Tomboys

We have around 60 goats and sheep here on the farm in Kitengela and that’s pretty wealthy by local Maasai standards. I say this because one of the locals exchanged his car for 30 goats. Well, there were extenuating circumstances because he had sold part of his shamba (land) and bought the car and then went on to squander the rest of the money. When there was nothing left and he couldn’t even fuel the car, he decided to ‘trade it in’ for 30 goats. There needs to be a lot of financial education to Maasai’s who are selling their land in Kitengela like its Christmas. Sorry, I digress. Anyway, every morning we open the shed door and let out the sheep and the goats. They sleep together in one big shed but once they get out in the morning, the sheep go their own way and the goats go their own way to graze in the 40 acres that have grass. It’s not so different with people; girls usually hang out in groups of other girls and the guys hang out with other guys. But there is always that one girl who likes to hang out with the boys. If you’re her, you’re probably running in your mind all the reasons why you don’t like hanging out with girly girls, and why you don’t watch Alejandro or wouldn’t cry just because he kissed Camilla. Most tomboys grow up in family settings where there are all boys and she’s the only girl in the family and so she tends to behave like her brothers. However, she will usually outgrow the tomboy status when her body begins to change and she can no longer hide her new features even when she wears baggy clothes. And in any case, skinny jeans are making it hard for her to dress like that and hang out with the boys who themselves aren’t wearing baggy clothes anymore. So she is slowly being forced into accepting her femininity as she matures and therein lies the struggle with a mini-identity crisis on whether to wear minis or not. There are also those awkward moments when the tomboy likes one of the boys or one of the boys likes her and neither may act on that longing because it will mess with the group dynamics, and it still does even when both or either denies existence of such feelings. The bottom line is that as much as the sheep wants to hang out with the goats, it will still be looked on as a sheep. But she is always welcome to graze with the goats as long as she is ready for when the awkward shows up, because it always does.

Tackling Rejection

Right from when we are younglings, we crave attention and acceptance, something that doesn’t change as we grow older. Well, the attention part may vary from one person to the next but we all have a need for acceptance. I am witnessing here on the farm in Kitengela, a sheep that gave birth to twins but is rejecting one of them. It pushes it away when the kid tries to suckle while fondling the other one. I am not sure why it’s behaving so but my guess is that it thinks there isn’t enough milk for both twins and is thus giving one a full-blown chance for survival while rejecting the other. My struggle with finding harmony between success and spirituality has over the years produced feelings of both acceptance and rejection. Acceptance is in the sense that I feel camaraderie with the masses when for example I am walking on the street or while traveling in a Matatu (Public Service Vehicle). On the other hand, the rejection is in the sense that I feel (whether rightly or not) feelings of rejection from the masses when I’m driving. There is that feeling of disconnect and the ‘Oh ye holier than thou’ looks from matatu passengers and pedestrians when you are driving. So, in my efforts to find harmony between success and spirituality, I have to tackle this real or perceived rejection since both spirituality and success form part of my hierarchy of values. My ideal situation is where I use my wealth to create connections with humanity through simple interactions like buying mboga (vegetables) from the corner shop to interactions with greater implications like philanthropy. So now I begin to see my wealth as a tool to explore and experience my spirituality. My desire henceforth is that my hierarchy of values reflects this new dispensation and my habits and behaviours around these two values change to reflect this new understanding both on the conscious and subconscious levels of my being. I am now using farming as a wealth creation tool and the fact that I am doing it in Kitengela strokes my spirituality in that I have always wanted to live in a simple semi-arid area. I do want to create harmony between spirituality and success and live a successful and spiritual life. So this calls on me to realize that the two can co-exist just like the twins can survive on the sheep’s milk because it’s the nutrients in the milk that are important, not the quantity. Raise your milk glasses for a toast to both spirituality and success. Cheers.

Shoe prints in the sand; City life meets country

With my former life behind me, I can now concentrate on building my new identity as a farmer, blogger, poet-at-large and philanthropist. There are many people who are finding it hard to make ends meet. They prefer to shed their over-the-top lifestyles for simpler more economic ones by moving into smaller homes in less loftier suburbs. This represents a new shift because rather than get deeper into debt, they are opting to put a stop-loss cap in their financial lives. Shoe prints in the sand is me trying to assimilate city life with upcountry life a I embark on this farming venture.

A Million Bees

Today, Monday 3rd September 2012 is day 4 at the farm in Kitengela. The farm is a 60 acre piece of land in Olturuto – about 4Km from the Kenchic breeding farm on the Kitengela-Namanga Road. Our farm is however only 3 acres out of the 60 which then belong to a family friend who sold us the three. The shopping center is about 2Km away and has a Division Officer (D.O.) stationed there. The center is also about 15-20Km from the proposed Konza ICT City although there is no direct road to it- you have to go back to Kitengela and join Mombasa Road which is farther. The homestead where I am residing belongs to the Mzee who sold us the 3 acres, and I’m housed in one of the eight SQs. There is also the main house, store, kitchen and water pump. There are two boreholes on the farm which were used to irrigate passion fruit on fifty acres up to the year 2000. That’s the last time this farm was operational. The Mzee has since quit farming and subdivided the farm for sale, that’s how we got ours. He has however been keeping livestock, mostly cows, goats and sheep. He had sold about 20 cows in April of this year which fetched him a cool KShs. 500,000. In terms of electricity, the Kenya Power grid is at a neighbour’s farm which is about 1Km away and is soon going to be connected. The farm caretaker pumps water to a neighbour about 1Km away and uses the industrial water pump on the farm to do it. The perks of this is that the generator produces so much power that all the rooms on the farm have a bulb and a socket all connected to it and thus the lights come on when the generator is on. So, he pumps water every two days (like today, that’s how I’m on my laptop) from 10am-2pm. The neighbour has a huge water tank and uses the water domestically as well as for open irrigation. He does not use drip irrigation which costs him a lot of water although we do not charge him for the water, he just buys the diesel for the generator. Once the Kenya Power grid gets here, it will be so much cheaper to pump water because the neighbour whose farm the main grid has reached had been using about KShs. 40,000 per week on diesel to irrigate his 70acre farm. Now he’s only using KShs. 17,000 a month on electricity usage for pumping water and domestic appliances. This is one of the things that convinced me to move out here; the fact that Kenya Power are at our doorstep literally. I can do my commercial writing online from here as well as farm. I woke up this morning at 6am and headed to the farm, tilled up to when the sun got hot at 10am, now I’m in “the office”. Last week, we came with an agricultural extension officer from a project funded by USAID called Feeding the Future. The project is a Barrack Obama Initiative for Kenya- proudly. He is in charge of Eastern Province and from a quick visual survey, he advised us to plant Green Grams (Dengu) as a beginner crop since the land hasn’t been tilled in 12 years. After that, he said we can plant chilies and he will link us up with the local and export markets. He will be giving me the Green Grams seeds which just so happen to be free since it is a test project for seeds and so too is the technical support. They only need you to have land and capital to work on it. I am excited about this venture and I look forward to being ‘Benna Ma-probox’ or if I work hard enough, unlock the Range Rover Sport. Like Stella Mwangi aka STL said in her Kikuyu song ‘Biashara ni Biashara.

Networking

Today was a day spent at St. Peter's Cleaver Primary school in downtown Nairobi for the purpose of networking with other farmers. The meeting had been called by a company by the name Rabbit and Rabbit products. The aim of the gathering was to establish a governing council for the Nairobi area comprising of seven representatives who were to be chosen by the farmers.

This gave way to a one hour voting process and the seven were chosen. It is the task of the seven to register a council/cooperative through which the farmers and the company Rabbits and rabbits products will interact. The proposed name of the council is Kenya Commercial Rabbit Council. KCRC will then sign an MOU with Rabbits and Rabbits Products (R&RP) to find a market together for our rabbits as well as distribute their products to farmers. It is poised to be a win-win for both parties as one gets a market for their feeds as the other gets a market for their rabbits.

All in all, it was a very productive venture and as a smaller group within the larger Nairobi group, the Kitengela group is to meet on 3rd December 2011 at our group leader's farm in Mavoko. I am currently making plans to move into the farm in Kitengela permanently from next week because that is when the tractor will till the land in preparation for planting. That's about the time I will also purchase rabbits and take them to the farm with me. I look forward to a quiet farming lifestyle in the plains of Kitengela and moreso to a handsome harvest and plenty of cash :)

Slaughtering a rabbit

Here is the video of the slaughter http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2sAlGYAnuw viewer discretion is advised for the faint hearted.


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Training

Today, November the 2nd was the first day of training on rabbit keeping at the National Agricultural Training Center here in Ngong. The capacity building is part of a 3-day course which ends on Friday and by which time I will have gotten enough knowledge to be able to keep rabbits comfortably and cost-efficiently. Our trainer today, Mrs Komen, informed us that there has been a request from China for 200 Kgs of rabbit meat every month but the available farmers in the country aren't able to meet the demand. This is partly due to the fact that most rabbit farmers go it alone and thereby miss out on opportunities like this. Others just do it as a hobby and keep only two or three rabbits.

The training today covered the various types of breeds there are including the California, New Zealand, Flemish giant, Angora, Chinchila and many more. Oh by the way, did you know that a baby rabbit is called a kitten, and when in a group they are called a litter. Any way, enough with the terminology. The training went on well and I'm hoping to create a network of rabbit farmers with whom I can work along with and share experiences as well as meet orders together.

Bottom line is that I am getting ready for this venture the right way and I feel positive about all this. As for the crop husbandry, I will employ the services of my agricultural consultant Mr. Wainaina because I am yet to get any training on that. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's training day. Till then.