The Beginning of an Adventure
Well, today I finally got to leave campus for the first time! The campus here at the International Livestock Research Institute, or ILRI for short, is absolutely breathtaking. I would also like to say a quick thank you to the World Food Prize for giving me and several other students the opportunity to travel abroad and learn from leading experts in their fields.
ILRI’s campus is stunning, there’s always birds outside chirping, even at five in the morning when I am still trying to sleep. Everywhere I walk there is some sort of flower or even these giant succulents that I have absolutely fallen in love with! The campus here is based on the outskirts of Nairobi and is kind of in it’s own little bubble of paradise. The people on campus are all very friendly and I haven’t met a single one who doesn’t walk by me and smile.
Leaving campus today, was definitely an eye opening experience. As soon as we left campus it became clear that not all of Nairobi is as green and pristine as ILRI’s campus. We left at eight in the morning with a man who is named Sita, he is in charge of the feeds and forages program here at ILRI. He is also one of the main supporters of helping to educate local farmers about how using one of the native grasses to Kenya, which is called Brachiaria grass, has actually helped improve livestock quality in much of Brazil and has the potential to do the same for farmers in Kenya.
The drive to the fair did not take to long, maybe an hour and a half at most. On our way we got to see some of the different terrain that Kenya has to offer. We even got to see some ostriches running, but they moved too fast for me to get a picture of them. There was a lot of cattle and goats along the sides of the roads as well.
When we got to the fair we immediately saw a bunch of school buses and children. They had come to the fair to learn about farming. Many of the children smiled and waved when they saw me. It was nice to see them getting to learn about the different farming techniques that were being presented.
Our main reason for being at the fair was to see how Sita’s grass was doing and to see how much interest it was gathering, but we also got to walk around and see many other things. There was a variety of crops, including sorghum and maize. There were also a lot of different animals that farmers had brought to exhibit. In a way the fair felt a lot like the fair that my county holds every year back in Iowa.
Overall, my first week here in Kenya has been a very different from what I am used to. Did I mention everything here is covered in tomatoes and onions? I have already learned so much and I can not wait to see what else I will discover!
