Map of Kenya

Here's a little visual for those of you who haven't studied african geography lately. We will be living in Maseno, which is a small village near Kisumu, on the western side of Kenya, near Lake Victoria. We'll be about 6 hours away from Nairobi. We're right on the equator (literally-it runs directly across the dirt road entrance to the hospital). ~Jessie~

Preparations update

We have an official departure date: February 2!!!!

Preparation

With only a few months to go before we disembark to Africa we are busy getting everything ready for the big trip. As you may already know, one of the things I'll be working on in Kenya is beekeeping. This is potentially an excellent source of revenue for Kenyans because bees produce honey and beeswax - two things that are very useful in Kenya. It is also helpful that it requires very little start up costs and virtually no land. They already have several hives and some of the equipment in Maseno, but are not having very good luck with maintaining them due to poor training. Since I don't know much about beekeeping myself, I enlisted the help of an expert, Stephen Jeter (Jess' dad). Together we built a Kenya-Top-Bar Beehive. This is a very simple design that can be easily replicated with minimal materials. Now that we know how to build a KTBH we can share the design with others in Kenya who are interested in keeping bees. I still have a lot to learn in the next few months about hive dynamics and such.....things I didn't even know existed until recently :)

Steven