Surprises

Once in a while I still get surprised by some things. Above is a Syke's Monkey that I saw from the verandah at Vi Agroforestry at morning tea time. There was a whole pack of them, that were quickly shooed away by a staff member. Apparently there is one guy that comes around every morning to throw rocks at them (?) or find some other way to encourage them to leave the bananas and other produce alone on our side of the fence (the Kitale museum's forest is on the other side).
Before we knew it, these kids joined us for an impromptu interview in a woman's kitchen at a marketplace. This was the first interview I did entirely in Swahili, and my research assistants were very good at transcribing as much as possible in somewhat uncomfortable writing conditions.
This is an 'improved three-stone fire'. When we did a test later on, we found it used about half the amount of fuel compared to an open three-stone fire (for cooking tea... it wasn't a very scientific or rigorous experiment). This household was one of the few instances when the husband made the decision or gave a strong suggestion as to what kind of stove the wife should use. In this case, the main reason was so that less ash would get in the food.
This girl still leaves me troubled. It is a picture that will stay with me more than any other from this summer. She is 26, in a polygamous marriage (though the other wife looked to be about the same age as her), and married to a man who is drunk most of the time. She has no formal education and has no plan to change from using a three stone fire.
This scene also leaves me a bit frustrated. People here have on average six acre properties, which is much bigger (like, 6-10 x bigger) than most other people I interviewed in other areas. Yet, despite the large area, farmers plant it ALL with maize (or maize and beans). No trees (or diversity of any kind). So, even though they have huge properties (comparatively), the women and children must walk to the forest to collect wood, adding a two hour journey to their day. This is a big contrast to other places we visited, where somehow families managed to plant trees for fuel even on 0.1-0.5 acre properties.