Input Delivery

This time each year, One Acre Fund gears up for a massive logistical undertaking. It involves hundreds of trucks moving massive quantities of farming inputs around warehouses across the country. And it's all for one objective: supplying our farmer clients with the high-quality inputs they've ordered, on time, within a day's walk from their homes.

This guarantee is a crux of OAF's program model, and addresses a key challenge faced by smallholder farmers worldwide. When everyone in the farming business is looking for these same goods at the same time each year, finding them anywhere, let alone those of high quality at a reasonable time and price, is no easy feat. By meeting this need, we're ensuring farmers can start planting on time with the best inputs. By pairing this with intensive training throughout the season on correct use of these inputs, we're maximizing their impact on farm productivity and ultimately, harvest yield.

That's why so much depends on the logistics behind moving these goods running smoothly. Thousands of staff hours are spent facilitating this, from price negotiations at a high level down to the people unloading the trucks at the pick-up site. I was able to see a few parts of this chain in action: the loading of trucks at one of our warehouses in Bungoma, and the unloading of a truck on the day one group of farmers received their goods. I've included some photos from these days below.

(Warehouse jam-packed with inputs)

(Truck loading)

(Delivery day and truck unloading)

(Bonus: my highly public struggle eating sugar cane)

New Home- Photos

To complement the previous post about my new home, I've added some photos from inside the house too.

Sitting & Dining room:

Kitchen:

Bedroom:

Bungoma, New Home-a

Apologies for the groan-worthy title. Hope you'll still allow me to tell you a little about Bumgoma, my new home. It’s in Western Kenya, a few hours from the eastern shores of Lake Victoria; on the other side lies Uganda. Bungoma sits on some of the main road and rail trade lines between Uganda and Kenya (and its ports). We also cross the equator on every trip to the airport, so the day lengths here don’t change much and it gets hot in the dry season (as it is right now).

Interesting note on the name: either it came from the name of an occupying clan, or, and I prefer this explanation, it’s named for the drums (engoma) which used to be played to signal the elder meetings taking place here. 

I’d call it a small town but last time they counted in the nineties there were 60,000 people living here. It may be contained primarily within two parallel roads, but it’s bustling with commerce and construction. In addition to innumerable small shops, medium sized supermarkets are also plentiful. While they cover a relatively basic range of goods it’s really all the essentials, and they also double as home-goods stores, their many floors packed with identical plastic houseware items, metal utensils, and pricey appliances. There also more restaurants and bars you could visit in one weekend. Food options include Indian, pretty good pizza, and of course Kenyan, which I find beats Zambian food in both flavor and variety.

The new house is has been well-invested in and is quite homey and comfortable. Walls are painted cheery shades of blue and green, the kitchen is large and well stocked, and there are nice touches of fabric done by a talented tailor including curtains, pillowcases, and a comforter cover. After a few months, it’s fair to say home is feeling like home.

 (The new place, from the outside)

(Backyard tiki hut)

Work is equally coming into its own. After a busy few months of trips at the start, things were quieter from November to January. I’ve spent a lot of time developing some interesting projects, and its satisfying to see them reaching a point where they’ll be ready for regular use or sharing soon. I’ve also worked to create a plan for the communications component of our team. This includes arranging for speaking events as well as publications in different types of outlets, all to share our thoughts and work in building the farm finance sector. A colleague and I recently had the first of these pieces published on the Seep Network blog, you can read it here.

The next few months will include some new work trips, locations TBD, a return to the Princeton in Africa retreat, and likely attending and speaking at a couple financial inclusion/ farm finance events. With all that to get ready for, it’s good to have established a base here in Bungoma, and to have home here waiting.

Greensky Bluegrass: Windshield

Really enjoying this song by a great bluegrass band- driving bass line, slide guitar, big voice. Also recommend their album "Handguns".

Lake Malawi Trip Itinerary

Last year, Emily and I traveled to Lake Malawi from Zambia. I wanted to share a write-up Emily did of our itinerary for anyone who's interested in doing the same trip.

Day 1: Lusaka -> Chipata -> Lilongwe
- Bus from Lusaka to Chipata on Johabie (K150/pp). Buy the tickets a day in advance at Intercity.
- Take a taxi from Chipata to the border (shared taxis are K20/pp or K80 for the whole taxi).
- Border crossing is very easy and fast.
- Take a taxi from the border to Mchinji (2,000 MWK/pp).
- Take a minibus from Mchinji to Lilongwe (3,600 MWK/pp).
- We spent the night here: Mabuya Camp. Cheap backpackers that was fine for a transit night. We shared an A-frame that was $25/night.
- We had dinner at Latitude 13, a really nice/ fairly fancy place to have dinner that I would highly recommend! ($20-30/pp).
- We also bought all our groceries when getting in, so I would take the earliest Johabie bus at 5am to make sure you have enough time to cross the border, buy groceries, have dinner, etc. We arrived at Shoprite just as they were closing!

Day 2: Lilongwe -> Monkey Bay -> Cape Maclear -> Domwe Island
- We took the 7am AXA bus from Lilongwe to Monkey Bay. You don't need to buy tickets in advance. You do want to get there a bit early to ensure you get a seat, as they will fill it with standing customers as well. It is a big bus that acts more like a minibus, so a ride that should be ~3 hours took us 6-7 hours because it kept stopping. On the bright side, it was really cheap (I think equivalent to $2 pp). An alternative to this, especially if you're short on time, is to hire a private car, but expect to pay around $200.
- We then took a shared taxi from Monkey Bay to Cape Maclear. We weren't quite sure where to get off, there was a few false positives, so it's helpful to ask. Once we disembarked, someone waiting at the bus stop called us a taxi as there weren't any waiting around. It was roughly $10 pp when filled with 4 people. If you're planning to kayak out to the island you should try arrive in Cape Maclear at least 1 hour before sunset.

Day 2-5: Domwe Island
-We stayed at Domwe Island, which was amazing! We kayaked out to the island and had a tent platform that overlooked the water. You have to bring all your own groceries to cook, but they can catch fresh fish for you every night and they bake fresh bread in the morning. There's no electricity there, so they use solar lanterns at night (headlamps are also good to bring). There is an ice chest you can use to store perishables, and a gas stove to cook on. We brought our own tent but hired bedding and a mattress from them, since we were carrying all our groceries and luggage. Important to note that the island has little to no phone service, so try to coordinate everything you need to before you get there.
- Activities there included: hiking to the top of the island (really pretty views), catamaran cruise (highly recommend), kayaking, and snorkeling (not sure how good this would be in murky waters around the island).
- I think you should stay at least 2 full days here to make it worth it, 3 or 4 would be ideal. You probably don't need any more days than that.

Day 5-7: Malawi -> Lusaka
- Going back to Lusaka, I would recommend trying to go all the way to Chipata the first day, spend the night there (Dean's View is a good, cheap place to stay), then taking the Johabie bus back from Chipata to Lusaka the next day (good to purchase the tickets the night before when you arrive in Chipata).
- To get from Domwe Island back to Lilongwe is harder because the AXA bus leaves Monkey Bay too early for you to take the boat transfer from island and the taxi from Cape Maclear and make it. We planned on hiring a taxi from Cape Maclear (we made a plan with the taxi who brought us there when he originally dropped us off in Cape Maclear- phones don't work on the island!) and taking that taxi to Salima, the nearest town with minibuses to Lilongwe. Our taxi ended up needing to go back to Lilongwe anyway, so we got a good deal and took him the whole way. The drive took ~2.5 hours.

Ethiopia

This is a long overdue post I started while I was actually in Ethiopia in October.

From the sixth floor rooftop of my guesthouse in Addis Ababa (a skinny building that resembles a tower of jenga blocks), I can look out this strangely quiet part of the city. Except for infrequent hammering from the many construction sites around, some Ethiopian music playing from the numerous shops on the street, and a dove that has joined me on the roof, you would think everyone was still asleep.

Maybe it’s because it’s Sunday in, from what I can see, a very Christian country. Or maybe it’s the neighborhood I’m in; I know next to nothing about my relative location. But from where I’m sitting, you might call Addis a sleepy city.

My experiences around other parts of town, however, have shown me this is not an observation to be applied generally.  I’m here in Ethiopia on a partnerships building trip for work, the first conducted on my own. I’m holding meetings and field visits with Ethiopian microfinance institutions, and next week I’m visiting One Acre Fund’s program in Bahar Dar, a lake-side city in the north west.  My trip straddled a weekend, but lucky for me, I was connected to a friend of a friend living here in Addis. He and his roommate were exceedingly hospitable, and hanging out with them dramatically increased my ability to experience different parts of the city.

They also introduced me to Addis’s street café culture, which I sought out again today at what is apparently Ethiopia’s answer to Starbucks. I had a great meal and coffee, all for a few bucks. Everything is extremely cheap here, except taxis which are just moderately cheap. I get the sense you can eat pretty well in this city (Ethiopian food is excellent anyway) on a tight budget.

(Kaldi's: Starbucks rip-off in many ways, but nice coffee)

(All the Addis cabs were funny little French Peugeots or Russian Ladas)

Eating a dinner of take out shiro (so good), tibs and injera on the same roof tonight compels me to caveat my previous observation; this neighborhood can get loud when Manchester United is playing Chelsea. Another thing learned from being on the roof at night: the green hills surrounding Addis are fairly densely inhabited. I had no idea looking at them during the day, but at nights they glitter with lights.

I got out of the city to see a branch of one of the MFIs I was visiting. There was the usual congestion when trying to exit the city center, but suddenly we were at a tollbooth, and then driving on a beautiful new highway. Six lanes, freshly paved and painted, landscaping in the middle- and barely another car in sight. It’s a new toll road which had apparently opened just weeks before, and it was glorious. Funnily, despite the clear lane markings, you could still see drivers expecting each other to weave across the road in typical Addis fashion. On every over-take (picture three virtually empty lanes) there would be cautious honking and a quick burst of speed to pass.

(Fields of golden wheat)

(Kids running through teff, the grain used to make the Ethiopian staple bread injera)

Just a few hours outside the urban serpentine mess bursting at the seams, it was a totally different world. Fields of waving golden wheat, patchworked with green squares of teff or onions. No matter where out of the car window you stared it was an incredible, calming view.

Back in town, at the end of a day visiting a second MFI, the CEO was kindly dropping me off at my hotel when we were subjected to the power of Addis traffic congestion. The cause, when finally revealed, was a first in my experience: 2 lines of cars at a standstill, meeting head to head around a roundabout. But it wasn’t so bad, we had a great conversation and I learned all sorts of things about Ethiopia’s history (and faux-history). My favorite bit was how Addis is home to bubbling hot springs and was known as Finfinne for that reason. Menelik only became interested in the place, and eventually made it the seat of his empire, when his wife came down and wrote to him about it,calling it a new flower, which translates to Addis Ababa. One thing I really liked about Ethiopia is all the history around, both in physical form and in people’s minds. Of course there are many versions, but I loved how quick people were to talk about it. It’s a place I’d love to return to with more time and the chance to spend it exploring.

Last Day- 2014

This time last year I was home in Boston, celebrating the end of 2013 with friends, about to get snowed in for an extra week in the US thanks to the polar vortex. This year Emily and I are closing out 2014 in Cape Town (technically in Knysna) enjoying long hot days and the ocean. These two awesome trips bookend a very full, very fast year. Last half year in Zambia, re-visiting Namibia, deciding on a plan for the next two years, a wonderful trip up the west coast of the US, and, finally, moving to Kenya. I feel very lucky to have shared it all with family and friends new, old and very old. Hoping for more of the same in 2015.

I've included a few photos of our trip around South Africa below, more to come later. 

 (Dusk view from Chapman's Peak drive)

(Windy sunset on Lion's Head, Table Mountain behind draped in clouds)

(Colorful changing houses on Muizenburg Beach on boxing day)

(Devil's Peak, Table Mountain and Lion's Head)

(Sharing a glass of wine at a Stellenbosch Vineyard)