July Update

Summer in America is hard to beat. This is a picture of Doha but I recently spent time in DC and New York at conferences raising money for our company. We had some successful meetings but I feel like it may still be many months before we see any serious investment. Regrettably, I had to sacrifice my trip to the World Cup to make my trip to America, so I hope the trip was fruitful. For the first time, I experienced some culture shock when I landed in DC and met up with some friends for burgers and beer. The streets were quiet and organized and people were able to walk around at night. The bars, stores and malls all provide more things to buy than the mind can process at once. I felt like a foreigner in another country and one of my friends gently reminded me that I was.

After the work portion of my trip ended in the East Coast, I made my way back to Colorado to visit my family and complete my annual fishing trip with my twin brother. The upper Colorado River remains one of the most pristine and spectacular stretches of land I have ever seen in all my travels around the world. My brother and I spent three glorious days stalking big trout in our drift boat along the banks of the mighty Colorado River.

During our last two nights we did not see a single person on the water or at any of the moonlit campsites. We managed to bring in a considerable load of hefty fish even under the constraints of the early season water conditions. I just hope this part of the world always stays like this and remains far away from disasters like the oil spill in the Gulf.

Two days after returning to Kenya, I joined some friends on a trip to the Lewa Conservancy to participate in a fundraiser half-marathon. This being my first ever half-marathon, I was quite intimidated by the 800 other runners. Keep in mind that this part of Kenya is home to 40% of the world champion marathon runners. Many believe the Lewa marathon to be among the most difficult races in the world due to the high altitude and course topography. The runners also need to share the trail with lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo and several other wild animals known to kill people. We were fortunate not to see anything dangerous but it was quite exhilarating running alongside antelope and zebras under the shadow of Mt. Kenya in the distance. My pre-training was pathetic. I finished in a little over two hours, but I managed to pass about 600 people along the way.

Now it is back to the grind of long days and sleepless nights in efforts to bring more resources to the rural smallholder farmers of Kenya. We are pilot testing the M-Pesa mobile money transfer system on our clients next month which I hope will bring convenience to our farmers and lower our own costs.