This past week I spent “out in the field” as it were, living
with the Field Officer John at his home in Bomokora. Asked to type up some notes for the other staff members, I thought I’d condense my observations into a few key categories
that reflect some of the major learning points I had over the week.
I think it’s fitting to place this first, as in my
experience this past week, family comes first in nearly everything. A bit about
John’s family: He has 4 children with his wife, and has adopted 2 others from
his late brother. His 2 oldest are in university in Nairobi, and his 3rd
and 4th are in boarding schools in the area. His older adopted
daughter in in Form 3 and lives at home while attending a day school, while the
younger one is HIV + (what her father died from), and is in an orphanage in
Nairobi where she gets treatment. As John says about his 9 immediate family
members (6 children, wife and mother) “I trust them completely, when you talk
to them, you are talking to me”. His brothers he describes as all polygamists,
he being the only monogamist in his family. His father recently passed away at
the ripe age of 102, and his mother lives on next door, fairly spry for her 85
years. I mention all of this from memory because it was so often a topic of
conversation, highlighting its paramount place in John’s life.
Indeed not only
did I get to know the immediate family he lived with, but also talked on the
phone several times with the older children and we are now friends on Facebook,
having still not met in person. It also seemed that everywhere we went, there
were relatives, from the many people we met along the road (“my cousin, my
niece, my sister-in-law”), to the m-pesa agent, the matatu driver, and the
parsley salesman, all members of the extended brethren of John.
Certainly the tradition of having many wives and many
children contributes to this network, but even more it seemed that a family was
more than just the linking of bloodlines, but the linking of lives, where each
member had a different role to play, all coming together to support each other
and play their part in the progression of life’s events.
Economy
The individual economic decisions, based on certain
knowledge and logic, was another arena in which I became indoctrinated. It
seemed John was aware of the opportunity and price potential of everything, and
as we walked through his shamba and past others, he expressed this knowledge to
me. For example, he grows sugarcane, which he fetches 10 ksh a stalk in Kisii,
but will bring you 35 in Nairobi, so he piles it on a truck and sends it on to
be sold there. His papayas are fairly unique, and so they fetch a fair price in
market and also a great demand for seedlings, as many people recognize their
desirability for restaurants and hotels making juice, but find them difficult
to cultivate. He knows fruit and basic veggies are of little profit in the
market, so he grows plenty for home consumption, as well as having secured a contract
with the local hospital to supply their produce at favorable rates.
MLND
Another constant in our walks through the shambas and along
the paths in Bomokora was the constant outlook for sign of MLND. Many the farm
was identified as having caught the disease, and as it appeared so often, it
was also frequently a topic of conversation, both between John and I and also
with the groups of farmers that we were meeting with.
A few examples are illustrative. As we left early Friday
morning to attend the meeting in town, we ran into a facilitator, making the
rounds with a folder and sheets to note cases of MLND. His dedication to being up
and about at this hour on volunteer work was admirable, and the number of cases
he’d documented were sobering, filling about 3 sheets with farmers who’d been
afflicted. This, as well as the number of somewhat yellowed or marginally
stunted maize plants that were said to be afflicted led me to wonder if the
scare might be leading to some over-reporting of the disease. As I told John
“when there’s a flu outbreak, every cough is a symptom and no one just has a
cold”. Certainly many farmers do have the disease and many more are very
worried about it though, as was shown in one meeting, far atop a hill, where
several women departed the meeting early, only to return with clippings from
their withering maize, wondering what they could do. I explained about the
prevention, the trials, the alternative, and that Farmer’s United was working
on the issue, but at the same time I felt helpless, for by being there people
put hope in me as someone with the answers, and at least at that point, I had
none.
The Many Hats of an FO
In walking around for long hours with John during the week
and attending a variety of meetings with his groups, I came to understand that
the Field Officer often wears many hats. Some of these may be above and beyond
the callings of Farmer’s United, but they also work in mutually reinforcing
ways.
An example is the group that we visited one rainy afternoon,
a large, well-organized group that had originally been formed as an education
support group before also taking on Farmer’s United responsibilities. In this
group the Chairman, who also served as Facilitator for OAF, had been remiss in
her duties, with members afraid to give her their money and with attendance by
her and her board members scarce at the regular meetings. During the course of
the afternoon, John effected a change in the groups leadership, whereby,
through spirited debate, a new Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer were elected,
promising to faithfully fulfill the duties previously neglected. Furthermore,
John helped advise them on some procedural changes, such as fining group
members who failed to attend, and other mechanisms to ensure quorum and
smoother operations, which were requested by several concerned members.
In another example, the next day, early in the morning, we
found ourselves with a facilitator in the home of a delinquent farmer, where a
very heated argument was pursued for the better part of an hour. Finally the
grimaces turned to smiles and after exchanging some pleasantries and departing,
I learned that the farmer’s wife, fearful of her husband, had run away, taking
the money owed with her. She returned several weeks later, minus the funds, and
the furious farmer wished to beat her because of this. John managed to convince
him that beating his wife would not solve the money issue, nor provide for a
happy family on in the future, and so he enjoined him to take some of his
maize, which his wife doled out, to sell, and thus clear his account in
preparation for next season. This and a promise of more peaceful marital
relations accomplished, we headed on to our next destination, as I formulated
the following maxim in my mind: “in order to solve the problem of credit, you
must first solve the family”.
These are but two examples, but I feel they highlight the
various roles a successful FO must at times play, striving for good community
relations and strong families as a necessary prerequisite to reliable farmers
and OAF clients.
Me and Eating; Others and Eating
A good chunk of my experience living with John’s family was
purely culinary. Certainly, when there aren’t many other diversions other than
working and talking with your neighbors, and when most of your work revolves
around the planting, growing, and selling of food, then the meals of the day
take on a fairly great significance. One very salient menu item was Tea. Tea
was the only way that the day got started, usually a very hot thermos of sweet
tea with fresh milk was shared around and I was encouraged to have 3 or 4 cups,
which I struggled to reduce to 2 or 3. The end of the day, either right before
dinner to cut the evening chill, or right after to draw out the hours of family
time under the dim solar light, we had cups of “strong” as John called it, which
was tea with lots of sugar but no milk, as far as I was able to discern.
Other important items included Ugale, which the family was
more than a little astonished to know I’d only had once before in my life (the
afternoon before I arrived). Paired with this were an assortment of greens
(pumpkin leaves, bean leaves, spinach, skuma wiki), which I pretty much enjoyed
greatly, especially when compared to the crunchy little fish bodies that were
the alternative for my first dinner. Breakfast or lunch often involved the
cooked bananas, which, devoid of flavor and of a mealy texture, did not rank
high in my index of bananas (or meals in general), inclining me to agree with
John’s proposition that he had “never heard of a man who could sleep well after
eating bananas for dinner”. The culinary highlight for me was far and wide the
chicken and chapatti, which I devored once for dinner and then again for Sunday
lunch before I departed. This meal, which could not be too common, since it
involved slaughtering one of the household fowl, included a zesty broth with
parsley and other spices that was a wonderful dip for the crispy chapatti
chunks, with any remaining to be slurped from the bowl.
Eating and conversing about the items being eaten is a time
honored and most likely universal tradition, and it served to greatly bring
home a few points for me about the importance of ugale to Kenyan cuisine (it’s
really pretty necessary in every meal, and so versatile it allows any manner of
greens, meat, or fish to be stretched and made into a filling meal). Also my
prior conceptions about ugale, sweet potatos, bananas, and many other vegetable
that share a name with American staples, but differ significantly here, were
challenged, and their proper place in the weekly diet was then understood.
Family (Part II)
“I can’t stand loneliness, If I were to move to America, and
be alone like the people there, I would just run away” John’s dislike of
isolation was manifest in his surrounding himself with the good will of his
neighbors and community, where he is greatly respected and even relied upon as
a peacemaker and trusted friend. Even more important is his relationship with
his family who is a constant source of pride and companionship for him. After
getting to know him, his wife, sons, daughters, cousins, nephews and nieces
over the past week, I was honored with the sense that I was a member of this
family. This was reinforced by his exhortation to return each weekend, to spend
it in Bomokora, where I would never be lonely. And I believe him.
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