Update on Care for Creation Kenya

URGENT PRAYER ALERT

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This is an urgent “Call to Prayer” going out to friends of Care of Creation around the world.

The Devastating Drought in East Africa.

Care of Creation Kenya has put a lot of work into developing an innovative program called “Farming God’s Way” and we have seen great success in increasing crop yield for ordinary farmers. Unfortunately, the best farming techniques cannot compensate when the rains fail – and once more, things are at a critical stage in Kenya and the surrounding countries.

This word from Francis at the CCK office in Limuru, Kenya came in just a few days ago: “Keep praying for Kenya - the drought situation is getting out of hand. Relief food is now being distributed almost in every part of the country including Ndeiya where my scheduled meeting with the local government administrator, the chief, could not take place as hundreds of men, women and children queued for food all day long on Monday…”

Francis’ front-line report is confirmed by a scan of headlines just from the last couple of days.
The World Food Programme is appealing for massive aid to compensate for what looks like a 50% shortfall in the maize harvest alone: "Red lights are flashing across the country," Burkard Oberle, WFP's Kenya country director said in a statement. "People are already going hungry, malnutrition is preying on more and more young children, cattle are dying -- we face a huge challenge and are urging the international community to provide us with the resources we need to get the job done." Many parts of the country have now suffered three or even four consecutive failed rainy seasons, WFP says, and conditions are expected to deteriorate further over the coming months. (Reuters)

These are our people – your brothers and sisters. Pray!

Ed Brown, for Care of Creation

Three weeks left

Just settling down to start 3rd module for Certificate in Christian Rural and Environmental Studies, focussing on the Physical Environment. Eldest son has just finalized his own undergraduate course options, which include Environmental Sciences - shame he is going to take three years to complete, when I want this module done in three weeks - finishing before he even starts. No doubt he will learn loads more.

This is going to be a highly relevant conclusion to my study leave, particularly as the environmental world is gearing up to the UN conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen at the end of this year.

The module will help me think about three specific areas - Pollution of Atmosphere, Shortage of Fresh Water and Soil Erosion, ( this image is of the distant banks of the Sabaki river in Kenya having collapsed because of soil erosion). The opportunity to find space for study at the cottage of some friends in the Peak District is real blessing.

But before then, a return to old haunts for a one-off concert in Cheltenham given by the British Light Music Society. Strange to think that when I was at the stage eldest son now is at, I had just completed 3 very happy and formative seasons with the Gloucestershire Youth Orchestra, where it could be said I was involved in climate change problems with both major and minor consequences: - polluting the atmosphere by blowing an inordinate amount of hot air, recycling water through condensation down a very long brass pipe, and erosion of the surface by tapping my foot to desparately keep time. Things haven't changed much - such is the lot of a French Horn Player!

What a difference a day makes!

The Brackenhurst Centre was hit by power cuts yesterday -
or to be more correct - planned rationing of electricity,
owing to the lack of rainfall in Kenya not providing enough water for the Tana river hydro electric dams. The Daily Nation newspaper I collected on my way into the Emirates plane to Dubai last night was full of the story. So, the day I had planned to begin to get back into study mode didn't transpire.



Instead, I wandered around the grounds taking shots of some lovely birds with the Digital SLR camera I was lent - and which I am going to be mighty reluctant to return, such is the quality of pictures and the ease by which they are taken!
For any with sufficient stamina, there will be enough pictures of my (and our) Kenyan odyssey to make the Lord of the Rings trilogy seem like a 40 second advertising commercial!



My taxi driver(s!!) from Limuru were apprehensive about the traffic chaos in Nairobi, a daily hazard, but made much worse by the visit of Hillary Rodham Clinton for a trade summit, and collected me with a lot of time to spare. I was at the airport at 6 p.m. Kenyan time ( 4 p.m. BST) and my (yet again, exellent Emirates) flight didnt leave until 2330 Kenyan time. It is really odd tucking into an exquisite "light snack" of lamb curry with pilau rice, fresh veg, fresh salad, banana and chocolate dessert, excellent French red wine, whisky, coffee and cheese and biscuits when the bodyclock reads sleep-time! But I was very restrained - keeping the bread roll, butter, cheese and water for my breakfast this morning!

The descent into Dubai after 5 hours flight just showed what a difference a day makes, and what contrasts there are, even for the casual observer, in the small global environment we occupy: there was mile after mile of high luminence street and office lighting shining out in the pre-dawn darkness- the Kenyans would have loved a share of some of that yesterday, and tomorrow, and the day after...

Flying long-haul is a novel experience for me, and the on-board screen notification of boarding gates for transfer passengers alerted me to a departure to Manchester at 0755. That had not been an option when I originally booked my ticket back in January, and for the first half hour or so of my 9 hour stretch in this huge temple to the global philosophies of trade, travel and consumerism, I tried to see if I could jump on board the earlier flight - but that would have only come at the aditional cost of £50, and with no guarantee that my luggage would have accompanied me. So, instead, I am counting the minutes until EK 019 is called for departure at 1435 ( 1135 UK time). I am fortunate, I have momentarily found a quiet holding area, with a power connection to re-charge the well-travelled and full-to-the-brim laptop and "de-kenyan simmed" mobile phone. It has already been such a long day, and whilst I caught up with a couple of hours sleep on the plane, and one more here this morning, I am probably going to be a bit grumpy by the time I return home this evening after 33hrs travel door-door!

Further blog updates may follow if I can find anything interesting to write about from the caravan in the garden, which is to be my study base for the next three weeks.

My day in a matatu!

I met Francis Githaigah, Program Manager for Care of Creation, Kenya on a damp and cold morning in the centre of what was known as the White Highlands. American Southern Baptists purchased Brackenhurst from is former colonial owners, and now run it as a recreation centre for missionaries in the field and as a conference centre. Whilst I was there a large group named UN Food Unit were there – the United Nations headquarters in East Africa are just down the road from here. They also lease out office space to Care of Creation which seeks to teach Biblical principles for farming and land management.

Francis showed me the on-site tree nursery, and told how the number of different species of bird observed in the extensive grounds of this centre had increased dramatically following the removal of the dominant blue gum eucalyptus trees and replacing them with indigenous species.
He then said we were going off in a taxi for the rest of the day, the cost of which made me go pale, as I had not budgeted for that expense. However, a warm shower, a good meal and judicious use of the emergency credit card funding source later, I can now reflect back and consider the 6 hours and 160+km spent without refreshment in a beat-up matatu as probably the most ideal way to finish my African experience.

Francis, and Craig Sorley, the CoC Director, whose article in the Observer Newspaper earlier in the year had prompted me to change my itinerary in order to include Limuru, have been teaching local farmers to adopt a biblically-based approach to conservation agriculture. There is a demonstration plot at Brackenhurst to which local farmers come for training, and Francis also goes out into the local communities to help them take the brave step of changing their farming practices. We travelled down from the mist and clouds into some nearby farming areas where the principles of Farming God’s Way were beginning to be trialled. It was quite apparent that the use of mulch rather than traditional tillage methods did help retain precious moisture and produce greener plants, but as the day continued it also became apparent that the lack of consistent and sufficient rain during the months of planting and growth had caused devastation even to those farms where “Farming God’s Way” had been adopted. Some of the farmers I spoke to had repeatedly sown maize seed up to 5 times this year, and each time the anticipated rain had not materialized.

Another part of the work of CoC is to encourage people to harvest and utilize rainwater for land restoration, and we visited one farmer – quite large scale compared to some of the others we visited – where he had dug a couple of pits and channels to trap and divert the water from any flash floods that should occur from the red earth tracks. This farmer showed us his harvested beans drying out, his onions, cabbages and tomatoes, and presented me with two avocado of different variety.

A third strand of work done by CoC has been to encourage tree planting, and we visited a couple of schools where this and the other practices mentioned above have been put in place. The children I chatted to certainly knew the value of the trees they were planting – “trees bring rain” being the most basic.
Then at about 2 p.m. we headed down into the Rift Valley along the road we had travelled as a family three weeks earlier. Michael who was driving our matatu hardly looked old enough or tough enough to be running the gauntlet of heavy goods vehicles, smoke belching local trucks and police road blocks – we were waved down at one - but we got down the hill and back up gain in one bone-shaken piece.

We were visiting a farmer a few miles along the road to Narok – the very name should generate bag loads of sympathy for me from the rest of the family! On the way we picked up a lady called Catherine working for the Anglican Church in Kenya Community Support Scheme. She was an environmental scientist and came from the area very near the radio satellite dish station we had passed en route to the Mara game reserve. Catherine had been key in introducing Francis to some of the communities down in the Rift Valley, and together they were working to encourage both the nomadic Masai pastoralists (herdsmen) and the sedentary crop rearing farmers to look after their rapidly deteriorating environment.

The lovely farming couple we visited host the training sessions for other local farmers that Francis and Catherine run. It was so sad to see that they were seeking to put the three principles advocated by CoC in Farming God’s Way into practice, only to be thwarted by an almost complete lack of rain. Even so they were insistent on presenting us and our driver with a stick of sugar cane each. Their little farmstead was an oasis in a dry and barren land, and their simple conviction that this was the best way to farm was humbling. The farmer wanted to plant about 80 indigenous drought resistant trees on and around his plot, but is

really in a catch-2 situation, The cost of 40 KES per seedling is prohibitive to him, but even if funding were found, they need more rainfall than the area has seen this year, and for the past few years, in order to stand any chance of growing to a mature state from which they would help conserve

moisture and even “bring rain”. He had all the infrastructure in the form of channels and pits in place, ready to capture any water that might fall from the skies, but there had been next to none.

All in all an exhausting day, physically and emotionally, leaving me with so much to take on board and attempt to process. Francis was such a real delight to be with, and so genuinely pleased that I had taken the trouble to visit in response to that newspaper article, but what on earth am I going to do with all these impressions and insights, all these hopes and expectations, all these implicit appeals for practical support and prayer?

I am sure that if more Kenyan farmers could learn how “Farming

God’s Way”, significant improvements to the standard of life they endure would follow. But whilst they may be able to address local environmental issues, the wider impact of global climate change continues.

And on that thought, I must get down to some work on the studymodule, maybe starting even tomorrow as I spend most of the day in this Kenyan version of a Country Cottage, (complete with circular wrought iron staircase!) before hitting the road back to Nairobi in the filthy Corolla that brought me here to catch my 11.30 p.m. departure for Manchester via Dubai, and arrival at home some 24 hours later.

What a way to end the stay here

Just about an hour before sunset, it was low tide, and suddenly there was a hive of activity around Mwamba. A nest of turtles was hatching just 500m up the beach so a crowd of folk in various forms of beach attire headed for the spot and we were part of that too. About 100+ turtle hatchlings were seen breaking out of their nest and heading into the sea. Wow!

Final week by the seaside

Back to Arocha Mwamba - an exhausting place for someone as introverted and regimented as me. There are always folk coming and going, interrupted conversations, inefficient systems. But there are also tremendous blessings to be gained found from each of the people I have met.
• Alber took another guest James and I on a half-day ( yet another desperately early morning start) walk in the endangered Aruboko Sukoke Forest, and found the rare Scops Owl.
• James from Bangladesh had studied the CRES module I was to work on and gave me some information of potential relevance
• Fred was with an organisation facilitating change for indigenous people – not necessarily by throwing money after every worthy project.
. Jim and Mary Beth have been working with an organization called Kupenda, supporting children with physical disabilities, and their parents.

• And even today, whilst ostensibly looking after the place as the centre managers Henry and Belinda had started their holiday, a chance to meet Jess a white Kenyan, and her brother and friend. She has qualified as a doctor and is about to start training as a surgeon at John Ratcliffe Hospital Oxford.
As well as all this, there was the wireless network I tried to set up, and some occasional spiritual input for staff meetings, and then centre booking management.

The final week of my stay at Arocha has been a bit of a mix, I have been stuck with the computers and having diminishing successes. It also felt important to keep tight control on my spare cash just to see me through to the end of my odyssey , so that meant no option for going out and about other than on foot – or on the bike which I tried once – no brakes and manual gear changes – in other words, coast to a stop, get off and re-fix the chain on a different set of sprockets!

With Henry and Belinda away, I have tried to manage the emails and bookings for the centre, but inevitably changes and additional unexpected commitments occur. For this place to run better, there needs to be a bit clearer delegation of responsibilities. They have plans to upgrade the rooms and the catering which really is not very appealing, but the whole organisation is desperately short of cash. I have really struggled with the basic facilities here after being spoilt terribly over the past two weeks.

A family arrived early Sunday morning having travelled overnight from Kampala, Uganda. Tim and Rachel with Mark and Lisa (9&4 resp). I wouldn’t have brought a young family here – not least because the options to get out and explore are so restricted, but the weather has calmed down a bit and warmed up, so they’ve spent lots of time on the beach. As I got more and more stressed with the computers, it must have shown, and by Saturday morning when I was really not very happy at all, Rachel had a very helpful chat with me about not needing to achieve to be accepted. Our ( my) task-orientated nature does not fit in with African ways. The trouble is that I had wanted to leave something well set up as a legacy of my stay, and struggle with interruptions and conversations.

I suppose my timing here was of some help, as I was able to at least get some basic networking set up following the major milestone of the arrival of the ADSL link via an underground cable laid in a trench down the half mile or so drive to the road. This was installed by two guys working for Orange Telkom in just two days, and by Thursday the internet was available – albeit at a slow rate, but the outside world was no longer a dial-up connection away.

I did have a couple of episodes away from the dreaded Blue Screen of Death, that managed to creep into two of the five computers I was supposed to be working on. One moment of reckless abandon – seizing the moment – when Milja - who took the picture I have used as the portrait for this blogand which she labeled "Father Christmas on holiday in Africa" and I went for a quick swim in the Indian Ocean at 9 p.m. – very dark apart from moon and stars, which I couldn’t see without glasses. Hearing later of the sea creatures and their propensity for biting and stinging made me realize how risky that had been! But the water was warmer than the air, and I had always wanted to swim in the sea at night – not possible in the UK! We had just viewed the results of her fascinating project – getting Kenyan school children to stand in formation in various countryside settings, and imitate bird songs. Apparently this was going to be displayed together with images of Finnish children doing the same in their landscapes. The “Finnished” (apols for the pun) work will be featured on her website www.miljaviita.com or miljaviita.blogspot.com .

A second brief interlude came Saturday afternoon when Leslie, who has been studying monkey behaviour in the Gedi ruins, and I visited a house being constructed in the trees just down the beach from here, using coloured class and coral stone. Apart form the quirky but really appealing architecture, there were some amazing views over the area. It always works: a bit of height gives a bit more perspective. This was then followed by watching SA v NZ tri-nations rugby union in Ocean Sports now much fuller with holiday makers as season hots up. I didn’t have to take the computer to do blog stuff – yippee – and the connection at Arocha is more reliable than it was at OS, as I discovered later on with a lovely long skype video conversation with the family at home. What a shame it wasn’t possible earlier during my stay, as I could have shared the scenery with lots more friends.

So tomorrow sees me leaving here for a brief visit at a place called Brackenhurst, north of Nairobi, where a scheme called “Farming God’s Way” is run. More on that soon – probably after my return to my sabbatical office in the garden at home in UK.