I have been very grateful that the wasps have not come back to my house. It has made life much more pleasant. Now, my house is still lacking a few of the necessities (table, shelves, tidiness) but it still feels home-y (home-ish? home-like?). My bed was the biggest problem, but nothing a little duct tape can't fix. Okay, a lot of duct tape. Let's just hope it holds. And that the chiropractor doesn't take me to the cleaners when I get back.
In more disappointing news, the price of soda at the shop near my house is up to 35 shillings (about 44 cents) for a half-liter. Sigh, maybe it's a sign that I should cut back a little bit.
I have been eating three meals a day this week. Well, breakfast and dinner are both cereal (not that uncommon in my childhood as well), but at least I'm forcing myself to eat. The supermarket in Voi has started stocking South African cereals (750 g for 490 shillings is still better than most boxes at the grocery store near my dorm last year). This week's cuisine has featured muesli and a few other things and I have been adding honey and peanut butter. Yum! The third meal is lunch provided by the school. I wish the other teachers didn't enjoy matumbo (intestines, usually from goat) so much. I don't like picking it out of my greens. ::Cringe::
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
2nd Term
2nd Term
We had exams to open the school term this time. As usual, things were unnecessarily complicated. Still, everything seemed to come together by the end. It didn't help that I was on duty also, but the students were very cooperative, and the staff was pretty docile, so this was a mostly beating-free week.
We are getting a new teacher for Swahili, and there is another man who is doing his teacher training in English. In other words, my workload is unchanged. On the plus side, a certain colleague of mine is going to have a lighter workload. Maybe he'll only come to school twice a week or so. Our headmaster is working on getting more teachers and support staff, so I am keeping my fingers crossed there.
I am also trying to figure out trips to several different parts of Kenya during this term. I'm not sure I have earned it, but I have earned the role of tree-guy in our Peace Corps group. That may result in my being consulted on a proejct to plant 28,000 trees. That would be awesome. I have also been asked to visit another teacher to work on some corn harvesting technologies and a business volunteer for some charcoal work (which may result in a side trip for advising another volunteer on cook-stoves and a few other ideas). I also want to go back to Kibera and check out a library that is being opened. And Jackie might have me doing some follow-up work on plastics recycling in Nairobi. The funny thing is, I'm really not sure that I know all that much about most of these things, but I'm going to give them my best.
I started a compost project at school today. That seemed to go pretty well, but I'll report back on the results. Also, during the session, I mostly spoke sans accent. This is me hoping that my students will slowly start to understand me when I talk like an American. I may also be doing a charcoal project here soon. I am also looking into adding some neem and jatropha to my new moringa plants (and maybe a few other trees too. Fun fact: we were told during training about the issues of propagating Prosopis trees in Kenya. Maybe we would have listened more if they had added prosopis is also called mesquite). I should be setting out the drip irrigation kit soon. Does anyone know anything about raising napier grass? I need to learn about that ASAP.
Finally, probably my most important (and quite possibly most challenging) goal for this semester should be the weight gain. I think I have dropped more than 40 lbs since coming to Kenya (yikes!) and my weight is currently lower than it has been since I was in 6th grade or thereabouts. As I said, I'm going to work on it.
Go Cubbies! Hot streak!!!
We had exams to open the school term this time. As usual, things were unnecessarily complicated. Still, everything seemed to come together by the end. It didn't help that I was on duty also, but the students were very cooperative, and the staff was pretty docile, so this was a mostly beating-free week.
We are getting a new teacher for Swahili, and there is another man who is doing his teacher training in English. In other words, my workload is unchanged. On the plus side, a certain colleague of mine is going to have a lighter workload. Maybe he'll only come to school twice a week or so. Our headmaster is working on getting more teachers and support staff, so I am keeping my fingers crossed there.
I am also trying to figure out trips to several different parts of Kenya during this term. I'm not sure I have earned it, but I have earned the role of tree-guy in our Peace Corps group. That may result in my being consulted on a proejct to plant 28,000 trees. That would be awesome. I have also been asked to visit another teacher to work on some corn harvesting technologies and a business volunteer for some charcoal work (which may result in a side trip for advising another volunteer on cook-stoves and a few other ideas). I also want to go back to Kibera and check out a library that is being opened. And Jackie might have me doing some follow-up work on plastics recycling in Nairobi. The funny thing is, I'm really not sure that I know all that much about most of these things, but I'm going to give them my best.
I started a compost project at school today. That seemed to go pretty well, but I'll report back on the results. Also, during the session, I mostly spoke sans accent. This is me hoping that my students will slowly start to understand me when I talk like an American. I may also be doing a charcoal project here soon. I am also looking into adding some neem and jatropha to my new moringa plants (and maybe a few other trees too. Fun fact: we were told during training about the issues of propagating Prosopis trees in Kenya. Maybe we would have listened more if they had added prosopis is also called mesquite). I should be setting out the drip irrigation kit soon. Does anyone know anything about raising napier grass? I need to learn about that ASAP.
Finally, probably my most important (and quite possibly most challenging) goal for this semester should be the weight gain. I think I have dropped more than 40 lbs since coming to Kenya (yikes!) and my weight is currently lower than it has been since I was in 6th grade or thereabouts. As I said, I'm going to work on it.
Go Cubbies! Hot streak!!!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Faux Pas
Second term has just started at my secondary school. That means another 3 months of 30 lessons per week in math, agriculture, chemistry and physics. Still, Kenya is beautiful and on clear mornings, I get to see Kilimanjaro from the school compound (it's really gorgeous, I just wish I had a way to post pictures online).
Many parents came to school on the first day of school. At one point, a woman comes up to me and starts speaking to me here is our conversation, translated from swahili.
-Good morning.
-Good morning.
-I am a parent here. Do you know mswahili?
-I know so so. Only a little bit.
-Is mswahili good?
-So so. Not good. Not bad.
-Not good? Why?
At this point, it finally dawned on me. The language is kiswahili. Mswahili is actually a name. Like the name of one of my students. And she thinks that i am standing there insisting her son is so so. Oops.
Well, i think i saved face by explaining that he is a hard worker but easily distracted. I guess I need to keep practicing the language in my spare time (what spare time?). Still, that was not my finest hour.
Many parents came to school on the first day of school. At one point, a woman comes up to me and starts speaking to me here is our conversation, translated from swahili.
-Good morning.
-Good morning.
-I am a parent here. Do you know mswahili?
-I know so so. Only a little bit.
-Is mswahili good?
-So so. Not good. Not bad.
-Not good? Why?
At this point, it finally dawned on me. The language is kiswahili. Mswahili is actually a name. Like the name of one of my students. And she thinks that i am standing there insisting her son is so so. Oops.
Well, i think i saved face by explaining that he is a hard worker but easily distracted. I guess I need to keep practicing the language in my spare time (what spare time?). Still, that was not my finest hour.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Back to Site
Nanyuki to Maktau takes more than 12 hours, and since we are only supposed to travel during daylight, Peace Corps put me (and other volunteers in a similar predicament) up in Nairobi. We went out for some tourist food (one last tuna melt and milkshake, even though my stomach still wasn't 100%) and ran various errands around Nairobi. I finally got my iPod shuffle as well as a high school chemistry book from America, which should help me come up with questions for future homework/exams (I should have asked for an agriculture book too...). Special thanks to the OPRFHS science department and my mother and Linda for getting those things to me. Anyway, in the evening, we had a last hurrah (sushi and hummus again) and some good late night conversations (I earned a bit of blackmail material too, which is probably good considering what people probably have against me) before the bus-ride home.
Nick and I took the bus together, and we were both way overloaded with stuff. (I had taken 15 books from the Peace Corps library this time. Yum! Though that did limit my capacity to purchase some other things that might be considered necessities.) The bus was moving pretty slowly so we had to crash in Voi for the night. It was nice to meet up with the people we know there. Nick and I were roommates almost every night over the past three weeks, so it was definitely sad to say goodbye to him. Then it was back to site.
I decided that people in Mwakitau had gotten to know me after three months, so I was going to wear shorts on my return trip. Good thing too, this was one of the most crowded vehicles I have been on. I was the first one on, so I had an hour and a half reading before the vehicle filled up. By the time we got back to Mwakitau, I was so fried, I just went back to my room and laid down. After another hour, I was able to greet everyone and catch up.
Nick and I took the bus together, and we were both way overloaded with stuff. (I had taken 15 books from the Peace Corps library this time. Yum! Though that did limit my capacity to purchase some other things that might be considered necessities.) The bus was moving pretty slowly so we had to crash in Voi for the night. It was nice to meet up with the people we know there. Nick and I were roommates almost every night over the past three weeks, so it was definitely sad to say goodbye to him. Then it was back to site.
I decided that people in Mwakitau had gotten to know me after three months, so I was going to wear shorts on my return trip. Good thing too, this was one of the most crowded vehicles I have been on. I was the first one on, so I had an hour and a half reading before the vehicle filled up. By the time we got back to Mwakitau, I was so fried, I just went back to my room and laid down. After another hour, I was able to greet everyone and catch up.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Welcome back
As you can probably tell, I am playing catch-up on blog posts. Big time. Anyway, I've tried not to miss anything too important of late.
Thank you for coming back for another term of my wacky adventures (see Faux Pas). As a reward for your loyalty, I am posting some (much overdue) pictures soon (still having computer issues with that, but I'm really really trying), dating all the way back to November. Unfortunately, I won't be able to actually describe what you are seeing until the next time that I post (might be as much as two weeks).
Maktau didn't see much rain while I was gone, but there was just enough for my moringa to sprout (yay!!!). Also, the school managed to get a water tank, so we will be working on gutters next. The workers made some good progress on the lab, so hopefully I'll be in there soon. The school computer is loaded with viruses and refuses to run my antivirus software, so I'll need to figure out something there (it's really nice that some of the other volunteers are in ICT).
I am also very excited to read the Economist and follow the Cubs on my cell phone. I miss speaking Spanish, but other than that, it is wonderful to be back at site.
Thank you for coming back for another term of my wacky adventures (see Faux Pas). As a reward for your loyalty, I am posting some (much overdue) pictures soon (still having computer issues with that, but I'm really really trying), dating all the way back to November. Unfortunately, I won't be able to actually describe what you are seeing until the next time that I post (might be as much as two weeks).
Maktau didn't see much rain while I was gone, but there was just enough for my moringa to sprout (yay!!!). Also, the school managed to get a water tank, so we will be working on gutters next. The workers made some good progress on the lab, so hopefully I'll be in there soon. The school computer is loaded with viruses and refuses to run my antivirus software, so I'll need to figure out something there (it's really nice that some of the other volunteers are in ICT).
I am also very excited to read the Economist and follow the Cubs on my cell phone. I miss speaking Spanish, but other than that, it is wonderful to be back at site.
Permaculture Training Part 2
Well, Nanyuki wasn't all work. Our sessions were just daytime, so the 12 volunteers there got to spend a lot of time together. Also, it is possible that one of the cooking projects led by the lady from the Ministry of Agriculture included some not fully cooked vegetables because a lot of the volunteers had some extra creatures living in their intestines for most of the week. At least we were all going through it together. I think I had it the worst because for most of the week, I could only eat bread and drink juice.
We threw the frisbee around a lot at our hotel. The terrain was pretty nice. There was a slight hill to prevent us from throwing wildly in one direction. The clotheslines made for some interesting deflections (they were just stiff wire, and the frisbee would do some pretty crazy stuff if you hit it right). Someone (okay, it was me) managed to get the frisbee stuck on the roof. I had to climb a somewhat questionable tree and swat awkwardly with a plank to knock it down. I think my favorite part was when Allen (one of the deaf volunteers) through a bullet of a frisbee that nearly decapitated Jeff (one of the business volunteers) as he was (foolishly) walking through our game of catch. The throw only slightly grazed Jeff's ear, but that could have led to some problems. I was also asked by one of the volunteers about the coriolis effect, so I had to stop playing for a few minutes to derive some physics on my arm (what can you do if you don't have paper with you?).
The equator happens to pass through Nanyuki, so we got to hang out on the equator for a bit (there are even pictures on facebook). We also got harassed a lot by the curio sellers who target all the tourists who take pictures at the equator.
We apparently brought rain with us, because the area hadn't seen rain for a few months, but our third day there, the skies opened and it was glorious. There was so much mud after that, I'm not sure my jeans will ever be blue again.
I spent a lot of time in Nanyuki (as well as at the other training) talking to the other volunteer named Daniel (he's Daniel Mex and I'm Daniel Math to education volunteers; he's D^2 and I'm M^2 to business volunteers). We thoroughly enjoy having quadrilingual conversations (Spanish, English, Swahili, French in order of decreasing frequency). We had conversations ranging from philosophical to completely off the wall. It was good times.
The hotel had a bar where everyone would hang out. We played a bit of darts and pool while we were there. We also had a couple of late-night games of poker. As usual, I enjoyed the conversations far more than the cards. Still, I had some pretty sweet lucky streaks and took 2nd in our first game. We kept trying to get Peace Corps staff to join in the games, but they always declined. After the games, we would watch whatever UEFA match was showing in the bar that night. Good times.
I got to see 4 movies while we were there (I haven't seen movies for a while) so I want to give each of them a paragraph.
Home Alone 3. Yes, they made a 3rd. It's pretty much the exact same thing as the first two. Except without Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci or Daniel Stern. Still, it was fun to watch. Also, there was a bratty older sister and it kept bugging me. I knew that I had seen her in some movie or TV show or something. Finally, the credits rolled. The movie included a 12 year old Scarlet Johannsen (sp?). Weird. It was pretty fun to watch those burglars getting burned, electrocuted, battered, and all manner of other abuse.
The Constant Gardener. I had seen it before, but it was all the more interesting to see now that I am staying in Kenya (where the movie is set) and after visiting Kibera (where much of the action occurs). The movie presents aid in a pretty cynical (though justified) light. The story is not the most cheerful, but the performances are great.
Slumdog Millionaire. Pretty fun movie. I was surprised they didn't have their Bollywood dance until the end credits. The story is pretty Bollywood formulaic, but a good way to introduce Americans to Bollywood. I also enjoyed the way they portrayed the slums in that movie and the depiction of the gritty underworld didn't seem overdone. I was proud that I could answer more than half of the questions on the game show.
Milk. Wow. Just wow. The movie was really well done. Especially the casting. It was a very powerful look at the rise of the gay political movement in San Francisco in the 70s. Words cannot describe how well Sean Penn performed. I have a criticism and I will try not to ruin anything, but I will do this anyway. **SPOILER ALERT** I was a little let down by the fact that Dan Brown (played rather well by Josh Brolin) was never actually shown eating candy or twinkies or anything. Maybe the filmmakers were trying to make a point about the aftermath, but I was confused. **FINISHED**
All in all, training was lots of fun. Now that we've finished, it's time to get back to school and shift back into drive.
We threw the frisbee around a lot at our hotel. The terrain was pretty nice. There was a slight hill to prevent us from throwing wildly in one direction. The clotheslines made for some interesting deflections (they were just stiff wire, and the frisbee would do some pretty crazy stuff if you hit it right). Someone (okay, it was me) managed to get the frisbee stuck on the roof. I had to climb a somewhat questionable tree and swat awkwardly with a plank to knock it down. I think my favorite part was when Allen (one of the deaf volunteers) through a bullet of a frisbee that nearly decapitated Jeff (one of the business volunteers) as he was (foolishly) walking through our game of catch. The throw only slightly grazed Jeff's ear, but that could have led to some problems. I was also asked by one of the volunteers about the coriolis effect, so I had to stop playing for a few minutes to derive some physics on my arm (what can you do if you don't have paper with you?).
The equator happens to pass through Nanyuki, so we got to hang out on the equator for a bit (there are even pictures on facebook). We also got harassed a lot by the curio sellers who target all the tourists who take pictures at the equator.
We apparently brought rain with us, because the area hadn't seen rain for a few months, but our third day there, the skies opened and it was glorious. There was so much mud after that, I'm not sure my jeans will ever be blue again.
I spent a lot of time in Nanyuki (as well as at the other training) talking to the other volunteer named Daniel (he's Daniel Mex and I'm Daniel Math to education volunteers; he's D^2 and I'm M^2 to business volunteers). We thoroughly enjoy having quadrilingual conversations (Spanish, English, Swahili, French in order of decreasing frequency). We had conversations ranging from philosophical to completely off the wall. It was good times.
The hotel had a bar where everyone would hang out. We played a bit of darts and pool while we were there. We also had a couple of late-night games of poker. As usual, I enjoyed the conversations far more than the cards. Still, I had some pretty sweet lucky streaks and took 2nd in our first game. We kept trying to get Peace Corps staff to join in the games, but they always declined. After the games, we would watch whatever UEFA match was showing in the bar that night. Good times.
I got to see 4 movies while we were there (I haven't seen movies for a while) so I want to give each of them a paragraph.
Home Alone 3. Yes, they made a 3rd. It's pretty much the exact same thing as the first two. Except without Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci or Daniel Stern. Still, it was fun to watch. Also, there was a bratty older sister and it kept bugging me. I knew that I had seen her in some movie or TV show or something. Finally, the credits rolled. The movie included a 12 year old Scarlet Johannsen (sp?). Weird. It was pretty fun to watch those burglars getting burned, electrocuted, battered, and all manner of other abuse.
The Constant Gardener. I had seen it before, but it was all the more interesting to see now that I am staying in Kenya (where the movie is set) and after visiting Kibera (where much of the action occurs). The movie presents aid in a pretty cynical (though justified) light. The story is not the most cheerful, but the performances are great.
Slumdog Millionaire. Pretty fun movie. I was surprised they didn't have their Bollywood dance until the end credits. The story is pretty Bollywood formulaic, but a good way to introduce Americans to Bollywood. I also enjoyed the way they portrayed the slums in that movie and the depiction of the gritty underworld didn't seem overdone. I was proud that I could answer more than half of the questions on the game show.
Milk. Wow. Just wow. The movie was really well done. Especially the casting. It was a very powerful look at the rise of the gay political movement in San Francisco in the 70s. Words cannot describe how well Sean Penn performed. I have a criticism and I will try not to ruin anything, but I will do this anyway. **SPOILER ALERT** I was a little let down by the fact that Dan Brown (played rather well by Josh Brolin) was never actually shown eating candy or twinkies or anything. Maybe the filmmakers were trying to make a point about the aftermath, but I was confused. **FINISHED**
All in all, training was lots of fun. Now that we've finished, it's time to get back to school and shift back into drive.
Permaculture Training Part 1
All right, I feel that I am obligated to start this post by talking about PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief), which was considered one of the more successful policies of the Bush era and which has sent lots of money directly to fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. In Kenya, PEPFAR makes sure that everyone has access to ARVs (Anti-RetroViral medicines). In addition, they offer several grants to support various programs to fight AIDS. As I understand it, the annual budget for PEPFAR in Kenya alone is greater than the entire budget for Peace Corps worldwide. This means that in an order to supplement the training budget, certain aspects of my Peace Corps training (including this workshop on permaculture) were funded by PEPFAR on the assumption that part of my role as a volunteer will be mitigating the effects of AIDS in Kenya.
Now, you may be looking at this and thinking "how does permaculture provide AIDS relief?" Actually, this issue was very well-handled. Several of the topics related to starting small gardens around homesteads with a focus on low labor intensity so that people with weakened immune systems could manage the load. Unfortunately, I don't know if this was stipulated explicitly in the grant proposal, but it seemed like the trainers were not allowed to go more than three sentences without using the word PLWHAs (People Living With HIV/AIDS, pronounced peel-woz). It was actually pretty ridiculous.
While the topics were useful for PLWHAs, they were useful for any person who just wants to increase their income. Yet, by beating us over the head with PLWHAs, PLWHAs, PLWHAs a lot of that was lost in the discussion. It got really frustrating over time as we tried to make these issues to help communities in general, and they kept going back to PLWHAs.
Anyway, the training was really cool, and I definitely learned a lot. We were at a place called MOOF (Mount Kenya Organic Farming, don't ask me why it isn't MKOF) in Nanyuki, a little ways north of Nairobi. The weather was much cooler there and we could see Mount Kenya from there (we all started to wonder if that was the mountain in the Paramount logo; the resemblance was striking) and the entire landscape was gorgeous.
We had a very long session on making compost, and I definitely hope to bring that back to site. We also had some very interesting give-and-take discussions with our trainer about organic farming practices. We used our specific sites for case studies and we tried to address some of the extension issues that we have at site. We got to make a pretty cool space-saving garden in an old maize sack. At the end, we used compost to plant a very diverse garden with kales, onions, garlic, basil, rosemary, sweet potatoes and a few other miscellaneous plants. It was somewhat surprising to see how many people in our group didn't actually know anything about planting a garden.
We also had some less enjoyable sessions from a woman who works with the Ministry of Agriculture. Some of those sessions included cooking with aloe (the woman who ran that session talked a lot about how women who drink African aloe get heavier periods). Also, aloe tastes incredibly bitter. She also taught us the food pyramid, which a lot of us criticized pretty intensely as unnecessary, poorly demonstrated and possibly outdated. However, she also led a really cool session on soap making (both detergent and for use on skin). I found myself recalling Fight Club a few times (although they don't explain the importance of sodium silicate to develop a good lather).
It was also really frustrating to see a few of the things they are doing. At one point, we walked past a sprinkler that was spraying in all directions during the hottest part of the day (irrigation practices seems to come up a lot). I called the trainer out on the lack of rainwater harvesting, and he did talk about the importance of that. For all their talk about polyculture (raising many crops in one location, as opposed to the normal plantation practice of monoculture), there were several parts of their compound where they were only raising one crop. I would have liked to work a bit more with trees and see some techniques like layering and grafting, but with only three days (and the incessant need to use the word PLWHAs) you can't cover everything.
Also, we had an intense discussion on labels (such as permaculture) and how ridiculous it is that there are all these trends and fads in development (right now permaculture is huge, while agroforestry is a bit dormant). Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous.
It was a really intense 3 days, but I think we all definitely got a lot out of it. It was also nice to get a bit closer to some Peace Corps staff. I'd love to go back to Nanyuki and work on a couple of things with MOOF at some point.
Now, you may be looking at this and thinking "how does permaculture provide AIDS relief?" Actually, this issue was very well-handled. Several of the topics related to starting small gardens around homesteads with a focus on low labor intensity so that people with weakened immune systems could manage the load. Unfortunately, I don't know if this was stipulated explicitly in the grant proposal, but it seemed like the trainers were not allowed to go more than three sentences without using the word PLWHAs (People Living With HIV/AIDS, pronounced peel-woz). It was actually pretty ridiculous.
While the topics were useful for PLWHAs, they were useful for any person who just wants to increase their income. Yet, by beating us over the head with PLWHAs, PLWHAs, PLWHAs a lot of that was lost in the discussion. It got really frustrating over time as we tried to make these issues to help communities in general, and they kept going back to PLWHAs.
Anyway, the training was really cool, and I definitely learned a lot. We were at a place called MOOF (Mount Kenya Organic Farming, don't ask me why it isn't MKOF) in Nanyuki, a little ways north of Nairobi. The weather was much cooler there and we could see Mount Kenya from there (we all started to wonder if that was the mountain in the Paramount logo; the resemblance was striking) and the entire landscape was gorgeous.
We had a very long session on making compost, and I definitely hope to bring that back to site. We also had some very interesting give-and-take discussions with our trainer about organic farming practices. We used our specific sites for case studies and we tried to address some of the extension issues that we have at site. We got to make a pretty cool space-saving garden in an old maize sack. At the end, we used compost to plant a very diverse garden with kales, onions, garlic, basil, rosemary, sweet potatoes and a few other miscellaneous plants. It was somewhat surprising to see how many people in our group didn't actually know anything about planting a garden.
We also had some less enjoyable sessions from a woman who works with the Ministry of Agriculture. Some of those sessions included cooking with aloe (the woman who ran that session talked a lot about how women who drink African aloe get heavier periods). Also, aloe tastes incredibly bitter. She also taught us the food pyramid, which a lot of us criticized pretty intensely as unnecessary, poorly demonstrated and possibly outdated. However, she also led a really cool session on soap making (both detergent and for use on skin). I found myself recalling Fight Club a few times (although they don't explain the importance of sodium silicate to develop a good lather).
It was also really frustrating to see a few of the things they are doing. At one point, we walked past a sprinkler that was spraying in all directions during the hottest part of the day (irrigation practices seems to come up a lot). I called the trainer out on the lack of rainwater harvesting, and he did talk about the importance of that. For all their talk about polyculture (raising many crops in one location, as opposed to the normal plantation practice of monoculture), there were several parts of their compound where they were only raising one crop. I would have liked to work a bit more with trees and see some techniques like layering and grafting, but with only three days (and the incessant need to use the word PLWHAs) you can't cover everything.
Also, we had an intense discussion on labels (such as permaculture) and how ridiculous it is that there are all these trends and fads in development (right now permaculture is huge, while agroforestry is a bit dormant). Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous.
It was a really intense 3 days, but I think we all definitely got a lot out of it. It was also nice to get a bit closer to some Peace Corps staff. I'd love to go back to Nanyuki and work on a couple of things with MOOF at some point.
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