In April 2018, I traveled to Nairobi for a meeting. When I was there, I called Esther Muyoka, a shy young lady I met in the Chwele market in Western Kenya in March 2008. She happened to be in Nairobi, and we arranged to meet and catch up.
I had visited Chwele market, one of the largest in East Africa, while on a mission to Western Kenya as president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). I found Esther sitting in an internet café in the market. In the course of a brief conversation, I expressed a desire to visit a young person’s farm. Esther said that she had a vegetable garden on her father’s maize farm some five kilometers outside of the town. When we got there, her garden turned out to be a small patch of tomatoes and cabbage on her father’s “miserable-looking” farm. I asked if she liked agriculture, and she said yes. I then asked if she had studied it at school. Yes, she said, but the high school certificate results were not out yet. I asked if she would like to study agriculture. Again, she said yes, but her family could not afford the cost. I encouraged her to register at Moi University and to let me know if she was admitted. While still in the garden, her parents and uncle joined the conversation. The beauty of rural life!