After driving nearly four hours by van to a remote path in Western Kenya, a group of World Neighbors study tour visitors filed out of a van and onto the flat Kenyan plain. Travel weary, and still having to hike to Busia in the Teso district, one of the poorest in Kenya, they were unaware of the incredible experience they were about to have.

Halfway through a Kenyan cornfield, Mary Marunga – a local widow - pulled the tourists to the side of the path. The number of widows (and orphans) is high in Teso, due to the high incidence of HIV/AIDS.
Mary, and women like her, manage to survive by producing a small cash crop. She proudly displayed a compost heap and a bundle of knotted twine. The tourists watched as Mary laid the twine on the ground. Unable to see at the time how or why Mary used the twine, the tourists paid attention, politely smiled and continued hiking to their original destination where a new water well had been constructed.

The significance of World Neighbors encounter with Mary was not fully realized until the tourists returned to the United States. Mary’s bundle of twine had knots every six inches. When Mary laid the twine on the ground, the knots showed her where to place each seed of corn. Her village had always “broadcasted” seeds, or scattered them randomly, across the depleted Kenyan soil. This method used more seeds and required more water – a scarce commodity in Kenya. Most women walk at least two miles to gather small
amounts of water.

Opportunities to learn new ideas are very rare in such remote communities. World Neighbors aims to work in such locations by allowing Mary to learn about seed spacing and composting at a World Neighbors training session. Using simple tools, Mary increased her yield of corn. The pride in her own success was clear when she showed the visitors her crop.

World Neighbors shares simple ideas that decrease hunger, poverty and disease. Small sums of money invested by World Neighbors produces bountiful results for women like Mary. Six inches of twine may not eliminate world hunger, but for Mary Marunga, a piece of twine and a new idea brought empowering and revolutionary results.

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