Lugari Days

Our time in Lugari is flying by. No two days are the same, but we have settled into a pattern of sorts. Morning brings a hearty breakfast with some combination of hard boiled eggs, sweet potatoes, Kenyan pancakes, fruit, etc., and a pot of hot water for coffee. When breakfast is finished, we head to the community center by foot or by pikipiki (motorcycle) where we help out in the field or office or maybe head out to visit a local farm.

Sometimes we have guests visit us for breakfast.

We’re learning a stunning amount about rural life in Kenya from our farm visits and from sitting in during the afternoon classes at the center. Everybody has a farm, even if you have another job (which are sadly few and far between). Most, if not all, of your daily meals are prepared with food grown within 50m of your home. The farms all have a dizzying array of produce and livestock: from kale to fish ponds, geese to bananas, everything in between and a whole lot more. The crops are grown in a patchwork of small plots since many farms measure no more than 3-4 acres.

The community center’s current focus is to help farmers make the best use of limited land and to try to move away from pure sustenance farming into crops that can provide both food an income. It’s a special place because the vision, ambition, and effort is entirely homegrown. We, of course, have little to offer in terms of educating farmers about farming, but we have been able to talk to the class about a few things that we do know about: Canada and computers.

We took one class last week to talk about the homeland. People were astonished that so few Canadians lived on farms and that we had no real staple food. They thought beavers and moose looked pretty funny.

This week we took another two afternoons and taught computer basics: from opening and closing a Word document (yesterday) to browsing the Internet and setting up e-mail and Facebook accounts (Ed. note: I fully recognize that the latter may not actually count as any kind of step forward).

Many of the students have never used a computer before, so we were absolutely astonished by how eagerly and competently they took to trying everything and anything we threw at them. Both classes ran well past their scheduled end time because nobody wanted to walk away from the two computers we’d set up for them to play with. The excitement they felt was contagious. New ways of working and communicating and learning were unfolding in front of all of us. Unfortunately the center will be left with only one computer when we leave, and that one is primarily for the use of the center’s staff. It will be very, very sad if the enthusiasm that filled the classroom today were to erode because access to computers is so scarce, but the reality is that the center is on a very stringent budget that simply has no room for another computer (let alone the full lab of systems they dream of building one day). Michelle and I are already envisioning a used-computer drive that could go a long way to fulfilling the center’s ambitions.

This weekend we spent most of our time exploring the family compound and the beautiful landscape that surrounds it. The land has a timeless quality that makes you believe it’s been like this forever.

We feel fortunate to have landed in this place and at this time. The community center has the potential to do great things for this community and we’re lucky to have played a small part in these early steps it’s taking. But no matter what we’ve done, it’s the people here who are making the difference. We want you to meet them. Our next post will give you that chance.