On Our Way Home, The Long Way…

(Pics at bottom of post...)

When we were getting ready to leave Zambia for Edina almost 7 years ago, I suggested to Molly, only half joking, “Let’s Sail Home!” Beyond the great experience this would have been, it was driven in part by the intuitive sense that getting on an airplane in Africa and less than 24 hrs later being in Edina is just too big of a jump.  Alexandra Fuller, a now American who grew up in Southern Africa, writes…

“It should not be possible to get from (Kenya to Edina) in less than (1 day), because mentally and emotionally it is impossible. The shock is too much, the contrast too raw. We should sail or swim or walk from Africa, letting bits of her drop out of us, and gradually, in this way, assimilate the excesses and liberties of the States in tiny, incremental sips....”  Scribbling the Cat  - Page 72

My almost-always-game wife did not go for boarding a boat in Angola and making our way north across the Atlantic and we did make the miraculous jump home in a day.

I remember well the couple weeks it took to adjust to driving being a passive activity rather than a fully engaged activity that requires nerves of steel, to the abundance of choices that came at us every day, to the general order and rule following that we Minnesotans embrace, taking on the general busyness that we so pride ourselves on and a hundred other differences.

2 weeks from today we will make that jump again, but after only 3 months here and living in a modern city (Nairobi) the shock will not be quite as great.  But still, as I sit in the tropical jungle that is our backyard today, it is amazing to me that we will make that jump again.

On a personal level, perhaps the greatest gift of our time here has been our stay at Amani Gardens.  When not traveling this has been our home.  While a simple, but beautiful place, the experience has been made, as it always is, by the people here.  The staff have been our friends and family and, while coming from very different places, we have found much common ground – Robert, Frank, Lucy, Newton, Rosy, Donald (or “D’Trumps” as Bennett calls him) and many more have been faithful and fun friends. (There is a pic below of note Molly wrote to one of the staff that captures some the strong sentiments that developed in a short time.)  In addition to the Kenyan staff, the Erickson family that manages the property and who happen to be from Minnesota, have been another unexpected treasure.  Clara and Bennett and their four kids could always be found messing around starting at 4:00 teatime and spilling into dinner and often the night.  All of this was an unexpected gift. 

Since our last blog we have had a few memorable adventures.  A couple weeks ago I had meetings scheduled in Arusha, Tanzania that coincided with a visit from our college friend Mo Hislop.  Wanting her to see the real Africa, we rented a Land Rover with a tent on top and set out on what in the end turned out to be a 4 day, 2 country, epic road trip where we tasted some of both heaven and hell. 

On the “Hell” side of the ledger, specifically tasting:

1) Thinking it was a cool sip of water, I took a deep drink of…..Kerosene.  Now, this would be bad happening in your driveway at home.  It was REALLY bad happening on nameless, muddy road somewhere between Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro.  I’ll spare all the details, but we made it to a hospital in Moshi, I was fine, but miserable the rest of the day/night, and no long term damage done.

2) On our last day, within reach of Nairobi, our 1982 Rover breaks down due to a way too big of bump I hit going way too fast. We made it back to a small town and in true Africa fashion, our car was parted out and fixed all over the city, and then put back together.

3) Once we were back on the road we found ourselves on one of the worst stretches of road in all of Africa – The Mombassa Highway – in the rain.   I’d always known it was bad but since we would only be on it for a little more than an hour I figured it was ok and worth saving the extra 2 or 3 hours another route would have taken.  I was wrong.  It was the most harrowing 1.5 hours of driving I think any of us have ever experienced.  We witnessed unnecessary accidents/near accidents the whole way.

What made all these experiences that much more harrowing was that they all happened against the back-drop of the Garrissa attacks that had occurred the day we left Nairobi.  147 students were killed by Al Shabab terrorist – it was a sad, sad reminder of the crazy world in which all of us live and how quickly things anywhere, but particularly here, can go wrong. 

We did get back safely with some lessons learned and, as mentioned, experienced some “Heaven” as well, namely.

1)    Watching Kilimanjaro (18,000 feet tall) break out of the clouds on Easter morning

2)    NOT dying or getting really sick from drinking Kerosene.

3)    An evening and morning of thousands of animals in Amboseli National Park and an amazing, unexpected Easter brunch at a lodge.

4)    While stranded and waiting for our car repairs, watching Clara and Bennett gather up half a dozen local kids and all of us reading the Easter story together.

5)    The bond that comes from having done something that, like in any good story that has moments of tension and you don’t know how parts are going to end, but that in the end turns out ok.

(A big shout out to Mo for coming over, trusting us, and for smiling and laughing (almost) the whole way.)

We are leaving Kenya tomorrow morning and will spend our last two weeks in Malawi and Zambia visiting our clients and staff in these countries.  After the busyness and terror attack induced tension of Nairobi, this feels like a great ending to what on the whole has been a very memorable 3+ months.  

On the work front I am leaving incredibly encouraged by what we are doing and have a much clearer vision for what the next chapter of PFS should look like.  I am excited to get back with my team in Minnesota and continue to find ways to help reinvent Africa’s food future. 

For those who wonder, “What exactly does Partners in Food Solutions do?” We had an excellent story that ran last Sunday in the StarTribune.  It does a good job painting a picture of how and why we are connecting the expertise from leading food companies to Africa based food companies. 

We look forward to our return home and seeing you soon.

The Dykstra Family.

  

 

On the Road Again...and Again...and Again

Greetings from Nairobi…The long break since the last update is ironic since there has really been much to share but not the time and space to do it well.  Since I wrote the last blog in February there has been a lot of MOTION.  I think I counted something like 16 beds over 30+ days. 

The upside of all this motion has been some wonderful experiences both personally and professionally. I’ll give a quick recap and some reflections and then close with a bunch of pictures – so if you are visual you can just skip to the end.

On the personal front we have been able to see much of E. Africa in the last 5 weeks…We’ve been in the high altitude, (Mt Kenya region) the savannah (Laikipia) and the beach (Zanzibar).  We’ve hosted friends and family in some of these places (celebrated Berries’ 70^th birthday on Safari) and been able to enjoy the beauty of this region and the people who live here.  

The travel and motion has made our times back at our “home”, Amani Gardens, truly feel like home.  Both the people who work there, several whom have become friends, and the place itself, have been wonderful to return to again and again.  The four of us, considering our close quarters and the amount of time together, are doing well.  Certainly moments where we’d like to banish one another to the other side of the planet but all in all some rich time together.

Like Zambia, we have relished in the over-all pace of life here…Some of it is Africa and some of it is because we are just passing through and therefore not sustainable, but whatever the cause, it has been, and is, a gift and leaves us feeling grounded in what matters in ways that we can hopefully store up for the busier days of home.

We’ve has some harder moments as well – I was robbed in Dar Es Salam, TZ when my bag and computer were pulled out of the window of my parked cab.  I was bummed to lose my computer but almost as bummed to lose the 4 hours of work I had just done offline taking my email inbox from 350 to 30.   (Obviously thrilled to not be hurt and 1^st time in 14 years of living and traveling here to have something like this happen…I was due.)   Mother Molly had to endure being 8,000 miles away from a very sick with Mono Mackenzie who crashed when she went to Edina for Spring Break.  Many people stepped into care for her in our absence (thank you) and she ended up only missing a week of school and arrived back in Ft. Worth last night. 

Speaking of Mackenzie and the fact this blog started with dropping her off at TCU, she is doing great and loving her time so far…It has been a great start and fun to “watch” from afar.  Proud of how she is adjusting to this latest chapter of her life.

On the work front, which has precipitated most of the travel, it has been a wonderfully encouraging month.  From the last blog post from the Kenya refugee camp through last week in Ethiopia where we celebrated the first fortified wheat flour product in the country, I have seen over and over the power of connecting the expertise of our partner companies to small and growing food companies here. 

I will be heading back to Minnesota in May with many new insights and ideas for how we continue to sustain and grow our impact here as we work to improve food security and nutrition on this Continent that has now graciously served as our home twice.  I’m sometimes asked why we do this work here when there are so many needs at home…I have lots of answers to this question depending on whose asking and the time we have but in short I believe that it is a both/and equation.  In an ever-shrinking globe those in need here in Kenya are as much our neighbors as those in Minnesota.  Our model of remote knowledge transfer actually proves this out.  An expert in a lab or office in Minneapolis can share in real time their 30 years of experience with a company in Tanzania.  That is an amazing thing.  

Our time here has shown me again and again that helping food businesses in Africa grow has a profound and sustainable impact on the larger community and despite having engaged 600 companies here in Africa, we are really just getting started.

As we look ahead, we have just decided to make our way home on May 2 to be home in time to welcome Mackenzie back from school and to get Clara ready for Prom on the 7th (she received a really fun, creative invitation from 8,000 miles away that deserved a “Yes” Nice work Ben!)  

Speaking of Clara and Bennett they both deserve a shout out.  At 16 and 13 hanging with your parents for 4 months straight in the developing world does not usually top the list of priorities (It certainly didn’t for them - when this adventure was announced you may have heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from our living room...)  To their immense credit they have (most days) embraced this opportunity and have jumped into it all with both feet.  As you can see from pics below they've had many priceless moments. Proud of them and fun to get back a couple weeks early to honor their attitudes.

With our last 6 weeks here we have a few more trips and a few more visitors but we will mostly be here in Nairobi, which feels very good.  The kids have a lot of online school to get through, Clara is studying for the ACT which she will be taking here in Nairobi, I have a lot more I want to get done here and Molly will be keeping the whole bus from veering off the road.

We will be soaking up our time here while we also look fwd. to being home with you all.

Enjoy this Spring season.

The Dykstra Fam

The Edge of Somewhere

These last few days I’ve had the unique opportunity to spend time in Kakuma, Kenya, home of the Kakuma refugee camp(s) since the early 90’s.  For those in the West, Kakuma is known by some as the camp that the Lost Boys from Sudan began arriving at en-masse and was recently featured in the film, A Good Lie.

             

The word “camp” connotes something orderly and with clear boundaries and this would not be an accurate description of this area. Kakuma houses more than 170,000 refugees from a couple decades worth of conflicts in this region including Ethiopians, Sudanese, Congolese and Somalis.

This part of Northern Kenya is originally Turkana land, a pastoralist tribe that still resides here as well with their multitude of cattle, camels and goats.  It is hot, 100+ degrees today, with a dry wind that kicks up dust devils across the landscape.  It is hard to imagine the tragedies that led people (and are still leading people) to this desolate place that, in contrast to where they were coming from, make this feel like a sanctuary.

So why am I here? 

While our partnership typically works with Medium sized mills and processors, we were asked in this case by the World Food Program to help train several smaller mills who have the potential to supply the refugee camp with basic flour blends used for the school feeding program they run feeding 67,000 kids a day at the camps.

    

Like all our work, training these nascent mills has a positive ripple effect in multiple directions – instead of importing milled grain from far away, WFP is spending less to buy local maize and sorghum creating a market for smallholder farmers across Kenya.  The milling cooperatives that have been set up are new businesses that cut across ethnic/country lines and are creating opportunity for sustainable livelihoods.  The 20 people we’ve trained these last couple days are from 5 different countries but all working together towards a common goal of a successful business that will feed local children.

The training we’ve done here started with the best practices that have formed over the 100+ years our 4 corporate partners have been in the food business…(In Cargill’s case they are celebrating 150 years this year and General Mills is just a bit younger…) These best practices have been distilled down to the training that our typical client receives.  

In this case, the training has been distilled down even further for an audience of new millers, many of whom have never sat in a classroom or received training of any kind.  The training materials combined both words and pictures for some that are illiterate and is heavy on hands on repetition.  The training has been delivered by our expert TechnoServe staff as well as with a young local miller, Dennis, from one of our Nairobi clients as a way to build his own experience and capacity.

What is most exciting about this training is that we have demonstrated to ourselves that we can take expertise from 4 leading global food companies and take it all the way down to the smallest, hardest to reach millers on the Continent. (Other than a war zone, there is not a more challenging environment I can imagine than the one we’ve just successfully worked in…) These kinds of mills still represent where a majority of African food is processed so to able to bring them best practices has the potential to reach millions more with safer, more nutritious, local food. 

We will be engaging with the World Food Program to explore in the weeks and months to come how we might roll this small mill training out on a much larger scale.

“I’ve learned how to do my job better – we are gratefulfor the support.”-Thomas

 

“We are producing food for the next generation of Doctors, Teachers and Policemen who will care for our community – this training helps us do a good job.”

   - Japhet 

Meanwhile, Molly and the kids are at a nice hotel in Nairobi… (We had to move out of Amani Gardens for stretch because they have a large group that took over the place) and we wrestle with the very different experiences these few days offer us, a microcosm of sorts. Clara recently wrote a poem that captures this well...

This is Africa

A lot of people would say

Africa is a poor and dirty place.

Yes, this is true.

There are overcrowded slums,

Disease, robbery and rape,

Crippled beggars on the side of the road.

This is Africa.

But over the wall and down the hill

lies a different kind of place

One with flashy cars and expensive cuisine

with swimming pools and maids.

Education is easy to find,

And you live life like kings and queens.

This is Africa.

The question we wrestle with

And toss and turn over in our sleep

Is how do we live in the tension?

The coming weeks are filled with motion…Molly leaves for Texas on Thursday to see Mackenzie in her new life at TCU, Clara and Bennett and I are heading up to explore around Mt. Kenya this weekend…On Tuesday the three of us head to Tanzania where we will reunite with Molly and spend the rest of February, then back to Kenya to welcome the first of several visitors. 

On a personal level these first few weeks in Kenya have been a gift for our little family -- we will always look back on this time as a window where we received exactly what we needed, at exactly the right time only in a way that exceeded expectations.  I’m thankful to be able to write that.

Goodnight.