MCC Kenya partners

We’ve had a good “summer” of relating to MCC partners in our work, so here are some more pictures of what types of activities we’ve had going on in the last few months.  

We took the 6+ hour drive out to western Kenya, around Kisumu, in early July to pick up one of our SALTer’s who was headed home after his 1 year term.  He’d been living in a small town south of the Nandi hills.  Here David is with our family at a school site supported by MCC.  There is a Generations at Risk (HIV/AIDS) project here, as there is at a number of places in western Kenya.  Cristina comes here regularly to work on finances with the organization; this was the first time for the kids and me to visit.

The area has suffered from some conflict recently as two tribes (Kalenjin and Luo) have been at odds with each other.  MCC is responding to emergency needs in this region as some communities have been displaced by the conflict.  Everybody is watching for interethnic conflicts as national elections approach next year.

The Kenya Mennonite Church is strong is this part of the country, in general the area along Lake Victoria is where early Mennonite missionaries went. Lots of denominations had missions in Kenya, and tended to focus on different areas of the country. MCC in Kenya works closely with the Kenyan Mennonite Church on a number of projects.

Back in Nairobi, we are starting to use bacteria tests in our urban Nairobi, both to test water that is used for drinking, and as a way to incorporate student learning about WaSH principles,  Here at Mukuru, WaSH promoters Irene (center) and Dennis (right) direct students in a testing exercise.

Herine and Jean at Mathare testing water from their taps.  The school gets water from city pipes, but the pipes are often cracked and leaking, so the city water can be contaminated (hence the need to treat it with SODIS before drinking)

Driving to Mathare always means negotiating through large herds of goats.  

Mukuru has taken the wonderful initiative to spruce up the school a bit with plants.  Here some hanging pots by the office.

The worm bucket at Mukuru has been going for some 6 months and looks good - lots of worms and compost!  Teacher Martin is in charge of the worms (and the environment club in general), good job by him.

Part of their initiative is to have a school garden.  I was so pleased to see it growing well, providing some greenery in the school plus veggies for the kids' lunches!  They have a vision for having plants in the school, a notion which I fully support.  It's clear that our environment affects our behavior, so a green, clean environment will boost the mission of the school.  (As an aside, see the podcast "Evolving a City" on how to encourage communities to work for a common good, one of the many interesting On Being podcasts).  

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Late July brought a week of leading several learning tours of people from North America.  First was a group from Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB), mostly of various Canadian religious leaders, that we took to Kitui to see SASOL projects.  The group was in country to see how CFGB can advocate with the Canadian government for continued support of agricultural development.  MCC works closely with CFGB, including with the current large conservation ag project.

Pigeon Peas, a staple crop in the region which has done well lately.  The crop is unique in growing and producing for several seasons.  This is one of the drought-tolerant crops being promoted in Kitui.

The group meets with Akunuke, one of the many self-help groups that SASOL has trained.  The group has done many activities, including planting various new crops using CA principles, doing a demo farm, practicing table banking to provide loans to members, and various other initiatives.

SASOL director Mutinda (left) and community organizer Elijah (right) talking with the group.

Alex and Evan came along, here Evan looks at Dolichos Lablab, one of the cover crops being promoted to keep soil covered.  Mulching is tough in the region, since termites rapidly eat it up, so cover crops are a better option.

Sorghum, another drought tolerant crop being promoted.  Sorghum was traditionally a staple food in Kenya, but had been eaten less in recent times.  It's interesting how the diet has shifted to maize over the last century or so, and not clear all the reasons why.  One is probably birds, the Quelea is a small finch which is actually the most abundant bird on the planet, and comes in flocks devestating crops.  Maize has a covering which protects it from the birds, whereas sorghum and millet do not.

The summer break for the kids means we've been able to make visits as a whole family, which has been great.

The farm we visited was Julius Masango's, here with his family.

We went to visit a sand dam with the group.  Here Alex and Evan take the chance to wander off and explore the countryside a bit.

There was an interesting dynamic at this group's sand dam.  They welcomed us despite being several hours late.  While things happening on "African time" is usual, they made special note of our tardiness.  SASOL staff said this is something relatively new.  One member interpretted this as a more recent sense of empowerment by villagers, due in part to government devolution (a shift in power from the national government to the more local governments where power is felt more directly by the people; "devolution is the most beautiful thing to happen to Kenya" said one staff member) 

Water from the pump well at the dam.  This makes water collection easier, and (perhaps) cleaner.

Bottomed out, the bus got hung up in a sandy ditch.  An hour of help from locals finally got us out.

Several group members pass time practicing their pastoral skills, singing hymns with children that gathered for the spectacle of a bus-full of white people getting stuck.

Alex and Evan stayed in the truck to avoid the attention of dozens of curious Kenyans, but didn't entirely escape it.  Here they peer through the back door at novelty of the white kids.

I helped with a second learning tour the same week, this one a group with FRB (food resource bank).  We visited projects with MIDI (Maasai Integrated Development Initiatives) based in Ngong, just outside of Nairobi.   

First stop was down in the rift valley at the base of the Ngong hills, where we visited a farmer, Damarus Nadupoi, who received MIDI training and went on exchange visits to other farmers. In working with farmers, one runs across the occasional farmer who is exceptional in their willingness and ability to improve their farming techniques. In the terminology of community work, these are “early adopters”. Damarus was one of those farmers, and we were all very impressed by her work. As with most people, she works with a self-help group, hers was “Inyuat o duaat”. This helps to support her (for instance, through participation with table banking activities) but also is a help for the other self-help members as she encourages them to make similar changes.

Alongside the cornfield she has fodder trees, here Lukena.  This legumous tree helps the corn field by fixing nitrogen, and also provides foliage which she dries and mixes with grass, which means she saves money on protein supplements for the cattle.

Water is the biggest challenge in the region.  Here MDI is helping Damarus with a large storage pit.  She paid for digging the pit, and MIDI covers purchase of a heavy plastic liner.  Roof water will be collected and shunted to the pit for use on her vegetable gardens.  At the moment she hires a truck to bring water from Ngong twice a month, filling a plastic tank.  

A small garden with a plastic liner conserves water and produces vegetables for her. The trees on the edge provide a windbreak, and will make her yard “look smart”.

Damarus looks over the records of milk production. MIDI and other organizations have encouraged farmers to start keeping records so they better know what works and what doesn’t. She has an improved variety of cow that produces 10 liters of milk, compared to ½ liter with traditional cattle. MIDI has a program to promote improved breeds, they own improved varieties of zebu bulls that farmers can rent to sire better cows. Along with semi-zero grazing (feeding baled hay and rotational grazing), she was able to sustain milk production through the 2014 drought, whereas neighbors had to make the trek to Machakos or Tanzania in search of water and grass.

Her farm activities started by earning money through beadwork, a common activity for Maasai women. From the earnings, she bought land and started her production.  We saw this at each stop, "beadwork is in our blood" said one Maasai woman.  They all mention that they have no place to market the work, though.

So Damarus obviously had a wide range of activities she’d adopted, that make hers a diverse and resilient farm. The usual question is why others (or everybody) in the region don’t run their farm in a similar way, and that’s a hard question to answer. Risk is part of it. There is risk in trying out new techniques – maybe they won’t work out and one will be in worse shape than sticking with traditional methods. Farms like this illustrate clearly how getting a bit of increased income (for example, from the beadwork) leads to more activities, which leads to more income, etc. It’s also clear that the farm is designed for resilience – she knows how droughts can destroy livelihoods, and has a farming system that can withstand those droughts. While she didn’t talk about climate change, it’s obviously the type of adaptation that will be needed with changes in weather patterns.

Back on the Ngong hills, we visit a group that has instituted sack gardens as a way to conserve water. This group was interesting because it illustrated how some Maasai are embracing fairly drastic changes in lifestyles. This group of Maasai moved to the area when a drought hit their traditional area hard, killing all their cattle. Since in traditional Maasai culture, cattle define the person, this was a major blow – “when we lost the cows, we lost everything”. The community decided to make a big change, and move to this fertile area that had just opened up for agriculture. Positioned on the crest of the hills, it is cooler and wetter than down in the rift valley. They started growing crops, with the help of MIDI training. According to them, now they accept that growing and eating vegetables makes for a good life. “Even without a cow, life will go well. Even without cows, our future is bright.”

Two Doug Neufeld's!  Always good to have a spare one along...

This is probably the first time I've personally met somebody with the same name as me, it was a pleasure to spend the week together and become friends!  

Speaking of spares, thank goodness for a spare tire.  Driving on the rough roads, we had the left rear wheel suddently fall off entirely!  Fortunately it was low speed, so no real damage done.  A bus full of army engineers on the way to a training camp decided that helping (or watching) the wazungu change a tire was a more promising way to spend the morning than the training camp, so spent some quality time with us.  The carried machine guns with them, I suppose to make us feel safe (?)

Glitch #2 (or 3 or 4), after fixing the tire we try to catch up with the group on a back road visiting a sand dam.  We follow tracks down an entirely wrong road, who knows where in the middle of the rift valley.  No cars or people in sight...

Five hours late, we show up for "lunch" (5 pm) at the Maasai self-help group we intend to visit.  They graciously hosted us late in the day.

Visiting Paulina Noso's first house, not sized for big wazungu!

Profits from the group's activities allowed Paulina to move from this house to a larger mud house, then to her new cinderblock and metal roofed house.  This is a major step up for her.

On the way to visit a house, we run across 10 giraffes roaming the open range.  Wild animals are still common sights, and are one of the challenges identified by groups.  Giraffes are less of a problem, although they can eat maize, they don't bother the lower stuff like vegetables.  Elephants are a bigger problem, about once a year they pass through.  "Forget about your maize" when they come, we're told, they wipe out a crop in 15 minutes.  Hyenas can feed on sheep and goats.  So while it's fun to see wildlife, it's true they make living in some areas challenging.

Ann is the MCC staff person in charge of this project in Kajiado county, here with James.  The sign says "Empowerment: Never do for someone what they can do for themselves!"  MCC projects with 25 self-help groups in the area are solely for training; groups pool their own money for the projects they implement.  They have accomplished a lot, and this gives them a sense of pride and ownership in their projects that is better sustained in the long run.  Still, it is challenging, as many are used to receiving "handouts".

Groups envision what they want the community to be by drawing maps of their current and hopefully future situation.  The top drawing shows "just a boma" (household enclosure), where they are burning trees for charcoal.  At the bottom they have a diversity of activities, livestock and agriculture, a hardpan for water collection, kids going to school, beekeeping...a wide variety of activities they want to do.

Rules for self-help group meetings.  Notice the 20 shilling fee for phones ringing in a meeting, and the 100 shilling fee for being absent without apology!

The "Ololepo Mpopong" ("place where the cow produces milk") group is in an area that is less rocky and has better soil, so they've set up a garden.  They had no idea how to grow crops before getting training, and now have a large production for consumption and sale.  It's hard to overstate how much of a change this is for Maasai, who are traditionally herders.  "When drought comes and kills the cows, we will have food.  We hadn't known anything about farming, but see that it is wonderful and we are not going to retreat from farming."  The chairman, Daniel Tumanga, has given his land to the group for this garden.

Lots and lots of onions, produced for sale.

A shack for the night watchmen, needed to keep zebras, giraffes, etc out of the garden at night.  Notice the Maasai man on his cell phone.  Even the most traditional Maasai now have phones, and they are critical for organizing projects like Ann's self-help groups.

Water is always the major limiting factor in this region.  Here they made a pit storage for water.  Water is taken from a pipe which brings water from 30 km away, next to the eastern escarpment.  So this group is fortunate to have some access to water, whereas others often walk tens of kilometers to get water.  

Power lines are new from a geothermal plant in a nearby national park, taking power to Nairobi and Mombasa.  There were survey markings nearby for the new standard gauge railroad also--that may change things a lot in the next year or two in the region.

Agnes Matura, one of the outspoken, inspiring and articulate Maasai women from the group.  "Before this training, Maasai women were like children, they just stayed at home witing for men to bring them things.  Now we realize that we are people.  These are all new things to us.  With just a push, we can go very far."

Ann proudly shows her sack gardens at her house (barely visible under all the kale), which she uses as a demonstration garden.  She had livestock, poultry, maize grown with CA, watermelon...an impressively diverse yard that was built up in only 1 year!  

Uganda and Zanzibar

[Our faithful blogger Evan posted below pictures of some of the great animals we saw on our holiday to Uganda and Zanzibar.  For more pictures of the trip see the "More Uganda pics" and "More Zanzibar pics" pages on this blog]

red tailed monkey near the Nile

Johnston's chameleon in the Rwenzoris

Mutinda lookout in the Rwenzoris

Queen Elizabeth national park, there is a leopard in the euphorb.

Kibale national park, central African red colobus

still Kibale, grey cheeked mangaby stuffing it's face with stolen corn 

starfish in Zanzibar

another starfish

wired colobus with baby in Jozani

tiny frog in Jozani

red mangrove

giant tortoise from the Seychelles

butterfly

Urban Schools and WaSH Projects

Two of the other partners that MCC works with here in Kenya are Menno Kids Academy and Mukuru Menno Academy.  These are schools associated with the Kenyan Mennonite Church, and located in the informal settlements (“slums”) of Nairobi.  These schools take students from “baby class” (preschool) through standard 8 (8^th grade) that live in the area.  There are three of us MCC service workers that work with these schools: Cristina helps them with finances, Jodi works with education curriculum, and I (Doug) work with their water projects.  I’ll comment on what I do in the schools, working with the water projects.

Nairobi is known for having a large population in the slums, as is the case for most African cities.  An estimated 60% or more of the 5 million people in Nairobi live in the informal settlements, most often in corrugated tin shacks or concrete buildings of the neighboring areas.  The recent collapse of a poorly built building is typical of these areas.  A family of 5-7 people lives in a single room, and each floor of 3 or 4 rooms has a single toilet.  In Mathare, for instance, an average of 18 people share each toilet, and people will get up hours early just so that they can get to use the toilet in the morning.  Earnings are about $50-100 per month.  Nairobi is somewhat unusual in that the informal settlements are scattered throughout the city – this seems to be an effect of the original colonial arrangement (wealthy landowner “estates” surrounded by the low-income worker residences; that pattern has held over with areas of middle and high income neighborhoods interspersed with low-income areas).  A recent study also outlined the crucial role that corruption has played in creating a largely inefficient city, where vested interests hinder the conversion of slums into formal neighborhoods.  Mathare and Mukuru are examples of the scattered location of the slums, they are adjacent to formal residential areas, and industrial and business districts.  These are the places where there are schools that MCC partners with.  Kibera is the best known slum here, often cited as the “largest slum in the world” (perhaps not accurate, but certainly true that a very large number of people live there). 

Land use in Nairobi and locations we live and work (except Kibera, we don’t work there).  Red are informal settlements, blue residential, green industrial, purple institutions. 

My summary observation is that people living in slums live in a world of insecurity.  That insecurity takes various forms, from financial, to health, to homes, to physical violence.  Financially, people live in fear of losing what jobs they have, and are hesitant to challenge the status quo.  Health fears are from HIV, malnutrition, and water-borne diseases (back to that in a moment).  People live with the fear of losing their homes, as most are rented shacks on insecure land, which can be converted at any time to a building site.  And there is physical violence – women as usual are at most risk, and this is a major challenge in promoting sanitation, as women risk violence when they visit community toilets, especially at night. 

MCC works with WaSH (water, sanitation and hygiene) projects in two schools.  The components of that program are:

1) SODIS for clean water.  This is solar disinfection, water in clear plastic bottles placed in the sun will be safe to drink after 6 hours (or 2 days, if it is cloudy).  Each student in the school has two bottles, one is in their classroom they can use for drinking, and the other is on racks in the sun for the next day.  It’s an elegant solution for clean water, and works well in the schools themselves.  There are more challenges in getting the families in the community to use them though, and it isn’t commonly practiced in houses.  Reasons for this seem to include: theft of bottles (which do have some recycling value), lack of space (for instance people that live in multi-story homes have no place to put them in the sun), cost of getting bottles, and fear of poisoning.  Personally, I think there is a psychological hurdle also, SODIS simply hasn’t reached critical mass where people view it as a desirable way to get clean water.  Studies show that adoption of WaSH technologies like this are not just a matter of convincing people it’s good for their health, but more importantly it must be aspirational (for instance, it should be something that appeals to their status in the community).  So promoting these things is complicated (Alex and Evan roll their eyes whenever I resort to saying “it’s complicated” in my explanations! 

(By the way, the common question of whether plastics leach into the water from the bottles does not seem to be a health concern, studies to date suggest this doesn’t occur to any substantial degree). 

2) Hygiene, basically hand-washing.  Hand-washing stations are provided in schools, and students are taught to wash their hands at times we know are critical for preventing disease transmission.  So students all line up (well, “mass up” is perhaps a better description) at the faucets before getting lunch. 

3) Sanitation, which is providing clean toilets.  This has greatly improved the environment around the schools, as we’re told by those that have been there a long time - there are now longer feces obviously present.  Often this was in the form of so-called “flying toilets”, residents defecation in a plastic bag and then sling it out into the river, open space or just the pathways to get rid of it.  This is especially the case at night, when there are security issues with leaving the house.  In the community, there are some options for paying to use a toilet (around 3-5 “bob”, or shillings; that’s 3-5 cents each time, compared with a household income around $50-100 per month).  One of the interesting and somewhat successful models has been Fresh-life toilets, a private company that uses a toilet franchise model, their toilets are readily obvious around the Mukuru area.  They then pick up the waste, which they compost in a facility outside Nairobi and then sell to farmers in Kenya.  This is probably one of the few successful user-pays models for water and sanitation provision, in fact there is somewhat of a debate whether these public health services can be effectively provided with a private sector model, or whether they need to be funded as a public good (akin to many services in developed countries).  There are some indications that the number of flying toilets is in fact less than it was in the past.  Interestingly, there are also suggestions that the new problem is use of cheap disposable diapers, which are then tossed out in the streets.

Organizations like that running Fresh-life illustrate the good things that are happening.  So despite all the insecurity and problems (and much like in refugee camps, I’m told), I find it important to remember that slums are not places devoid of hope.  Although not “nice” in the sense of being clean and beautiful, there’s a certain satisfaction each time in driving or walking into the slums for work, and seeing something or somebody new that is working to improve the situation.  And there is personal satisfaction in connecting with a part of the human condition on earth that represents such a large part of the world’s population, but that we can so easily ignore, either intentionally or not.

So despite our family being resolutely less inclined towards cities, we enjoy the work in this city and find some enjoyment in living in “the green city in the sun” (as Nairobi’s nickname has been).  Things rapidly felt familiar after moving here, but after nearly a year now have moved to feeling more like a home. 

I tend not to take pictures in the slums, but if you want accurate visual images of what it is like, here are a few places to look:

African Slum Journal

BBC story on Mathare

DotEarth post about Mathare, and concerns about election violence

Conservation Agriculture and Sand Dams

Since we’ve posted mostly pictures on this blog, and in our typical day-to-day MCC work/life we typically don’t take as many pictures, I’ll take some time to write a bit in this blog post. 

It’s been raining hard in Nairobi, April is the wettest month of the year.  Things are always green here, even during the dry season, but it’s nice to have the dust settled.  It slows travel sometimes, a heavy rain on Nairobi streets can cause extra back-ups.  Schools are on one of their between-term breaks, so that slows down our activities a bit also.  Schools are about half of my work here, I’ll write more about work at those schools in another post.  The other half of my work is in rural areas, and I’ll write a bit about that here.

I wrote a short article about these organizations for Intersections (the “theory and praxis quarterly” journal published by MCC) recently, which is a more focused explanation of their work, and explains a few things not included here.  The pdf version has the entire issue on natural resource management.

I (Doug) was out in Ukambani (the Machakos and Kitui region, several hours east of Nairobi) recently, so will report on those activities first. 

Ukambani shown in shaded green

MCC works through local partners, and MCC Kenya has some 25 partners across the country.  Two of those are SASOL and UDO, both local organizations that work with farmers to improve livelihoods and increase food security.  These organizations have been known for promoting sand dams, but they are more fundamentally concerned about different ways that communities in ASALs (arid and semi-arid lands) can have improved livelihoods.  As Mutinda, the director at SASOL, told me this week, as population and cultivation increases in the best land around Africa, attention will increasingly turn to large ASALs as the key areas that can feed and house the continent.  So they see sand dams as one tool for those communities, and they increasingly are focusing their programming on other activities such as conservation agriculture. 

I work with SASOL and UDO on two aspects of their work: conservation agriculture, and sand dams.  Both organizations are part of a larger conservation agriculture project “Scaling up conservation agriculture in East Africa” – one of about a dozen partners in Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania funded through Canadian Food Grains Bank (through the Canadian government) that is looking to impact at least 50,000 farmers.  This project is just starting, so I’ve been helping the partners as they formulate their project plan, set their budgets and timetables, and in general get their plans in order for approval.  They are just starting their work on this project, both having just finished baseline surveys of several hundred households, and starting the selection process for farmers who will start CA.  CA here is focused on rainfed farming (vs irrigation) for small scale farmers.  As with all CA, it focuses on three basic principles of crop production: keeping soil covered with mulch, no (or reduced) tillage, and crop rotation/intercropping.  In working with the partners, it’s interesting to have many discussions about what technical practices work or don’t work in CA (for instance, are herbicides necessary to control weeds, which are often a larger problem in CA?), and what practices effectively increase farmer adoption of CA (for instance, does giving free seeds the first year encourage adoption?).  And it’s interesting just to learn about agriculture in Africa – a recent article in the Economist gives an interesting (and optimistic) picture of agriculture on the continent.  And as I travel more often to the towns of Kitui and Kola, and neighboring regions, I enjoy the warm hospitality and the interesting stories of my Kenyan colleagues!

As mentioned earlier, SASOL and UDO are well known for their work on sand dams.  There are lots of good accounts of sand dams, for example CFGB has a short video on sand dams, and our friend and colleague from Harrisonburg Dr. Wayne Teel has written a good account of sand dams at UDO.  As with all things, there are enthusiastic “believers” and “non-believers” in sand dams, and many in the gradient in between those two extremes.  Although it is easy to observe the benefits of functional dams, there are questions about how many sand dams end up functioning well, and how the benefits compare to the considerable invest costs of starting a sand dam.  I am helping UDO and SASOL starting a rigorous evaluation of some aspects of sand dam effectiveness that will help answer some of those questions.  Included in this evaluation is a needed assessment of the quality of the water from sand dams.  We know that sand dams can store a lot of water under good conditions, but there is very little information on whether that water is (for instance) high or low in bacterial contamination.  The next dry season (Aug-Oct) will see me in the field a lot in Ukumbani helping to do this evaluation. 

Ukambani has the distinction of being known worldwide in circles of development workers and academics thinking about issues of sustainability, population, and agriculture.  This is largely due to the publication of the seminal book “More People, Less Erosion”, essentially arguing that the local environment and agriculture production has improved despite an increase in population pressure.  In short, they argue for a “boomster” rather than “doomster” view of population – that increased population presents opportunities rather than a threat.  Naturally, there are detractors to this view.  And there are other, newer threats to livelihoods in the region, the most obvious being climate change.  No farmer that I’ve met doubts the reality of climate change, in particular they comment on how the rains used to be predictable, but now they are never sure when (or if) it will rain.  A selling point for conservation agriculture is as a technique that is appropriate for the changing climate conditions.

Ukambani itself is an interesting region (find an interesting description of the region here).  The people in this area are the Akamba, a bantu group.  During colonial times, the area was “Machakos reserve”, in other words a place set aside for native Africans as it was not one of the more fertile areas of the country in demand by the white settlers.  Some settlers did set up coffee farms in the hills, but these largely disappeared when coffee prices decreased.  Also disappeared is the wildlife, there is a classic account of one of the early game wardens supervising the shooting of 1000 rhinos in a short period.  There are no rhinos left there, and generally no other large mammals, unlike the Athi plains to the west where wildebeest, giraffes, etc can still be seen wandering openly.  Tsavo borders Ukambani to the south, so animals do occasionally wander up from there, such as groups of elephants last year when food or water got scarcer in Tsavo.  Conflicts also occur along the eastern region as Somali herders run into conflicts with farmers about land use issues, especially along the Tana River.

So that is one description for what takes much of my time here in Kenya.  As anybody knows who has been to Africa, or many other areas of the world, life occurs at a different tempo here, and with different priorities.  While staying busy, I’m grateful to have a few years without the typical rush of an academic year!  Much time is spent relating to people – even when there are deadlines or meetings, it is always first priority to spend adequate time talking with people about their lives, families, country, etc.  The partners I work with have many times expressed appreciate for MCC’s commitment to walking with them in the long-term, and for valuing the personal relationships which are of paramount importance in Kenya.

April 2016

At the "porch office".  When not with partners, we usually work at the MCC office.  But sometimes it's nice just to work from home.

Safari ants, you can see the guards with big jaws.  We have to watch out not to stand on a safari ant trail when out hiking. 

Karura forest, we took a long hike on a Sunday to break in our hiking boots.

Karura forest

Worm bucket on the porch.  We can compost about half our scraps in the barrel, the other half we take to the Rosslyn school compost pile.

Lots of worms and some good compost for the plants

Nandi flame trees are in full bloom at the end of the dry season

Boys beating each other up with pool noodles - it keeps them entertained!

Geckos are very common, this one climbing out of the compost tea from the compost barrel.

Carina, our sweet neighbor dog.  She likes to bang on the door at 6:30 every morning to come relax on the couch.

Evan's homemade Korean kim-bob.  Evan takes food and trades it with his Korean and Indian friends at lunchtime at Rosslyn.  Cristina and Evan decided to make one of his favorite, which was wonderful.  So after several years in Kenya, Evan will be an expert in Korean cuisine. 

Bronze mannakin, they show up occasionally at our feeder.

Butterfly in Karura forest