swim at midnight, sunrise at dawn...

oh, how the mighty blogger has fallen!  sincere apologies for the delay in posting, we've been in the thick of project development and i've resorted to letter writing as opposed to blog writing for my literary outlet.  what else can one do by candle light?  shame on me, you might say ... except if you're amongst the lucky ones to have received said letters in which case thanks for being my comedic (or emotional) outlet.

where to start.  lets just let the picture to the right permeate the forthcoming entry of this blog, which has the following emphasis:  R.E.L.A.X.A.T.I.O.N. 

one of the benefits of a three month Tanzanian visa is the need to cross the Kenyan border in order to renew it.  and what better excuse than this to spend a few days away from the rough and ready lifestyle of Kwakiliga ... 36 hours with little more than a bikini, bottomless tropical fruit smoothies, and turquoise waters.  the current tumultuous political climate seems to have people at home more concerned that the westerners currently residing in Kenya (or at least those living in Mombasa which is perhaps too far south to suffer an attack from Somalia) and i, personally, felt little more than stress leaving my muscles.  it was an eight hour journey (including a border crossing in which we must disembark the bus, check-out of Tanzania and then walk 100 yards into Kenya where we must check-in.  the whole time i was picturing one of those films about refugees who are making their final walk into the country of safe harbor.  except in my version you can buy fresh coconuts on the sidelines from people who speak english).  the beach was splendid, though equatorial sun is rather intense and i now have a bow-shaped mark on my back from my bikini tie.  awkward.  on our final night we managed to dance on the beach until 2:00 a.m., take a dip in the Indian Ocean on the walk home (imagine black water fading into black skies, with fog blurring the horizon line and little more than strong starlight and fishing boats providing light), and awake for a striking sunrise at dawn.  and i ate a lot of cheese. 

and now ... the sunflower saga.  ages ago (really less than a month ago) we finally persuaded a few of the members of the farmer’s group to travel to Handeni with their bags of sunflower seeds to a machine that processes seeds into crude oil, the purpose being to collect the numbers necessary to calculate the profitability of the endeavor ... before structuring a loan to the farmers for the coming season (as many are unable to buy seeds).  to get there, we awoke at 4:30 in the morning and waited at the bus stand (bear in mind this is just a small tree with rocks beneath it) for a passing car to haul us and our loot.  ironically, sitting atop bags of dried fish and onions in the back of a lorrie with a bunch of young Tanzanian men wasn’t an awful way to spend a wednesday morning … better than the jam-packed bus ride i endeavored this morning which was smelly, sweaty, and full of masai herders who insisted upon asking questions and laughing at my expense (until the conductor told them to shut their pie holes because they were hurting his ears).  the information we gathered was this:

• lorries are more expensive for white people than native Africans
• it costs 150 shillings per kilo to clean your sunflower seeds prior to crushing, or 50 shillings for the crushing itself (this seemed illogical until we opted to do the cleaning ourselves and, four hours later, were covered in dust and suffered the same soreness felt after you’ve completed a maddening round of those little arm circles they make you do in gym class)
• each bag of seeds weighs roughly 50 kilos and, once crushed, produces 25% oil (i.e. a 50 kilo bag yields 12.5 liters of oil)
• people in Tanzania don’t necessarily plan for journeys such as these. one farmer neither cleaned her seeds before coming nor helped clean her seeds once in Handeni nor recalled that it was necessary to bring buckets to haul her oil … thus she purchased two and depleted her meager profit
• if you don’t sell your crude oil on the spot, the machine operator won’t offer a second sale since he’s unsure if the oil’s been tampered with
• if you opt to refine your oil further with a second machine, it costs 2,000 shillings a bucket and a second trip to Handeni (which defeats the purpose as you’ve paid for double the journey and must wait 3 days for the dirt to settle on the bottom of the bucket before refining … yet the dirt is redistributed throughout the oil after the rather bumpy second journey to Handeni) 

with the information we gathered, we determined the likelihood of profitability in good and worse conditions and, because we are offering a “group” as opposed to “individual” loan, calculated that even if a small percentage of farmers do well (i.e. 5 out of 16), they are able to cover the loan costs of the entire group and still have a small profit margin.  thus, we drafted a two page document outlining every possible scenario which might affect the sunflower crop or the group’s ability to pay back our loan  and  ... you know what's hard? TRANSLATING LEGAL JARGON ON THE FLY IN SWAHILI TO A GROUP OF GENERALLY UNEDUCATED FARMERS.  baby steps, as bob wylie might say.  

but at the end of the day, its faces like those in the photograph at left that make us thrilled.  that's zuberi ibrahimu,  treasurer of the farmers group and the clint eastwood to our kwakiliga.  upon completing his field cultivation and receiving his seeds, he said "give me one week and return here, i will have my seeds planted".  now that's a good sport.  speaking of good sports ... one last anecdote before signing off.  in an attempt to both better understand the lives of the farmers in Kwakiliga and prove our dedication to improving them, we bought jembays (hand hoes) which were fashioned by a 200 year old man named saki dahi (picture at right) and have been taking to the fields on a daily basis (don't believe me? ask for a picture of my callouses).  on one fateful day, i took a swing with the hoe and heard a faint chirp, only to see a tiny, featherless, newborn bird lying on the ground with one wing distorted and beak open from stress.  what does one do in this situation?  CRY.  CRY LIKE A LITTLE GIRL.  i very seriously considered taking it home with me, as though my actions had earned me the responsibility of keeping the sweet thing alive ... that is, until the farmer whose land i was working said "why are you crying?  that bird will grow up and eat my sunflowers!"  can't argue that point.