Shopping in real grocery stores and speaking English rank at the top of my “reasons to love Kenya” list, but after a recent trip to Nairobi that list now includes all the fun things available for families to do in Nairobi (without even hiking out to the Maasai Mara). In just two days we were able …
Tag Archives: McKinnon
Burundi Coffee Farmer: Espéciose Manirakiza
War continues to pulse it’s reaching veins through lives and lands long after the guns stop ringing. For Espéciose, that means being the sole provider for her 6 children in one of the most poverty stricken nations on earth. Her husband was killed in the Burundian civil war that ended in 2006 and she has …
Hand Sorting Coffee + Thoughts On Export
Don’t give in to your fears. If you do, you won’t be able to talk to your heart. ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist It’s been a mad expedition. Sometimes, I daydream that our life resembles a lazy river. Currently it does not. It more closely resembles a bullet train traveling so fast that sides peel away, leaving …
Portraits of Coffee Harvest + Links
Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress. Charles Dickens Our coffee is slowly being moved from our drying tables and …
The Gift Of Coffee On Gaharo Hill
“How many of you have ever tasted coffee from your home hill?” I asked while requesting a show of hands. One person raised their hand. One person. Just one. Over 200 coffee farmers were circled around us at the community gathering point on Gaharo hill. It was hot and dusty. The morning light of Africa …
Our Struggle For Hope
I woke up thinking about the way the equatorial morning light moves around the dense matter of humanity. Long shadows on the ground serve as evidence that there are spaces the light cannot fill. I feel like we have been living in those dark spaces for several weeks now, all the time fighting to get …