Driving to Kasese

Last night I had my first big dinner since I arrived - we went to the Italian restaurant that I mentioned and I had the largest calzone I have ever seen. I then got the first 8-hour night of sleep I've had..so overall it was a recovery day once we got home. This would be necessary, because today...

Time for another car ride!

Today we drove to Kasese, which is a region in western Uganda (as you can see, very western Uganda). This is a 7.5 hour drive without stopping, and we made it in just under 9. We don't have any company operations there, but there are many farmers growing similar crops, and a game reserve, so we thought it would be worthwhile to head over. On the way here, there were numerous ads for some sort of car giveaway, which you can see to the right. I kept thinking they said "Chanukah," so I did about 58 double-takes on the way up here.

We also passed a large estate on a hill belonging to one of the traditional regional kings. Although they don't hold any formal government power, they still wield authority amongst the tribal people, and are extremely well respected. There is even a lane in the center of town on the main road that no one else is allowed to use.

When we were getting closer, I saw my first exotic animal..a sign of things to come I think.

After some sleep tonight we have another long day of exploring tomorrow.
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Mud Mud Mud (to Kampala)

George took a picture of me at 5 AM this morning. As you can see, between the time and the sunburn, I am happy and excited. After packing up and saying goodbye to all the incredibly nice workers who hosted me, we headed out. I wasn’t sure how long it would take, because it is 3 hours to M’bale, then another 3 to Kampala, and anything can happen in between. It was a great morning to be outside.

As we left, since we had 9 people between the truck seats and the back, I asked George if we needed a tractor escort again, since it rained so hard last night. He said we wouldn’t get stuck so not to worry. He was half right.

As soon as we left the slightly manicured dirt road that we built, we hit the mud again. There’s really no right way to drive it – if you stay in other people’s tracks, you slide up against a ridge and land in a ditch (obviously something I would do) but if you try to stay between the tracks, you end up sliding down anyway. Well, needless to say, we got stuck. Bad. About 6 times.

One or two people got out to push and told me to stay inside because it was hot and I would get dirty. Considering I was in Africa, and already both hot and dirty, I couldn’t miss this. First, all 9 of us got out and pushed, which got us through the first few hurdles. As we hit bigger ditches, George decided we needed traction. So, all 9 of us got in the back up the pickup, and started jumping up and down. Mohammed, who was with us, is about 220 pounds alone, and he was leading the effort.

Now, despite all the things I’ve said before, there is nothing funnier than the following: stand as 1 of 9 people in the back of a pickup truck flatbed as it fishtails at 40 miles an hour through mud while all 9 grown men jump up and down like 5 year olds. Also, try and hold on while you do this, then be the only white person as you drive past villagers huts. We were all hysterically laughing, and although it took an hour to drive a mile, this was probably the most fun I had the whole trip.

Notice the angle of the truck

This is when we finally reached the end of the worst part

I wish I took more pictures, but I was either helping or holding on for dear life. This is (L to R) George, me and Mohammed after surviving the first mile.
Right before we got back in the truck, I asked one of our guys to hand me some water to wipe off. He misunderstood me and dumped a bucket of water on me instead. Somehow George caught me on camera as it was happening (I think he was in on it). Blow this up if you love looking at mud.

The way back was probably the nicest drive we’ve had so far..here’s a sample

I think this is one of the best pictures from the trip

On the way home, we passed a huge expanse of land that George told me was a prison farm. This was probably 60-70 km from our farm. Apparently, someone escaped (there aren’t really buildings, just huts and the work farm), so he ran away. However, when you are hours from anything, this is not the most well thought out plan. By chance, the guy ended up at our location after walking for three days, then collapsed right at the entrance to the farm in front of our soldiers, which probably saved his life. They let him stay overnight, and then took him back to jail. He only had 2 months left on his sentence, but now he has 2 more years. Oops.

One other thing worth mentioning - I don’t remember if I did. The entire country of Uganda smells like a BBQ. Everyone, city or otherwise, uses fire pits or small charcoal stoves to cook. People are always either cooking or selling food, so wherever you go, it smells like BBQ smoke. It’s actually sometimes more prevalent in rural areas because entire villages will be doing it.

Running low on battery so I will spend the next 5 hours without the comfort of the blog. When we get back, I have about 2 hours more of work, then I’m grabbing dinner with Marcos (our CEO) and his wife at an Italian place here. That will be immediately followed by passing out in a real bed.
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9/11 in Africa

On the way home from the farm, George was checking the news on his phone, and mentioned that it was September 11th. I had known I would be in Africa then, but I had been so caught up in the trip that the date didn’t occur to me.

Patrick, one of the people with us, asked George why that date was significant, but remembered it once it was mentioned to him.

We started talking about politics, and George seemed to follow the election very closely. Unsurprisingly, I’ve met a lot of Obama fans during the trip so far. He said that he thought it would send a bad message if Obama lost, because everyone thinks the U.S. loves war and Obama would be a chance to change that.

One nuance that wasn’t lost on me was that while people spoke very badly about Bush and the U.S., they seemed to be referring to the government. From the conversations I’ve had, Uganda is a fairly pro-US country - English is spoken here, the main non-shilling currency is the dollar, and there is western music everywhere (especially Rihanna, apparently). The same people that said bad things about Bush were asking about New York, what America was like, where I was from and how much they would love to visit one day.

I think the idea of America is a very powerful one and something that still means something to people literally all over the world. It’s worth noting that aside from some of the outlandishness of the media coverage of the election, people as far away as remote villages in Africa find meaning in our actions both as a country and as individual voters.

Anyway, this is a blog about mosquito bites and not politics, but this trip has further reinforced my belief that it’s important to remember that we live in a global society. Being somewhere so far away, and out of the country for the first time on 9/11, it did show me something that I believe is apolitical. A lot of anger and conflict comes from inequality. A lot of our foreign policy is about aid, which may or not be conditional, but its powerful to watch Ugandans work on shaping their own future.

Our farm, while obviously financially backed by the U.S., is all local workers, will change Uganda, all the finished product will stay in Africa, and if it succeeds, will completely absolve the country from needing to import diesel – at all. Living in NY, and having been very affected by 9/11, it feels good to be a part of something that is helping alleviate problems in another part of the world. The Karamajong tribe is heavily armed, and every single person that has started on our farm has turned in their weapons. If we can demilitarize an entire people, while removing hunger and making them wealthier, I think that’s a great international model to be following as we look towards a decade since the attacks.

Anyway, I’m done ranting now. From a photography perspective, this view leading up to the farm was a visual reminder of where I am today.
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Jews are to Farming as Llamas are to Ice Skating Pt. III

After a chance to rest my feet, we went back outside so I could get a tour of some of the facilities and equipment they are building on site to handle our operations. The picture to the left is the beginnings of an office that will house the local management, and was adjacent to several 6-person huts for permanent workers – similar to freshman dormitories, but filled with wood, grass and day laborers instead of cinder block, kegs and crazy girls from Nyack (I digress).

Right now we just bought processing equipment for a few thousand acres, but it was very cool to watch it in action. First, fruit is taken off of our three types of plants, then dried on a big tarp. Once they are dry, the fruits “pop” (meaning they dance very well with one finger extended), and 3 seeds come out. The husk that remains can be put into a biodigester and used to make electricity, and the seeds are then ready (we literally don’t waste a thing – this will help us power the whole nearby village eventually). The seeds are then put into a crusher, which has two byproducts – a sludgy oil, which collects in a pan, and a very dry cake-like substance. The crude oil is refined very easily, and becomes perfectly usable diesel fuel, and the black cake is compressed and made into charcoal briquettes. So, from one plant, you get 5-6 byproducts, plus the honey from the bees and some other side operations, and absolutely nothing is wasted. This will allow the operations to not only be profitable, but completely self sufficient (and good for the environment) soon.

Right now, everyone uses charcoal for cooking, and to get it, they cut down every tree in sight. If we can make charcoal from something that is just a waste product of ours, then we can stop deforestation (while planting at the same time). Obviously an entire nation burning that much charcoal isn't good in the first place, but given the circumstances, this will at least present a massive improvement for the current way of life. Anyway, here's the process in action:

Below is the crusher, with the dry seedcake coming off to the right

Below is one of two mills, which can either be used to grind food (not shown) or process the seedcake into a fine powder for briquettes.

Around this time, I smelled something burning and was wondering what it was. I had put a whole bunch of lotion on that was supposed to have DEET (for bugs) and suntan lotion in it. Well, as it turns out, the 30 on the front of the bottle had nothing to do with SPF, and the lotion was somewhat oily. In other words, I spent about 11 hours in the African sun - and basted myself first. I feel very diverse..my face and neck are currently Native American, my arms are in Hispanic territory, and anything covered by my clothes could be from Vermont.

This would be a good time to point out that if you want to have a good laugh, ask your African hosts for either suntan lotion or aloe.

We did have to head back into the field though. One of my jobs was to measure out a square acre, and do some calculations to help us work on our yield assumptions. Fortunately, rain was on its way, so my skin was spared. If you blow up the picture below and look very closely at both the left and behind George, you can see 3 of the 4 corner people.

As I worked on setting up the experiment, the rain got pretty serious. If the photo below isn’t the most ominous “before” picture (that also has a rainbow in it), I don’t know what is. As a side note, despite leprechauns, gold and everything else in Uganda, they do not also call rainbows Irish. Also, remember that "wait a bit" weed? While walking around, I had two go through my boots. One 9" spike went all the way through my rubber boots, hiking socks, and substantially into my big toe. That did not feel good. I was going to save it as a souveneir but I decided I would rather use the opportunity to learn Swahili curses and throw it away.

We ran back to the house to enjoy the BBQ that was prepared for us. After finishing my goat, I was sitting on the porch to enjoy a night in Africa and reflect on the trip so far. I was thinking about the people I’ve met, their lifestyle and Ugandan culture, and all of a sudden I was interrupted by very loud humming. I walked to the other side of the porch, and one of the workers was humming Disturbia, the Rihanna song. Sitting and looking out at 8,000 acres of untouched land and hearing that in the background was a little odd but very funny.

I decided to take another cold shower to dull the burning, and now I’m going to bed. We are waking up at 5 AM to head back to Kampala tomorrow.
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Jews are to Farming as Llamas are to Ice Skating Pt. II

After a small break for a granola bar, we went back on the farm. This was the view from one part of the property – pretty hard to beat. The reason I had a granola bar for lunch, by the way, is because that is all I eat 90% of the time. I bought two boxes before I got here, and between the constant traveling around and the lack of food quality or options at times, I try to eat those to avoid passing out (and making sure my mom doesn’t yell at me from 4,000 miles away). I haven’t had a single breakfast here, we usually have a very small lunch at around 2:30, then have a huge dinner.

For someone who loves eating as much as I do, this has been somewhat of an issue, but I have tried to pretend I am observing Ramadan and not worry about it. Anyway, back to the farm.

We walked around for a little bit more to watch people clear the fields and do some planting. One of the things I love about Uganda is that they have terrific names for everything. The picture to the left shows a thorn-type weed that was collected, which has very long (4-10”) sharp spikes along it like a vine. They call it the “wait a bit” weed, because when you walk by it, it grabs your clothes and it’s so strong that you stop or fall down, forcing you to wait a bit.

After seeing some more farming, we decided to head into Namalu, which is the town nearby. This was the one with no electricity that we passed on the way in through the mud. Wednesday’s are market day, so there were thousands of people there. It was so odd to see so many people at what seemed like such a small place. They have a population of about 20,000 (Trumbull is about 38,000 by way of comparison). Although the town is probably no more than 5-10 miles away, it takes half an hour with the bad roads and the crops in the way. You wind around all the plots, then basically make a right at a mountain and you’re there. This is the view just before that:

Because it’s not practical to drive 3 hours to M’bale every time we need to fill up on fuel for the farm, often times they will make medium purchases from a guy in Namalu who stores diesel in the back of his shed. The enterprising fuel guy also owns what he called a hotel. After going through a gate, you see the building. Each of those open barred windows is one room, which is all concrete and has a bed in the middle with a mosquito net. Certainly not much but this is hours from anything so if you’re here it seemed like the nicest option.

This is a picture of the market – it was a little sparse when I took the picture but there were thousands of people around when we got there. Also, I was standing on the back of a pickup truck and trying to hold on, so my options were limited.

This is a shot from the way back to the farm – some of the landscape reminds me of Ireland or something..it’s very green. You don’t picture things like this when you think of Africa but there are plants everywhere. Apparently Uganda is considered one of the most fertile countries in the world.


On the way back, we passed over what’s called an Irish bridge (I don’t know what the deal is with naming everything Irish). It is a concrete pass where a small river can flow off to one side, allowing a car to basically drive through the river. There were a few kids playing and swimming off to our left when we drove over it. I have a great video from the truck of a kid doing a slip and slide belly flop that I’ll upload when I can.

Before we got all the way home, we stopped at a local Karamajong village. They grow some of the same plants that we are using, but they grow them at a very small scale, and often just for fences or to sell. Jatropha, one of our best crops, is actually poisonous on the outside, and for most of history has been used for fences and border crops – most people hadn’t realized its oil potential until relatively recently. We ended up buying some straw for brooms, and all the kids wanted to give me a tour so we walked around all the huts. We also saw wild cotton growing which was pretty cool – I picked this off and it felt just like a cotton ball but it had some seeds in it.

We hit a little more “traffic” as we got towards the entrance to the farm.

When were pulling up to the lodge, another truck passed us in the opposite direction. Mohammed, one of the engineers, yelled out from the truck that he had promised me a BBQ, and he was sure to deliver. In the back of the truck was our dinner…a goat. Now, I love goat as much as the next guy (I had already been served it twice), but there’s something a little disconcerting about watching dinner being driven up to the kitchen. Fortunately, I didn’t watch the process by which it went from happy goat to dinner goat, and it was delicious.

Today was a great day, but now that we’re back at the house I’m very tired. This is what my socks look like right now.

Time for a little break.
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Jews are to Farming as Llamas are to Ice Skating

Despite the adventure last night, we made it! As I noted in my interim post-by-blackberry, the day started in ways I’m not exactly used to, but the hearty breakfast to my left took care of that. Today was crop day. The plan was to walk around or through the entire adjacent land (1,800+ acres), see everything that is planted or will be, and then look at all the extra things we have going on (bee hives, construction, a nursery, etc.). It isn’t that hot in the morning, so it was great to walk around. Two soldiers from the Ugandan military that work with us followed us wherever we went. If I stopped to take a picture or write something down, they would both stop too. I attempted to fake step a few times to create a sitcom-like atmosphere, but I stopped when I remembered they had guns and were likely very bored. Here are a few pictures that give a general view of where we walked (click on the 3rd picture to blow it up - the land all the way to the house in the top middle, and the hill behind the tree in the top right is all ours):

Here is the soldier getting my back. As you can see, threats are everywhere.

After sitting for 16 hours on a plane and driving all over the country, I thought I would never be happier to walk. 6 miles through quicksand and mud made me love sitting again. The plant growth was really impressive - everything is growing far ahead of schedule (although I can't tell you how far, or I'd have to kill you). This is what castor seeds look like on the plant, and then once they are ready to harvest - they dry out, then each spiked ball has 3 seeds in it.

The ground is unbelievably fertile, which means that when its wet, you sink. It was like walking 6 miles in sand that is pissed off at you. They asked me to wear gumming boots, which are like galoshes. Here is obligatory embarrassing picture number 1. This is George and I hanging out with some castor.


Because of all the plants we have to fertilize, we have our own bees on site. In addition to helping the crops, they produce a ton of honey - enough for a side business just using and selling that. Like just about everything on this farm, nothing goes to waste. This is one of the hives hanging in a tree temporarily. Some carpenters are building a more permanent site to house them. They chop down each tree by hand, then saw the trees in half with a chainsaw to make perfectly even logs.

In addition to 1,800 acres of company crops, we are beginning to grow food for the workers. As it is now, people drive over 3 hours in a pickup once a week to M'bale and spend a relative fortune on food - this will cut costs tremendously. They had cabbage, tomatoes, spinach, corn, rice and even pumpkin (which was delicious). These crops all surround the nursery, where seeds are put into bags and nursed into seedlings before being planted in the ground.

Me conquering a cabbage for dinner

Jatropha, one of our other crops, is a tree - so we have lots of issues with termites. They are relatively easy to kill, but you don't want to spray too much because chemicals can upset the bees. Here's a nice closeup shot (click to expand if you love termites).


Well, all of this was done by 11:15 AM (we woke up at 4:30 AM). We are taking a little break and then on to the rest of the day!

One interesting note about coming here. When I got to Africa, I went to the hotel. It's very nice and has an incredible view, but it is somewhat Spartan (in the sense that it was plain and basic, not in the sense that it went to war with the God-king Xerxes). However, after driving around Kampala, the hotel seemed like heaven. The lodge at the farm here is even more basic. It's like camping - concrete floors, and I have a twin bed with a matress pad and that's it. There is one spot for running water, and the pipe has two nozzles to turn on - one below to wash your hands and another above for a shower. Both are connected to a pipe outside, which is connected to a bucket. In other words, the freezing water helped me take my first 49 second shower.

Anyway, I certainly didn't care that it was very basic, but it was a "step down" from the hotel that I was now used to. What happens, though, is that after walking around in the fields for 6 hours and being hot and thirsty, nothing seems better than getting inside and taking a cold shower and squatting to wash my hands in that very same house (speaking of squatting, the toilet was...limited).

I've always liked camping and have no problem roughing it (our apartment size could be considered roughing it), but this really made you appreciate the concept of "home," but not in the way I thought it would. Coming to Africa, you read about and expect to see poverty, then think "I am so fortunate, these people have so little" or something along those lines. Although I did see that, that wasn't my lasting impression. What I felt was that when you are happy with what you're doing, and have a place to call home, it's a good feeling to be back there. After a long night on the road, walking, climbing, and lots more - that lodge that seemed so simple before seems like the greatest place on earth. It really makes you appreciate having a place that's your own of any kind.

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