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NEW 18/09/06 

I received this wonderful report from Nancy Crooks who lives in Nairobi (and is known to many LOGs) about her interesting trip to Lokichoggio.  I am sure that you will find it inspiring. Nancy is trying to introduce alternative ways of cooking to the local Kenyans instead of the usual charcoal and wood. Thank you Nancy and good luck with the project!

Lokichoggio Grant  - Sept, 2006

I know this is too long, and will be repetitious to some of you, but I just spent one of most exciting and fulfilling weeks of my life, and I want to tell you about it.

I fell in love with solar cooking about two years ago when I was doing some work with the inmates of the Langata Women’s Prison. I heard that there was an organization that put on free demonstrations of solar cooking that I thought the women would enjoy. I bought the food, and they came out to the prison with six box type cookers. Three hours later, with my jaw on the ground, we had cooked beef stew, rice, bread, mixed vegetables, and hard-cooked eggs. I was stunned! It was a medium-sized miracle!

From the edge of the prison I could look out at the Kibera slums of 800,000 to 1,000,000 inhabitants. I figured that at least 200,000 of them were using wood or charcoal every day to cook their food, while right near by, we had cooked for free just by using the sun. The box type cookers are clumsy, have a glass cover, and cost about $25.00. I knew the average Kenyan could never afford that, and if/when the glass broke, it would be useless. But I knew I had to do something to develop solar cooking in Kenya.

There is a Swahili saying, ‘Shauri ya Mungu’ meaning ‘it’s the will or work of God, and there is nothing you can do about it’ – much like ‘inshallah’ in Arabic. Whether it was Shauri ya Mungu, or pure coincidence, but from the very beginning of my project, everything ‘simply fell in my lap. The minute a problem arose, a solution occurred.

I somehow heard of Solar Cookers International out of Sacramento, CA., and miraculously, they had an office in Nairobi. There I met Margaret Oweino, the director, and Fostine Odaba, the field trainer. Solar Cookers International make a light weight ‘Cookit’ that cost about $ 10.00.  It is simply cardboard with a reflective surface that folds for carrying. A suferia (a round, metal cooking container that all Kenyan women use) is painted black to absorb the heat, placed inside a clear plastic bag tightly tied shut, and placed in the Cookit facing the sun. That’s it! You can walk away and leave it for hours as nothing can burn in it. With much help and advice from Margaret, we put together a proposal.

The proposal is basically twofold. One: to teach 20 Turkana women how to make and use a solar cooker, a warming basket, and a Water Purification Indicator. (The WAPI is an ingenious gadget – a clear plastic tube about 2” long and thinner than a pencil. It has a plug of wax at one end with a string hanging out of it.  The WAPI is placed inside the container of water, plug end up, with the string running over the edge of the suferia and under the lid of the cooker. When the temperature inside the bag gets hot enough to melt the wax plug it drops to the bottom of the plastic tube, and you know the water has been pasteurized, and is safe to drink. The tube is then turned upside down and put into another suferia with water. Just imagine all the water-born diseases that can be prevented with such a simple gadget! And it costs less than $1.00!) Instead of just demonstrating the Cookit, packing up and going home, I wanted each woman to make her own Cookit, paint a her own suferia, learn about the WAPI, and then take it home to her manyatta free of charge. That way we would have 20 Cookits in use and ‘embedded’ throughout the community.

The second part of the proposal is to micro-finance a Turkana woman to start a small business making and selling Cookits, painted sufurias, the plastic bags, WAPIs etc. The proposal will pay for all the equipment for 40 Cookits, suferias, WAPI’s etc., the cost of setting up the shop, and the rent for six months. This part of the proposal really worried me – finding a suitably educated, dedicated woman with enough moxie to run a business – they are pretty thin on the ground in Loki.

Frankly, I was not looking forward to slogging all over town flogging the proposal to various NGO’s and getting turned down. Then a woman friend, whom I had told about solar cooking at a dinner party, called and asked if she could bring over Rick Levy from Lift Up Africa, an NGO out of Seattle, WA. I hadn’t heard of either of them, but said, of course. They came by and I gave them my usual spiel of saving the forests, prevention of eye and lung disease from cooking with charcoal, kerosene, and wood, the saving of time (the Turkana women spend 4 – 6 hours every day walking to the mountains to cut down trees) and money (at least $1 a day for cooking fuel). Fortunately, I had a proposal handy. Rick took one and said he was having a board meeting when he returned to Seattle, and would be in touch. Three weeks later I received the full grant! (Shauri ya Mungu?)

Coincidently, at that same time, Terry Light, owner of Africa Expeditions (AFEX), asked me to start a catering and camp services school at his camp to train the local Turkana in some skills so they could get employment at the UN and various camps. Afex does all the catering and camp services for the UN in Lokichoggio, in Northern Kenya, and also has another camp, Hotel California, for NGO’s and visitors. We got the Culinary Institute of Africa (Terry loved the initials!) approved, registered, up and running within three months. Naturally, part of the course includes solar cooking. Since then more than 70 Turkana graduates have gained employment in Loki and Nairobi. It was with Terry’s generous agreement that I could use Hotel California and all of its facilities as a base that made my proposal possible to be conducted..

Loki is the staging post for Operation Lifeline Sudan, the largest airlifted relief program run by the UN which provides food, medicine, etc. for the refugees in Sudan. Although the UN and many NGO’s have been in Loki for at least 10 years, the local Turkana community has received no benefits from them at all. With no secondary school (but one which was promised to them by the UN three years ago), or vocational training available, almost all the camps are staffed by Kenyans imported from other parts of Kenya. Quite naturally, the local Turkana are getting angry when they see all the plush camps for the expats, and all the supplies going to Sudan. When I mentioned this to UN personnel, they said, “But we did help them. We ran a workshop” (‘running a workshop’ has become a cliche among the many UN critics. ‘What should we do about Bosnia? Let’s run a workshop!’ ‘What should we do about the Middle East? Let’s run a workshop!’ ‘What should we do about Outer Space? Let’s run a workshop!’) When I asked them what the workshop was about, the answer was “Conflict Management”!!            

I emailed the management at Hotel California that I would be running the course in a couple of weeks, and could they spread the word that I wanted 20 women to participate. A week of so later they said that there was very little interest shown. I began to panic. I just had to find 20 women! I decided to go up two days early to talk to church groups, women’s organizations, schools, etc. I was picked up at the airport and driven to the camp. I got out of the car, and there was Richard Mwikya, the CIA instructor waiting for me In the classroom were more than 40 ear-, nose- and chin-plugged women draped in sarongs waiting for me! (Shauri ya Mungu?) I spent an hour explaining the program through a woman translator. As I watched her interact with the women I wondered if this was the woman I was looking for. (Shauri ya Mungu again? So soon?) I explained that I only had supplies for 20 women, but observers were welcome. After I left, they had a meeting and democratically voted for the 20 participants. I later  made inquiries about the translator, Anne Aroo Enos, and found out that she had a Form Four education, was fluent in English, Swahili, and Turkana, did HIV/Aids volunteer work, was elected the chairwoman of her church group, and was unemployed. I watched her for a week during the course, and then spoke to her about starting the business. She was ecstatic. Not only did she excel in the course, but spent the rest of the course translating for the SCI trainer from Swahili to Turkana, so she was learning twice. (Shauri ya Mugu for sure.)

Loki is a small village with one tarmac road running up to Sudan. I was through it before I realized I had been there. The sides of the road are lined with one story mud and wattle shops. The people live in straw-thatched huts (that look like a beehive cut through the middle) in a manyatta ringed with thorn branches to keep out any wild animals. Many of the women are bare-breasted and kids run around naked. Although the air is dry, it is very hot, dusty, and windy. The landscape is barren and parched, surrounded by the Moglis and Songot mountain ranges. Any make-up is soon abandoned as it simply  runs off your face within an hour, and although I drank water and juice all day long, I hardly peed at all. At the end of the day my hair felt crusty from sweat and dust.  

The first night that I was there I was woken to a snorting, snuffling sound of some small wild animal at my tent. Then it would stop, start scratching furiously at my tent, and let out a little shriek (or maybe that was me). Then it would shuffle on and start scratching again. It came back every night and I began to feel that I should get down on the floor and scratch back a greeting to him. (But, not being fluent in ‘Scratch”, I was afraid I would say something rude and he wouldn’t return.) It was times like this when I would ask myself, ‘What is a 77 year old bag from the Midwest doing in a tent in the middle of ‘bloody Africa’ with a wild animal six inches from my face teaching a remote tribe how to cook with the sun?’

Then the SCI trainer, Fostine Odaba arrived to teach the course. Fostine is really a remarkable woman. Not only is she thoroughly knowledgeable about solar cooking, but

is a born teacher, with a great sense of humor. She had the women laughing, singing, clapping and dancing the first day. Because it went from Swahili to Turkana, I missed a lot of what was said, but she had all the women raise their arms and make ‘gathering’ motions in the air. When they had ‘gathered’ a ‘bundle’ of praise and thanks from Mungu. they threw it all at me with a loud clap. I pretended to stumble back from the weight, clutched my breasts, and said that all their ‘bundles’ had reached my heart, and my heart was bursting. Then they all ululated! I loved it! (I must teach Howard to ululate.)

The rest of the week was a continual round of cooking and teaching. In addition to all the food made at the prison, we made ugali (cornmeal), githeri (beans and corn), cakes, dinner rolls, several kinds of rice, roast beef and chicken, and other dishes. The women hadn’t eaten so well in years. The class started at 8:00 am, and because of the heat was to finish at 1:00 pm, but the women were there at 7:00 am and stayed until 4:00 pm. We decided to put on a demonstration at the RC church on Sunday, the last day, and hand out the certificates I had run off for them as a sort of graduation ceremony. The church was packed with at least 300 people, and had one of the most incredible choirs I’ve ever heard. There were about forty members and they were accompanied by only a drum and a instrument made of seeds. Fostine and I were introduced to the congregation. I said in Swalili how much we appreciated being there, and they all ululated (I could get used to that). Then they all came to the playground to see the sun cook food. You should have heard all the ‘Aiyeee’s of amazement when they touched the hot pots and sampled the food. Father Tom showed us the kitchen where they use wood and charcoal to cook a World Food donated nutritious gruel for 1000 kids a day! Four industrial-sized Cookits, large suferias, other equipment, and transport to Loki would cost about $1500. So if any of you have some loose change, want to save the environment, save the church fuel costs, and help feed 1000 Turkana kids, sent it to me.

I must have said ‘asante sana’ a hundred times during the past week, but there are several people who deserve a very special ‘thank you’. To Fostine, Margaret, and Solar Cookers International. To Terry Light whose concern for the Turkana people has changed many lives. And last, but by no means least, a HUGE thanks to Lift Up Africa for making it all possible.