On Kenyan Soil

Day Three – Friday April 15, 2016:

Exchange of Competences Marc and I give a workshop on remote sensing and soil moisture to our Kenyan partners at RCMRD (Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development) and LocateIT (a leading ICT company in location-based products and services), as well as a list of invited academics and public officials—about 30 to 40 participants in all. Remote-sensing technology is particularly useful in African countries, as there is no network of meteorological monitoring stations to monitor the soil in situ. I’m pretty blown away by the response at the workshop: I’m used to an average level of feedback at these presentations, but the Kenyan group today is very enthusiastic about the potential of what we are proposing to do in their country. There’s even a pair of scientists from an institute for infectious disease research at the workshop: since insect populations are linked with soil moisture, they are particularly interested in our research; it’s an application that I had not even considered in my research.

Day Four – Saturday April 16, 2016:

The Journey to Eldoret Today is the start of the journey to which I’ve been looking forward. Together with Degelo Sendabo, the Head of Remote Sensing at RCMRD, and Erick Khamala from LocateIT, Marc and I hop in a chauffeured passenger van to go to our test sites in the regions of Uasin Gishu and Elgeyo Marakwet, northwest of Nairobi. It’s a six-hour, 314-km trek from Nairobi to Eldoret, passing through the Eastern Rift Valley. As we descend the 700m wall of the 6,000km tectonic fault that runs north-south in eastern Africa, I am struck by the complete change in the landscape as the valley’s microclimate takes over. The scenery above looked to me not much different from that of Central Europe (there were even pine-tree forests). But in the valley the vegetation has turned into what you might consider classic sub-Saharan savannah. It’s very hot. No agriculture here—just goat and sheep herding (mixed with the occasional zebra or monkey). Driving along the floor of the valley, we stop for lunch at a little green shack of a restaurant. Here we get our first real introduction to Kenyan cuisine: Marc and I have to choose our own cut of meat from a dead goat strung up in the kitchen. After waiting for what seems like an eternity (each meal in Kenya usually lasted two hours to cook and eat), we eat the unsalted goat with our fingers, along with a ball of ugali, a polenta-style dish made of maize flour and boiled to form a dough.

Day Five – Sunday April 17, 2016:

Fieldwork Reconnaissance On Monday there is to be a flight overpass of the ESA’s Sentinel 1 satellite. As we are planning to take ground measurements at the same time to validate the satellite’s data, today we are driving through our test sites to scout out our measurement locations. The farmers’ fields are very empty. Because of the late start to the rainy season, I am told that many of them haven’t even started to seed their crops yet. At each location, Erick does a great diplomatic job of getting permission from the farmers (he is the only one who speaks Bantu Swahili). Our presence here does not go unnoticed. The sight of two white guys walking around with scientific instruments tends to turn heads in Kenya; wherever we stop, Marc and I are soon surrounded by a throng of friendly bystanders wanting to know what we’re doing and why, most of them young children. Erick tells us that 42 percent of the Kenyan population is under 16, and the population grows at 2.7% annually. This, too, must put stress on dwindling water supplies, I think.

Day Seven – Tuesday April 19, 2016:

The Return to Nairobi The satellite overpass ground readings were successful yesterday. Erick and Degelo have learned the measuring techniques perfectly. Now we are set to return to Nairobi and then on towards home. It will not be so easy, though, to get out of Kenya. Our driver tries to start the van at 8am, only to find that the electrics have failed. So—change of plans—we are treated to a day-in-thelife of an Eldoret automobile garage, which is no more than an empty lot between two buildings in a city block. As we wait out the interminable time it takes to determine the problem, order a part, try to fix it, find there’s another problem, order a part, and so on, we get to experience the mayhem of Eldoret, a town of about 300,000 that straddles the truck-lined Kenyan-Ugandan highway. The problem finally resolved about midday, we make our way home. Twenty clicks outside of Nairobi, as the sun dips below the horizon, our driver turns on the headlights. It becomes apparent that the electrical problem hadn’t been fixed at all— and we have very little battery left. I have real respect for this driver now because I wouldn’t have continued: after rolling with the parking lights only, the last couple of kilometers are a hair-raising experience of slow driving on the pitch-black section of highway complete with cars racing up behind us. I suppose on a successful research trip like this, at least one life-threatening adventure is all right.