TIA - This Is Africa

Sarah writes about Tuesday, Aug. 31 -

If you've seen the movie Blood Diamond, you may recall the characters talking about things going wrong and saying it's just TIA. This is Africa. If you go to Africa thinking things will work like they do in the US, you'll be sadly disappointed. My introduction to Africa was a classic TIA moment. We were delayed in leaving the airplane because there was no electricity to the jetway. The flight attendant said to us, "Things always work in Africa, except when they don't." They finally got things working enough so we could exit the plane, so we journeyed through the still-dark jetway and into the brightness of the airport. Today we had our own TIA moment: After two days of enjoying Wi-Fi at the hostel we're staying at, the internet service provider is working, except when it's not, which was all day Tuesday and most of Wednesday. The ISP had some problems with a cable, so the nearby university, the hospital, and we were in the dark. Hence the delay in getting this post up.

Tuesday was a tourism day, with a trip to a tea plantation.

Kiambethu Tea Farm

Kenya is the world's biggest exporter of tea. China is the biggest producer, but their huge population consumes much of the production. Kenya does its share of consuming, but the population is a fraction of the 1.3+ billion in China. The drive to the tea country in the highlands of the Rift Valley was an hour of nausea-inducing bouncing -- you might say an hour of darkness -- making me grateful for the motion-sickness pills Rich had picked up just before we headed to the airport in Rochester, and for the rest of the group for letting me sit in the front of the van.

At the plantation, it was an emergence into the light where we had a delightful cup of tea and a tour, where we learned about the processes for picking, cutting, and drying tea, and then how it makes the way to market.

Lunch at Kiambethu Farm

Afterwards, we enjoyed an ultimate locavore meal, where everything we ate was produced on the farm, from beef to vegetables to the ice cream for dessert. That type of self-sufficiency, where you are responsible for everything, is both appealing and incredibly frightening. Of course, the life of most Kenyans would be greatly improved if they could be more self-sufficient. According to National Geographic, on average they have to spend 70 percent of their income on the basic necessities of food, shelter, and clothing.

Would they be better off if they could be more self sufficient? What would make the average Kenyan's life move into the light? Is it more of the sort of thing we're doing? Or are we helping them to be less independent by helping, giving them the idea that some Americans will show up to take care of things? And is it my western ideals that says they are in the darkness in the first place?

Feeding the Colobus monkeys.

This is Africa, and I do believe we're doing good works while we have a good time. It seems in the end that things do work all the time, even if it seems that they aren't. TIA.

Click here to see more pictures.