It doesn’t matter where I go in the world, there is just
something about being out in the countryside that warms my heart.
Good home-cooked meals, amazing scenery,
down-to-earth country folk, and the slow easy tempo that anyone who is patient can
follow.
It is as if time completely
stops once you get out to the village.
Meals take an average of 2 hours to cook as the cook has to catch,
pluck, and cook the meal right after you order. It a good place to meditate and ponder on life.
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| Open range |
As ole Frank Sinatra put it "That's life"! Sometimes you just gotta role with it and as I got out to the villages in Nyagatare I reminisced about my hills in Chyulu. I found myself thinking back on the rolling hills in Connemara, Ireland. Lastly, I remembered the rolling foothills around my home in Mapleton. My Aunt Kaye loved talking about the Spirit of Place as we traveled along the countryside in Europe. Beautiful scenery is what has inspired some of the greatest thinkers of our time. I imagine it is also what motivates some of the greatest farmers of our time to stay in some of the most remote regions of our planet. As you will tell from some of my photos, I got a little carried away with the panoramas just trying to take it all in!
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| Gig'em! |
My work out in Nyagatare entailed meeting up and assessing the potential of a seed company being ran by a couple of experienced farmers. As we got into the village center later that evening our first stop was the the hotel which happened to pose as a bar at night.
I know, I know, how convenient for me,
right?
Well, since we were out helping
this seed company with their harvesting and planting, reveille was early in the
morning!
The first night, every time I
dozed off I would hear some wild African drinking game or fat guy
chuckling.
I put a pillow on my head,
tried playing meditation music, and when that didn’t work I tried shoving wads
of mosquito net in my ears to drawn out the sound. It didn’t end until 2am.
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| First maize breeding site |
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| John with his hybrid maize |
I woke up the next morning ready to go.
My Kenyan colleague took his morning tea and
I drank some soy mix drink, just pretending like I was ready to go.
My grogginess didn’t get much better as I hit
the dirt roads that shook me like I deserved it or something.
I kept cursing my rental car every pothole I
hit because it felt like my body was absorbing everything.
Finally, we made it to the farms and checked the
maize yields and parental varieties that John & John (the two partners who
started the seed company) had planted.
They both liked the fact that my name was John in Spanish.
Most Africans just call me JEW-HAN, and I
have given up trying to correct them as they just can say it.
John and John are two older respected members of the
community out there.
The other major seed company I
have worked with is based out of the city and made up of young people who weren’t exactly farmers, but more business
oriented.
It is surprising that
the older farmers happen to be the most progressive and ambitious in the way they do
business.
It sort of flies in the face
of everything that I learned about spreading innovation.
Who says you can’t teach an old dog new
tricks!?
These guys are on top of their
game and they are really going to be making their mark in the next few years.
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| Other John with the yellow hat |
We hit about midday and realized that we needed to get some
food, so we went to the closest place.
That turned out to be the worst decision of the whole trip. We sat there for almost 2 hours waiting for
them to cook the bruchettes which are basically just goat meat shish kebabs. Even after waiting all that time, the meat
was under cooked and I should have spat out the first bite, but I was starving
and didn’t think too much about it. I was sure thinking about it that night as I was
throwing up everything inside me. I
graciously skipped out on dinner and thought I’d get some rest. That night happened to be an Arsenal football
match. It was like actually being in the
stadium as I tried to sleep. Things
finally got quiet around 2am and my body just shut down entirely.
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| Second site with looming clouds |
This time we were going out to the border of Akagera
National Park. It turned out to be
another unpleasant drive. The whole time
I was wondering if we shouldn’t have just taken a motorcycle taxi because there
were areas that had deep eroded crevices and other areas where the road
completely disappeared. I’ll admit, it’s
fun off roading for like 20min or so, but when it turns into 1-2 hours, your
body starts to ache and scream for it to end. If that were the only problem, it would have been
ok, but it just so happened that every bicyclist we met on the road would freak
out and fall over as soon as they saw my vehicle coming. It was like it was their first time dealing
with it on that road (which wouldn’t surprise me in the least). The first guy just turned his handlebar left
and right and then just fell over right in front of us. He was alright. The next accident was a girl who seemed to
pass us alright but I guess it was a delayed reaction 'cuze she nailed the side
of our car and bounced off with all of the water she had collected that
morning. I jumped out and tried to save
some of the water that was pouring out as she was getting up and asked her if
she was ok. She was too embarrassed to
talk to me and just collected her things and went on her way. After that, I pretty much stopped to let all
stunned cyclists pass by staring at me.
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| Worthless thresher |
The farm was by far the largest and they were just having it
plowed so they could start planting.
They had just harvested their soybeans and were getting ready to try out
their new thresher that they had made locally.
I was interested to see it at work, but as they started shoving the bean
plants in there to separate the beans from the pod, I noticed how beat up and
broken the beans were looking. I yelled
to have them stop and as I looked inside I realized why it was happening. The inside of the thresher basically looked
like a cheese grater and all the holes were different sizes so the beans were
getting jammed and broken as they were separating from the other garbage. It was a major setback as they are now going
to have to revert to the old fashioned way of just beating the tar out of the
bean plants with big sticks. It does the
job, but it also breaks some of the beans as well. Post-harvest loss is a major constraint and I
am hoping we can find some better solutions in the future.
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| River rafting trip with rapids and all! |
As we were looking into solutions for the thresher, I
noticed some nasty rain clouds collecting around the hills behind us.
It was kind of eerie actually, probably like
walking into Mordor and thinking, “hey, who turned out the lights?” It turned into a panic as we started yelling
to the workers to get all the harvest inside the storehouse before the rains
came.
Marius and I ran to the car
knowing that driving was going to be a whole new level of fun. And boy was it!
Marius was keen on giving me driving lessons
and telling me how to avoid the lakes and to go slower.
His advice seemed to be to always go slower as if I
had much of a choice.
It was like riding
a roller coaster with an old-timer.
Where
there were once large crevices, there were large gaping lakes and the only way to
make it through was to speed on.
I was
praying that we wouldn’t bottom out and get stuck.
There was one point that I turned to Marius
and said “It looks like you might have to push us through this one”.
I was joking just to see what he would say.
He looked at me in shock and his tone completely changed “PUSH DA GAS DOWN,
PUSH IT DOWN” He kept screaming it right in my ears.
I was dying laughing.
I guess he wasn’t planning on getting out
anytime soon.
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| Might as well soak it up |
