My Pula Journey Continued…
Part 1 — Kitui, Kenya
I wrote my first travel blog about my Pula journey when I visited Pakistan for the first time two years ago. Since then, I’ve traveled to Pakistan another five or six times; each trip has blended into another and the novel has become more familiar.
A few months ago, I changed my role at Pula to take on new clients such as Afex, MyAgro, Safaricom’s Digifarm and the World Food Programme (WFP), whose work in the climate insurance space, like Pula, is largely on the African continent.
Since May this year, my travels have shifted to Africa. On my recent trip last month, which covered Kenya, Malawi and Madagascar, there were many firsts. This is the first of a three-part post, chronicling my personal experiences on this three-week trip.
Pula’s operational headquarters are in Nairobi, which I’ve now visited many, many times. However, on this trip, it was my first time to Kitui, 160 km east of Kenya’s capital, and one of three counties in which Pula has supported WFP Kenya’s R4 Rural Resilience Initiative. Together with the WFP, I’d agreed to make a courtesy call to the County Minister of Agriculture — to thank him for his support and to inform him that we were starting registration for thnext OND (October-November-December) season.
WFP Kenya is Pula’s first client. We’ve been supporting the R4 Resilience Program since its inception in 2017, providing climate insurance in highly vulnerable pockets of three counties, of which Kitui is the longest-running and the largest. On the back of two recent engagements that involved insuring more farmers directly through county governments, this was also an excellent opportunity to discuss sustainability of a similar insurance scheme as WFP graduates out their interventions in the county.
As this was an informal meeting, we agreed to meet the Minister in the afternoon. We were treated to an al fresco lunch by our friend Masila, Senior Agriculture Extension Officer in the District County. After which our wait began. Seven hours later, it was pitch dark; we couldn’t keep waiting. We left, and started our long drive back to Nairobi. Less than 20 minutes into the journey, the Minister rang me to apologize as his schedule was beyond what would be expected on a normal, but busy Monday.
Despite it being so late in the day, Dr. Stephen Mbaya, CECM of Kitui County listened attentively to me as I explained the work we were doing. Due to drought, many of our WFP farmers in Kitui received an insurance payout last season. This season’s activities had started with registrations, which are expected to go on until the middle of next month. We agreed to follow-up with our field-based staff the week after, so that the Minister could have full visibility of our activities. Crucially, this could also allow us to consider offering climate protection to more of the 200,000 farmers in Kitui.
Although the wait was worth our while, an elementary problem almost affected me. I lacked the courage to step into the dark, locked outhouse in the county government compound for most of the seven hours. I was beginning to turn yellow.
I’d asked my colleague Faith, Regional Director of Field Operations in East and Southern Africa, to accompany me to Kitui. Serendipitously, Faith was from Kitui, but I hadn’t known that earlier. Nor did I know her husband would act as our chauffeur so that she and I could safely continue working on the long drive there.
This turned out to be quite the blessing. Leaving the county government’s compound, we rushed to his parents’ house. I ran into their toilet, feeling eternally grateful; only later did I sit down to thank them for saving me.
This was the first leg of my 3-country trip. Stay tuned for the next two!
