At last I did what I’d intended to do all week; got up with the family at five and sat among the goat sorting and breakfast melee. When mother-child goat reunion noises had subsided a little the red sun popped up over the lake, from the same direction as the constant east-to-west breeze and the pinched Borana camel ancestors. Some relatives were staying outside on our mat having come from Kakuma to make an offering to their ancestors since this place was their ere. They set off early towards the lake, a father, mother and tiny daughter walking in a neat line of well-rested silhouettes that made me think of the Laetoli footprints in Olduvai, Tanzania.
Namesek had already headed for the hills searching as ever for his errant camels. Donated recently by Oxfam, this gang of four were still strangers to the area and so prone to remote wanderings that had to be monitored retroactively via their footprints. I never got a satisfactory answer as to why he didn’t want to send a herdsboy with them to guarantee their return and do away with the daily headache of losing them. But I did learn a bit about the household economics of camel keeping. They can be bought for about 15-20 goats, or 22,500-30,000 shillings at the current (expensive) rate of goat value. For many during drought camels are the best bank account for they are the least likely animal to die from lack of water and pasture, they can be therefore exchanged back into goats when the going gets easier, and in the meantime one can provide enough milk for a whole family (milked three times a day, a jug each time). Oxfam seemed to be giving 18 families at a time these generous gifts of four camels and Namasek went to plenty of meetings with other beneficiaries and Oxfam representatives where the scheme was discussed and monitored.
We packed our lovely base up and turned to go, promising to return and not to forget them. Before leaving we called in at the dispensary in town, spotlessly clean (relatively empty) place run by the all-permeating mission with support from Kenya’s Ministry of Health and Merlin. I wanted to cross-check what we’d heard from people in our ada karin, that it was financially out of reach for them, but was keen not to put the wind up anyone working there. As expected we were quickly scooped up by a smooth English-speaking ‘in charge’ who took the three of us to share a thermos of sugary tea with him in his spick-and-span office. The problem was that it was immediately obvious he was a slippery snake with plenty he didn’t want to disclose, and we all squirmed as I did my best to present the warm and non-threatening front that I hoped would elicit some answers to burning but close-to-the-bone questions. The suspicion being that that prohibitively high visit fees (100 shillings for children, 200 for adults) were unlicensed pocket lining for this man and other high position folks in this desert outpost beyond the reach of any serious scrutiny. He spoke about different types of snake bites, something of a penchant of his, and about rising HIV rates exacerbated by alcoholism, poverty and prostitution, polygamy and wife inheritance and lack of information. The top five health complaints were the same as elsewhere in Turkana – malaria, diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, skin and eye infections – but he determinedly skirted a clear answer on how much treatment costs at the place, no matter how many times and from how many angles I gently broached it. As expected he ranted without prompt or invitation on the evils of corruption and peppered his speeches with God talk. Wistfully but forcefully he told me how he is happy to remain in such a place for so long, even when his family are so far and the conditions so harsh, because it is God’s will that he help these poor people. He threw menacing glances at Lokale, suspecting that his local knowledge and intuitions might undo the charade, until Lokale started to look quite grey and desperate to be anywhere else. It is certainly a form of entrepreneurship, twisting and screwing the system in a place like that, and he is neither alone in doing it nor a particularly nasty type of man, operating probably on the common ‘eat or be eaten’ philosophy. He did make me laugh when he described the terrible infrastructure and how the roads were all just “pot-holes and what what”.
Returning to potholes and what what we made our way to Lodwar. Lokale drifted off with his food money for a weekend with his friends, looking exhausted but promising he had a better system for looking after his belongings than the last one, where his new bag and sheet got stolen as he slept. Around four o’clock we backtracked to Namorotunga to film the stones at twilight. They were magical and we enjoyed them in the changing light as the odd car passed on the road and one contented Turkana man dragged a goat for many kilometres along it. When we had finished and the light was gone we thanked the ancestors in the traditional way, spitting a spray of chang’aa (vodka) at them as an offering and a thanks. Then, a little drunk on alcohol and legends, we wound back along the road to town enjoying the odd camel silhouette rising like a road sign against the bright night sky.
