Here are a few of the highlights of our second week in Orongo:

Farmers meeting

After a failed attempt to rally the 9 farmers on Monday, Springs of Life was able to bring together the 9 a day later (Tuesday). We explained our disappointment about the lack of work done on the stream and our hopes of rectifying this problem this trip. Unfortunately, Vitalis informed us that the stream has now been severely flooded and would not return to a normal level until two weeks time. This was a big shot to moral because with the stream unclear and the impossibility of buying the pumps with the virtually non-existent NOP meant that there would not be much in our power to accomplish in the duration of our trip. The meeting proceeded with the farmers telling us what supplies they would like to have to clear the stream. Once again the list contained: Pangas (machetes), Gum boots (rubber boots), jembe (hoe), insect repellent, snake repellent,, cash for hired labor, and medicine for some disease that they did not bring to our attention. As we had done before we avoided actual response to what exactly we would provide. Members of the travel team thought this would be seen as a hand out and brought that to their attention but the farmers responded along the lines of the more you provide the clearer the stream will be. The meeting adjourned on good terms and a resolution to meet again in a week’s time to demonstrate the block and tackle. We would meet earlier if the flooded farms dropped to a reasonable level to start the work.
Fishing in Lake Victoria

Through our contact with the Springs of Life, we have come in contact with a Fishermen name Michael. Drew being the outdoors man that he is decided to ask him to take us fishing. Fishing in America and in Kenya is very different for obvious reasons. No one fishes in Lake Victoria for recreation. The type of fishing we would be participating in would be career fishing which provides a good living for doing light manual labor between the hours of 8 pm and 10am. Blair and Drew left on their journey at 8 pm not knowing what to expect. We started with a meal of Tilapia and Ugali. We shoved off at about 10pm in a boat most closely resembling an extremely large wooden canoe propelled by long poles used to push off the bottom of the lake. Hugging the shore we traversed to the other side of the bay to a secluded spot where we cast a long net creating a netted off circle. Drawing in the net we contracted the ring we strategically hauled the net into the boat revealing the catch. The first “lap” yield only some weeds and was not surprising claimed the old fisherman we were with because of the positioning of the moon. The second casting of the net (lap) was done so by physically exiting the boat in very shallow water. We (Blair and Drew), unwilling to wade in Lake Victoria in nothing but our underwear were rendered useless. Being late into the night and not being of much use to the team we were taken back to shore to sleep in the BMU (Beach Management Unit) office floor. At 6 am the real fishermen started returning to shore, which cued the arrival of the Traders, women who bought the fish of the fishermen right out of the bottom of their boats and sold it in markets and other points of distribution. Some of the more hardcore fishermen who went deeper in the lake left shore at 8 pm not to return to land until 9am. It was amazing to see the whole process of career fishing in Kenya especially the persistence of the women traders yelling the fisherman’s name as he was forced to give them a little more fish than what was considered the standard amount.

Visiting EWB Montana state in Luanda

On August 17th we visited another EWB group out of Montana State University which had a project in a city near Kisumu, Luanda. It was one of the most thought provoking days of the trip because the similarities in experiences and differences in structure of our EWB were so clear. To keep it short, EWB-MSU partnered with the local school district which included 58 schools. They chose just a few to implement projects and worked closely with the leaders of the school. They had implemented one Biogas latrine, Compost latrine, and a borehole. They were in the process of implementing a second compost latrine and a large pipe system to deliver water from the previously mentioned borehole to three other schools nearby. To implement most of these projects EWB-MSU went through similar political finagling and was able to work through it and have a 50/50 EWB/community funding for their pipeline project. But there were also a lot of differences:

-EWB-MSU worked with only community, focusing the energies of over 70 students

-Main contact was a school system

-Contracted out all the labor on all their projects

-Fundraised as one large DWB unit

-Not much help from PEs or professors

-Staggered travel dates to have a press in a presence in the community for almost 4 months during the summer.

-Stayed in homes of community members

-Worked with engineering students in Nairobi

-Had an office in the community

-Have been in Luanda for 7 years

-It was constructive to see a much further matured project .

Another Day in Orongo

We awoke to sounds of a crowd and lots of honking coming from Nairobi road. While on a Mandazi run, we discovered that a large diesel tanker had crashed and punctured. A throng of people were filling their jerry cans full of diesel. The tanker also caused a large traffic jam. The understaffed police had trouble controlling the hundreds of people trying to get their hands on a bucket or tin or bottle of free diesel.
Because of the traffic jam it was not surprising to find a matatu stuck 20 feet off the road. The matatu had clearly been stuck for several hours after an attempt to cheat traffic going south. Tom decided that this would be an excellent exhibition for the block and tackle. With the ground anchor in and a 9 to 1 mechanical advantage 8 people made short work of the pulling out of the Matatu, much to the amusement of a large group of towns people that had gathered to see what the crazy mizungus were up to.

-Blair

Sunday 8/14

Rain much? As the drought in the Kisumu comes to a prompt close, we wait in Nakumatt. Mother Nature decides to release a season’s worth of rain for several hours. The plan was to visit a critically acclaimed Indian restaurant (for Caitlin’s Birthday, presents can be addressed to the nice blue house in Orongo) in Kisumu but because of the deluge we decided to go to a small restaurant in Nakumatt in the hope of the rain subsiding as we ate. But, as we ate the pouring rain that made conversation strenuous continued for up to up to four hours. Like any good mazungu, we called on the assistance of our Kenyan protectors and a Josie facilitated taxi arrived an hour later. A combination of the cramped condition and the lack of movement for more than thirty minutes at a time, prompted five of us to make the journey by foot. With the road lit by the lights of the traffic, we joined the migration out of town by weaving through the standstill. As we passed several incapacitated vehicles and about 500 feet of traffic going into town occupying both lanes of traffic, a long wait for the rest of us in the taxi was guaranteed. Four hours after stepping into the taxi we all return safely to out dry house.

Monday 8/15

Monday began with a slow morning because of our ordeal the night previous and a lack of excitement for braving the Orongoian mud that imprisoned us from all sides. A two o’clock meeting with the Springs of Life motivated us to leave a dry home. The meeting started quickly with the conveying of our concerns about the lack of progress during the last semester by the NOP. Throughout the meeting we saw some major differences in how we saw the relationship between Springs of Life and the nine farmers. By the end some meaningful progress was made and Springs of Life more thoroughly understood our expectations of their roles and responsibilities as it related to the nine farmers and the NOP.

-Blair

Hi everyone,

We've been in Orongo for a few days now. Emily, Blair and I finally arrived in Orongo on Wednesday night. After trekking from Milwaukee with all of our luggage and supplies (including a HUGE white staff that is supposedly used for some sort of land surveying...obviously I felt the need to make "white wizard" jokes for all three days that she marched through the airport with it) we were greeted in Kisumu by Drew and Josie who took us to meet everyone for dinner. It was great to catch up with everyone and eat some non-airplane food!

Post-dinner, we had a good 'ole "welcome to Kenya" when Tobias decided it was a good idea to fit all 7 of us, 4 foam mattresses, 3 backpacking backpacks, 2 huge 50 pound duffel bags, countless bags of groceries, other backpacks, purses, and of course our 6 foot long staff into one 5 person taxi car. WOW. Talk about low-riding. Emily, Caitlin and I all squeezed in the front seat and as I was nearest to the driver, my butt kept shifting the cab...it was more than ridiculous.

Back in Orongo, we set up camp (aka laid down our foam mattresses, hung our mosquito nets, and snuggled into our sleeping bags) and then Emily and I lulled everyone to sleep with our chorus of coughing. Yes, I have yet again found a way to have a cold in Kenya. Too bad I don't have my endless supply of cough drops at hand! 

We spent the next morning creating an action plan (things clearly needed to be rerouted with new information on the stream) and then went into town to visit the welder, Eric, and stop at the bank. I loved seeing Eric again! Shannon and I had worked pretty closely with him on the last trip, and I was glad to see that he was going to be able to help us again.

We've also spent time visiting the farms with John O. Obviously after hearing about all of the poisonous snakes near the stream, I was a bit on edge. Dick, who spent two years in Eastern Kenya with Peace Corps, gave me a good tid-bit of advice, "always send someone else first". And he didn't have to tell me twice! In the end, we got a good feel for how the farms and stream have been affected by the drought and so far, we are SNAKE FREE! Wahoo!

Last night I finally got to meet with AFGO. It was exciting, per usual, to see Amos and his family. At Amos's house, we spent time ogling over his twin baby girls, Peace and Patience. They are soooo precious. In January he claimed he was going to name one of them after me, so he told me Peace actually meant Jojo hahhaha. Meeting with AFGO was great. They have sold three filters to a non-profit in the Kisumu area, KWAHO, who I had also been looking into independently as a different market option. Crazy! Now, since AFGO is out of supplies, we are looking into ways for them to continue their business (including micro-finance loans).

Currently, we're spending time down on the farms meeting with our 9 farmers who are involved in the project. Our anchor that Eric is welding is almost finished and we will begin work clearing the stream. We have a lot of meetings coming up with the farmers, NOP, and Springs of Life and we are also planning on meeting up with another EWB group in the area to share ideas.

Hope everyone's summers are going great!
 
Oriti!!
Jojo and group

Karibou! (Welcome) to the first of our blog posts for the EWB-UW Madison Kenya Project’s August 2011 trip. First off for a little bit of background on the trip. We are here to do an implementation for the irrigation project we started in January of 2010 and an assessment of the biosand water filter project which we implemented over the course of last August and January. We are working in Orongo, Kenya which is a village of about 3000 people that is located just a few kilometers outside of Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya. We will be working with a group which calls themselves the Nyamthoi Orongo Program (NOP) to implement the pilot irrigation project with nine committed farmers. We will be working on the biosand water filter project with a business called AFGO Filters which consists of three business partners who are working to build and sell biosand water filters in Orongo and the areas surrounding Kisumu.

Now, a little about our travel group this August. We will/have been arriving in two “waves.” The first “wave” to arrive included Tom, Dick, Caitlin, and me (Drew). Tom and Dick are both our mentors for this trip and we feel very lucky to have both of them with us in what has shaped up to be a very critical trip for our project. Caitlin is going to be filming a documentary on our work in Orongo and is a recent graduate from UW-Madison. We feel very lucky to have her with us documenting everything at such a critical junction as well. The first “wave” arrived in Nairobi over the course of August 6 and 7 and headed to Orongo on the 7th, but there is a bit more to come on that later. The second “wave” to be arriving includes Emily, Jojo, and Blair. They will be arriving from August 9th to 10th and will likely be coming to Orongo on the 10th. The group will then be together in Orongo until August 23rd when Emily and Jojo will return to Nairobi and then head home. The majority of t
he remainder of our group will be leaving on August 27th when Dick, Caitlin, Blair, and I will return to Nairobi and then head home. Tom will be staying a bit longer and likely heading back to Nairobi around September 6th or 7th and heading home on September 9th.

Now, what we’ve been up to since our arrival here in Nairobi. Tom and Caitlin arrived in Nairobi around 1:00 in the morning on August 6 and stayed at the Wildebeest Camp, a hostel in the heart of Nairobi that we have stayed at almost every time we come to Kenya. Once they got in as far as I heard they spent the rest of the day wandering around Nairobi. Dick arrived later that night around 8:00 and stayed the night at the Wildebeest as well. I then arrived on August 7 at 7:00 in the morning and met them at the Wildebeest. Once there Tom and Dick went to the EasyCoach Bus Station to try and book 11:00 AM bus tickets from Nairobi to Kisumu while Caitlin and I took care of some last minute stuff at the Wildebeest. The taxi that had taken Tom and Dick to the EasyCoach station then arrived back at the Wildebeest and took us there as well.

Once everyone had arrived we paid the taxi a total of 1200 ksh. (600 for each trip) and made a large pile of our stuff outside the EasyCoach station. Tom and Dick had booked us four tickets for the 1:00pm EasyCoach from Nairobi to Kisumu but had been told that there was a potential for people to not show up to catch the 11:00am bus and we could take that to Kisumu. We waited around to see if that would be the case and after it became apparent that we would not be in luck we left all of our stuff in the baggage room at the EasyCoach. Tom stayed behind in the lobby and Caitlin, Dick, and I went to wander about Nairobi. The first thing we did was try to find a SIM card that I could put into my phone and start making some phone calls. We went into a Tuskys (a big general store, kind of like Wal-Mart) and asked at their large phone counter if they had SIM cards, after being told no we headed out of Tuskys and walked into one of the first phone shops we saw and asked for SIM cards
, which they had. I’m still not sure why the major outlet store didn’t have SIM cards but the small street vendor did, but 100 shillings later I plugged the Safaricom SIM card into my phone and it started right up (for anyone who is curious my phone number is 00-254-714-405-836 when calling international and 0-714-405-836 when calling locally). I then topped the card up with 200 shillings and before I knew it we were calling Josie (one of our first contacts here who lives in Kisumu) and Tobias (one of our first contacts as well who lives in Orongo and is a member of the Springs of Life CBO) to make sure we had everything arranged for our arrival in Kisumu. We then made for an internet café where we spent a bit of time. Once we finished there we made our way back to the EasyCoach station while enjoying the Kenyan experience. We soon arrived back at EasyCoach and were soon on the bus. Caitlin and Tom were two rows from the back and Dick and I were in the very back. The road was
smooth at first and Dick and I, who were still recovering from traveling, were able to sleep (at least a little bit).

After about three hours we made it to the first stop and got off, little did we know that that would be the end of our fairly smooth ride. As soon as we were back on the bus and the bus was moving the road began to worsen. I’m not sure what has happened over the course of the year since I was here last, but the road had pot holes everywhere. The road stayed this way and at some point even took a detour onto a much smaller road to avoid a spot where road construction was apparently occurring. This is where we began to regret taking the very back seats. We were bumping up and down and at one point we hit a bump so big that I almost hit my head on the roof of the bus. We got no reprieve from there and had to put up the road for another six hours.

Thankfully we finally reached Kisumu around 9:00pm because I don’t think anyone could have taken any more of the bus. There we met Tobias and unloaded all of our stuff. We then waited around for Josie who showed up about 15 minutes later on his motorbike in typical Josie fashion. The next thing we knew Josie had gotten a tuk tuk (small three wheeled taxi which runs on a motorcycle engine) and loaded all our bags up and went with it to drop them at his house, where we would be staying for the night. All of us along with Tobias then went to a restaurant behind the EasyCoach station where we ate (at least for me) our first real meal of the day. Josie came back right around when the food was coming and we all talked about everything that had been going on. Tobias told us that he had been in the hospital in three weeks in April with a combination of Typhoid and Malaria (a pretty nasty combination if that was actually the case) and we also talked about the increasing prices in Ken
ya and the massive drought in all of East Africa. The news was a bit grim but the food however was really good (or we were all really hungry) and Caitlin got to try ugali (basically flour mixed with water) for the first time and she later described it as, “interesting.” It is however something that tends to grow on you. After dinner we left Tobias and went back with Josie to his house. He showed us our beds and we summarily fell asleep. We awoke the next morning and had breakfast with Josie (at least when we wasn’t taking phone calls) and got to meet some of the other people that were staying with him. Breakfast consisted of chapattis (really thick, greasy tortilla type things that are personally one of my favorites), fruit, and of course tea. During breakfast we also got to meet Alice, woman from California, who is working on a project to make sure that the older people in Kenya get the proper care that they need and two girls from Sweden who were working at Josie’s Tip Top School among other projects. After breakfast went to the container (Josie’s internet café) and checked out the physical shipping container that Josie has offered to sell us (he is planning on getting a bigger one) which we can use for the irrigation project. The container is pretty beat up and we are not quite sure if it will work for us, but we’ll see. After that we walked all the way down Ring Road to MegaCity which has a Nakumatt which is another variety of a “Wal-Mart” store. We purchased all of our groceries for the next few days and hired a taxi pick us, our groceries, and our bags up and take us to Orongo. After loading up the taxi we left Josie and headed to Orongo. On the way we were stopped by a police blockade. I’m not sure exactly what happened but police officer didn’t like what the driver was doing and put him in handcuffs and pulled him out of the car. We were all stunned, but another guy who was with the taxi driver took over and drove us to Orongo leaving the handcuffed driver behind w
ith another guy who had been with him. We got to Orongo and got everything setup in our house. Tobias left us for a program at his church and we relaxed a bit and then headed over to see Amos (one of the members of AFGO).

As soon as we arrived we noticed something was different, Amos was holding a baby and so was his wife. Since the group had left in January she had given birth to two girls, fraternal twins. We sat and talked with Amos for a while and he showed us all of the AFGO equipment including the mold, the new sieves, and three clogged filters which he was hoping we could help unclog. We then made plans to meet with the whole AFGO group the next night (Tuesday night) and talk about everything that had gone on since we left.

We returned home and relaxed a bit more until Tobias came over and we went back with him to his house where we had an excellent dinner prepared by his wife, Pamela, and his family. We had goat, ugali, and sukuma wiki. It was excellent. We also got to talk some more with Tobias and of course Rahab who was very excited to tell (or at least everyone else was) that she got rank four in her class in school. After dinner we went back to our house and we again fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.

The next morning came and Tobias came over and made us tea. After breakfast and tea we went with Tobias and met Geoffrey (another member of AFGO) who took us to the welder who had made the filter mold in January. We were going because Tom had designed a block and tackle system that required an anchor that we needed to get fabricated so we could get to work on stream clearing for the irrigation project. We met with the welder, Eric, for over an hour and Tom described the whole thing to him and he seemed to pick it all up pretty fast. After he understood the whole design he told us that he would need to do some “costing” and give us a price for the anchor. In order to give him some time we went and had lunch.

We went to one of my favorite places to eat in all of Kisumu, down by the lake for some fresh tilapia with sukuma wiki. It took a while to come and while we were waiting hand numerous vendors come to us and peddle their wares. Finally though the food did come and it was certainly worth the wait. We were all filled to the brim by the time we were done.

We then headed back up to see Eric and get the final cost estimate. When we got there he brought us into his office and wrote down a number on a scrap piece of paper, 26,400 shillings (around $290.00). He looked at Tom and asked what he thought of that price and Tom said he was expecting half of that (13,200 shillings). Eric then started the bargaining process in earnest and countered with 18,200 shillings and I asked him to meet us in the middle at 15,200 shillings. Eric then returned with 17,000 shillings and I told him that we would settle for 16,500 shillings (about $180.00). It was a tough bargain for both of parties, but we had finally agreed on a price and the construction of the ground anchor could proceed. Eric then had some final questions for Tom and told us that he could have the anchor completed by Saturday and that we should come back on Thursday with half the payment and check to make sure he was doing it correctly. We told him we would and thanked him.

We then wandered about Kisumu a bit and eventually caught a tuk tuk back to Orongo. The tuk tuk had a hard time getting started right from the get go and about 2/3 of the way to Orongo it sputtered and stopped, out of gas. With no hope for another tuk tuk to come by, we started walking. We walked all the way back to our house and got there around 5:30pm (only half an hour past when we were supposed to meet with AFGO, not bad for Kenya time). We called up Amos who was still trying to gather all the AFGO members and told us that he would call us. Around 6:15pm or so Amos called us and said everyone was there. We headed over and got right to work. In the meeting we talked a lot about what had been done (they sold three filters to an NGO north of Kisumu and had orders for another) as well as their marketing strategy (going door to door, going to expos, and contacting potential buyers). We then talked a bit about our plans for the trip and organized another meeting for Thursday e
vening after the rest of our group had arrived to come up with a plan of action for our time here.

We then went and had dinner prepared by Tobias which was scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onions along with ugali. We then made plans for the next day to go down to the farms and take a look at what things looked like. We stayed up and talked a bit about some of our ideas and then went to bed.

On Wednesday morning Tom got up really early to beat Tobias to making us tea and made the strongest black tea I’ve ever seen (so strong it will make your spoon stand up on end according to Tom) which woke us all up. Soon after we headed to the fields. We first saw Tobias’ farm and then made our way to Dominic’s farm (Dominic has a pump and uses the stream to pump water in a fashion very similar to what we are planning on doing). We talked with Dominic for a while and he showed us all of the things he is doing including a tree nursery, a fishery, and numerous crops growing all around, throughout it all though one thing was starkly obvious, there was a lack of water. The stream that Dominic normally uses for irrigation was dry because of the massive drought throughout the whole region and he couldn’t water anything. We have never seen this part of the stream dry and we had to wonder what the rest of the stream looked like.

We left Dominic and headed down the stream towards the area we are planning to work on and found the conditions not too much better. There was water in the stream, but it was merely puddles, not even standing water like we had seen in the past. After walking around for a while we headed down the stream farther where we eventually found standing water like we had previously seen, but it had receded at least 300 yards from where it used to be. After we had gotten a pretty good idea of what we were dealing with we began the trek back to our house. We were stopped many times by community members who were happy to see us walking around Orongo. We were also stopped by a lot of kids who wanted pictures and Caitlin happily obliged and got some really good pictures. After about two hours we made it back to the house and had lunch. We relaxed a bit and walked around the area to talk with people for a while. We are going to head into town soon and buy a few things for the group that is
arriving tonight around 9:00pm and we will then meet them and head back to Orongo. Once they arrive we are hoping things will really start moving forward and we will be well on our way for the trip.

I apologize for such a long winded post, I have that tendency, but I will make sure the next post is written by someone who has more of a knack for brevity than I do. Thanks for reading.

Drew

Hello everybody!
The gangs all here at the Wildebeest. We enjoyed a laid back day in Nairobi today. Our taxi will be leaving here at 4am for the Nairobi airport and we will be on our way to Istanbul for our exciting 24 hour layover! Should be arriving in Chicago at 3:40 Wednesday afternoon.

The past few days have been more than exciting! We had our last day in Orongo, which was sad! John, JoJo, and I left early in the morning and many of our Kenyan friends came that morning to say goodbye. Tom hung around Orongo for an extra day, took an Easycoach the next day, and met us in Nairobi. The three of us left for Masai Mara!

Shortly after leaving Orongo, JoJo fell ill. It took 3 hours to reach the road to Masai Mara, but another 3 MORE HOURS on one of the bumpiest roads I've ever been on. These bumpy roads were enough to set sick JoJo over the edge and she may or may not have vomited out the window while driving in Masai Mara. I must say, she took it like a champ! She first words out of her mouth were "It's okay. Keep driving!" because our driver had stopped out of concern. Talk about puke and rally!!

Once we got there, we went on a game drive. We saw SO many animals. For John and I, the lions were our favorite. The first lion was a large male about 2 feet off of the road! Needless to say we were thrilled about that, but when we turned the corner we saw a pack of close to 20 laying 10 feet away from the road! We also saw many other animals including elephants, zebras, giraffes, and gazelles. We also got super lucky and saw a cheetah VERY close, thanks to our offroading driver.

We then needed to find the place we were to stay for the night. It was inside Masai Mara, which was amazing, but also made it very difficult to get to. We got semi lost, drove through a few "impassable" areas and pummeled many trees and bushes. Our guide actually got out of the vehicle for a while to walk and find our camp. We were all waiting for a lion to spring out and eat him, but luckily none came! Once we found our camp, it was amazing. We had to climb a steep, sandy hill and walk through a river to get there, but it was amazing! Before being allowed in our tents, we got a warning to not leave valuables or other items outside and to always lock our tents. We assumed because of theft, but we were told that it was because of the baboons and monkeys! Our tent was great, food was good, and we even got a warm shower in the morning!

The next day we had another morning game drive where we were determined to see more of some animals we didn't get close glimpses of the previous day. We were very lucky to see a herd of elephants with some babies, and an endless amount of giraffes. We didn't even stop for some big animals after a while because we had seen so many! We also spotted another cheetah.

After this, we left for Nairobi. We got to the Wildebeest in time for dinner and had an early bedtime because we were all exhausted.

Today, JoJo and I went to the town center to do some shopping. It was a part of Nairobi I'd never seen and it was crazy! John wanted to get some packing material because his souveniors weren't well packed. He walked to Nakumatt and had great success finding boxes and other cheap materials. Tom spent the afternoon at the Green Movement facility here in Nairobi. This works on community building projects around Kenya, similar to EWB. We all met up for a lazy evening at the Wildebeest and some last minute packing.

We're now getting ready for bed and pumped for Istanbul. This will be the last time you hear from us before being back in Madison, so thanks for reading! It's been a fantastic trip! :)

-Shannon & John

Hi All,

Hope everyone is doing well, I just wanted to update everyone on how the irrigation project has been going. As Shannon and Jojo mentioned in a previous post, Wednesday Tom and I had our third and final meeting with the farmers in order to get the Memorandum of Understanding that we had agreed upon signed by all parties, and it was a success! The EWB reps (Shannon and I), a majority of Nyamthoi Orongo Program, all nine of the farmers selected for the pilot irrigation project, the three signatories of Springs of Life, and the area Chief all agreed upon and signed the MOU. The fact that we were able to get four different parties comprising of 26 people to sign this document was very rewarding. I won't bore you with the details, but in general, the goal of this MOU is to foster real growth within the community, and encourage collaboration between multiple parties for implementation of a pilot irrigation system and create the opportunity for future irrigation systems. If all goes as planned, this project will offer real and lasting benefits to the community as a whole. Wednesday we also picked up Tom's Easy Coach ticket, since he opted out of the 2 day safari (which Shannon, Jojo, and I are pretty pumped for). Thursday afternoon Tom and I went into Kisumu to get quotations on irrigation equipment, which will be instrumental in building an accurate budget for this project. We also traveled to KESREF to pick up the soil and water testing results that we had submitted the week prior. According to the tests, the selected area has very fertile soil, and the water is suitable for irrigation. Tom and I are a little skeptical of the results, because we observed crops in neighboring areas
that indicated they had calcium and phosphate deficiencies. Luckily, Tom and I also sent a portion of our soil sample to a lab in Missouri (getting approval to ship a package out of Kenya is a story within itself - bureaucracy at its finest) and we will cross reference these results with the results from KESREF.

Today marks the end of our project work and now the fun begins: a 2-day safari, a day in Nairobi, and then a day in Istanbul, Turkey!

Sorry if you find my posts a little less colorful than Shannon and Jojo's, but hopefully you have found them informative!

-John

Hey everybody!
It is sadly our last day in Orongo... All four of us really have no project work left! JoJo and I went for a bike ride/run this morning through Orongo, towards the lake. We're hanging low today, packing, and really just enjoying Kenya!
Last night, we took Tobias and his wife out to Green Garden for a delicious dinner. It was really fun to kick back, eat some good food, have a few drinks, and really enjoy each other's company! We took a lovely crammed tuk-tuk home which was also very memorable.
John, JoJo, and I are departing early tomorrow morning on an overnight safari to Masai Mara! Then we're meeting Tom at the Wildebeest in Nairobi and spending the next day in Nairobi out on the town. I'm sure you'll hear from us then to update you on the adventure we're about to go on! We're all super excited to relax after a crazy trip! Thanks for reading!
Oriti!
-Shannon

Hiya everyone!

So we have time for a quick little post right now because the boys have gone Kenyan on us and refuse to go outside in the rain...so we're stuck at Mega City waiting for them to man-up. We're taking Tobias and his wife out to Green Garden tonight as a thank you for all their help this trip. Since our last blog things have gone really well. The mold made a very good, sturdy filter and we are all very excited about it! Shannon and I finished going over the business plan with AFGO Filters, worked with them to develop an action plan, and even did some group water testing. Geoffrey, Fred, and Amos loved it so much that we're leaving them the 3M supplies and incubator. The hope is that they will be able to test each filters water when they do routine checks. Tom and John had a successful last meeting with the farmers. The MOU was signed, letters of support were written, and everyone is looking forward to implementation in August. Wahoo! Shannon and I ran around Kisumu and paid the welder, Erick. He, as usual, was very interesting and entertaining to talk to.  We explained the issue on the mold and he even agreed to take a 500KSH pay-cut. We decided it would be best to motor-bike back to Nakumat afterward, and it was really notttt a good idea. It was quite an intimate, bumpy ride and Shannon almost fell off about 9 and a half times. 
Back in Orongo, we had dinner at Amos's. It was hands-down my favorite Kenyan meal of the trip. His wife (pregnant with twin girls) cooked us up some Chipotle-style rice, beef in some cilantro-ish sauce, and a banana/cilantro side. It was delicious (minus the bananas, but that's probably just because I don't like bananas). The dinner was super entertaining. To begin the evening, John almost peed his pants after being scared by a puppy. Wowww (said in typical Amos fashion).  Amos joked that he was going to name his children Shannon and Jojo and Geoffrey made it his mission to propose to Shannon by the next morning. He made plans to pick up a ring at the Nakumat (walmart-kenya style) and hire Osama Bin Ladin to kill her current boyfriend in the US (look out nate!). Amos was very very upset by this and kept saying he would not allow it and Geoffrey (a recently discovered mommas boy) would be kicked out of EWB. Geoffrey explained he needed to marry rich so that he could not work and still have his education paid for. We then pitched our newest shirt idea to Amos...we want our new EWB shirts to be a picture of his face. Hahaha. He freaked out, and said that would be "too awkward". Moral of the night, Amos is a riot and Geoffrey is ridiculous. At the end of the night, Shannon and I volunteered to babysit Amos's kids when we came back to visit (they will certainly be the most precious children ever) and he said he was going to ship them to the USA for the first two years of their lives so they can learn english with us. hahaha.
This morning, Shannon and I attempted to go for a bike-ride on Amos's and Fred's bikes...it was treacherous. We didn't take into account the fact that the bikes were difficult to ride and we would be off-roading it through bikes and cacti. After our adventure, we headed into Kisumu to try and beat the rain (fail) and now we're looking forward to dinner and our last day in "ooooh-rungo!"

We can't wait to see everyone's beautiful, pale faces in Wisconsin!!!

Jojo and team :)

Oh, and Shout Out to Geoffrey for always reading this blog on his phone. Double shout out to Geoffreys mom who still pays his phone bill and allows him to have internet on his phone.

Hey everybody!
JoJo and I are back in Kisumu for a nice long extended stay at the internet cafe. We are currently making final edits on the business plan and extra copies of some other documents for Amos, Fred, and Geoffrey.

It has been a great couple of days! JoJo and I took the day trip with Josie's brother and Lucky, one of his friends. It was quite the day! Definitely the most Kenyan day I've ever had here... Between the more than 5 hours spent in a full matatu to the ferry ride and the numerous other crazy things that happened that day, JoJo and I had a day full of great experiences! We have many stories to share, that's for sure. We drove along the coast of Lake Victoria and took a ferry out to a small island. It was absolutely breathtaking! I cannot wait to share the pictures!

That day, John and Tom completed soil testing at the farmers. It was extremely productive and successful!

Yesterday, all four of us had a busy, busy day! JoJo and I went into town in the morning to begin typing and editing some documents for the biosand filter business. John and Tom also spent time at the internet cafe typing up the irrigation MOU. We all hurried back to the house in time for our second farmers meeting!

Again, the farmers meeting was a huge success. We got some great feedback on our MOU, and John Ombuayo was a huge help in fixing some parts deal with finances. It was very productive, and we again left the meeting with very high spirits!  John Ombuayo even pulled some of us aside after the meeting to complement the entire group that was sent this trip!

Last night, in the dark, we heard the distinct sounds of a tuk-tuk. We assumed it was the sounds of our mold... and it was!! We sprinted out of the house and down the road to Amos'. We inspected it and cheered for having finally gotten the mold. Tom also walked over and looked over the mold. He said one part looked strange, so we went back to our house to get a manual to double check. It turns out there was a small error with the mold, but it can be fixed by a neighbor of Amos' for free. We were very lucky to have Tom notice an error on something unfamiliar to him! Amos, Fred, and Geoffrey will be fixing it today or tomorrow and other than that, the mold looks great!

Today, JoJo and I are making some last minute fixes and copies, paying for the mold, visiting Josie's school, and several other end of the trip wrap up things. John and Tom are in town this morning running a few errands and having a last "farmer's meeting" where we will be having everybody sign the MOU.

As it turns out, getting up before the sun comes up and getting to work by 7:30 each morning pays off. After today, there are only a few minor tasks that need to be completed. We planned the last two days as cushion days and its looking like we barely even need them! We will have lots of time to really sit back and enjoy Kenya.

I just wanted to briefly comment on this trip, even though I'm sure I will go further into detail later. Each person on this trip has been absolutely fantastic. I've never seen a group work better together in my life, and I never could have imagined how positive of an experience and a trip this was. I'm pretty sure we have taken no breaks, we've never slept in, and haven't been "vacationing" but I can definitely say that we have been enjoying Kenya for all it is. Each night, we sit back and reflect on how great this experience is and share more laughs than are sometimes appropriate... Tom is an absolute blessing as an advisor. We've all been so lucky to have John here, as he is an expert on this irrigation system. JoJo and I have worked flawlessy as a team of 2 tackling the biosand project! I cannot imagine this trip without any of them! Even the Kenyans have noticed. I believe a big part of John saying we are a great group is our positivity. He's noticed that we listen. We have the patience to listen and work through problems because we are all truly enjoying every moment here! Through the sunburn, bug bites, Kenyan food, the heat, and missing many things about being home, we are all loving Kenya! My journal is almost full, mostly due to the fact that I have 10 pages of quotes and moments that I never want to forget! :)

Sorry for the slight sidetracking! I'm sure you'll hear from us before we depart on Saturday morning. We've got an amazing few days planned after we leave Orongo that we are all looking forwards to. Until then, enjoy the snow! We are excited to share the stories from this trip and see everybody!

-Shannon

Yes, we've made it through half of our trip and things are going so so well! (In Kenya we'd say, soooo good.) Although our welder, Erick, has been holding us up with the mold, Amos, Geoffrey and Fred are being quite persistent. The mold was suppose to be back in Orongo this Friday, but Erick got behind. The boys "camped out" at the welders the past few days and even attempted to demand the filter yesterday (if you've ever met Amos, you know that "demanding" something must have been reallll entertaining. He is the sweetest guy ever). Nevertheless, we will get the mold on Monday and the boys will pour a filter to make sure it works. Shannon and I will be with Josie visiting a school for kids with disabilities on an island on Lake Victoria so we will be unable to help, but the boys seem excited and confident to do it on their own. Under their new name (while brainstorming, Geoffrey thought that FAG Filters, each letter representing one in their name, was a good idea until Fred, Shannon and I explained that that wasn't the best idea.) AFGO Filters, we're going to sign the Memorandum of Understanding and are steadily making our way through the business plan. (A little shout out to Emily and Mark--they are very very grateful of all the work we did on the business plan and they are excited to read every sentence because they know we spent so much time on it. Turns out waking up 2 hours early every Tuesday actually does pay off.)