Tea Fields of Kericho

This is the third (and probably last) time that we will see the tea fields near Kericho, which is between Nairobi and Kisumu.  Even though we don't drink tea, we love to see the tea fields.  See https://www.mormon.org/beliefs/word-of-wisdom to understand the Lord's Law of Health, or what we simply call The Word of Wisdom.  Though we don't drink it, we certainly enjoy the beautiful of the fields!

Tea cultivation takes a lot of manual labor.  The workers live in these houses and others similar.  They don't seem to have too many windows which would be hard for me as I love windows and I get claustrophobic when I can't look out on a regular basis.

The tea fields are a lovely yellowish-green.  Workers clip the top leaves every three days and they toss them into bags they carry on their backs.  Click to enlarge so you can see the workers.

We saw an interesting contraption that we haven't seen before.  These men were pulling a heavy motorized clipper thing that cut the top leaves off and blew them into the bag.  It looked awfully heavy to me and clumsy to use but leaves can probably get clipped faster and with fewer people.  See below for a video of the men working the machine.

Younger tea fields

More worker houses.  The white houses with red roofs are a lovely contrast to the green tea fields.

Farm land is always beautiful to LeRon and me.

Love the rolling hills!

These workers are carrying their full bags of tea leaves to a storage unit.  

I imagine a loaded bag of tea leaves is quite heavy.  These women are very strong!

Tea workers hard at work with the houses in the background.

I still don't understand how they know where they've been.  When the fields are all picked, they look like newly mown fields.

This worker was cutting with clippers.  That's the first one I've seen not clipping with his or her hands.