Trip to ECHO East Africa Symposium and visiting relatives in Kenya

         On the 28th of January, I began my 10 day adventure. The final destination of the trip was Arusha, Tanzania, for ECHO's 3rd East African Symposium. The focus of the 3 day long conference was on different types of agriculture in East Africa; topics ranged from conservation agriculture to raising bees. The symposium was filled with large group sessions, as well as smaller sessions. The speakers and participants were from all over East Africa.

         Since I was going through Kenya to get to Tanzania, I decided to visit my Uncle and Aunt who are missionaries in Kisumu, Kenya. I spend 4 days with them before I headed to Tanzania.

A map depicting my journey.

My 3 year old cousin helping my Aunt grate eggs.

Caught in the act.

My 15 month old cousin was eating a chocolate covered cookie;
he missed some of the chocolate, so my 3 year old cousin gave him a kiss.

        The rainy season begins in March, so many farmers are beginning to prepare their fields to plant maize. I took this picture in Kisumu, Kenya. Because the population is so high in this part of Africa, many farmers have less than an acre of land to farm; 3 acres is considered a large farm.

A field prepared for planting.

On my way to Tanzania, I traveled through some of the highlands of Kenya,
this is where tea, among other crops, is planted.

The road from Nairobi, Kenya, to Arusha, Tanzania, is good;
but the land is drier than where I live in Uganda.

        After we entered Tanzania, we saw a few wild animals, including giraffes. This giraffe was crossing the road in front of our bus. The driver stopped and was letting us see and take pictures. Less than a minute after I took this picture, a tractor trailer truck came speeding past us from behind. The giraffe tried to run off the road but, came very close to getting run over by the truck. The giraffe ended up falling into the ditch. It managed to get up and run off into the bush.

Giraffe on the road.

        On my way back from Tanzania, I was able to get a first hand experience of what I had learned had at the ECHO conference. On the one side of the road farmers had hedgerows and annual crops. Hedgerows are important in this drier climate because they help to reduce erosion and increase rainwater infiltration. 

       

On one side of the road in Tanzania, where farmers where crop farming.

 On the other side of the road, the land had been overgrazed. Over grazed land does not soak up water very well and the exposed land is more vulnerable to wind erosion, as you can see.

On the other side where the land is overgrazed;
notice the dust cloud in the distance.

       The ECHO conference was very educational and gave me a chance to meet people all from all over East Africa, working in agriculture development. The networking with many people was my favorite part of the conference. I was surprised the first day when I entered the conference room and saw Dr. Sjoerd Duiker from Penn State! Dr. Sjoerd was doing some work in Kenya, and spoke at one of the breakout sessions. I never had a whole class with Dr. Duiker when I was a student at Penn State, but he was a guest lecturer at a couple of my classes. I had talked with him a few times when I was at Penn State.

Dr. Sjoerd Duiker from Penn State.