It’s a good idea to my feet dirty at this game.

So off I went to Naivasha, in the Great Rift Valley again, with an ILRI car and driver, to a big dairy farm. We dropped off a goat expert to his research station on the way, down some awful roads, I felt like I had been in a food processor for two hours, but my neck is still vaguely attached to my head an body, so I must be tougher than I thought. And saw some of the worst poverty stricken families I have ever seen, out in the middle of a high moor.

The dairy farm has about 120 workers on the dairy farm, and a farming system rather reminiscent of Gippsland or New Zealand, ie controlled starvation and produce about half the milk of a northern Victorian or US cow. The workers live in a little town on the farm, with milk etc provided, but still rather ragged but happily so. The farm is well run, and one of the perks is that workers get as much milk as they can drink, providing they bring their own containers.

The milk is probably the best in Kenya, though hard to buy when they only have 700+ cows. Fortunately they gave us a couple of bottles to take back with us.

And the other photo is of a slug in our garden.

There is a 50 cent piece so give you an idea of scale. They are large and cream coloured, and a toddler down the road calls them ‘rabbits’ maybe because they move so fast and eat so much. Sandy suggested Lucy turn them into a pie … Unfortunately there is no slug bait to be had here, so my vegie patch has a bit of a struggle. Those slugs have no subtlety at all.

Last week, we finally took delivery of our own car, after some weeks of using a car kindly loaned by Subaru whilst our duty free status came through, or using ILRI pool cars. It is a pleasant metallic Australian dust coloured Forester, which although it does not match the Ayer’s Rock coloured dust in Nairobi, is a perfect match to the Rift Valley dust colour, we discovered, when we took it for a four hour spin to Naivasha in the Rift Valley. On the way we saw an increase in the number of donkey drawn carts, and a corresponding reduction in the numbers of human pulled carts. Donkeys seemed to be larger than the standard Irish donkey, generally had just loops of rope around their necks, and were often in pairs or even troikas. Some donkey teams had their ears trimmed to half length, presumably so that the whip could be more accurately wielded. We saw a man trying to tie his donkey onto the cart: the donkey knew that it would be the start of another long day, and was putting up a great kicking fight, and the man was responding with his stick, which was not long enough to reach the donkey – the donkey had longer front legs. Animal welfare and psychology, maximising the positive interactions and minimising the negatives haven’t arrived here.

Poor little car, it must have had a terrible fright when it saw the roads: many kilometres of tarmacked roads that hadn’t been maintained for about fifty years, resulting in huge deep potholes with jagged edges. An un-maintained but heavily used sealed road is much worse to drive on than a dirt road (but I haven’t driven on the local country roads in heavy rain yet. Couple this with heavy trucks (loaded to twice their official capacity), very thick dust, twists and turns, numerous efforts of vehicles trying to get off the roads onto the adjacent land to get an easier route, never mind about trying to stick to your side of the road, and you have an exciting drive. We went to Lake Naivasha, about 100 kilometres from ILRI, in the Great Rift Valley. The floor of the rift valley is about 1000 metres below the rim, and the edges are about 3000 metres above sea level, resulting in very dramatic views over the rift valley. The rainfall at the top of the escarpment is obviously high, and the rift valley itself appears to be in a rain shadow, with dried grass, even at the start of the short rains. The road that we used to leave the rift valley, up a steep escarpment, was built by Italian prisoners of war, complete with little Italianesque chapel, of course.

On our return, we were told that the red (diplomatic) numberplates that we had been issued with were a mistake: the same number had been issued to someone else, and we had to get ‘new plates’ which in practice actually means changing to the new number. Fortunately, I have been told that I don’t have to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare side of things, but from the practical point of view our car is temporarily off the road until the Tippex dries. There are two grades of red plates, depending on one’s diplomatic status. We are ‘technical’ experts, which means that the red plates give us some immunity from being stopped at the very frequent road blocks and the UN police will ‘deal’ with us when we infringe rules. We can also get duty free goods at the diplomatic store. The people with the top grade of diplomatic immunity have all our privileges, and may also murder their gardener with impunity, but risk being declared ‘personna non grata,’ and their countries are asked to find them a posting elsewhere if they do it on a regular basis.

Pronunciation of the English language is vary variable: Ethiopians often fully pronounce any ‘ed’ on the end of a word: ‘I turn-ned round.’ Kenyans drop any H’s that fair dinkum poms use, and add H’s onto any word that starts with a vowel (especially an ‘o’): ‘I put the homlette hinto the hoven by and.’ The ‘acuna matata’ of ‘Lion King’ fame is actually spelt ‘Hacuna matatu’ (hacuna = no or none in Swahili). It is catching. Sandy nearly dies laughing at me for catching the abit.

Now you know how much I love a garden. Fortunately I smuggled in some chili pepper seeds from Yuandan, and their germination and growth has caused much interest, especially the technique of using half milk cartons to grow them in. People here generally don’t grow things from seed: they buy point of flowering plants from the side of the road. No lobelias, nasturtiums, a few busy lizzies and marigolds. I went looking for some seeds: there seem to be none. Nor any potting mix. Pot plants get watered with a firehose, so the earth tends to leave the pot a bit. So I dispatched Steve, our gardener, to get some well rotted manure, and asked the sweeper armies to heap their leaves near our house so I can compost them down a bit. I bet you could hear the mutterings of ‘Crazy Lady’ from all ground staff. But if you should appen to send me a Christmas card, do please haccidently put some common garden seeds in. Except for sunflowers of course, which one can buy in the bird food section of the supermarket. So seeds are one of the things you can’t get here. Another thing is bayonet cap spotlights. ES (Edison screw) yes, bayonet no. I will have to stock up on them next time I am in Europe or Australia.

I have just asked the housing people to put up hooks for us to hang a mosquito net from. I have been quite thoroughly munched. The bites on my fingers and feet are quite annoying. I am also considering swallowing my pride and having a net hook put up in the lounge room, so that I can sit in a net and watch television without feeling like a feeding station. I realise this is a bit unconventional, but life is too short. The next problem will be buying the net(s). Nakumat (the ‘other’ supermarket) has a large collection, a bit like buying sheets in a large department store: circular or rectangular, circle hanging or rectangular hanging, different colours, single, double, patterns, permanently insecticided or needing to be retreated … And the final problem will be getting used to sleeping under it. We have always had an over-the-bed ceiling fan, which confuses most of mozzies and food-processes the remainder. There are lots of jokes here about people getting tangled up in their nets.

We have had several little expeditions to look at the wildlife here: there is a national park nearby. Giraffe are just sooo-o-o-o tall: we had run out of time, and risked being late for a lunch date, so had to push past a giraffe or three on the road. Now I was always told NEVER to go round the back of a horse, especially if you’re were not well acquainted. Giraffe legs are about six times longer and heavier, and their owners more skittish/brainless than the typical horse. And I get the feeling they are mentally miles away, and thus easily startled by the breath of a passing exhaust pipe. But we steered around and survived. Zebra are usually very round and would be shiny if they didn’t have stripes.

Rhinoceroses (-i ?) are menacing and grouchy.

Baby elephants are cute

but too big if you are between their milk bottles

and them (as I was).

And warthog design must be functional …

And a sad stat or two: the cost (to the economy) of the huge road toll is about equal to the total aid income. And I read in the newspaper every day about lynchings (usually of a thief, by the locals, usually by beating or burning). But for those without jobs there is no welfare system other than your relatives, who may be unemployed themselves. The average employed person supports nine others. Makes me think I should employ an extra housekeeper, and have the brass polished daily, the sheets washed twice a day, and wear clothes with lots of ruffles. I should get a dog too, a big hairy one that needs to be taken for walks, bathed and brushed twice daily. Lucy says she would really like us to have a dog. And maybe I should employ a chauffeur to polish the ancient Corolla and drive me to the supermarket once a week, too.

There is a major fundraising effort by some NGOs based on supplying asset-poor families with goats. One of the focus areas of this project is on the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya, about three hundred kilometres north of us. So off we went, six of us jammed in the departmental Prado, but fortunately I was one of the drivers (with a large team of backseat drivers to shout ‘POTHOLE’ as usual). The tarmacked roads were between poor and really poor, potholes, road works, with the remains of horrendous accidents between heavily overloaded trucks in evidence: there is nothing worse than a poorly maintained tarmac road, the potholes are deep and or wide, and the drop off the side is scary. Dirt roads are a bit dusty and bumpy, but fine providing it hasn’t rained recently. The imported Toggenburg bucks

were being crossbred to local goats,

all looked superficially fine, but stories didn’t quite tally and corruption amongst the local farmer organising committee could be a problem. Plus there is not yet the strong market for the goats’ milk that was supposed to supply an income …

A typical family landholding is about 1 – 2 acres, but some families exist on a quarter of an acre. The aim is to grow all the food (lots of familiar shrubs like grevillea Robusta, broom, bracelet honey myrtle and mulberries (as a special treat) the goats need, and carry it to them (‘cut and carry’), plus grow the food for the family (maize and beans). Many families indeed looked more prosperous, but we suspect that this is also due to the cropping of a bush or small tree variously called kaht/qat/miraa/mirra/etc (a stimulant/ hallucinogen, find out more here), that is exported fresh to the Gulf States, Ethiopia, Yemen etc (the Islamic middle east countries): about 16 jumbo 747 loads a day from Nairobi, and intertribal fighting or civil wars stop to let the planes land / take off at its destination.

As in the rest of Africa, most of the work is actually done by the women.

I get the feeling that NGOs function rather like the finance industry: there seems to be a pattern of fundraising in developed countries by one set of groups, and the funds are then passed on to other agencies (such as the very experienced FARM Africa, who we were with) in developing countries, who team up with NGOs like ILRI that have the expertise. And admin costs are accrued along the way, inevitably. FARM Africa does its best to be accountable (as do most NGOs), hence our expedition. And the concept that genetic aspects of livestock improvement must be couched with geographic, economic, social and political circumstances is always in evidence here, unlike Australia.

Anyway, back to everyday domestic happenings. We have splashed out and bought a large Indian type (= garish) polyester rug to cover our wooden floor, partly to look nice and partly to make the place less echoing. So this week I showed Lucy how to use a vacuum cleaner. That was a cultural experience for both of us. For those of you who haven’t met a vacuum cleaner, they are noisy, have a lead that requires to be plugged into a power point, call for only a little energy from the user but need to have the business (sucking) end vaguely in touch with the carpet. Vacuum cleaner induced mortality rates are low. They also need to have their guts emptied out by the operator, who may be alarmed by the idea of machines needing to go to the loo. I had not anticipated this … But I like to think all is well.

Another domestic achievement was the (finally) setting up of a mosquito net, treated with DEET so that mosquitoes don’t just buzz all night long near my ear, they drop down dead (in theory) on contact with the net. Wooden planks have been nailed to bed to make it look like a four poster (which I suppose it is, just not a classy one), a large rectangular net draped over the top, with the heavy net hem sitting on the floor. Result: a much better night’s sleep for all. Excellent.