Natural Resources

Have I mentioned yet that Dominic has started Kindergarten? Before COVID-19, we used to meet for devotions and prayer from 8-9am four mornings per week with the other physicians and volunteers at our compound. However, when social gathering restrictions began in Kenya around the end of March, I decided to use that time to work on reading and writing with Dominic. As time went on and we ran out of workbooks, our neighbors very kindly offered to let us borrow their Kindergarten homeschool curriculum and books. So Dominic’s first day of Kindergarten was April 6. Because…why not, right?!?

First day of Kindergarten!

In the last week, we’ve been reading and learning about natural resources. Dominic’s “homework assignment” was to go outside with Kris and list the wealth of natural resources we have in Western Kenya.

•  Farm land: In the mountainous region where we live, there are no large fields of crops. However, most families have a “shamba” or small farm at their home to grow vegetables and corn for their own family, and maybe a little extra to sell in town. Every other week, we order about $20 USD of fruit and veggies from Eldoret. We buy the rest of our fresh produce at a stall right outside our compound. Many families also keep cows and chickens. We’re lucky to have our milk delivered to our house (1 L fresh milk every weekday) and I pick up eggs from a coworker every week.
  
  
  
  
• Rivers: All the water to the hospital and compound comes from a mountain stream. The line has recently been upgraded thanks to the hospital’s engineer. We purify the water with a UV system. Many of the houses also have rainwater collection systems (we just got ours installed last week!).
• Solar: As the weather is usually overcast for at least part of the day, we can’t rely on solar for all our energy needs, so we are connected to the “grid.” However, almost all the houses on our compound now have solar energy available for our overhead lights and many of the electric outlets in our homes. The bigger energy savings come from the solar water heaters on our roofs. These supply hot water to our showers and kitchen sinks, which significantly
  reduces the amount of “grid” energy we use.
• Forests: Every weekend, we see people (mainly women and young boys) walking down the road with huge stacks of branches on their backs. The forest around here is abundant. The government has regulations regarding what type of wood can be collected from the forest for firewood, to keep the forest healthy. Houses are mostly made of brick or cement, but the forest supplies wood for cooking, heating, and building fences.
• Geothermal: I recently spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out how Kenya generates most of its power, assuming that it would be hydroelectric. However, it appears that geothermal makes up a large proportion of electric supply, mainly around Lake Naivasha, where we visited three months ago.

Throughout the developing COVID-19 crisis, we’ve considered ourselves lucky to be in Western Kenya for two reasons. First, we’re so rural and remote that the virus (as far as we know) has not yet reached our county, so we have had plenty of time to prepare, watch, and learn from other countries and hospitals. Second, we know that even if the supply chain completely shut down, we really have everything we need to survive in this land with abundant natural resources.

I recently read, and understand now in a way that I would not have understood before, that the most vulnerable in the COVID-19 crisis are the urban poor. Although they may be physically closer than we are to the food supply chain, they are economically incredibly distant. In an urban setting, they can’t fall back on their family farm or livestock to survive through difficult times as the rural poor can. Living hand-to-mouth in a slum is vastly different than living hand-to-mouth on your farm, although certainly both are precarious. When I become frustrated with the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Kenya and the apparent disregard for social distancing recommendations in Nairobi and Mombasa (the two major cities and epicenters of the disease here), I have to remember that the poor in those cities are literally making life and death decisions as they face starvation if they don’t get out to work. We have been challenged during this time to try to support our local economy in whatever small ways we can, and to steward our natural resources to the best of our ability.