i have a little problem i've been working on. it’s called world hunger.

After a fabulous Indian dinner last night, I got to know people a bit better before heading to my bed for the first time. I propped open my windows and was astounded by the melody outside. Because I'm pretty sure I can't identify the majority of the animals that partake in the nightly chorus, I made a recording:

A brief overview of the structure of One Acre Fund, before I describe my day…

The expat staff is in charge of developing experiments to test different combinations of fertilizer, seed, soil, etc. From my discussions with different employees and my observations today, it appears that most of the staff works about 50 hours a week – and even more right now, as we prepare for rainy (planting) season to begin.

Other than the expat staff, there are a few hundred Kenyan employees, who range in a hierarchy from field director (FD) to field manager (FM) to field officer (FO) to farmer. I met one FM and three FOs today, and was surprised that three of the four were female. Not only that, but none of the men seemed the least bit resentful of taking planting advice or being admonished by the women for talking out of turn. This is so different from China, where women are expected to be quiet and submissive; and even different than in the US, where women are so infrequently at the top of company hierarchies!

As far as what we do: One Acre Fund consists of farmers who receive input materials (fertilizer and seeds) as well as planting instructions and demonstrations from One Acre Fund – directly from the field officers, who are able to speak Swahili or the local dialect – and provide a portion of their output in exchange for these services. It's sort of like a collection point for the farmers' vast experience and knowledge, combined with some experimentation to see if farming methods can be improved further. Since the average farmer more than doubles production after joining, they seek membership and are incredibly respectful of and grateful to the One Acre Fund staff.

Onto my day.

After a wakeful night of jetlag, I got up at 8 o'clock this morning to head to the fields with Matt, another relatively new staff member who is already amazingly competent. We began the day watching a training session, where three field officers gave farmers detailed instructions from a packet Matt had organized on the different planting materials and methods to be used in each section of the experimental plots. The conversations that followed were an interesting jumble of Swahili and English, which was translated by a field officer so I could follow.

Kenyan countryside, next to where we were planting

Probably the most amazing part was just interacting with the farmers and feeling personally incorporated into their lives. Each came to shake my hand when he or she entered, and each thanked me personally before leaving. We began and ended the meeting with a prayer session (of which I understood nothing except "thank you," as it was in Swahili as well), sang a Christian song, and waved our hands about in a gesture that was meant to help bring the rains. I wondered if the farmers knew how far removed their everyday life was from my reality; and yet despite their poverty, in some ways I envied how much more real theirs seemed, connected to the soil, animal life, and the constant comfort of family.

Showing how to use the metered rope and jembe (digging tool) to appropriately plant seeds. I'm going to be an expert farmer by the time I get back...

Two little boys that took a special interest in me, outside the house where we held our farmers' meeting.

After the meeting, which ended up lasting for nearly five hours, we walked to a farm and watched the measuring and planting. Since the farms we work with are mostly about one acre (thus the name of the organization) it was humbling to see that the plot of land designated for One Acre Fund experimentation took up the entirety of some farmers' land. After we stood watching the measurements, and being watched by groups of Kenyan children, we went inside the hut to enjoy sodas together. Again it was totally surreal – sipping Fanta in a small clay hut, learning important Swahili phrases and discussing the upcoming rains.

Matt and I left the farmhouse after an hour or so and headed to the plant nursery, where One Acre Fund carries out small-scale experiments and ensures the quality of seed before distributing to farmers. We sorted, weighed, and counted seeds and finally left for home at nearly 6 o'clock.

Finally, as a perfect closure to a long and exhausting day, six of us (five guys - burgers, anyone? - and me) went to play ultimate Frisbee at a green space in town. I summoned my reserves of energy and ran around crazily enough to make up for my extreme lack of skill, even managing to score a few points. Afterward we made a pact to make it a weekly event, but realized that the heavy upcoming rains would interfere with our evening game. Lukas suggested that we play on Wednesday afternoons instead of evenings, when it would be drier. Andrew’s reply is the source of my title quote: "Two problems with that, Lukas. One, the equatorial heat at midday. Two. I don’t know about you guys but I've got a little problem I’ve been working on. It’s called world hunger."