriously. Google it.

Long story short, their reputation for aggression toward humans became very, very real when - all of a sudden - this beast (that, by the way, can move on land at more than 30 miles per hour) charged.  Have you ever fled in panic?  Honestly, I don't think I'd ever actually had my fight or flight instinct tested before.  Once, someone tried to follow me home in New York, but I yelled at him when I saw a friendly, neighborhood police officer coming my way.  And that was the end of that story.  But this time, it was serious.  I ran.  We all did.  In panic.

A guide led us by the hippo and assured us he was the only one in the lake and that we could continue our hike without worry.  Not long after, we found ourselves trekking through an open animal sanctuary, well removed from anything remotely resembling a trail.  We came upon a herd of giraffes.

This was the highlight.  Neat-o, eh?

But then there was a-rustling.  Buffalo.  We didn't know how many and it was at that point that my hippo-induced panic, which had subsided into general anxiety, rose back into something more closely resembling terror.  That's when someone suggested we might try to make noise so as not to startle any animals into attacking.  And that we turn around.  (The last part was my own proposal.)

And out broke 'You're a Grand Old Flag,' meant to keep any wandering animals at bay.  'The home of the free and the brave' felt somewhat disingenuous to sing, but what can you do?

In the end, we survived and now have a great story of what to do... when hippos charge.  (By the way, what you do is run, preferably in a zig-zag motion because, while fast, they're not especially adept at quick turns.)

This little piggy...

It all started when somebody realized it was time to start thinking about Thanksgiving.  Putting together a classic Turkey Day feast is a challenge in Kenya - the main obstacle being the main course.  Needless to say, plastic wrapped Butterball deliciousness complete with temperature pin are, well, nowhere to be found.  There are, however, if you look hard enough, plenty of real live birds walking around with no U.S. President to grant them clemency at the last minute.

I think you can see where this is going.

Yup.  You'll soon be reading about how Voldemort (The Gobbler?  We're still working on names.), our newest compound resident, will be roasty-toasty and on his way toward providing us with holiday nourishment.

Well, not this post.  But all this talk about our upcoming holiday got us thinking - mostly about other animals we could turn into food.  And that turned into a pig roast.

With this pig:

Oink!

Cute, no?  (Say no - you'll be happier if you find him ugly.)

We kept him at a friend's house out of respect for some of our vegetarian colleagues.  That morning, we went for the slaughter.  A man named Amos came, took a look at the chef's knives we had brought, laughed, and broke out his panga (machete).  After that it all happened pretty quickly.  They hog tied his back legs and secured the rope to a tree trunk.  Someone grabbed his mouth and ears and pulled him out taught.  Then one big hack, some sawing, a few more quick cuts and the head was tossed away.  They dragged the body over to some banana leaves where it twitched for the next twenty minutes or so.  (By twitched, I mean thrashed.  It was pretty gnarly.)

At this point, I regained a level of self-awareness I hadn't entirely recognized having lost.  I was about 15 feet further back than where I started at the first hack.

After that, the headless body was shaved, gutted, and dismembered.

And subsequently devoured.

De-lish.

Rules of the Road

The first time I drove a car, I was fifteen-and-a-half and in my parent's wood-paneled minivan.  I had just gotten my temps ("permit" for non-Ohioan readers) and was enormously excited.  Excitement that quickly turned to terror as the speedometer crept past ten, past fifteen.  I felt like I'd never traveled so fast in my life.

I got over it pretty quickly - learned to drive a standard so I could take my brother's pick-up to school and, by the time I was nineteen, I'd earned my first ticket for going eighty in a fifty-five... in the snow.  I considered making the argument that I'd heard had won in court in Ohio once, that my speed was appropriate for the conditions, but the snow was going to make that a hard sell.

Fast-forward another seven years:  I'm in Kenya and I feel like I'm going through the same process of fear turned to reckless irresponsibility.  Some might compare driving here to skydiving - it's terrifying until you take that leap.  Then, it's exhilarating and you get a great view to boot.  But, I'd argue that it's much more like a prolonged game of chicken.  There's a mixed-up feeling of anticipation, anxiety, and antagonism from whoever happens to be coming toward you.  All the while, there's a palpable sense of impending doom.

To mitigate my dread, I've devised a few "Rules of the Road" that I chant like a mantra whenever I find myself behind the wheel (it's true - I'm pretty sure my Kenyan colleagues think I'm crazy):

1. Don't hit the people.
     This is a bigger challenge than you'd think.  On foot, on bike, on motorcycle or pulling carts, there are more people than cars at any given moment.  There are actually dirt walkways on either side of most roads, but from toddlers to the elderly, walking on the tarmac with the cars and trucks is somehow vastly preferable.

2. Stay on the road. 
     Staying on the road might seem painfully obvious, but it gets tricky here.  First off, the edge of the tarmac is more fjord-like than anything else, plunging up to two feet.  Plus, cars and trucks pass each other so haphazardly that it's not uncommon to find yourself in an actual (rather than metaphorical) game of chicken.  In those cases, I throw this rule out the window and leave the road quite happily.

3. Avoid roadway obstructions.
     Obstacles are a special part of the driving experience in Kenya.  Leaving aside people, animals, and vehicles, obstacles are often pot-holes but can also be tipped-over trucks, patches of missing tarmac, and police checks complete with tire spikes.  All of these require deft steering, but only under the rarest of circumstances do you ever consider actually stopping.

4. Swerve left or, more generally, ignore all instincts.
     Ignoring your instincts is key.  This applies not only during close encounters where years of driving in the US has taught me to swerve right, but also includes much more pedestrian things like: go ahead and pass on that hill, don't turn off your car while fueling up if you've been having trouble getting it to start, and for goodness sake, take that key, start that car, and enter the roadway... even when every fiber of your being tells you not to be a fool and just stay home.

Happy Trails!

Another roadway obstacle: tarmac waves!

Putting the "ow" in Cow

As you know, I work for an Ag NGO.  But, up until recently, I hadn't been doing too much with agriculture.  Mainly, I'd been working on the Special Projects Team (actually, we're now calling ourselves the Innovations Team because it sounds fancier).  My day-to-day was spent on products like solar lights, with only a fraction of time allocated to what would eventually be my first foray into the world of agriculture.

Cows!  Dairy cows, to be precise.

Cows are a beast.  And I do mean that in both senses of the word.  There are so many things to account for in figuring out cattle husbandry in Kenya - we're talking breed, shelter, fodder, milk collection, vaccinations, and so on.  There are about a million tiny little moving pieces that all have to be smartly, succinctly, and simply accounted for.  And, short of becoming a vet, how can I figure out if anything we do actually has any impact?

I decided to measure milk production.  And weight gain.  Simple enough, no?  (No.)

Take a second to consider how you would go about capturing that kind of information if you were me.  (I'd like to take this opportunity to inform the reader that I am a child of the suburbs; I think I touched a cow once at the Ohio State Fair petting zoo; and I majored in econ - so stop thinking that I have some sort of leg up on you in this little puzzle.)

Sure, milk is a challenge.  But, it's not nearly so taxing as weighing the darned thing.  I don't know about you, but I certainly don't have one of these bad boys lying around the backyard:

 

Even if I did, I don't know how I'd get it down some of the gnarly dirt "roads" around here and I don't even want to think about how much money that would end up costing.  So, you can see my conundrum.

I spent a week typing in various combinations of "estimate," "cow," "weight," and "frustration" into my trusty Google Search tab.

... I tell you, that thing never fails.

Thanks to the University of Arizona Ag Department and the Piedmontese Breeders Association, I found a tape measure method.  Yay me!  As for my survey agents - they're thrilled.  (That's a lie.  This method might be significantly more cost effective and, logistically, much less of a nightmare... but the cow-kick potentiality has definitely increased... and they're paid like 2 bucks a day.*)

Good thing there's workers' comp in Kenya.

*Note: Before you start hating on me for putting people in danger for 2 dollars a day - that's not a bad wage for a casual around here and cows are really pretty docile - we're relatively certain no one will get kicked.  Calm down.

An Equatorial Equinox

Alright, science nerds.  This post's for you.  Living on the equator is pretty cool for lots of reasons - some of which I hope we've elaborated thoroughly enough in previous posts.  But, I 'm pretty sure no one is as happy here as those who, more than anything, miss middle-school science labs.

You know who you are.  You still think that the coolest Birthday gifts are "kits" of some sort - chemistry sets, slides and microscopes for examining tree leaves, telescopes with star charts, spy tools that let you build motion sensors for your bedroom door.  My dad even got me a robotics kit once that required I use a soldering iron and a circuit board to build a "bug" that could follow a flashlight around a dark room.  (I may or may not have been in my mid-twenties for that one...)

What I Did on Christmas Vacation

For anyone who thinks all those things are super-cool and forewent cigarettes for Bunsen burners in high school - the best part of living on the equator are all the naturally-occurring scientific phenomenon that you can try to test out for yourself.

For example, you probably knew - or could have guessed - that at the equator we have the most equal days and nights of anywhere on the planet.  As your days shorten for Winter (leading to Seasonal Affective Disorder and other such medical maladies) and lengthen for Summer (causing the kids with parents strict on bedtimes, regardless of the amount of light outside, the greatest of jealous pangs) - ours plod on at just about dead even.  Twelve hours for the day and twelve for the night.

But even cooler - we have the shortest transitions between day and night.  It can actually get dark here in mere minutes, thus making shows like The Twilight Zone (or that crappy vampire book that I hate) a little tougher to translate since we hardly have a twilight at all.

But the best time of all - the equinox.  Get this - we all know that the sun doesn't rise perfectly in the East and set perfectly in the West.  As the year goes on, it moves further North or South.  Of course, from the US, we're looking at a teeny-tiny, highly skewed variation of this.  But, on the equator - the sun actually passes directly overhead twice a year - supposedly causing us to cast no shadow at all.

We tried it out.  It was a little disappointing as we still cast small shadows (we're 34 minutes or so north of zero) - but we did initiate Phase 2 of our little experiment - tracking an analemma, the figure 8 shaped path of the sun over the course of the year.  The equinox is a great time for the kick-off of this because we're right in the middle of the figure 8.

Bet you didn't know that thing on the globe was something you could measure yourself!

Being huge nerds, we're sacrificing a bit of what was to be our sports field to track the analemma this year.  You can too!  I'll be honest though, it probably won't be as cool as ours because, chances are, you're not living on (or very near to) the equator.

Pickles Isn't Racist

Pickles isn't racist.  I know all about racism.  I lived in the Deep South and worked for a Civil Rights based NGO for goodness sake.  And Pickles is not racist.

My colleague Seth has agreed that he might just be stupid. 

But, let me back up a little.  Pickles is my new puppy.

Cute, no?  I bought him at the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals (the pound) in Nairobi.  He's a 3-month-old mutt with a little Doberman in the mix.  I named him 'Pickles' in honor of the pet name given to the title character in my all-time favorite zombie themed romantic comedy, Shaun of the Dead.  He also earned the moniker because I used to live in Mississippi, where Kool-Aid Pickles ("Koolickles") were a popular snack.

Presenting the Koolickle

On the compound where I live, we have a pretty regular stream of Pickles-Admirers.  My ex-pat colleagues have all been very lovely to him and so he's gotten used to their constant petting.  But, whenever one of our national staff comes by, Pickles, my usually sweet-tempered, occasionally whiny dog, actually barks.  As I write this, Wycliffe, one of our logistics managers, is receiving an onslaught of semi-ferocious growling.  Charles, our construction manager, had to deal with it earlier.  He peed on my foot when my Swahili teacher Edna came by the first time and he doesn't even like Ubu, our Country Director's African dog.

So, my neighbors have decided he's racist.

Back to the pound for a minute: I chose Pickles out of a whole group of adorable puppies because he was the only one eating a rock.  So, I don't think he's racist so much as he is straight stupid.  And, there's really no comparison point for him, since all the new people he's meeting are African.  (Believe it or not, Bungoma isn't really a center of racial diversity.)  Further in his defense, he really likes the four Kenyans who live on our compound.  So maybe he's not even stupid; maybe he's one of the few toddler-pups ever to recognize stranger danger.  But he's not racist!

PROMOTIONS, PROMOTIONS, PROMOTIONS!!!

If, by chance, you find yourself working for an NGO in Africa, trying to convince people to join your organization, you may be presented with the concept of the wonderful, the splendid, the ever dazzling and resplendent, MUSIC TRUCK!!!!!!

If you are not familiar with this so called music truck, it is an aptly named vehicle, or truck rather, that drives through the villages blaring popular music from speakers that are clearly too big for the truck, and appears only to be meant for warfare scenarios in which one desires to deafen their enemies. Nonetheless, this “music truck” moves through these areas much in the way of a magical pied piper. As it jostles about the rocky and degraded roads, it’s cacophony of notes entices people, somehow saying to them, “come one, come all, and merely listen to the people who have brought this magnificent phenomenon to your village.”

While I had not seen any Music Trucks in my adult life, in my childhood I became well aware of the concept and its magnetic results. Thus, when presented with the idea, how could I pass it up? Our goal was to get our farmers excited about the upcoming season and see if we could not get everyone in the surrounding areas to learn of our organization’s greatness, and that surely they would love nothing better than to join us and VUNA ZAIDI – harvest more!

The two directors in my district and myself set about making the arrangements to cause this brilliant idea to come to life. Surely all we would have to do was get the Music Truck and multitudes would flock to see what wonderful things might ensue. But then it struck us, what do we do with these people we've called forth from their quotidian lives and activities? What will we show them to make them excited? We were fresh out of bearded ladies and I don’t think my manager (president of his juggling club in college) would have volunteered to be the main attraction – although I can tell you white people (mzungu) are a draw enough, and a juggling mzungu could pretty much make people’s list for the craziest thing they’d seen that year.

We decided on the RAFFLE: a common form of entertainment for hordes of people that extends a tantalizing aura of excitement and anticipation to its spectators. Who will win the car? Will I win a trip to Asia? Those were the questions that immediately popped up in my mind – I was sorely mistaken. The prizes we landed on were not my first pick, but I was assured would be exciting. For third place, wait for it, a bar of soap. Not a special bar of soap, not a bar of soap that would last a year, but a regular bar of soap. Second place got a something bit more rousing; a chicken would be the prize of these lucky winners. And for our grand prize, our big finale, two goats would be bestowed upon two favored grand-prize winning farmers.

The weeks endeavors began in what could only be classified as a total and utter….failure. The music truck was late, there were no speakers ready to coax even a small rabble to the raffle, our employees were nowhere to be seen. Oh, how splendid an idea the Music Truck was. But, it was only 8am or, 2am Kenya time – I don’t mean from the different time zones, but time in Kenya starts at 6am, so 7am is actually 1 in the morning. Anyway, there was yet to be a thrilling day ahead of us…..

Last Tuesday

Tuesday, my morning shower arrived in a jerry-can. I hadn't washed my hair in a few days, so I was pretty excited, but not as excited as I was when the water turned out to be steaming hot.

My ride to work was by piki (motorcycle taxi), which started on a dirt road, but quickly diverged onto a thin footpath that ran up and down rocky hills. We passed farmers working in their fields and already sweating in the morning sun. Occasionally, at unclear forks in the road, we stopped to ask them for directions.

My first meeting was beneath a tin-roof, in a mud-walled church near a water pump. I struggled to understand the Field Manager - she was switching between the national and local language, the former I understand poorly, the latter not at all. But her energy was infectious and the farmers she was training were engaged. Some even took notes.

My mind was on my desk work throughout most of the morning. I needed to figure out how to solve the issue of Sikulu - why were their harvests so low? And my cattle profitability survey lay unfinished on my living room coffee table. These two projects ended up consuming most of my evening following our weekly collaborative meeting, which, in the past, has covered everything from maize storage techniques to reducing errors in data entry, and once even asked the question, how can we reach 1.1 million families by 2020?

I skipped sports.

My dinner was in a thatch-roofed hut at a long table. We talked about our days, our projects, our families, and about just how delicious our tacos tasted. (Dinner is always tacos on Tuesday nights - but where was the cheese this week?)

My bedtime came at 10:00. I crawled beneath my mosquito net with a book about Russian literature. I lit the space with my little solar lamp - the rainstorm during dinner had knocked out the electricity. Ten pages about Isaac Babel, a writer "disappeared" from the Soviet Union in 1939, and I was asleep.

Ten Things

Ten Things I Never Expected To Do

(but have already done since arriving at the equator 6 weeks ago…)

1. Be involved in a minor fender bender with a donkey.

2. Attempt to shower less than two feet below a small electrical fire.

3. Learn to play Bridge (yes, the same Bridge you can find tips for in the "Local" section of your daily paper).

4. Stand in a muck-filled cattle shelter discussing the appropriate application of improved feed (napier grass) to increase the milk productivity of indigenous dairy cows.

5. Regularly require alternative lighting (headlamps, solars, kerosene, etc.) due to the frequency of totally random power failures.

6. Compete in the finals of a Ugandan Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

7. Employ a maid. (I still feel a little boozhy about that one… but it’s normal here, I swear.)

8. Open beer bottles with any of the following implements: lighters, countertops, knives, or other bottles.

9. Ride on the back of a bicycle to get to work (and then only pay the man about twelve cents for his labor).

10. Keep live poultry vaccines in my refrigerator along with my sack of milk and my newspaper pouch of meat.

The scorch marks from the electrical fire. Wait...did you think I was kidding?

Running Wazungu

My new home is in Bungoma, Kenya. Most guidebooks make no reference at all to Bungoma. If they do, it isn't to say especially friendly things about it. Mostly, guidebooks note the single attraction as the presence of ATMs to get funds before or after crossing the Ugandan border at Malaba. The biggest industry here certainly isn't tourism, but that's not to say that it's totally devoid of charms. In fact, my first week here, I got to experience one of the many delights of being fair-skinned in Kenya. For anyone who's been on safari in the area, you've probably also had the chance to purchase a t-shirt that labels you what passersby of all ages, but especially children, call out as a rule: MZUNGU! (lit: white person.) My experience probably wasn't especially unique, but it was especially adorable.

Near the compound where I live is a footpath that makes a very convenient 5k loop for the runners in our group. My husband, himself a marathoner, loves it - it offers spectacular agricultural views, occasional obstacles (little rivers), and a chance to run without breathing in the diesel on the regular roadway. So, during my first week, I accompanied him on a portion of the run (I am about as far from a marathoner as one can humanly be...). As we turned off our dirt road onto the footpath, about 4 little children squealed out in delight "WAZUNGU! WAZUNGU! (White people! White people!)" Undeterred, we continued to run, now accompanied by the little children. The smallest and also most excited of our parade decided to strike up a conversation in Swahili:

Child: Wazungu! Why are you running?
David: Eh! For exercise! We want to become stronger!
Child: Wazungu! Where do you come from?
Sarah: We are from America - where do you come from?
Child: I come from my house!

Not quite the answer I'd anticipated, but one I thought was pretty good for a 3 or 4 year old, if not a bit on the literal side.

The rest of the run wasn't nearly so enjoyable - mainly consisting (on my part) of panting and whining for a walk-break. When we got close to the compound, however, it was already twilight and I started to notice little bugs coming up out of the ground on white wings. A woman was kneeling over an especially busy patch catching them up and promptly sticking them in her mouth. A little shocked, I whispered to David, "is she seriously eating those?" He laughed - apparently I'm quite ignorant - after heavy rains, the termites fly out of the ground and are eaten as a delicacy here. Some people eat them right out of the ground, but plenty catch as many as they can to fry and sell at the market the next day. I still haven't tasted them, but I think my time is coming.