Finished in Kenya and coming home

With our work now finished, we are slowly leaving Kenya. Nerissa left last week for Philadelphia and I baked her a cake using a mix and frosting sent from home.

We took her to the Kisumu airport and wished her a safe trip home. From left: Janet, Maurice, Nerissa, Melody.

Next Christine returned home after she worked out a flight that avoided the volcanic ash cloud. I can't believe that we have to worry about a volcano disrupting our travel plans after we have been living in Kenya for months.

And then it was Janet's turn to leave for home in the UK. She was a bit lucky that her flight left on time. I gave her some trail mix (she's holding it in her hands) to eat on the long drive to Nairobi. Janet felt just like royalty since the drivers wore suits to take her to the airport.

Melody is learning how to cook ugali- a boiled corn maize that turns into kind of a dense bread. It takes a strong arm to mix it while somebody braces the pot.

The second flock of chickens is growing fast and they are losing their fuzzy appearance. The orphan feeding center remains open even though the children have been on school holiday the entire month of April. They don't get a long summer vacation like we do in the USA but instead they get one month off after every semester. To help keep them busy, I handed out some Japanese origami paper (thoughtfully donated by Bob Hirashima) and held a paper folding class. You can see the children waving their sheets of colored paper in the air. I gave them step by step instructions and taught them how to make a paper swan. You can see some of the more proficient kids showing off their birds.

Finally, I am scheduled to leave tomorrow and make the two day journey back to California. Melody had the kitchen prepare a special banana split that read "Bon Voyage LOREN". It was a nice touch to end my assignment here in Kenya. I will travel via London Heathrow and arrive in LAX on Sunday, May 2. Melody will leave Kenya in a few more weeks and then in June we expect the next wave of GSK volunteers. I think there are three coming to replace us.

This will be my final blog and I want to thank all of those who took the time to follow it. Most of all, I want to thank Myrna and Ashley for sacrificing their husband/dad for four long months in Africa. We missed each other so much but thankfully we could keep in touch via Skype when the internet was working. Also, I want to thank all of my family, friends and colleagues who have provided their love and support for this mission. It has been an extraordinary experience and I know that the people of Kenya are very grateful for what I was able to accomplish.

Fishing Lake Victoria and a new cycle of chicks

Recently we took a trip to Rusinga Island in Lake Victoria so I used it as a chance to do some fishing. Every sunrise and sunset I was trying to catch something and usually I was accompanied by my five year old friend Jack. You can see me standing against the sunset with Jack, his mom and little sister at the end of the dock.

One morning I was rewarded with a nice tilapia so we grilled it for lunch.

Most of the fishing was catch and release and sometimes the fish were no bigger than the lure.

Melody had never caught a fish before so she was proud to catch this one.

There were many small islands on the lake and we cruised past a fishing village during a bird watching tour.

My little friend Jack and his family went on a fishing trip and came back with a nice Nile perch that weighed about 7 lbs. A few decades ago Lake Victoria was famous for large Nile perch but heavy commercial fishing ruined the sport fishing industry. The largest Nile perch ever caught here was about 600 lbs but nowadays a big fish might be 20 or 30 lbs.

The girls managed to catch some rays during our boat tour.

But soon our weekend adventure was over and we were back at work. The next cycle of baby chicks arrived so we jammed into our truck and headed off to the village chicken coop. There were so many supplies and people that the KENCHIC boxes had to be placed in Tony's lap.

Sam, OGRA Director of Programmes and Sustainability, and I are holding a few of the day old chicks.

The chicks quickly adapted to their new home and Melody got her chance to hold one.

The last photo was taken at the bird's eye level.

Celebrating success, delivering clean water

At our weekly meeting we celebrated the success of orphan feeding center poultry project with some fancy cigars (just chocolate!). Since it was a special event, I wore a traditional African shirt and later enjoyed a lunch of beef stew and ugali (boiled corn maize). Typically this dish is eaten without using any utensils so I just scooped it up with my fingers.

The next series of photos show us raising community awareness about the importance of clean water. We tried to walk 6 km to experience how far the average woman walks to get fresh water for the family. I carried a 10L container of water which is only half of what is what is usually transported. It is amazingly difficult to hand carry all of the water that you use at home. We also distributed water treatment kits, plastic drinking cups and dispensed some quick tips on how to properly disinfect drinking water. Our walk ended in the local marketplace where we held a rally and gave out the remaining clean water supplies. I found it a bit ironic that some of the water containers we used to give out fresh water were recycled plastic jugs that contained sulphuric acid.

A bore hole or water well was finally drilled at the orphan feeding center. You can see the black plastic pipe sticking out of the ground awaiting a control valve. This bore hole will supply the surrounding community with clean groundwater and greatly improve the quality of their lives.

The construction site photos were taken at a local school building project where we joined our friends from the Kenyan Orphan Program (KOP). The new school brick building will replace the current classrooms made out of corrugated sheet steel. The chicken meat used for lunch came from our poultry project so I was awarded a check as payment.

Finally a photo of the team enjoying some candy sent from home. My wife got a quick thank you for her thoughtfulness and effort.

Chicken harvest (warning- dead chicken photos)

At 5 1/2 weeks old the chickens are fully grown and ready for the market. Processing the chickens was a new experience for everyone so I had some experienced poultry farmers come out to give us a hand.

We selected a couple of random chickens to process and found their average weight to be about 1.5kg. This was an ideal market weight for our chickens so we began the harvest. With no electricity, refrigeration or ice we could only work a few hours before making the one hour drive into town to freeze them. With almost 300 chickens it took us three days to process our entire flock.

Fortunately, the children were on vacation from school during April so we were able to have the older village orphans help us out. They were eager to try something new and we found they were very good at feather removal which is the most time consuming part of processing a chicken. The final result of our efforts resulted in an organic, farm fresh chicken just like what we purchase in the local American supermarket. No growth hormones, antibiotics or additives of any kind.

For some reason there were two chickens that had stunted growth and were not big enough to take to market. Maybe they it was their lucky day but we didn't process them so they now have the entire coop to themselves. Everyone at the orphan feeding center was proud of their contribution to the success of the project and we took a group photo after it was all over. There was a reason to be proud since this was the first sustainability project completed by the OGRA Foundation to realize a profit. Hopefully it will become an income generating activity to keep the orphan feeding center open and provide jobs for the local community.

I met a woman who found a smart way to keep her chicken farm fresh. She simply took a live chicken home in a basket. No refrigeration needed. Brilliant!

The final pictures were taken as we handed out some donated clothes to the children at the orphan feeding center. I saw this 2 year old girl whose mother is suffering from AIDS and I thought she was beautiful. You will see her receiving an orange blouse in the final photo. All the kids patiently lined up and waited as we sorted the clothes by size before trying to find an appropriate matching child. There was no pushing or shoving and everyone was pleased with whatever they received. Even some of the adult helpers at the feeding center found stylish shirts to wear. I plan to donate some of my clothes to them before I return home.