Africa. Work. Technoserve.

Technoserve is a non-profit organization running social impact initiatives across four continents of the world. With about half a century of experience behind them, they are a driving force in the agriculture and agribusiness transformation domain in Africa.

Having recently launched a new program, Connected Farmer Alliance (CFA), to create mobile-based solutions for lowering transaction costs of conducting business with small farmers, Technoserve is looking to help every tiny farmer in East Africa access markets and information. This is great significance in the region given that 80% of the population is involved in agriculture, and of those a vast majority are small farmers. The program aims to reach 500k small farmers by the end of two years.

I am part of this initiative through their 'Volunteer Consultant' program, which allows me to help in identifying the potential elements of this solution. It also gives the opportunity to live in Nairobi (Kenya), and later Maputo (Mozambique) and/or Dar-E-Salaam (Tanzania) and get my first taste of East African culture.

On first impressions, and looking forward to a few days in the much famed Masai Mara, I highly endorse.

Ghosts

Remembering past lovers is a symptom. They're always lurking in the corners of our heads, waiting to appear when we least need them. Waiting to pull us down.
I woke up a few hours earlier than I would on a Sunday morning. My heart had sensed the loneliness it was destined to face due to the misgivings of my mind. And it was nervous and scared and it was pinching my head, which was fast asleep of course. And I woke up with a start, and a huge sinking feeling.

From the Valley of Strangers - I

Eyes
A Million eyes
Wandering. Sparkling. Smiling. Dreaming.
Rolling. Frowning. Narrowing?
Narrowing?
They notice a pen;
In the valley of strangers
And they wander back to their own world,
Wondering.

My Relationship with the Newspaper

The only thing I detest reading is a newspaper. A great feeling of deja-vu overcomes me whenever I try to read a newspaper, and it makes me feel that the world is cycling through the same issues over and over again. It makes me feel that we are neither growing nor progressing. And it makes me thing less seriously of issues that are in fact rather grave and depressing. As you can see, instead of making me more sensitive to things happening to fellow sufferers around the world, it ends up making me numb-er, and hence serves exactly the opposite of its intended purpose. 

Good? Bye

If only I had been awake when she was leaving. I should never have let her go.

I bet she left that glass of wine, on her side of the bed, on purpose. She knew that I would come looking for her in there. I would sip her wine. Somewhere far away, fresh blood will flood her pale face. Ease the pain, as I draw my last few drops of her, with not-so-secret desperation and mounting regret.

She will go make mistakes of her own, to feel less troubled by mine. This is not what her shrink would recommend. But her shrink doesn't know her like I do.

Life of (p)I

I recently saw Life of Pi, the fact that this coincides with the release of the movie in India, is of course irrelevant. It merely talks about my efficiency in tracking down movies which are guaranteed to be well made and talk about things I don't understand. Things I would like to believe I have the ability to understand but choose to ignore. Except in movies. Watch a movie with the intention of exacting only entertainment and you may take nothing more. Watch it with some higher hope and you may take back the gift of disappointment, in most cases at least. I just don't get why acquiring something as common as faith requires one to be lost at sea with a tiger in tow. If God is as omnipresent as all the religions of the world claim, stories that inspire faith have to be less far-fetched. If someone is already a believer, this story won't change him, if one is not though, an impossible-sounding, unverifiable story by a french-canadian-indian who claims to follow three religions isn't the perfect recipe for change. I am surprised that the dude listening to Pi's story took it seriously. The world is full of convincing story-tellers, with the ability to pay attention to detail. If this dude would have sat his gullible ass on Rowling's couch, he might have spent the rest of his life in search of Hogwarts?
The movie was well made.
And the idea of going on this larger than life journey full of joy, pain, misery, fear, turmoil, change sounds exceedingly appealing. So does the idea of flying fish. But we can't all wait to be on a pre-modern ship floating on stormy sea, can we? We need to find our boat and our CGI tiger and our lifetime supply of food and water cans and get started. If we fail to embark on a journey that tests our knowledge and our faith, how can we ever be at peace? I'm unclear about where I am. I don't know if I'm sleeping, waiting on the overnight storm or searching for my floating island of hope, running short of resilience.
I just know that there's darkness.