Water is Life – Kenya strikes with a winner!

Last week we kicked off our first ever “Livestock as a Business” Workshop. We invited a small group of community opinion leaders from Olgulului, Meshenani, Enkong’u Narok and Ilmarba, to come to our 3-day workshop. We invited experts from the Government of Kenya’s Ministry of Livestock to teach on the subjects of improved livestock breeds, diversification of types of animals, disease prevention and treatment, drought mitigation, pasture management and haymaking, marketing techniques and value addition.

Mr Mullei, Ministry of Livestock Officer, standing by to record the workshop participants’ action plan.

Admiring the breeds of cows at Kima Ranch

Workshop Participants listening to the overseer of Kima Ranch.

We also arranged for the whole group to visit a commercial ranch, called Kima Ranch, where they could see many of the things taught being put into practice, including cross breeding, hay and silage making, and artificial insemination to improve the stock. Our strategy, our hope, was that this would become the core group of teachers who would then take the information they learned and teach people at workshops in their home communities.

Jacob Ole Saei amazed by the amount of hay Kima Ranch keeps.

This workshop came as a response to the drought crisis of the past 2 and a half years. During the Kenyan drought of 2008-2010 pastoralist families lost 80-90% of their livestock. In the Maasai community, people keep livestock, but usually it’s culture, not business, and thus people do what they’ve been doing for years. In a serious drought, they migrate long distances in search of water and pasture when the grass close to home is gone, weakening the animals and exposing them to new diseases and climates along the way. The tragedy of the drought, the loss of assets to families, and the hunger and poverty that result, is so extreme because few people sell their animals when they’re sellable. Animals become walking skeletons, finally dropping dead when hunger, sickness and exhaustion become too much. One after another, carcass after carcass. If you have ever experienced it, if you’ve ever SMELLED it, you can never forget it. With the death of their livestock, men break under the pressure, some even dying of heartbreak, and families lose the only support they have.

Last year, during the peak of the drought’s devastation, WILK tried to mobilize help to the region by publicizing the severity of the drought, raising money to support school lunch feeding programs so at least children could have lunch at school. We also thought that what might help, when the situation improved, was teaching people how to handle their cattle as a business investment. This means keeping an eye on the value of their assets, their livestock, so that if they saw the weather situation was worsening, they could sell their animals and keep the cash to invest in something else, or bank the money to buy more cows when the drought ends.

As the organizers who came up with the idea of doing this workshop, we hoped to do something useful. At worst, the workshop participants would have an adventure, spend a few nights in a new place, eat meals cooked by someone else. But what we came up with was successful beyond our expectation.

One of the reasons the workshop struck gold is that it was small, lively and involving, with teachers who really knew their subjects and very interested participants. We designed a participatory workshop where everyone shared their current livestock rearing and marketing practices, as well as their losses during the drought. It was a valuable, if painful, exercise to have each person state their losses so that the reality of the situation would be evident to all. We calculated the combined value of lost livestock of our small group of participants and it was more than $150,000! The tragedy is that some of the loss is preventable. Keeping fewer, better animals, storing food for hard times, knowing how to prevent and treat diseases, these are concrete actions that can make a difference. A change in attitude and behavior can have dramatic results in preventing such losses in the future. People really recognized that. Hopefully, the workshops will be a great catalyst for change.

Group 3 working on their assignment.

Nelson Tinayo, giving Group 3’s recommendations of how to teach the community.

We administered questionnaires to the participants and found that no person, except one, had ever been to a workshop on livestock before, including the government appointed senior chiefs. Imagine all the money spent on food relief during a drought, but so few resources go to teaching about preventative measures to take before the drought hits!

When the groups returned to their homes, they immediately told all their neighbors what a great workshop it was and how much they’d learned. Those who weren’t part of it complained, “why weren’t we invited? We needed to be there”. Livestock is life in Maasailand. It has been the center of culture and life for centuries, but the way of life is under extreme pressure with severe droughts in the last 5 years and other political factors, like land subdivision, at play. Community members were happy to hear that there will be follow up workshops so that they can all have access to the knowledge which can help them. We will then support the formation of small groups who will target one or two activities they want to try: buying improved breeds, making hay or silage, pasture management, buying new kinds of livestock like chicken, camels or fish farming.

Workshop Participants looking at the fishpond where tilapia will be raised. One of the participants said he will be the first to start this at his home.

Jacob, one of the workshop participants, called to tell me that he had just bought his first camel. He is ready to lead the change, so his neighbors can see his example. At the workshop people learned that camels do well during drought, they keep producing milk and their market value doesn’t drop. People who had camels still had camels after the drought was over, while their neighbors suffered heavy losses. It pays to diversify! The teachers said, if what you love is cows, keep camels for business, then use the cash from selling them to buy a few good cows.

We know that, through hard work and inspiration, we did something good. Everyone is hungry for this information. During our visit to Kima Ranch, several people came up to me and said, “we’ve never seen anything like this, thanks for showing us, we really need to improve our way of keeping animals”. Our work was bearing fruit beyond our dreams. Now we will continue to teach and implement and support people in putting into practice what they’ve learned. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more people with improved breeds, more people storing food for their animals, more diversity in types of livestock they keep. These things will become the way of life that allows them to successfully overcome future droughts and other challenges.

Each Participant received a certificate.

Written by Joyce Tannian

www.kenyawaterislife.com

Ilmarba Primary School – Rainwater Harvesting Project, Completed February, 2010

WILK paid for supplies and a contractor to set up water storage tanks, gutters and downspouts to collect the rainwater on 2 large classroom buildings at Ilmarba Primary School. Water is now being collected from the rains and is being used by over 300 students and teachers at the school. Rainwater is free and, until WILK’s project, unused! The school has over 100 boarders and 8 teachers living on site, who need a lot of water because they eat all their meals, wash themselves and their clothes at the school. This is a big water burden on the school. There is a community borehole but it is not so close to the school. The area is full of wild animals like lions, elephant, zebras, gazelles so it’s not always safe. Now, with water in tanks on the school grounds, it is easier, faster and safer. It also reduces the burden on the borehole and the amount of money spent on diesel.

I wanted to share the announcement of the People to People Delaware Award Dinner with you all. So many thanks go to all of you who are part of the Water is Life – Kenya team. You all should be recognized for your love, enthusiasm, hard work, giving of time and skills. Nothing can go ahead without you. Together we are helping so many people here in Kenya.

I know I’ve already shared this with some of you, but it’s worth sharing again. I can’t tell you how much my heart filled the other day at the community meeting when the people of Imisigio told me about their borehole. Last October, in what were, thank God, the last months of a hideous and devastating drought, Imisigio people used the borehole water to do bucket irrigation to start their tomato plants. At the end of November the rains came to add to their efforts, and now, those who had used the borehole water succeeded in reaping a great harvest. If you look at the faces of those people now, you see joy and success and hope. What a huge contrast to the desperation and hopelessness of September!

This is what our work has accomplished.

With gratitude to you all!
Joyce

I just wanted to share some REALLY GOOD NEWS with everyone.

At our meeting in Imisigio (first borehole site) on Wednesday, April 14, we asked how things were going at the borehole. Several people reported that last October, at the tail end of the hideous drought with no rain in sight, people carried water from the borehole to their fields and used it to plant tomatoes. They have gotten great harvests and are recovering from their losses of the last years of drought! They are really happy AND are very enthusiastic for using the water at the borehole site to do irrigation.

If we had tried to start the irrigation project before they had had their own success, it would have been much tougher to begin! They also talked about buying a mill to grind their maize into flour – the staple here is ugali – heavy cornmeal polenta – and the maize is high in the fields right now. Really gorgeous and tall and green in every direction you look.

They are really excited to have a visit from the local agricultural officer who will help with the project so they can learn about irrigation techniques. The community plans to start clearing the land next week. I have already met with the Ag officers in Loitokitok and we are scheduling their visit.

Everything we have been working toward, all the work that we all do – this success in Imisigio is the result – real life changes, real improvements, real development.

Thanks to all of you!!!

Joyce

Hi Everyone,

Here is an article about WILK in an interview of me written by Mary Welch, writer for Womenetics, an online women’s magazine.  She sent me a list of questions which I answered for her in this article.  The interview was arranged by Monica Tannian.  She met Mary Welch in Atlanta and, in Monica’s inimitable way, she made sure it happened.

We put the link to the article on our website (here and on our News page).

Love,

Joyce

You were there…all of you who have cared to support Water Is Life – Kenya. You were with us this past August at the Imisigyio Well site for the dedication and celebration for the fresh water this well brings to thousands of people everyday.

We drove for hours through the semi arid, dusty, parched earth savannas across Amboseli National Park. We passed elephant, hyena, giraffe, zebra, up terrain that seemed impossible to travel on even for our 12 seat Toyota Land Cruiser. Except for us there were no people in site.

Up we drove across crevassed trails carved deep into the earth by empty riverbanks where rains haven’t fallen in what seemed an eternity. We asked how could people live in such a difficult environment?

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Go to Kenya! To get a true sense of what Water is Life-Kenya and Joyce are doing you need to have been there. Mark Manniso and I did just that this past August.

Getting through Customs in Nairobi, we were greeted by Joyce and three Kenyan friends. Next, we drove south for 50 minutes to Kitengela where she lives. The first night Mark and I stayed in a little motel. Out front was a locked metal gate. A guard sat over the motel water tank all night. After breakfast we shopped in Kitengela for provisions to cover our four-day stay down at the Amboseli Camp. Crowds of people of all ages, dust, cows, goats, traffic of bikes, cars, big trucks and clutter filled the streets.

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EWB is a national organization which focuses on using the engineering expertise of its members to help design and implement projects for communities in developing countries. The 5 person team, consisting of Prof. Bridget Wadzuk, Grad. Assistant Gerrad Jones, Rachel Jones, J.P.Gunn and Rory Kotter arrived at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Saturday morning, Feb. 28th. We immediately ferried them off to Nairobi’s industrial area to look at pipes and that’s how it all began, finishing with their return to the airport one week later, tan, exposed to a new continent and new way of life, chapped lips from the dry, dry air, wind and dust, and bejeweled in their gifts of Maasai beadwork, hopefully ever more convinced of the urgency of bringing water to people.

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At 2:17, JUNE 11th, 2008, the Meshenani Borehole was born.

Dear friends, you have to know what went into this to appreciate what came out. So do the urgent things, clear your desk, then take a few minutes to read our story.

We started out drilling at Meshenani on Thursday, June 5 th , with high expectations. The community all came out to the site to watch, pray, provide tea and meat, be on hand for everything. On the second day we expected we’d reach water bearing layers and invited the school children to come and watch. We bought sodas and sweets for the celebration. The school kids prepared songs to sing and signs to hold “Water is life – for people and animals”, “God Bless Joyce and Water is Life”. They waited patiently under the big acacia tree, occasionally getting up and roaring around, eventually getting used to the NOISE made by the drilling machine.

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My Dear People:

I really wanted to be there with you at the First Thirst Fund Raiser, especially to give you a warm welcome, but you were in the care of my magnanimous and effervescent partners, so I know you were well-loved and coddled, fed and attended to. Until the last second I was tempted to get a plane ticket and fly over there, but my mind kept telling me, that money you’ll spend on a plane ticket is enough to build a generator house for a deep well, so no matter how much you want to say hi in person and drink a fresh iron Hill Brewery Anvil Ale!

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