Day Six

Things finally got off the ground today.

While walking to the orphanage this morning (about a 2 mile walk), I saw Rowland (from Village Enterprise Fund) in his car trying to get my attention. I am so used to cars beeping their horns or people yelling out Mzungu at me that I totally ignored him at first. It's tough being one of few Mzungu around - you can't go anywhere without being looked at or people saying things to you like, "Hey, white lady" or "Look everyone, there's a white lady" or "Do you want a ride white lady" and so on and so forth. You develop this ability to filter out the world and their comments. It has to be experienced to be understood.

OK - moving on. When we arrived at the orphanage, Sister Pena and Sister Vane were ready to have start the meeting. Good start to the day.

We talked at length about the frustration with getting land for the dairy, and finally they decided that a dairy just didn't make sense. In quick summary, the cost of land has escalated ($5K+ per acre), and transport cost of the Napier Grass would be no less than 1,500 shillings a day. Currently, they pay 20,000 shillings a month for milk. Anyway you work it - the transport cost + cost of land basically ruled out the viability of a dairy. But don't despair - I think we came up with a potentially better business, although we'll be running the numbers in the next few days. It's a chicken farm! Yep, that's right, a kuku farm (chicken in Swahili). Reminds of a time when Lali and I were in Kenya and I could not stop laughing at the Kenyan KFC-equivalent's ads that say "CooCoo for Kuku." That's just too funny (at least I think so).

So, we spent the day (me, Rowland and Sister Vane) driving to Kisumu and talking to the Kenchic folks - a local purveyor of all things kuku. I have a pile of materials that I was given to read through tonight. If this is the business selected, we'll have to build a kuku house. More good news - they have the room for that on the orphanage compound. And perhaps the best news of all, there's a shortage of eggs around here, and 'broilers" are in demand as well (that's the chickens used for meat). We're hopeful that the numbers will look good - financials to be worked on and shared in the next day or so.

For those of you that have known me in the context of being a vegetarian, you must be laughing.

Sigh. And to top it all off, Rowland said that once we get the business plan done and all lights are green, he'll kill one of his turkeys in honor of progress for a feast. He asked if I would like to be the one to kill the turkey. Made me think of all our ancestors that did these things - why is it so difficult for me to think of doing such a thing?

I digress. Back to kuku farming. So, for branding we had the great idea to get a rubber stamp that had a logo (to be designed) that said that the purchase of these eggs would benefit the children (shorter version needed). They'd actually stamp each egg. And, we had some fun with the design of the kuku house - we'll be looking for ways to leverage our branding strategy there as well - like painting it a recognizable color. How fun!

I did stop in on the babies today. Tried to grab Monica so I could feed her during the meeting, but Sister Pena told me she had to go back to the nursery (you know me, always breaking the rules).

Before the meeting was done, somehow I was commandeered into agreeing to buy a cow + a digital camera for the orphanage. Sister Pena is good - she looks at you and says things like, "Well, I am sure you will want Monica to have milk when you go back to your home, especially not that we are not going to do the dairy." You may ask how will they take care of the cow, given the issues related to the dairy. Apparently, one cow they can easily keep here on the orphanage compound, and it can graze on the kid's soccer field (oh, yuck - poop on the field). So, tomorrow we're off to buy a cow.

Signing off to read about kuku farming...and start on the bones for the business plan. Let's hope we can get this idea off the ground.