Kola

This past week the staff of our three partners went with us to Kola, a small town which is home to an amazing NGO called Utooni Development Organization. An MCC couple supports this NGO but the organization basically is built upon the back of a local Self-Help Group that figured out how to prosper in a dry land and is now teaching everybody else how to do the same. When development works its just a beautiful thing.

After months of planning and preparation, the trip started at 2am in Najile. While Steph and I were sleeping in Nairobi at a hotel, our friend Joseph was driving from home to home, waking people up and getting them into a small land cruiser. By 630 we met him and the other staff in Ngong and by 730 we were on our way. After three hours of driving, one long traffic jam, and a flat tire, we arrived in Kola. The schedule was to meet with the wife of the founder of UDO (Rhoda) for a few hours, have lunch, visit a local farmer and then a sand dam. The afternoon went well and people were learning a lot. Eyes were really opened when we visited the farm of Josephine. A few years ago, she got married and was shown her new home (Kenyan women generally have to leave their family when they get married). It was a bleak, barren plot of 2.5 acres (think of a normal US home as being a 1 acre plot) on a steep hillside. She said she wanted to cry and go home. Now after years of hard work and effort she feeds her entire family (5 kids) for the entire year based on the produce she grows. Her home is like a jungle with bananas and trees everywhere. She has dug terraces 3 meters deep that slope into the hillside to maximize every drop of rain. She zero-grazes her cows, goats and has chickens running around her house. It was truly amazing to see a woman work so hard and succeed so spectacularly.

At Josephine's Farm

After that visit the group went to a nearby sand dam. I may have blogged about this before, but basically a sand dam is a cement wall across a dry, sandy riverbed that collects sand behind it during flash floods. The sand's molecular structure is such that a cubic meter of sand can end up being 30-40% water (by volume). These dams hold enormous amounts of water that won't evaporate, is filtered, and is easily accessible. Plus it catches water that is normally being lost, instead of extracting the scarce water available like a well/borehole. (for more info about sand dams, let me know and I can send you a technical note about how they work and how they are built) The women's group who built and maintains the dam sang and danced their vision statement for us as we arrived. I love when people not only want to serve their community, but can even sing about it.

The second day we visited a newer self-help group that has already built 14 dams along a single riverbed by their town. They now have a mango grove which they use to raise money for their members. We talked with them inside a church for 3 hours, asking questions, sharing experiences and learning together. In day three we talked again to Rhoda, we this time she blew people away. She started talking about how she keeps her own cows and gets 100L a day from them (most Maasai get 3-4 L per day right now) and how all 18 of her cows gave birth this december. She didn't lose any cows to the drought because she planned ahead and had food available for them all year round. She is an amazing women and really showed our group a picture of what could be.

Our ride home was uneventful other than again being squished as 12 people into a car that holds 8. It was a great trip and our prayer was this: Lord- we are tired of a tired land that is thirsty. We are tired of brown when there can be green. May you teach us how to use all you have given us to transform this weary land into a promised land of plenty. We know that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Amen.