Marianne Stamm

The picture is idyllic. Brown Swiss cows graze on lush green grass besides apple trees in full blossom, the Swiss Alps hazy in the background. Sometimes I feel I am gazing at one of the calendars my relatives would send me in Canada. Spread along Lake Constance, at the northeastern end of Switzerland, the canton […] Read more

I’m riding the public bus again, among the hills, past fertile fields, blooming trees and small villages. So far I could be describing the bus ride less than a week ago through the Kenyan countryside, but the similarity stops there. No throngs of colourful people crowd the streets and markets of the Swiss villages, no […] Read more

Golden copper is a term we heard in the Zambian copper belt. Our guide wasn’t talking about metal, though, but the colour of tea, which is one of Kenya’s major export commodities. We toured a small holder owned tea factory in Kapsabet, Kenya. The big tea plantations are in the Nandi Hills near Kapsabet, or […] Read more

“Farming is everybody’s bread and butter.” The truth of that bumper sticker is brought home to us as we read the newspaper and ride the bus through the Kenyan countryside. The view is spectacular over the wide expanse of the Rift Valley, the breadbasket of Kenya, which may be frighteningly empty in the coming harvest. […] Read more

I tell Loveness the story of how a Zimbabwean family was chased from their farm by Mugabe’s followers and she is intrigued. “That’s a very interesting story,” she comments. What makes it interesting to her? The part about the witchdoctor? The fact that whites are chased from a farm by blacks? Or just the story […] Read more

Chewing on the beans I shelled from the dry plants at my feet, I watch the two dusty red Case IH combines swallow up the large field of soybeans. It is hard to believe I am in Zambia, Africa. Having spent the bulk of our time here with small-scale farmers planting no more than a […] Read more

In an act of irony, the last large trees along the road to Lusaka, capital of Zambia, give shade to sacks of charcoal. Power shortages in the country have an ecological impact as well as an economical one. People need to cook their food, so charcoal sales are booming. When we first arrived, I was […] Read more

Hastily I wave at the villagers gawking at this white woman on the back of a truck, then hang on to the head rack for dear life as the driver swerves around yet another pothole. Ruth Myanza was right to hire a truck. No car would make it over these roads. Ruth has invited me […] Read more

“Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down, oh yes, Lord.” The words of that old spiritual are an apt description of my feelings as we help Bukuumo Co-operative develop the farm. Sometimes I fear they will not make it and that it will go the way of so many projects whites help with — when the […] Read more

The African sun glints off the sleek cows as they stand up to their bellies in lush green grass. The herd of 40, just hand milked by five dairymen, has been let out to pasture for the night. Nearby, the palm trees and rose garden, brought from South Africa, frame the beautifully landscaped farmyard. At […] Read more