RE: [Jambo] Kenyan Delegation Visit Mr. Calvin Burgess in Oklahoma

Omuga, I respect your position very much, you have the right to your thinking, and it is your like of people that we need to talk to in details. 1st I was born and found Odiero in my family one of my aunties, wife to my uncle came back with my uncle early 70's so All my life i have lived with Odiero in our family and coming here to the USA did not expose me to odiero.

Secondly, Muok to kunyo kaeto Ondiek riembe, 3 rd I have never been to Yalla may be you have and talked to some locals there, my brother open up and think out of the Box, our great grand fathers used these resources to bring us up ever since, things have changed and we need to change with them too. Do you still want to live like your great grand fathers?this is my answer to you too, somebody was screaming like you are screaming now and this is what i wrote to him and i invited him for more discussions and he has not. I hope if we think in a broader perspective we might change our way of thinking towards development. For more discussion you may if need be call me and we will discuss. I hope you still live around greenspoint area. Cell mara en 832 498 3664 and if possible let's talk one on one without filling up other peoples inbox some of us have storage limits and you might get some of these emails bouncing back. here you go...

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I have read your concern in this forum and sincerely understood your concern as far as Luo Nyanza Poverty is concernced. I come from Luo Nyanza, a place called Kanyadhiang, Kendu-Bay Kanyasoro, Rachuonyo District, now I live in the Diaspora and I am one of the people who organised Delegates from the entire North America to go and visit Mr. Calvin Burgess at his residence in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Let's address issues here my brother.

I live in Kanyadhiang from when i was born in 1972 till January 1991 when i finished my high school at Gendia High when i first stepped into the capital City -Nairobi - that is to tell you that I have lived in the village in my good childhood to adulthood so i have some basic understanding of what poverty is, having been there done that all those years. The last Grass thatched house from my homestead was brought down in 2004, and some are still standing elsewhere in my region. the Zero shaped house was brought down in 1988 also in side my homestead when i was in form 2 at Gendia, i have not seen any lately. Okay these are issues now we need to discuss:

1. People of Aduwa, Kadeenge, Kanyumba, Ratuoro, Iyanga, Bubamba, Bulwani and Maduwa were tillting their land as you said luthi ema nego ni thuol for all these years and they have all been at the same level of poverty, even worse off. (change is needed).

2. "rice has never been a food security crop for Luos anyway" - from your quote - Maize, millet and sorghum has been the only staple food crop in most of luo Nyanza - Can all these grow in a swamp? My little agriculture that i studied during my 8-4-4 as one of Pure Science option subject does not justify that. "If we can be productive in Rice, why can't we produce rice and trade it with Maize from Kitale, or sell it to the Coastal people and get cashew nuts from there! other than growing maize in a swampy water and yielding less than Gunia achiel per acre while we can employ modern farming technique to produce rice en masse and sell it to get maize, Millet sorghum from else where, if we can not maximise their production in Luo Land?

3. "Replacing maize with rice can not make our poverty less" again your quote, i think numebr 2 answers that. - If we maximize the rice out put we will be able to generate more income from rice that will enable us to buy maize from other areas that can maximize maize production - is that not lessening our poverty than having maize grown in a swamp and get Less than a bag per acre? They have been doing that as far as using your luthi to nego ni thuol since time in memorial and where are they now? Still screaming of Poverty!

4. "Employment as a justification is a myth!" - Modern Farming requiers machinery and new technology - I believe we still live in those days when my mum would grind the maize and millet on that pong moro mane ichueyo e liare molos gi kit nyaluo cha. The days when i myself use to "goyo otong'o " casually weeding from "pouth ng'ane to puoth ng'ane during the weeding seasons, those days we use to pick cotton by hand and spend seveal days separating the dry withered leaves from the cotton lint, separating the seeds from the lint. My brother times are changing and we need to change with time otherwise we would have still be walking in skins and the Omethes. If Dominion can provide Casual labour to our iddle youths around the swamp year round, they can use their earned income and get trained to drive those combine harvesters and oparate all that you call machines that are taking the jobs away from the locals. Take it this way, a watchman employed to guard the machines at Dominion farms i believe will have not been imported from somewhere like Kendu Bay - still in luo nyanza, while a rice expert might be imported from Migori to come and work in rice production in yalla if there is none around that area, it is now upto these day labourers and watchmen to use their income which was not there initially and train to do good permanent Jobs at the Farm, my self i use to skin, wash fish fillets in Nairobi Samaki Industries 1991-1993, it did not stop me from attending kenya Polytechnic doign Computer Sciences and now i am a graduate here in the United states - from Kanyadhiang Primary School to Gendia High to Kenya Polytechnic to the USA, no St MARY'S HIGH SCHOOL or Agha Khan! Let us face facts and being realistic than idealogist.

5. "Why didnt this guy give us the capital and give us room to do production and wait to market." Your Quote again - It has been tried a millionth times and it has been proved that Luo's if not Kenyans can not utilise/trusted with the unworked/unearned for capital to convert it to usefull capital, even our Mps can not utilise kenyan tax payers CDF fund appropriately and these is our own money, what about money from a foreighner. During 1979/1984 when in karachuonyo there was a big political competation between the late Okiki Amayo and Pheobe Asiyo, Asiyo beat Okiki twice for MP and she introduced self help project in different Sub-divisions within Karachuonyo, Kanyadhiang where i come from was given a Spinning and Weaving wooden machines from India where women were using locally produced Cotton from our farms and spin it to threads, dye it and weave it to cloths and sew them into Khakis and Bedcovers etc, oriang Kogweno was doing Pottery, East Karachuonyo was duirng irrigation of tomatoes, onions and sukuma wiki etc, at Kanyadhiang' they started up with 2 ethiopian women who came on a 2 yr contract to train our mothers, then after 2 years a lady took over from Sweden, then another one from Norway all these were coordinated by SIDA/NORAD, when now they felt that the locals have been trained enough after 6 yrs and now they can be incharge, only 1 yr later the building still exists with nothing in it. Was that money, manpower etc given out? and where is it now? God knows or ask Pheobe Asiyo her self.

My solemn appeal to you and any body who still doubts Mr. Burgess Vision for Luo Nyanza are these:

a) Critism without solution will never help us in Luo Land
b), If anybody have a better way or a better foreigner who can invest to benefit our locals better than Dominion, Please tell them they are most welcomed to Luo Nyanza so that we can compare and contrast who is genuine and who is not, but comparing one without the other is like clapping your hands with only one hand - results - No sound!
c) If you were invited to go and meet Mr. Burgess, that was the best place to address those your doubts with him directly, writing emails is not a good forum to air your pessimistic ideas. I did invite people from the Diaspora to go and they went and heard for themselves, those who never went and were criticizing were silenced by the same, go and hear and ask questions of your concern plain and clear.

Last life experience my Brother " I started working at Samaki Industries as a Crate/Truck Cleaner/Fish Skinner in that order - cleaning the trays and trucks that were used to ferry whole fish from Musoma- Tanzania and the Beaches along lake Victoria, It was so normal and used my kshs. 67/day plus Overtime if there was and took myself though Kenya Polytechnic (1991-1993). Early 1994 i came back and got a Job at the same firm Samaki Industries as a Computer Operator, I was there untill 1996 when I was transfered to Kisumu to head computer Dept, in their newly acquired Fish Processors (k) ltd, that is how one can develop from nowhere to somewhere, apparently i did not look at the other side of why these Indians had to ferry all these Fish from our locals and bring them to Nairobi instead of building processing Plants there in Kendu-Bay, Alego, Osieko and etc, leaving our locals in absurd poverty where they could not even afford fish and only ate mgongo wazi? We need people who can invest in our locals than ferrying our local produce to other cities thereby empowering others and not our locals. For every investment there has to be ROI (return on investment) so even if Burgess would be making huge profits but the small percentage that the locals will be getting if used properly can propel a school leaver to be a pilot, an engineer etc and that is what we call development. You do not need to buy everybody a car to develop them, you do not need to build people bricked houses to develop them instead you need to teach them how to get money to do all those, the youth camps Calvin is building to host more than 2000 youths for vocational training is one of the surest ways of engaging the youths in a development way than leaving them iddle thereby subduing them to negative approach to life. Please let us be serious and develop ourselves than cheap politics that we have been engaged in all these years.

Thank you,

Elisha Obongo.