November 2016

Thanksgiving at the MCC office!  We had the joy of sharing the tradition with several of our Kenyan staff colleagues, and other ex-pat MCCers here.  The turkey, mashed potatoes, and stuffing tasted great, 

Carving up the turkey

And the post-turkey, "I ate too much" dinner stupor

Alex is our horticulturalist.  Absent a garden to work in, he's adapted with a wonderful window garden.

The first rains of the season brought out the local chameleons.  This one became a short-term pet before being released back into our loquat tree. 

A Saturday jaunt out to Maasai-land on the floor of the rift valley is a different environment than the highlands around Nairobi.  Among the dryland vegetation was this strange plant.  Spiny, as is usual for most plants here, but with an odd big bulbous trunk.

Rains bring out the leaves in the acacias.

We visited Olorgosaillie, a prehistoric site in the rift valley that is one of the most important excavations for human origins.  Mary Leakey was one of the first to excavate, finding it to be a "factory" of stone tools, shown here scattered about the ground.  Although less famous than Olduvai in Tanzania, it has equal importance for prehistoric finds, being the largest stone tool find in the world.  

Stone axes, and some animal bones also at the site.  It's fascinating to be living in the area so famous for human origins.

Landscape in the rift valley

Out in Machakos the rainy season is full swing, and has transformed the area into a verdant landscape.  So different from a month ago when everything was brown.

Talking to a farmer about the results of a bacteria test we did on his drinking water (taken straight from a scoop hole in the nearby sand dam).  An enthusiastic and inquisitive person, he seems on board to start treating his water.

Remarkably after visiting so many dams, it was only on one of the last ones where we finally managed to get the truck stuck in some soft sand.  Rescued by UDO staff with some timbers, we got out pretty easily then.

Most maize is just coming up, like the fields in the background.  One farmer used a pump to irrigate early from a sand dam.  His maize is well ahead, so that he can harvest and sell while the price is still high, making more profit.

The primary activity now is weeding, almost all by hand (and usually by women).  Lots of work, one report I saw estimated one woman would take some 80 hours of work to weed a 1 hectare field.