Day 19 October 5, 2011 Mumias

Greetings

The days are winding down and only a few more weekdays before departure.  Last night I finished the chemical calculations and tomorrow we will be going to Bungoma to look for the supplies.  There has been a run on wire in the country and hopefully tomorrow or Friday at the latest the wire will be in.  I had lost the price that I had acquired a few weeks ago but when I did the revision with the new exchange rate the total cost is about the same. 

This morning we started out at the original orchard site to replace some dead ones and to check on the progress of the other Kakamega sites.  Progress in Kakamega is not going as expected and it will be another week before they start planting.  We took some seedlings to the widow’s in Mumias and we will be there early in the morning to show them how to plant them.  The rest of Mumias will be planting this week or next.  Bungoma is ready to plant as well so they will plant as soon as we can get them the seedlings.  Mt. Elgon and Busia are also within a week of planting.  The goal was to have them all planted within the first two weeks of October or four to six weeks before the rainy season later in November.  I won’t be here for the majority of the planting but everything should be in place to make it happen without me.

Today we delivered 250 seedlings to the widow’s in Mumias.  We will now have about 500 of the 5000 seedlings planted.  The Bulinda sites are ready to plant but since Robert has been doing passion fruit for many years I am not to concerned with the thousand we are planting in his area.

I flew in to Kakamega two weeks ago and I was looking to fly out of Kakamega on Monday morning.  I went to fly540 this afternoon to get a ticket and the lady told me that flights have been suspended out of Kakamega until November.  I asked her why and she told me that the runway was being repaved.  I was there just two weeks ago and the runway and staging area were like brand new.  She told me that they did not do a very good job and it had to be redone.  I have taken off on that runway and I have landed on that runway and it was smooth both times.  Now if the runways at the airports and airstrips are like the roads here in Kenya then by all means fix them.  So now I have some hard choices to make.  The nearest airports are in Kisumu or Eldoret.  I can take the 45 minute to one hour drive to either of them really early in the morning and have a short thirty to forty minute flight to Nairobi.  I will need to be at either airport at five thirty so I would have to leave the guest house by four thirty in the morning.  Or I can take Easy Coach and spend 11 hours in a bus dying because the guy in front of me will not let me keep the window down unless he wants to throw out some trash.  The journey back to the states has begun and I am so not looking forward to it.

Tomorrow we will first start at the widow’s site in Mumias to get them planting.  Then we will be off to Bungoma to finalize the chemicals.  If the wire comes in tomorrow we will then head up to Kitale to get it.  We will also work out some more of the details to get those that need to be trained either the week of October 17 or October 24.  As for the posts Kakamega, Bulinda, Mt. Elgon, and Busia are finalized.  The posts for Bungoma and Mumias are still in progress.  I do pray that this all comes together and I can feel better about leaving on Monday.       

Take care and be blessed.               

Dave