Flower Power

Originally, we were supposed to leave Naivasha after breakfast today because one of the girls was flying in into Nairobi in the morning and we didn't want to leave her alone for too long.

However, it happened that her flight was changed to Friday, so we found ourselves with most of the day free in Naivasha. To fill the time, Victor arranged for us a tour of a flower farm near our hotel.

I was interested, but not extremely excited. I

like flowers, but not enough to spend two hours walking through a farm of them. Little did I know that it was going to be my absolute favorite part of the Naivasha trip! This particular farm, Panda Flowers, is fair trade certified on some of their varieties. That's pretty cool by itself, but it gets better.

They can sell the fair trade flowers for a higher price in markets because people will pay more if they care about being certified fair trade. So with this excess money they make from the flowers, they team up with other fair trade farms surrounding them and fund certain

community development projects.

They told us about three in particular, one was a housing development project in nearby Naivasha. The housing situation is poor at best in most parts with people living in very bad conditions.

The second project was their children's shelters. They have two, one is a boys shelter and the second is a girls. They find boys and girls living on the str

eets of Naivasha for one reason or another. For most of them, it's that their parents have died or can't take care of them. So they are brought to this shelter that houses them, feeds them, and schools them. We visited the boys campus. Their rooms all have mosquito nets and warm, colorful blankets. They have a garden where they can grow their own fruits and vegetables, and animals. They have enough chickens so that they have a surplus of eggs after the boys have been fed and can sell them in a market to make money for the shelter. They also have a school that teaches them basic skills like reading, writing and math. Many of the boys come into the shelter with no formal schooling at all, but a good number of them are taking the government test in about two months to earn certification of their schooling and acco

rding to the director of the shelter, many of them are extremely gifted. Aside from the more academic side of school, they have a shop that teaches wood-working and welding. They make the furniture for the shelter and take on small, payed projects for outside contractors. The home-ec department was especially impressive. They teach the boys sewing, cooking and they had these amazing beaded works of little animal figurines, bracelets and earrings. They sell what they make in the markets every weekend.

Their third project is a hospital in Naivasha - specifically a maternity hospital. The conditions for women once they've given birth are anything but desirable. Most of the time they have to share one bed with at least two other women so end up placing the infants on the beds while they sleep on the floor. The current hospital, which we visited, is a slew of small buildings, barely big enough to hold 1/4 of the current capacity. But the new hospital, which is being built right next to it's predecessor, is surprisingly large. It has two wings for maternity alone, one wing for HIV testing and treatment, and a fourth wing is for women's health. The original hospital will still be in service to tend to other medical needs.

How awesome is that? What seems at first glance to be a big, bad international flower corporation turns out to be doing amazing things for the community surrounding them.

This made me excited to be in Kenya. It's this sort of thing that I'm looking forward to soaking in for the next four months.