This story also available for Kindle28 May - 4 June 1994
Executive Summary

Aba Mpesha, field director of World Vision Kenya, invited a team from WVA to have strategic planning discussions with his team. He made this approach during a visit to Australia earlier in the year. Kenya has been moving its ministry "back to the people". This has involved a commitment to sustainable, transformational development, a commitment to the development process ahead of the products of the process, a commitment to people empowerment as a means to dealing with the needs of the poor. One result of this commitment has been a decentralisation of national office staff with development workers responsible for fewer projects each and located in or near the project communities.

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Part of the motivation for the visit was to discover how such a shift in strategy impacted on fundraising and donor transformation, and to attempt to secure WVA's philosophical and financial support for the strategic direction.
The methodology for the week was to visit three project areas where Kenya was moving to what it calls "Area Development Programs" (it is important to note that this term is currently applied to a range of developmental approaches within the partnership). The action of our project visits was balanced with times of discussion and reflection with members of the Kenya national office team, and local project workers.
The WVA team comprised:
Ian Curtis, Group Executive for Government & Corporate Relations;
Brian Tizzard, Marketing Manager;
Denis Green, Associate/Evaluation in Field Programs;
Liz Winston, Donor Service Support Team Manager;
and me.
As Kenya had reviewed their program in recent years they found that for most projects, there was no sustainability without World Vision. Also there was no relationship between the community and World Vision. This was especially because of the nonsense of insisting on church partners, itself a misinterpretation of international policy on working with the church.
In contrast, Large Scale Development projects had achieved community ownership because time was invested in staff development and the level of contact with community members was so extensive. Furthermore Large Scale Development Projects had staged phase-outs that left the community with capability.
Traditional projects partnered one church thus “exalting” that denomination rather than building up the whole church and its witness. Also churches had a weak understanding of holistic development. “We were not equal partners in the development process.”
The Kenya office embarked on a “Back to the People” process. It was expensive. More staff were required. Traditional staff saw themselves as clerks. Even when they went out to the project it is ”Nairobi transferred to the village”. This had to be changed.
The Kenyan team described five stages in their Area Development Program model. Selection, entry, training & growth, consolidation and phaseover. They see child sponsorship funding normally being incorporated in the third phase. They admitted there were problems with the model still. For example, the time line was enormously variable. Three years is allocated for the entry phase, but the reality is that it can be as short as a year, or as long as ten. So many factors impinge on this. Also the process is not linear. It is often cyclical, with entry phase activities needing to be revisited at later phases.
There was much sharing about the time it takes to enter a community and whether this can be sped up.
Also we discussed the role of sponsorship funding. Some Kenyan colleagues at the project level still appeared to resent sponsorship funding hoping that we could raise other kinds of money. We attempted to clarify that WVA does raise "other kinds of money", probably more of this than any other agency in this country. But the point is that we also raise substantially more money from the sponsorship program. The choice is not between this funding or that, it is between more projects or fewer.
In Eastern Kenya we discovered that the food stores are already empty. There will be no more rain until November, and no harvest for ten months more. These people are already hungry. Part of the problem is that government policy prevented them from creating private stores. Last year they had a good harvest. They were forced to sell it all to the common marketing body. Now, when they have no harvest, the government should be responsible for feeding them since they took away their own capacity to protect themselves against famine. At least, now the government has opened up the markets so that people can sell or not sell as they choose, and at prices that are determined by the free market. However, famine and starvation now seem inevitable in this area.
Among the learnings were:
  • Development is a process that requires patience, authenticity, consistency and commitment;
  • Development is not money or material dole-out. It is people to people relationship;
  • Development is a learning process for all involved;
  • One has to be transformed oneself in order to transform others;
  • The development process cannot be photocopied.
What is development is how people have changed to show these fruits. It is not the tangible outcomes that are development.
My Seven Reflections at the end of the week:
1.     The quality of ministry is most significantly dependent on the vision and capability of the development motivators and their leadership.
2.     Can we introduce a new strategic criterion into the way World Vision Australia determines where new sponsorship growth will come from? Let us plant a flag for transformational development and send a message to the partnership that this is where we stand. We want to make a commitment to process before outcomes; to people empowerment; to sponsorship as a mutually transforming relationship for both customers.
3.     Australia needs to remain committed to refining our accounting systems to be more clear about the relationship between how funds are raised and spent, and how much is specifically available for each ministry entity and for what purposes.
4.     We need to continue to work on the challenge of the common vision. Liz (for example) does not serve only donors; she also serves the people of Makueni, and needs to be held accountable for the quality of that service. Simon Olemasi does not serve only the people of Namelok; he also serves those who sponsor children in Namelok, and needs to be held accountable for the quality of that service.
5.     We need some help from the Kenya colleagues to be sure that Australia meets their planning expectations. It was not clear to me what kind of closure Aba and his team need.
6.     I have discovered more about the quality and limitations of these colleagues with whom I have travelled. Their quality easily outweighs their limitations. It had been a pleasure to travel with, listen to and watch them. And especially to hear so much from their lips that affirm my own ministry visions.
7.     Aba is pulling off what I have dreamed about--earthing a vision in practical outcomes. I am learning how to be tough enough to this tough work.
Crispus made the comment as we concluded, affirming the value of the week, “How can we do development without a forum like this?” I agree with the rhetorical answer, that we cannot. Since development begins with, and rests upon, shared visions and values, we need such forums in our relationship between field and support entities.
We need to do this more often, and with a wider group of people.
Kenya Diary
Saturday, May 28, 1994
Hawthorn played and lost at Victoria Park and now I have to go on a long flight. The keys to my suitcase were on the key ring in my car, now being safely piloted home by Jamie. The car phone was not in the car. It was on loan to the State Office for the 40 Hour Famine. I would have to work out how to open it in Nairobi. Life can be cruel sometimes.
Denis Green, Liz Winston, Ian Curtis and I headed off on QF221 to Sydney, and then, via Perth, on QF63 to Johannesburg. Check-in allocated us all over the place on the way up to Sydney giving me the benefit of the extra leg room on the exit aisle of the economy section. From Sydney, Liz, Ian and I were allocated from the window to the aisle with Denis on the aisle in the row in front. The plane to Perth was only about half full so I moved back to a middle row in which another passenger was already sitting alone. She got up and moved! As a result I had four seats all to myself on the four hours over to Perth. I stretched out and slept.
We arrived at Perth at some ungodly early morning hour and we wandered around the terminal. From Perth to Jo’burg was the same story as far as seating was concerned. We were allocated together, but the rest of the plane was lightly loaded. I didn’t crack it for four seats, but I did get two free and had the chance to sleep comfortably for another three or four hours.
Sunday, May 29 1994
In Jo’burg we found Brian Tizzard sauntering across to the transfer counter having arrived at the same time from Zurich on Swissair. He had taken advantage of a free flight offered to us by Swissair from Melbourne to Johannesburg via Zurich.
South African Airways took us up to Nairobi a couple of hours after we landed in Johannesburg. We whiled away the time with coffee in the airport.
The flight up to Nairobi was on an Airbus A320, about the same size as a Boeing 737 that one would fly from Melbourne to Sydney. Remarkably I had the extra leg room seat by the central exit door again. Perhaps I should give credit to Jetset for this. The plane had an uncomfortable low oscillation vibration that could make those prone to travel sickness uncomfortable. The last hour of the flight--our 27th since leaving home--found me rather brain dead, but physically restless. You can’t read. You’re mind weary. Yet you want to pace. For a time I meditated sitting upright and that seemed to help.
On the ground in Nairobi we were met by Crispus (Ops Director) and Charles (Communications Director) and shown into the rather shabby government VIP room. Our passports were taken, stamped and returned in about ten minutes and we were whisked through customs by Charles. “How did you manage that?” I inquired. “Is it your clerical collar, your smile, or the fact that the man behind the counter is your cousin?” “All of them!” laughed Charles.
Nairobi was humid with rain threatening, or so it appeared to Melbournites. It was 24 degrees.
At the hotel I called the maintenance man to open my suitcase. He brought a small screwdriver and was temporarily stymied. He went for a larger screwdriver. I suggested he prise open the lock itself. He humoured my by pretending this was possible before returning to his tried and tested methods. Sproing! and the right clasp fell open. Sproing-tawaing! and the left clasp fell open with a small piece of  black plastic zinging across the room. I gave him a $5 tip and inspected the damage. With my swiss army knife I took apart the still-locked lock and found I could close the clasps again. The suitcase was still in useable shape. Amazing. Fortunately it has two combinations locks as well, one of them the result of damage being done by Melbourne baggage handlers when they replaced a lock with a better quality Samsonite one that included a combination lock.
We agreed to meet at 5.30 on the patio for a first team discussion.
In the evening we went to the coffee shop and I had ravioli. The evening air was cool and there were no noticeable mosquitoes.
Monday, 30 May 1994

Our little fleet of Cessnas at Wilson AirportAt Wilson airport we climbed aboard two single-engined MAF Cessnas. I wondered if I could put one of them down in an emergency. Certainly I’d have a better chance today than a year ago. At least I knew what most of the controls would do from my flying lessons at the Lilydale airport. And I knew where most of them were located from the Microsoft Flight Simulator program!

We took off in a very leisurely rate of climb at around 80 knots with the stall warning buzzing loudly. It soon stuttered off and our air speed slowly picked up. I was surprised how slow the climb out was. We settled on straight and level at around 6,000 feet but this was less than a thousand feet above the terrain which, at Wilson airfield, is 5,150 according to the way the pilot set his altimeter. At this low height there is little opportunity to run through normal forced landing checks as the plane will only glide for about 2 minutes before being at ground level. For that reason they taught us to fly at or above 2,500 feet above terrain. But I looked out the window and realised that a forced landing would be pretty easy here. The plains are flat and wide and level with few large trees. From this low height we could see zebra, wildebeest, ostrich, goats and cattle.
It took us about 45 minutes to get down to Amboseli Game Reserve in Oloitokitok. We were heading for a tiny town of Namelok, the site of the ADP office for the Loitokitok Area Development Program. The centre office complex is almost larger than the town itself which boasts three shops and no roads, just wide bare spaces between trees and dusty buildings.
Our pilot proved to be an Englishman who had spent time in Australia doing his pilot training. He knew someone at Denis Green’s church. The other pilot was an Eritrean who had retired from flying F5 fighter jets.
Brian went looking for a toilet. “You can go at the ADP office” he was assured, “it’s only five minutes.” 45 minutes later, having passed by giraffes grazing near the air strip and bounced along dust filled roads, we arrived at Namelok.
Crispus Karingiti talked about Rwanda with dismay. “It is the worst holocaust. We are ashamed of our continent.” Ian countered kindly with cold comfort, “Europe is just as bad.” Brian agreed gloomily that “deceit is in the heart of man.”
We rested for a while at the ADP guest house. It had two bedrooms with en suite facilities. Electricity was collected in a solar panel and stored in batteries. For normal purposes it would be ample, but with all of us present the power gave out a couple of hours after sunset and we relied on hurricane lamps and torches. Each bedroom had two beds with new mattresses and clean sheets and blankets and a mosquito net. The en suite had a flush toilet--an unexpected benefit--and a shower that trickled cold water. And I mean cold. It came from a spring that was fuelled from the melted snow on nearby Mount Kilimanjaro.

Kilimanjaro and the surrounding volcanic landscapeThe mountain dominated the landscape. It climbs 21,000 feet from the almost dead flat plain, itself at around 3,000 feet. No wonder that no-one believed the explorers who returned to Europe saying there was a huge mountain on the equator with snow on its summit! But there it is. You cannot miss it! It has twin peaks, the lower one craggier than the wide snow cap to its west.

By the guest house lots of trees had been planted and the team asked me to plant another one. Aba pointed out the “40 Cures” tree from which quinine is produced. We visited the dispensary where the government were running a clinic. Then a demonstration garden which included a breed of banana from Israel specially designed to grow well in dry conditions. There was also papaya (although sensibly they call it paw-paw here), And onions.
By now it was lunch. Wondered what this might be and our wonder soon became relief. The food throughout the week was excellent and plentiful, even though some of it was unfamiliar to us. There was rice, chicken, mtoki (like mashed potato but made from bananas), gravy, tomatoes, avocado, onions, carrots and beans, followed by paw-paw and pineapple.
The program in Loitokitok had begun as a USAID funded Child Survival project in an area in which 400 out of each 1,000 kids died before their first birthday. Now, after some years, the project is attempting to move to a transformational development model that is emphasising community participation and ownership. The challenge here is moving the mindset of the people from dole-out dependency to taking control of their own future.
After lunch we drove out into the community. It is a disparate body of people scattered in family groups over a wide area. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, the Maasai have now begun to become agriculturalists. As a result, their herd sizes are reducing and their nomadic lifestyle disappearing.
We met people who were successfully farming maize, onions and other crops, using irrigation from a spring from Kilimanjaro. An endless supply of water in the desert! Many of the trained people were now training others. We also met traditional birth attendants. I asked how the traditional birth process differed from what I would be familiar with. There was much laughter and the staff translated that “the process is exactly the same!” The difference here was that women have babies just wherever they happen to be. Many have babies in their homes, but it is common for a pregnant woman to go for water, and come back with a baby.

The Women's Committee (in song)A group of women came walking across the fields towards us. When they were 200 metres off they broke into song. Soon they were upon us, singing loudly, and shaking each person by hand. It was the local women’s group who, in addition to their individual plots had developed a common garden.

Across a rocky landscape, the result of Kilimanjaro volcanic activity millions of years ago, we met a woman who had made such a good profit on her onion crop that she had built a new house. The traditional Maasai home is a wood and mud walled oblong with a thatch roof. It is about 5 metres by three with three rooms. One for cooking, one for sleeping and one for animals, such as young calves, who need to be brought in at night. I last entered a Maasai home a decade ago, but the memory was still strong. The roof is low, and it is pitch black inside until one’s eyes adjust. The fire fills the home with smoke and it is hot and claustrophobic.
Ian brushed his head on the roof and found himself picking cattle ticks out of his hair and other parts of his body for the next day or so.
Next door, she had built a new house, using timber walls and a corrugated iron roof. It had the same basic three-room layout but more headroom, and clean walls! She hoped to raise money from her next crop to lay a cement floor to improve hygiene.
In the evening we sat around a campfire. The staff sang devotional songs in Swahili and Maasai. Their rhythmic freedom contrasted with our own stiffness. But, as the week went along, we loosened up. Some of us more than others!
Tuesday, 31 May 1994
I showered early in the morning and it was icy! In future I would shower in the evening. It was better that way anyway, since driving around in the non-air-conditioned car left us with dust in every crevice.
We met with the staff for their devotions. Again there was singing in Swahili and Maasai. It was encouraging to find the emphasis on indigenous music. Too often, the hymn book is imported along with the gospel. The harmonies sounded similar to Pacific singing, but here there was more emphasis on leader and choir. Someone almost always leads with a line or a verse, and the rest respond. After a while one song degenerated into a cacophony of prayers. It was very beautiful.
Crispus gave a message from 2 Kings 22. He mentioned verse 7 which says, “But no accounting shall be asked from them for the money that is delivered into their hand, for they deal honestly." The story concerns Josiah finding the lost books of the Law. It happens as he plans to give money from the stores to certain contractors who will rebuild the temple. He says that “no accounting shall be asked from them . . . for they deal honestly.”
What does this mean? We do not need accounts? We don’t need audits? We have full trust in the distribution of money? As long as someone appears to be an honest person, we do not need to ask for an accounting.
The answer is Yes and No. Yes, truly honest people do not need to be asked for an account. Why? Because such people will automatically provide an account without being asked.
The reason these people could be permitted the trust of no request for an accounting, was because they would do it without asking.
The evidence for this is in the parallel passage in  2 Chronicles 34:12-13.
“The people did the work faithfully. Over them were appointed the Levites Jahath and Obadiah, of the sons of Merari, along with Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to have oversight. Other Levites, all skilful with instruments of music, 13  were over the burden bearers and directed all who did work in every kind of service; and some of the Levites were scribes, and officials, and gatekeepers.“
There was an accountable structure in place, including scribes, who were the record keepers. Such record keepers provided reports and accountability, without the need for Josiah to ask for it. They keep records to demonstrate their honesty.
Moral: Trust is earned and demonstrated. It can only be given to the extent that it is demonstrated.
On the table was a box of tissues. It was branded “Cleanext” and the packaging was a dead ringer for Kleenex.
Introducing our discussions, Aba Mpesha commented that there were few papers for our week. “Some are down-to-earth with papers. Some are down-to-earth with earth.”
He observed also that there were different rules about how to greet groups in different cultures.
1.     Greet the whole group at the same time;
2.     Greet each person individually. This is the African way. Everyone shakes hands with everyone.
There is another way, although I didn’t comment on it at the time. The Aboriginal Australian way. Wait on the side until you are invited in.
Maasai’s like to sit and “eat the news.”
Frances Njoroge attributed the move towards the focus on transformational development in the Kenya operation to their experience with Large Scale Development projects. These gave them something to compare with traditional projects. Why was there a difference? They asked, Are we addressing the right people? Are we meeting the most important needs? How effectively are the funds being used? What are the results? When they looked at their traditional projects they found them to be more dole-out than they expected.
Why was I not surprised at this discovery? It had been the same in the Philippines. Despite an excellent theoretical understanding of development, both offices had failed to deliver on their rhetoric. The rhetoric-reality gap is the most difficult one to cross. The gap between vision and outcomes.
For most projects, Kenya had found there was no sustainability without World Vision. Also there was no relationship between the community and World Vision. This was especially because of the nonsense of insisting on church partners, itself a misinterpretation of international policy on working with the church.
In contrast, Large Scale Development projects had achieved community ownership because time was invested in staff development and the level of contact with community members was so extensive. Furthermore these projects had staged phase-outs that left the community with capability.
Traditional projects partnered one church thus “exalting” that denomination rather than building up the whole church and its witness. Also churches had a weak understanding of holistic development. “We were not equal partners in the development process.”
When people became Christians they learned to read faster. But the relationship between faith and practical outcomes, between evangelism and development, was not clear.
Sixty percent of Kenyans were Catholic, yet World Vision had projects with only two Catholic churches and not a single Catholic was on staff when Aba came. When Aba first went to visit the Catholic bishop he was literally shown the door. It took work, but they got this changed.
The Kenya office embarked on a “Back to the People” process. It was expensive. More staff were required. Traditional staff see themselves as clerks. Even when they go out to the project it is ”Nairobi transferred to the village”. This had to be changed.
It seemed to me that Kenya might pull off this process of attitude change. Although the underlying bureaucratic environment is similar to India, for example, there is a significant difference in the vision of leadership and senior staff orientation.
They introduced a volunteer program in which graduates could work with World Vision for one year without the promise of full employment thereafter. This usually led to full-time work however. So far there were ten per year. Nine had been employed this year. I wonder whether we can develop an order of service like this at World Vision Australia. The Uniting Church has its Order of St Stephen in which people give a year of service to the church. Could that order become available for World Vision as well?
The Project Manager at Loitokitok ADP was Simon Olemasi
Outside the window, the dry dusty terrain was peppered with trees full of the nests of weaver birds. The nests are round and the bird lives inside. You hear the birds rather more than you see them. They are the best alarm clock in Africa.
A common bird was beautifully coloured with an orange flash on its breast and black feathers that glowed with a metallic blue-green sheen in the sun. Another bird with a tail longer than its body fluttered near the clinic.
One of the signs of change in the community was the change in the role of women. One of the female development motivators explained that traditionally a woman could only speak in meetings if a man also stood up with her and if she held grass in her hand as a sign of submission.
This has all changed within the last three years here.

Liz discovers Sponsor letters and photosSoon we were on the road again visiting another traditional birth attendant, a young kindergarten teacher who had a mother who looked like a black version of Linda Hunt. In the nearby village I saw someone with a T-shirt that read, “Someone in Cleveland loves me.” We also visited a farm which had failed owing to the lack of good rains, and the lack of access to irrigation. Stunted maize was painful testimony to the drought. The young man running the farm had been employed by the project on a special survey that was being done. His young brother was sponsored and he went and got a large brown envelope. Inside were all the letters, cards, including the special World Vision Australia greeting cards, dating back over a few years. His sponsor was a single woman in her thirties from a farm near Echuca. Liz took pictures and details.

We finally drove up onto the edge of the long steady climb that is the side of Kilimanjaro. There are no foothills. Just the huge conical mountain. The town here on the border with Tanzania is Oloitokitok. We wandered around the market, full of cheap torches, batteries, wallets, key rings and the range of useful bric-a-brac of African rural life. Many fruits and vegetables were also on sale. Crispus, passing a fruit seller commented, “They even sell wild fruits.” “Wild fruits” said Aba indignantly, “we eat them all the time in Tanzania. They are my favourite.”
That night we had a late dinner of barbecued goat. It was tasty, but extremely tough. The fat was juicy. I was tired and declined the invitation to sit around the camp fire again. I was lulled to sleep by African singing.
Wednesday, June 1 1994
It was a public holiday. So we could not visit communities this day. Instead, we visited the game park, had another round of discussions after lunch, and drove the long drive up towards our second ADP at Makueni.

Morning in Amboseli Game ParkWe had to begin before 6 to be up with the animals. This news was greeted with good-hearted expressions of dismay by all the Australians, but no-one dragged their feet when the opportunity came. We spent over three hours in the game park seeing giraffes, elephants (more than 50 all told), a couple of hyenas, ostriches, wildebeest by the hundreds, zebra, buffalo, a couple of hippos, warthogs, thompson gazelles, impalas, antelopes, guinea fowls, crested cranes and others we could not name.

When we spotted the hyena our hosts commented predictably on its stupidity and cowardliness. “You know the hyena is so stupid” said Aba. “When it follows a man walking it is said to be waiting for his hands to fall off.”
We stopped by the Amboseli Serena guest house for breakfast at 10 and wished we could stay for a long time.
Back at Namelok we continued to explore the ADP model. Frances took us through the five stages. Selection, entry, training & growth, consolidation and phaseover. They admitted there were problems with the model still. For example, the time line was enormously variable. Three years is allocated for the entry phase, but the reality is that it can be as short as a year, or as long as ten. So many factors impinge on this. Also the process is not linear. It is often cyclical, with entry phase activities needing to be revisited at later phases.
Brian made a good speech here about the place of the child within sponsorship-funded projects. His language allowed for an interpretation of a minimum benefits package approach. I suggested he should say that it was necessary to show how the project benefited the child, rather than to simply ask the question “What benefits does the child receive?” When you ask “How does the project benefit the child?” you imply that the project is a going thing which can be shown to have benefits for the child. When you say “What benefits does the child receive?” people will tend to think of specific things they can give to the child. This leads to a MBP approach.
After a late lunch we said our good-byes to the Loitokitok team and embarked on the long drive north to Hunter’s Lodge en route to Makueni. The road was fast and not too dusty and there was a promise of a hot shower at the end. About one hour out of Loitokitok I realised I had left my watch sitting on the window sill of my room. I was sorry that I mentioned it as Aba said he would get someone to bring it to me. I certainly didn’t think this was worth the trouble for a $50 watch. We stopped at a small village and someone went away to tell some local person about my lost watch. “The bush telegraph will get the message to them” assured Aba.

The Not So Wonderful Hunter's LodgeHunter’s Lodge, on the Mombasa road, looked attractive from the road. Inside it was shabby and lacked hot water. I had a lukewarm bath that improved my cleanliness without improving my demeanour. The drinks were cold, though. The bed linen seemed clean, but the mattress was well used and I flicked some bugs off the sheets before climbing in.

The question in our mind was “Where are we staying in Makueni?” Aba simply told us, Bjelke-Petersen style, not to worry about such things.
Thursday, June 2 1994
The drive to Makueni took the best part of 2 hours. We were hot and dusty quickly. En route Aba discussed Kenya’s role in delivering World Food Program food to starving people in Kenya. It seemed to us that there were real opportunities for an important role for World Vision here. Especially if proper links could be made between our fundraising capability and Kenya’s need for funds for logistic support. WFP provide the grain and transport costs, but distribution and logistical management needs to be paid for by World Vision.
We arrived at Mumo and were met by the project manager, Gideon and two colleagues, Angelina and James. The former two had been to Australia. Sarah led us in devotions from Psalm 46. We sat around on chairs under a tree. It was sunny, quiet, calm. The temperature was under twenty and a gentle zephyr was refreshing. We could hear bird song and the sound of children playing. Sarah spoke about the blessings she had received in Australia. She pointed out that we were not deserving of God’s blessings, whether Australian or Kenyan. “We have not bribed God!” [I was a bit troubled by what she said. But it has to do with the definition of blessings (the Swahili word is baraka). We live in a things-oriented society which breeds solutions-oriented people.]
Emma, from the local project office was asked to lead singing. She suggested “This Is The Day” but Aba interrupted and suggested, in Swahili, that they sing an African song. They did, and then, at Brian’s suggestion, also sang “This Is The Day” for us to join in. Although we soon found we could easily sing along with most of the African songs.
Ian said, “I prefer CDP to ADP.” And Crispus replied, “It doesn’t matter what you call it--it’s the process that matters.”

The working water catchment projectFirst we arrived at a place where the community had completed a water catchment project that had been started some years before by a government agency and never completed. It involved the building of a low wall around a huge rock formation near the village and the channelling of the water to a large concrete tank. The tank, which contained enough water for about three months supply to the village, was already full. Indeed it had been filled with just one day’s rainfall! Normally all that water simply just ran away. And the village was without water then until it rained again. Now they were harvesting water.

Lillian was the development motivator here. The people were charging one shilling per 20 litre container and only people from the village were eligible to get water. It saved the women a walk of more than 10 kilometres. I tried to pick up a full water container and found it to be very heavy indeed. The women placed these on the small of their backs and took the weight with a strap around their foreheads. The impact on their backs of a 10 kilometre trudge with this weight must be significant. Lillian said it affected them in child birth.
Makueni was now dry after insufficient long rains. Portentous. Famine was coming fast. People prefer white maize (corn) to yellow. They reckon the yellow corn (that we eat in the west) is “for animals”.
Everywhere we went we made jokes about Ken Tracey, because everywhere we went people mentioned him so warmly. Someone suggested that KENya was actually named after him!
At another place we discovered that the food stores are already empty. There will be no more rain until November, and no harvest for ten months more. These people are already hungry. Part of the problem is that government policy prevented them from creating private stores. Last year they had a good harvest. They were forced to sell it all to the common marketing body. Now, when they have no harvest, the government should be responsible for feeding them since they took away their own capacity to protect themselves against famine. At least, now the government has opened up the markets so that people can sell or not sell as they choose, and at prices that are determined by the free market.
Of course, we were shown toilets. VIP latrines, no less. Ventilated, Improved, Pit Latrines.
I was concerned that the staff were showing us outputs of the process, rather than helping us to see the development process itself. Frances and Aba must have shared my concern for, as the day went on, Frances tried to get people to talk about how they had achieved what was achieved. It would be better to spend less time flitting from dam, to school, to pit latrine, and more time with a single community committee having them describe the process.
I wondered whether, in future, we should send Ken ahead to work on the program at some level of detail. But in the end, I discovered that Aba and Frances had the same concerns and it was simply difficult to get the project staff to see what was required. They tend to assume that we understand the development process that underlies these outcomes.

Future Movie StarAt a local high school we were fed in a large community hall that had been built. The students entertained us at first with poetry and song about the development process. Most of it was, impressively, in English. They were led by one teenage girl with a face and style full of commitment to the performance. So lovely.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at a church where a number of tents had been pitched. This was our Serena for the night. It proved to be the best accommodation of the week! Each tent had a proper groundsheet and contained one or two camp beds with clean sheets and blankets. And no snakes. Although we checked before we slid between the sheets.
To the side of the church were three plastic walled shelters that served as shower recesses. Hot and cold water was provided and we soon ladled the dust of the day from our bodies. It was luxurious. The centre shower stall had been ringed in yellow plastic while the others were black. Unfortunately, the yellow plastic was rather transparent so we all modestly left it alone.
Away behind the church were two VIP latrines which were clean but rather in need of some air freshener.
In the evening, around a campfire again, Gideon orchestrated a program of music and entertainment. This included a game of Simon Says except they called it Peter Says. Brian and Ian won this in a tie, when the leader found it impossible to trick them. Gideon announced that the Australians would sing Waltzing Matilda which we did with more freedom, rhythm and harmony than is typical of most Australians. The food was of a superior standard and there was a lot of it.
Friday, June 3 1994
Our visiting was over and we spent the morning discussing issues with the team. There was some concern here about sponsorship. Indeed, the local team had decided to talk about “Child For Development“ to distinguish our approach from people’s expectations.
Among the Makueni learnings were:
  • Development is a process that requires patience, authenticity, consistency and commitment;
  • Development is not money or material dole-out. It is people to people relationship;
  • Development is a learning process for all involved;
  • One has to be transformed oneself in order to transform others;
  • The development process cannot be photocopied.
What is development is how people have changed to show these fruits. It is not the tangible outcomes that are development.
Aba raised the concern about “How this process could be communicated?”
Before lunch was served a man from Loitokitok arrived on a motor cycle. He was carrying a brown envelope containing my hair brush and my watch. He was “on the way to Nairobi” to have his motor cycle serviced. His detour to deliver my watch would have taken him four or five hours extra riding.
The Kenya office’s “Back to the People” process may result in a head office in the year 2000 of as few as seven people, and they will not be line management, but consultants to the project leadership, said Aba.
Our discussion about sponsorship revealed some of the challenges. How do we do sponsorship in Samburu with nomadic people? Boarding schools is one suggestion, although one strategy is to find ways to make people less nomadic, as had been achieved in Loitokitok. I wondered what price is paid socially for the idea of having the parents away from the kids for long periods of their development. Were mobile schools (“School of the Air”) possible? I didn’t get the chance to explore these ideas.
Frances said that he “recognised that sponsorship is the only way funds are being raised.” Angelina made a similar statement and asked why we do not raise money by other means. I tried to point out that we did and that Frances’ statement was incorrect. The truth is that sponsorship is only one of many funding sources. But it is the only way that this amount of money can be raised.
The choice is not between this or that funding, but between more or fewer projects.
After another generous lunch we set off for the drive back to Nairobi. Three hours on dusty and bumpy roads and then an hour or so along the main tarmac. At one stage someone asked why we were going by this route. “It’s so near the tarmac” came the reply. It was another 45 minutes before we saw the made road.
We checked into the Serena again and I had a good shower, watching the water at my feet gradually fade from brown to clear. The water wasn’t dirty. I was.
In the evening we went to the Trattoria, an Italian restaurant in Nairobi. Alex Findlay from the Sudan project joined us. He’s struggling a little with the non-empowering style of management. It seems that staff development is a very low priority in Alex’s experience.
Saturday, June 4 1994
Our last day was to be spent in another Maasai community in the Rift Valley--the Lodariok project. On the way we stopped by the new World Vision office being built outside of Nairobi at Karen. It looks like a lovely complex, modest and modern. On site is a good standard four bedroom guest house. It looked like a much better place to stay than a city hotel.
Introducing ourselves, Liz said “I’m Liz.” The project manager replied, “Ah. But not last.”
At Lodariok we saw the first successes in turning nomadic Maasai into pastoralists. The learnings of working with the Maasai in Loitokitok were being transferred here.
There were springs of water in the nearby hills and one had been capped and water piped five kilometres to a large tank. More pipes were being laid by the community to transport the water.
We were shown a local low thorn bush. It’s name is “Wait-a-bit” because it catches on your clothing.
We were shown a modern house being built by one man for one of his three wives. Actually, the women built it.
Around midday we stopped by a river gully without water and were invited into the shady trees. Some Maasai men were carving up a roast goat which they offered around generously. It tasted like the others. Very nice, but very tough. In a pot over the fire was a soup boiling. The flavours appeared to be drawn from a goat’s stomach which had been stuffed with herbs and spices. This didn’t look very appetising and we were not offered it.
After this we went to an area near the main project office where a community hall had been built. A demonstration farm was planned for this site and work had begun on a fence. Each of us was invited to plant a tree. Two trees were already on site having been planted by Dr Tracey.

Hours of SpeechesAfter tree planting we sat together with community representatives, men and women (although in discrete groups), and endured over an hour of speech making, including my two minutes worth. The order of speeches was Crispus, the project manager, the regional chief, me, Aba, the chairman of the community, the Chief Mamma, the assistant chief and the regional chief again. There seemed to be me to be a lot of politics going down. The chief did not strike me as having full integrity. At one stage he talked about the government giving the people seeds. This was, we were assured by others, a total lie.

This project had begun with sponsorship. I was impressed by how thoroughly developmental it seemed to be. Surely the key is not what you start with, but how good the leadership is, and whether it has the right vision and values. The right leadership, equipped with the right vision and values, can overcome the limitations of this methodology or that, or this funding source or that.
We ate our picnic lunches from the hotel and then returned to the Serena via the Ngong hills, an attractive if bumpy drive.
For the next two hours we met and wrapped up the week sharing our reflections and reactions.
I made the seven reflections listed in the summary at the beginning of this report.
Cris made the comment as we concluded, affirming the value of the week, “How can we do development without a forum like this?” I agree with the rhetorical answer, that we cannot. Since development begins with, and rests upon, shared visions and values, we need such forums in our relationship between field and support entities.
We need to do this more often, and with a wider group of people.

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