Farmer Talk

I know I’m out in the country when I wake up to the sound of cows mooing. If that didn’t wake me up enough there seems to be something wrong with our water heater, so I took a shower in hose water. It was cold to say the least. After eating breakfast, we prepared the room for the twenty farmers we were expecting by nine. The room was set up in a formation where the farmers sat in rows answering the questions Sarah, standing at the front of the room, would ask in Swahili. Tino and I would sit at the sides of the room hoping some would speak English or Sarah would have to translate. Sarah ended up having to translate the information a majority of the time. We asked farmers and their village chiefs to arrive around nine, but being African time a majority did not come until at least thirty after. As the farmers and village chiefs came in I shook their hands and welcomed them, saying, “Karibu.” This was probably quite deceiving for them because then they assumed I spoke Swahili. They quickly found out I did not. It was essential for us to include the village chiefs as part of our questioning because the village chiefs were our only way to get contact to the people. Although the village chiefs may have thrown a variable into the mix, because people wouldn’t want to say how they really felt with the chiefs present, they were very important in even setting up the meeting.

With already more farmers and chiefs than we expected, we got started fifty minutes late.  Tino began by introducing the project and why we are here. Before long, a chief spoke up saying most people did not understand English. Sarah stepped in and began her long two hours of translating and question asking. Most of the time I sat in the corner having no clue what was being said until ten minutes later when Sarah translated. From talking to the farmers this is some of the information we found. In the past twenty years the village has changed in food supply. The supply of food has gone down. The seasons used to be predictable, but now they are intermittent causing indicators of when to plant crops to fail. Fertilizers, pesticides, and industrialization have also caused changes. Even the crops planted to help remedy the issues are different. In simple senses, climate change is drastically affecting the farmers and their ability to produce food along with their socioeconomics. We ended up not having time for the timeline activity, but I think we gathered sufficient information from our first meeting. As part of the meeting, we promised the participants we would reimburse them for their travel expenses. Some had to travel over an hour to get where we held the meeting—at the Research Institute. But as Tino said, some people took advantage of this system. We probably bought a few people’s lunches today.

There were a few observations about the meeting that surprised me. First, more people showed up than what we were expecting. There were a total of 29 participants. I think 30 had been invited. I draw two inferences from this, either people wanted their lunch paid for, or they really care about their farms and know we may be able to come up with a solution. With the questions the farmers asked about how we can help them, I assume the latter. Secondly, the effects of climate change are obvious in just looking at the farmers. They are clearly malnourished. The man sitting next to me was skin and bones. His cheek bones were protruding from the skin so much he looked sickly, which he probably was. He also looked quite poor. The clothes he was wearing were dirty. He wore sandals on his feet, which looked like they hadn’t been washed in days. I was so thankful for my cold shower this morning.

After the meeting we went to check out an automatic weather station housed on the transect at a local boys boarding school. There seemed to be some problems. Not only were the solar panels not recharging the battery, but birds are drinking from the evaporation tank leading us to believe there is a lot more evaporation occurring than what actually is. To remedy the issue of the birds we headed to the local market to purchase some wire to put over the tank. As Tino went to get the wire, Sarah and I went shopping around the local market. There really wasn’t much there. Most of the clothes sold looked second hand. We saw, firsthand, the effects of the decline in harvest amounts for the farmers as very little produce was available for purchase. That which was available did not look very appetizing. Sarah bought a few guavas and tangerines. Her six pieces of fruit cost 40 Kenyan shillings. This seemed really cheap to me. The market was one someone would envision for a poor African village. The ground was uneven, packed dirt. Those women selling their products were packed closely together, and as they sold items, they created more. Once we returned to the car Tino was frustrated with his service. He had been using the same supplier for all of the weather stations. Now the supplier claimed he hadn’t been paid and raised the prices on Tino, when actually the supplier was making quite a bit of money off of the automatic weather stations. As Tino said, “Well, I guess I will just find a new supplier. People are always looking for my business.”

Sarah and I were dropped back off at the Research Institute where we found books to read and took them to our patio out back. Under the hot Kenyan sun, with a perfect view of the mountains and valley below, we indulged ourselves in reading. Before dinner this evening we used the Finnish sauna. The warm air felt so nice. A girl from the United Kingdom who is doing research on insect pollination also joined us. None of us had been in the type of sauna we were in before. One of the girls told me to pour water over the rocks. I grabbed the spoon and a large scoop of water. The after effects were hot! We all almost ran out. Within a few seconds it cooled down again, but for those first few seconds I thought there was a high probability of my skinning catching on fire. The Finnish sauna was already really hot. Tino had asked the guy making it to keep the temperature down; it was 100 degrees Celsius. I wonder what the temperature is normally like…