Week 8

This has been a quiet week and weekend, an interlude between a great weekend last week and a planned trip to Kenya’s most celebrated wildlife game reserve, the Masai Mara. It is just across the river from Tanzania’s Serengeti Plains. More about that next week.

Recently we toured Rivatex, Moi University’s textile plant. We watched the whole process from cotton balls entering the factory to the finished product – fabric and clothing. The third picture below shows us modeling some of the clothes we bought at Rivatex. From left, Ingeborg, Grace, Sinne, myself and Grace. Grace is a PhD student from Tanzania. The five of us have shared a three bedroom home here in Eldoret. Ingeborg and Sinne are from Denmark. They have also been travelling with us the last few weeks. They hope to go with us to the Masai Mara but after that they will be travelling elsewhere in Kenya and Tanzania for several weeks before returning to Denmark. We will miss them a lot. We have had a lot of fun with them. Many evenings we played some card games with them.

This week after her class at the elementary school down the street, the principal called Grace into his office. He had walked by her class, saw her teaching the class, but had no idea who she was or what she was doing there. It seems nobody had told him.

I have told you a little bit about the roads in Kenya. The following picture shows one of many locations on the main highway connecting Mombasa, Nairobi, Eldoret and going to Kampala in neighbouring Uganda. Notice the deep ruts in the pavement. These are commonplace where there are steep hills or at speed bumps near towns where the heavy semis need to slow down. I have seen ruts that must be up to six inches deep. They are able to throw cars and vans off their intended paths. I have seen ridges that must be 6 inches high.

Last week on our way to Hell’s Gate National Park we passed rows and rows of greenhouses. Kenya has many roses but they also are the world’s largest exporter of roses and have many greenhouses to grow them.

One of my PhD students asked me to look at and comment on his study of tea production factors in Kenya. One factor he sites is the high cost of plucking labour which constitutes over 25% of the cost of production for small farm holders. He goes on to state that the Kenyan tea industry pays it’s labour an average of $2.58 U.S. per day. According to his sources, only South Africa ($4.16) and Sri Lanka ($3.00) pay higher daily rates. Three nearby African countries have average daily rates of less than $1.00.

Next week’s blog may be late as we do not expect to return from Masai Mara until Monday or Tuesday evening.