Goats drive me insane with anger

I have avoided talking about work like the plague itself, because it's so hard to give the proper context. You can obviously understand when I say we are building a garden. But what you don't really get is what that entails here on the ground. For starters, we seem to be at the nexus of the known goat universe. Everyone here owns and grazes goats. And this presents certain unforeseen barriers to agriculture. For example, we planted a banana tree and routed our sink waste water into a catchment for it. This was our first foray into horticulture and we were really psyched about it. But the very next day goats stripped the tree bare, just short of killing it, and clearly indicating that a fence was necessary. And so, with the help of a local farmer, we erected what I thought was an impenetrable barrier.

Our fence is comprised of cut trees that are so hardy they continue to grow when chopped in half and replanted. And they have the nastiest thorns imaginable, such that pioneering Europeans named them "wait a bit.” I can only too well imagine my pale ancestors bloody and cursing the local plant life as they tried to explore the region. The trouble is that the goats seem almost immune. Instead of an impenetrable barrier, they seem to see a minor obstacle that is both sieve and smorgasbord. If they fail to make it through on the first attempt, they seem to delay a moment nibbling on the shoots to make better holes for their closely following brethren. This means that I obsess about goats getting into the yard. It would be funny if I wasn't such a freak about it. And I can only imagine what it must look like to the neighbors. Goats enter the yard, and in response, a large, bearded white man comes charging out of the house throwing stones and yelling, eyes gleaming with impotent rage at the inexhaustible appetite of the invading herd. So, here we are, doing development work, and it seems, protecting a smallish patch of earth from animals that raise my ire mightily. You can imagine Jennie's amusement as I feverishly stalk from desk to window attempting to write and defend said garden simultaneously.

If, by some miracle, we are able to defend our crops, our plans are to cultivate some vegetables for personal consumption. The walk not withstanding, it’s fun to do and a great learning experience. Apart from that, we want to accomplish several other, more important objectives.

Food security is hard to come by in this region. As such, we want to develop ways to encourage farming for personal consumption. To do this we needed to identify local crop varieties, how to grow them, and if anybody here actually wants to eat them. Cassava, for example, grows exceptionally well in arid conditions, and you can find a million books and websites touting its hardy and nutritious attributes. The problem is, nobody here wants to eat cassava, or do the work to grow it without any market in which to sell it. However, people here do love to eat corn and beans, and we have met several local farmers who have had success growing these crops. Our hope is that by highlighting their work, we can encourage people to do the same for themselves.

Our second goal is to create a small tree nursery. This area has been ravaged by the charcoal industry. Most of the trees that grow locally are chopped down and cooked in big piles of dirt to create briquettes for use in small clay stoves called jiko. This is a major source of fuel for the rural community here, and so its creation is also a major source of income for anyone with some energy and an axe. As an outsider you could come and talk ad nauseam about why this shouldn't be done due to soil erosion and global warming. But charcoal is the cheapest and most available source of cooking fuel and people will continue to exploit it until they are given a cheaper and more available alternative. So instead of trying to convince people to abstain, Jennie and I are hoping to continue talking about alternative energy sources (such as solar and wind), and the merits of tree planting. And we are also hoping to grow some saplings and have the local kids plant them.

This garden is one small piece in a host of projects we are working on, but like I said, there is too much context to just say it simply. I hope that you will come back again and read some more about what we are doing. We hope to write a number of postings related to our work here, and start to de-emphasize our own stupidity and almost complete lack of ability to live here without somehow injuring or subjugating ourselves to intense humiliation at the hands of small school children. Okay, the school is for another posting, but we really appreciate your following along. Much love from Kenya, Nick and Jennie.