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Olivado Avocado Oil »
Kenya Diary - Olivado Blog
As Olivado sets up its organic
and fair trade processing plant in Kenya, Olivado Chairman Gary
Hannam and his partner Joy Draper report on their adventures in
and around Nairobi.
Joy
Draper Continues the Kenya Blog...
12-16 June 2008
In the five weeks since
Gary
was last in
Kenya
, we’ve been back in
New Zealand
, visiting the Olivado plant in Kerikeri and catching up with
friends and family.
Gary
also managed to fit in a quick trip to
Melbourne
, and sandwiched his
New Zealand
visit between a few days in
Los Angeles
. A few days in
Switzerland
, a flying trip to Derbyshire in
England
to pick up an audience award for his movie, “The World’s
Fastest Indian”, and then it was back to
Kenya
.
Gary
reports a notable difference in
Nairobi
, tangible signs of determined efforts by the new government to
get
Kenya
back on the road to economic recovery. Progress has been made on
much-needed improvement of roads; even
Embakasi Road
, which leads to our factory, has been re-surfaced, its thigh-deep
potholes no longer creating mayhem. Like the rest of the world,
Kenya
has been affected by the fuel crisis and higher food prices. But
in the June 11th budget,
import duties on grains were reduced and VAT removed from staple
food items. Overall, economic commentators have commended the
budget as a strong stable force on which to rebuild
Kenya
. Social equity was also addressed, one good indicator being that
allowances for top civil servants are no longer tax-free.
Olivado’s oil production continues, but
more slowly than we would like. Ironically, we have insufficient
fruit. Even though we pay premiums for our organic and fair trade
fruit, currently at least 48% above market price (in a plentiful
year, when prices are low, our premiums will be around 200%), we
are finding that many farmers are selling their fruit to brokers
in advance of our picking teams’ arrival. This is not altogether
surprising, given the history of broken promises in these areas.
Because we are still unproven, and because we insist on leaving
the fruit on the trees until it is fully mature, we are not yet
trusted, and that ready cash offered by brokers, even though the
farmers know it is half of what they would get from us, is just
too tempting.
We hear also that the brokers are spreading
fantastic rumours about us, suggesting that Olivado is working for
the Prime Minister (a Luo) to buy up Kikuyu fruit; that our
mapping of farms is in order to seize Kikuyu land, and other such
strange stories.
All this has meant that, instead of the 600
tonnes of avocados we anticipated from the harvest in the lower
highlands, we received only 100 tonnes. Now the avocado harvest in
the higher region, the tea-growing area at around 2,300m above sea
level, is approaching, and we are working more closely with the
farmers of this region, to dispel these rumours and to persuade
them of our integrity. On Saturday Gary and Esther went out to the
area, Kiambu, to meet with the farmers there. It’s a beautiful
area, all rolling hills and valleys, at this time of year
relatively cold and misty. The farms here are much larger than
those in the lower area; although the avocados are a subsidiary
cash crop, most farms have on average about 30-40 trees, producing
about 6-8 tonnes. Harvesting here begins end of June through until
early September.
The group meetings proved very beneficial,
not least because one of our office staff, Mary, grew up here.
Mary came with us to the meetings, and was welcomed by farmers who
knew her parents, grandparents, and relatives still living in the
area. Some 20 farmers attended each of the meetings, some of them
already in our programme, many others as potential suppliers. They
proved to be very forthright and curious, asking questions about
pricing structures, requesting help in better understanding
organic farming, and swapping their own experiences.
As part of our fair trade policy, and as a
sign of our goodwill, we pay advances to the farmers for their
fruit, money which is often used to pay school fees. It has been
very pleasing that the first of our farmers, despite their doubts,
have all retained enough fruit to cover the advances paid, at
least. We have also advanced extra cash in cases of emergency: we
paid in advance, for example, for the balance of a farmer’s
fruit (since duly delivered) when he required urgent medical
treatment. He wrote thanking us, saying he had never felt so well.
So, although setbacks continue, we’re
optimistic that we will eventually establish our credibility with
the farmers. Meantime, our meeting with key government leaders has
been postponed until July, as our local advisor, Mr
Mathenge, has a UN consulting assignment in troubled Juba.
Tuesday 21st April
Finally the fruit has ripened and today we processed our first 1.5
tonnes. This was a big test, both for the plant and the engineers
– the first time our Kenyan team has been in charge of the
plant. It was a triumph, despite an electricity lapse which
delayed production a few hours. The avocados were rich and ripe,
the oil a deep golden green, and engineer Samson and his team went
home happy.
And much later, we await our flight out of
Nairobi
back to home in
Switzerland
and a brief sojourn in the spring sunshine. Ahead of us in the
check-in queue I was intrigued by the sight of a Masai
businessman, the normal long lean flame clad in a padding of
affluence and a blue suit, the large holes in his earlobes now
free of adornment but, along with the distinctive fine-featured
face, proudly proclaiming his origins. All our other encounters
with the Masai have been in the fields: a wandering herdsman
leaning on his stick while his charges roam the fields around our
factory; another herding his cows back to their home in the early
evening, nonchalantly crossing the busy highway, confident,
somehow, that
Nairobi
’s crazy drivers will stop to let his cows pass. In that
context, this suited Masai with his briefcase seems somehow
incongruous, but as I overhear him making polite conversation with
his neighbour in the queue, I marvel at the anomalies of this
world we find ourselves part of.
Sunday 20th April
After another long day in the field yesterday with the picking
crews, we were ready for a lazy Sunday. This one began earlier
than we’d hoped, as the rooster in the small urban farmyard
beside apartment began his Sunday with a series of loud crows and
a hectic foray into the henhouse. Still, once we accepted that
there would be no more sleeping for the human inhabitants of this
quarter of
Nairobi
, it was rather lovely to lie in bed in a suburb of a large, manic
city, listening to farmyard noises and watching the sun rise
through the banana and mango trees.
We decided to walk to our now traditional Java House Sunday brunch,
a rare treat. Walking in this city is advisable only in daylight,
as the guards on the gate at our apartment regularly warn us, and
our long working hours don’t leave much of the twelve hours of
equatorial daylight. Our previous apartments have been too close
to main roads with their choking diesel fumes, but this time we
are living in a wonderfully leafy area, with a network of roads to
stroll around. So we sauntered to breakfast, and later browsed the
well-stocked shelves of an excellent bookstore, then meandered
through the stalls in the Sunday market set up outside the mall,
picking up gifts to take back to
New Zealand
when we go there in May. There’s a wealth of talent on display
in these marketplaces, the artists sitting stoically in the sun
hoping to attract the attention of one or more of that still
seriously endangered breed, the tourist. We did our bit, engaging
in a little halfhearted haggling, and happily strolling home with
our newspaper-wrapped purchases, to an afternoon of leisurely
reading.
We’ve discovered the secret to the mixing of a perfect “dawa”.
A good dawa (a Swahili word meaning medicine) nicely rounds off
the sharp edges of a difficult day, we’ve found, so now we bring
in a bottle of duty-free vodka on every visit, and our evenings at
home begin with one of these life-giving drinks. Pour a good
measure of vodka over ice cubes in a square glass; chop a lime or
two into chunks, add them to the glass and crush them, then pour a
good dollop of runny honey over the mixture. Vifiyo!
Sunday 13th
April
A cabinet has been announced. The leaders retreated upcountry, sans
advisers, and managed to reach an agreement. But despite pleas
from Kenyans everywhere, the number of ministers wasn’t reduced:
the country is stuck with “Ali Baba and the 40 thieves”. It
seems the two leaders have carefully chosen a cabinet more
according to region than ability; however, seven of the 40 are
women, a representation promised by both sides.
We now must wait and see how effective this bloated cabinet will
be. Meanwhile, we read in today’s newspaper about a number of
exporting companies, like ours, that are being forced to close
down as a result of the ongoing problems. So far we are not badly
affected by “the troubles”.
Avocado
Pickers
Saturday 12th
April
Today we picked! Only 1.5 tonnes, which will be processed when
they’re ripe, later this week. This is a trial run, testing our
organic picking, storage and processing procedures. We met the
picking team at a farm near Thika, where nightlong rain had
deposited pools of soggy red mud. As we arrived the sun was
emerging and picking was well under way. Francis, the farmer, was
delighted to be chosen as the first of the Olivado farms and
proudly showed us his property. He has 19 large trees, all laden
with heavy fruit, about 30% of which were mature enough for
picking. Francis’s farm is totally organic, and he has already
planted Desmodium, which we are encouraging farmers to grow under
their trees. Desmodium is a tropical leguminous cover crop which
adds nitrogen to the soil and conserves moisture. A perennial
crop, it’s very nutritious for cattle, much more so than the
ubiquitous maize or napier grass. This year we will provide the
seeds to our farmers, most of whom can’t afford to buy seed
themselves.
Gary
and Farmer
Francis
As the baskets of fruit came up from
the farm,
Gary
and I joined the sorting team, cutting stalks, sorting and placing
the fruit into crates for weighing. Inevitably, some fruits had
picked up a little of the red mud, so as we sorted we washed the
muddy ones, an exercise that has left our hands and fingernails
the colour of that rich red soil, even after a long soak in the
bath.
Friday 11th
April
During today’s slow journey to the factory through Friday traffic
we read a story in the “Nation”, comparing the salary of
Kenya
’s president with
that of world leaders. According to the newspaper, Kibaki is paid
the enormous sum of USD615,000 per annum, or 3.2million Kenyan
shillings per month (tax-exempt)! Significantly more than the
US
President, the
UK
Prime Minister, the UN Secretary-General…
So that’s why there was such a fight for the presidency. I wonder
if the “Prime Minister-designate” gets the equivalent salary,
as part of his power-sharing deal? MPs, according to the report,
receive 10million Ksh per annum, which the newspaper calculated
pays them about 175,000Ksh for each of the 57 arduous days they
work in a year. - and many of their fellow citizens have to
survive on less than 70 shillings a day.
Meanwhile, the cabinet stalemate continues, each of those overpaid
MPs fighting to get the extra salary and perks that go with a
ministry. There’s talk now that Kibaki and Odinga will once
again have to remove themselves from their rapacious advisers in
order to sort out this mess.
Joy Draper and her
Assistants
Monday 7th
April
Political
stalemate again. The two parties are now fighting over which side
gets which of the 40 cabinet posts. Kibaki and Odinga emerge from
their meetings occasionally to smile halfheartedy and shake hands
for the cameras but their electorates are not convinced.
Meanwhile, the
rains are late, which is good news for the displaced people still
living in tents in refugee camps around the country, but not such
good news for the farmers. Our avocados are ripening, slowly, but
this year’s harvest is half of last year’s.
Caught up in yet
another traffic jam on our way to a meeting in the city, we took a
short cut that we had been introduced to last year. It’s a
spectacularly bumpy road, in a country that takes potholes to new
levels, but it bypasses the gridlock and in a four-wheel-drive
it’s challenging but fun. Winding up past the former American
embassy, now being rebuilt into what looks like a luxury hotel,
the road skirts the boundary of the
Nairobi
National Park
, so we catch occasional glimpses of zebra, ostriches, and other
wildlife grazing. On the other side a couple of new housing
estates are being constructed, between the two a mushrooming slum
of corrugated iron shacks, bars and latrines. And then we go even
more cross-country, following a bumpy tyre track across an open
plain, where Masai herders roam with their cattle and goats and a
small cluster of Masai
huts proudly holds its ground against the encroaching housing
estates. We roll onto the main road again across a final enormous
pothole – and back into the traffic!
Olivado
Chairman Gary Hannam checks for ripeness in the fruit
Friday 4th
April
Back in
Nairobi
for the start of the picking season, we arrive into yet another
political furore.
Kenya
’s two rival leaders have finally agreed on the number of
ministers in their cabinet – an astonishing, budget-blowing 40.
The rest of the country is protesting, the newspapers severe in
their criticism of such profligacy (the new cabinet and its two
leaders have already been dubbed “Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves” by the cartoonist of one of the local papers), but this
two-month-old coalition government is unmoved. So the taxpayers’
money will be spent on more luxury ministerial cars, with their
attendant security details – young hoods in suits who leap out
of moving cars to run into position as their man leaves his car.
And we look forward to yet more traffic jams as the 40 convoys
cruise the city...
Meeting
a farmer
Tuesday March 11th
The final entry of
this trip to Nairobi I write at the Jomo Kenyatta Airport Java
House, sipping a last “Dawa” as we await our midnight flight
to London. Our driver dropped us at the departure terminal, helped
us with our bags, shook hands and said goodbye, and was
immediately pulled up for “stopping in the wrong place”.
George called Gary for assistance. The officer explained that it
was “possible to” avoid going to the airport police office to
fill out the paperwork. Gary
would have none of it, however, suggesting that we immediately go
to the police office to fill-out the paperwork. If a fine was due
then the company should pay it. We do not offer bribes. Naturally,
the policeman had no intention of filling out paperwork either; it
was his children’s education fund he was interested in
bolstering, not the government’s account. More words, a warning
and eventually the policeman allowed poor George to drive off into
the night and Gary to return to check-in heaving a long sigh of
frustration…
Olivado Landcruiser stalks
the elusive avocado
Saturday and
Sunday March 8th & 9th
This is the
weekend we’ve been working towards the last two weeks – the
farm inspection to confirm our organic and fair trade status.
Joachim Weber, an amiable but very firm German who represents IMO
in Kenya, had requested an early start, so Gary and I were at the
office before 7, preparing for the big day. We had just beaten the
Saturday traffic, but the others didn’t – so it was nearly
midday before we set off for Thika, Joachim’s selection of farms
plotted on the GPS and the three field officers ready to conduct
their interviews.
Gary
and Joachim in the field
A long but
interesting day followed, our field officers performing well, and
Joachim mellowing into his role as we became better acquainted.
Joachim had selected a variety of farms for inspection, most of
them with no more than 10 avocado trees, but one or two
significantly larger. One of the stipulations for fair trade
certification is that the farm must be family owned and run, and
all but one of our farms were patently that.
Our admirably organised Administration and Organics
Manager, Esther Wangari, had done the preparatory work well, so
there were few hitches.
Esther and
Tobias in discussion with a farm family
As our large
Landcruiser with its distinctive “Olivado” marking drove up to
each of the small farms, it drew a cluster of children, running
alongside us chanting “Oli-vado, oli-vado”. I love these kids,
with their exuberance and curiosity. They instantly drop into
giggling poses as I pull out my camera, and delight in seeing
themselves on the digital display screen. Their grandmothers, the
elderly women farmers, are also happy to have their photos taken,
but insist on putting shoes or headscarves on first. 
As our day
lengthened, one of them offered us freshly baked and delicious
sweet potatoes, which we peeled and ate ravenously; another sent
her grandson up a mango tree to drop the rich sweet fruit down to
our waiting hands.
 Three
Generations of a farm family
Our role with the
farmers is expanding as we get more involved in the organic
registration. It is becoming obvious that the best way to manage
the organic status of the avocado trees is to ensure that the
entire farms are also organic. To this end, we are encouraging the
farmers to plant crops which are not merely organic, but also more
productive than their current crops. We plan to supply organic
Desmodium, a tropical leguminous cover crop which adds nitrogen to
the soil and conserves moisture. A perennial crop, it’s very
nutritious for cattle, much more so than the ubiquitous maize or
napier grass. We will be offering the seeds to the first of our
farmers this year, but we’re looking for assistance with this
programme from aid organizations, to help both in providing the
seeds and in getting the organic message across. The farmers are
receptive to the idea, but understandably sceptical, their past
experiences with traders and middlemen having coloured their
expectations. We are working to gain their trust, but this first
year is not going to be easy.
Sunday March 2nd
After a Saturday
working, we were ready for a Sunday off. First some exercise - a
stroll in the arborethum about as rigorous as we could find. Gary
and Sarah used to run around here, and Julian walked daily, but
our newfound wariness kept us to open trails and away from the
woods. Lack of exercise is one of the most difficult aspects of
living in Nairobi for us, accustomed as we are to daily runs and
hikes in our Swiss hills.
Later we drove out
to Karen, a leafy suburb of
Nairobi
named after its most famous citizen, Karen Blixen. We lingered
over beers in the cool shade of a jacaranda tree in the garden of
the
Karen
Blixen
Coffee
Garden
, the site of the original farmhouse, saving the museum for a
later visit.
Friday February
29th
I left the office
at 4 to meet Gary and Samson on their way back from more
factory-hunting in Thika. Mistake! Friday afternoon, the day after
peace finally arrived...
The first gridlock
began mere minutes from the office,
Mombasa Road
choked with crowded matatus, their occupants on the way into the
city to celebrate
Kenya
’s new future. With laptop and a large wad of Kenya Shillings
for crew wages in the car, I was unwilling to take the notorious
Outer Ring Road, which winds through a number of less than savoury
areas, the only other choice in
Nairobi
’s woefully inadequate road system taking me right through the
centre of the city.
Kenyatta Rd
to
Moi Avenue
- chaotic mid-city roads named after two of
Kenya
’s former presidents whose bank accounts were lined with the
money intended to upgrade these very roads and the busy
continental highway that feeds them - some 500 metres taking 45
noxious minutes to negotiate. I sweltered in my battered rented
Toyota, windows wound up to avoid diesel fumes and hawkers,
creeping forward through buses and matatus, three abreast on a two
lane road, an extra lane expropriated by a river of pedestrians
adding to the confusion.
Some two and a
half hours later I arrived, dusty, sweating and disheveled, at the
Safari Park Hotel, a lush green oasis on the outskirts of
Nairobi
. Two dawas (Swahili for
medicine – a glorious mixture of vodka, limes and honey) and an
hour or so beside the pool and we were back in the traffic,
negotiating our way back into the city. Next time, we
overnight...!
Thursday February
28th
Jubilation
everywhere -
Kenya
celebrates the accord finally reached. Well done that Kofi Annan
man!
Wednesday February
27th
Reading the paper
on the way in to work this morning (even at 7 a.m. the traffic is
such that I have time to read most of the paper aloud to Gary
while he drives the 10 km or so to the factory) it appears that
negotiations between warring (and I don't use that word lightly!)
political factions here have broken down again, poor old Kofi
Annan looking exhausted and frustrated. As always, not one of
those alleged politicians prepared to give up a little of his own
power...
Still, it's encouraging that the newspapers are vigilant, unbiased
and strongly critical of both sides. There's a rather worrying
report today (and it's not the first time we've heard it) of
so-called "militias" arming themselves with guns from
across those wild borders with
Uganda
,
Sudan
and
Ethiopia
, preparing to "defend themselves" if the talks fail.
However, here in
Nairobi
, life continues as normal. We found an excellent Vietnamese/Asian
restaurant just around the corner from our apartment last night
and sat on the balcony sipping cocktails gazing out over a
peaceful garden, in a suburb of large houses and peaceful gardens.
Hard to imagine that mere kilometres away, but a world beyond our
high walls and guarded gates, the Kibera slum festers...
And meanwhile, our
field crew is out in avocado country, signing up farmers. We have
enough signed up now to provide us with organic avocados for a
good part of the first season. All we have to do now is get the
plant running. So it looks like
Gary
and I will be back here at the end of March to make all that
happen. Which means that our trip back to
New Zealand
will have to be postponed...
There are many
times when it all seems too hard and, like Kofi Annan, we want to
pack up and get out of here, leaving
Kenya
to its fate. There are so many daily frustrations...! It will be
much better when the plant is operating and we can see some
results of all this effort - and when our lovely laughing crew are
back here working their butts off to make this a success. They're
all so keen that with them around we can't possibly consider
giving up. And we know that they are the real
Kenya
, and the politicians and the new militiamen are merely posers.
Let's just hope the real
Kenya
triumphs...
The
Olivado Landcruiser in the bush
Saturday 23rd
February
Breakfast at Java
House in the city, sitting at our favourite table. Then we drove
out to Thika with Philip, who directed us through a maze of the
ubiquitous miram roads to Henry and his team, mapping one of the
farms. Henry introduced us to the farmer, an elderly woman sitting
with her daughter in the kitchen of their house. A tiny room, with
a door leading through to what I assume was the sleeping room.
They shook our hands and spoke enthusiastically in Swahili,
beaming when I took their photo (only permitted after the daughter
had covered the old lady’s head with a headscarf). Philip, our
Luo, was questioned closely about his origins - even Gary and I
picked up the “are you Kikuyu?” Philip admitted later that he
wasn’t entirely truthful, assuring them in Kikuyu that he was
one of them.
Friday February
22nd
Still a dearth of
tourists visiting
Nairobi
, so we had a luxurious row of three seats each on our overnight
British Airways flight from
London
to
Nairobi
. And then we treated ourselves to an espresso at the airport’s
Java House while waiting for the notoriously slow baggage handlers
to deliver our bags. Double espresso notwithstanding, it was a
long day…
On their next trip, Joy Draper
Continues the Kenya Blog
First Entries: January 24th-31st, 2008
Gary Hannam: Chairman- Olivado Natural Nutrition
Thursday:
January 31st
The
day we left Hunter and I had planned to visit Limuru, about 15 kms
from the city towards the Rift Valley area. Overnight, young
Kikuyu thugs had blocked roads and evicted non-Kikuyu from their
homes in the town of Kikuyu 10 kms from Nairobi. The local MP had
immediately traveled to the area and had stepped in front of the
mob and told them that retribution was not a solution - a
remarkable and most welcome event in the vacuum of leadership
since the election. The mob dispersed but it was still a no-go
area. Instead, we went directly to Thika to have dinner with the
crew and review the day’s field work. Unfortunately the thuggery
had spread to Thika. In a nearby town where we had visited a
potential factory the day before a non-Kikuyu had been shot dead.
Non-Kikuyu in Thika were sheltering in the local police station. I
was shocked that this quiet area had been affected. Rather than
take a risk, we decided to bring our Luo, Philip, and another
fieldworker from a different tribe, back to Nairobi. A number of
our Kikuyu farmers expressed fears about having non-Kikuyu on
their farms; not because they were personally unhappy about it,
but because they feared possible reprisals from marauding bands of
young Kikuyu thugs.
We
left Nairobi a week after we arrived, fortunately never having
experienced direct contact with any of the violence that is
widespread in the Rift Valley and in the always volatile Nairobi
slums.
What
Kenya desperately needs is young, strong leadership, on a
non-tribal basis. Neither of the current contenders fits that
bill. The current generation, as represented by our staff, wants
peace and prosperity, and good leadership. We are hopeful that
sense will prevail in this beautiful but benighted country. And we
intend to return later in February to play our small part in
Kenya’s road to prosperity.
Wednesday:
Jan 30th
More
visits to factories. The uncertain environment certainly makes us
more circumspect in terms of making long term commitments like
buying land. But our field crew reports good progress in signing
up farmers who are enthusiastic about dealing directly with the
oil producer. In the past they have been severely exploited by the
middlemen who receive four times the return of the farmers.
Tuesday:
Jan 29th
Each
day we watched the early tv news and call around the crew to see
if anything untoward had occurred. This morning we heard of the
murder of opposition MP Mugabe Were and were alarmed for the first
time. Our factory is located in Were’s electorate, Embakasi.
One of our staff who had come from the city reported of
mobs, police and tear gas. Our security company advised us to
leave the factory by mid-afternoon so I cancelled appointments
which required travel across the city and went to our hotel. The
crew headed out to Thika to continue signing up farmers and
mapping farms. We heard later, however, that the mob had quickly
dispersed, and in fact there appeared to be little fallout from
the murder of Were; perhaps because his affiliation with the
opposition party was tenuous, and he, a Luo, was married to a
Kikuyu. A banned sect claimed responsibility for his murder, and
Kenya lost a young and promising politician.
Esther advises
field officers and Farmer
Early
that evening I met with a local contact who is close to the Kibaki
government and was a contestant in the Juja electorate, now
notorious as the prime example of the Kibaki party ‘rigging’
results. The electorate vote was reported to the EU observers by
the opposition as being much less than the final result. My
contact was at the electoral counting
station and noted, as has the electoral commission, that
the opposition’s reported figures were in fact early results
from less than 50% of the polling stations; in a Kibaki stronghold
these figures were obviously less than the final tally. There
seems to have been a great deal of mis-information surrounding the
election results and western observers may not have been immune
from accepting such mis-information as correct. We had noted
during our pre-election time in Kenya last year that much of the
opposition election campaign focused on predictions that the
election was going be rigged by Kibaki.
Monday:
Jan 28th
We
toured the Thika area again, visiting prospective factories, this
time with several of our employees from varying tribal
backgrounds, which lead to some interesting discussions. All
agreed that the riots in the slums and provinces were not
politically driven, but over longstanding tribal and land issues.
Philip, our electrician and a member of the Luo tribe, lamented
the stupidity of his fellow Luo, who have destroyed much of their
principal city, Kisumu, cutting off water and electricity supplies
while driving out the Kikuyu, looting electrical goods shops and
of course, ironically, leaving themselves unable to use their
booty. It was “strange”, our crew agreed, that within minutes
of the election result being announced gangs of thugs in some of
the disputed territories had already set up heavy roadblocks,
indicating that these riots were not the spontaneous uprisings of
anger that were reported, but rather planned and manipulated. One
of our staff reported having seen a politician who had been voted
out of office paying a gang at a roadblock. Some of the major
offenders, they claimed, were members of the Kalenjin tribe, whose
leader, Daniel arap Moi, plundered Kenya during his single-party
rule from 1978-2002, and whose successor William Ruto, the Eldoret
MP, is opposition leader Raila Odinga’s deputy.How much of all
this is factual, and how much conjecture, we were unable to
determine. But during our week in Nairobi we did not meet one
single Kenyan who condoned the violence or had any sympathy with
the politicians whose personal ambitions were fuelling the flames.
They all echoed the pleas of a young television commentator during
the week: ‘Please give us our country back.’
Sunday:
Jan 27th
Sunday
began with coffee and breakfast at one of Nairobi’s deservedly
famous Java House Cafes, where the coffee rivals the best that
Ponsonby Road has to offer. The Westlands Java House, in its
comfortable middle class suburb, was as popular as ever, families
and couples relaxing over their coffees in the gentle equatorial
sun. The Nairobi Game Park, 117 square kms of African wildlife
experience in the Nairobi suburbs, was quieter than at other
times, probably a reflection of the reduction in tourist numbers.
Tourism was Kenya’s number one foreign exchange earner and
underlies the potential economic tragedy resulting from this
political wrangling.
Friday/Saturday:
Jan 25th/26th
A
meeting with the EPZ (Export and Processing Zone Authority) on
Friday established that as far as that government agency was
concerned it was business as usual. The EPZ supports and
encourages foreign investment in Kenya and they were appreciative
of our determination to continue with our project. As far as they
were aware, we were told, no potential investors had as yet given
up. With their approval to move our plant from its current
inadequate factory on the outskirts of Nairobi, to a more suitable
building closer to the small farmers who supply us, we drove out
of Nairobi the following day in search of a temporary factory. Our
goal is to buy all our avocados from small farmholdings, and we
are currently organising organic and fair trade status for the
more than 600 farms which will eventually supply us. Most of these
small farmholdings are northeast of
Nairobi
, in the lush highlands around Thika, and it’s here, in
quintessential
Africa
, that we want to establish a custom-built factory in the next
year or so. For the moment, however, there are a number of unused
factory buildings around Thika, and one of those will house our
plant for this year at least. Saturday was an interesting but
uneventful day, with no signs of unrest around Thika.
Thursday, January 24th
Our
Swiss flight from Zurich to Nairobi was sparsely populated, most of our fellow passengers
traveling on to Dar es Salaam. My son Hunter and I had planned to
begin our weeklong business trip to Nairobi on January 17th,
but reports of fresh outbreaks of violence persuaded us to heed
the advice from some of our Kenyan employees to “wait a week or
so”. Olivado employs 15 fulltime local staff, most of them
Kikuyu but some Luo and other tribes from the Rift Valley region,
the seat of much of the unrest. There has always been a strong
camaraderie amongst our staff, and this appears to be unchanged.
Since the election I had been in daily contact with two senior
staff members and had temporarily halted a field operation to
avoid any danger to the field crew. The avocado season begins in
March, however, and a great deal has to be done
in preparation for our first full season. So, to the
delight and relief of our staff, we ignored the dire warnings of
media and governments. And as we drove from Jomo Kenyatta airport
into the city, it was as though nothing had changed; perhaps a
little less traffic congestion on the notorious Mombasa Road, and
not so much of the light-hearted hustling from the highway
hawkers.
Gary Hannam: Chairman- Olivado Natural Nutrition
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