More from Kenya - Justin's Stories

For those of you looking for more tales from Patrick's time working on the Base of the Pyramid Protocol Pilot in Kenya, we'd be remiss in not pointing you to the writings of our colleague Justin De Koszmovszky. Justin is a 2nd Year MBA student at Cornell's Johnson School of Management, President of the Cornell's Net Impact chapter, a Park Leadership Fellow, and an all around brilliant & great guy. Justin is part of the BoP Protocol Pilot team in Kenya and spent most of his time in country actually in the country, out on the fields and farms of Nyota and Molo. As you can see from the sample below, Justin's writings and insights are beautiful, touching, and really make his experience in Kenya come alive. Highly recommended.

"The first night there, still sharing it all with Tatiana, we had stood in Mama Jane's (MJ) bare yard, wet toothbrushes in hand, minty mouths agape, eyes loosing focus, drowning in belittled amazement. With our headlamps off, the night sky rushed in and swallowed us. We had dove into the darkest ocean, the darkest blue-green ink of velvet light-absorbing depth, and were now amidst the phosphorescent plankton. Stars swam, floated, ebbed above and around us blocked only by this mound of rock, this Earth, and a few long-legged, fuzzy-topped trees. If we had taken a big enough step, we could have left Earth in a stride and been entangled in the dew-spangled cobweb of the Universe.

We could have reached up and taken hold of the Milky-Way, our fingers pressing into its fresh mozzarella pallor and firmness, and pulled ourselves up into the sky. My instinct towards order and identification was humbled and frustrated by not just the enormity and multiplicity of the stellar sea but how can you identify and quantify froth on waves as you bounce and plunge among them. Constellations were there, no doubt, but they too had been swallowed by the fathomless sky. Tatiana and I climbed out, clamoring up the rocky bank off our reality, our hair wet and bodies dripping stars, necks, bodies and minds tiredly aware of their relativity on this stage. Stepping under the corrugated steel I glanced back to watch the Milky Wave crest, fall, slap on the gentle black beach of Nyota night."

Read more of Justin's time in Kenya at Travelpod.com