Kakuma to Lokichoggio to Nairobi

Woke up feeling much better this morning – slept well, and feel well hydrated. After a quick breakfast of bread, French toast, and a donut, we were off to see a program that educates women about the benefits of breastfeeding, and post-natal nutrition. I half expected something like a Lamaze class, but instead there were a bunch of women sitting under a tree hearing a health coordinator explain that all a baby needs for the first 6 months is breast milk. The program coordinator was explaining that their culture (either Somali or Sudanese – I can’t recall) was to give the baby something sweet so they’d grow up to be a sweet person. They would also supplement with water or cow’s milk. It was clearly an uphill battle with these women, but as Marc suggested, since this was a voluntary program, they were all interested in learning how to have healthier babies. I kept thinking about how difficult it must be for them to go against generations of culture. Their forbearers have been raising children this way for generations – who are we to say it should be done differently? Just another one of the challenges of working with refugees, I suppose.

After that we went to visit a program where they construct the latrines, and do a variety of other things like spray for mosquitoes. There we met a few of the “incentive” staff. These are refugees who help the IRC staff in projects (almost all the projects have them). The ones we met here were very impressive – clearly working very hard to rise above their situation.
After some lunch (goat again), we got into a jeep and, along with a few other cars, were escorted to Lokichoggio which is about 100Km south of Sudan. From here we were going to take a plane back to Nairobi. We had to be escorted because there are occasionally incidents of bandits along the way. Interesting. Everyone else seemed pretty calm about it, so I figured I’d be calm too. It was a very beautiful drive through the Kenyan countryside. There were lots of nomadic tribe herding goats, many tall termite mounds (as high as 15 feet), and we even saw an upside down boat on the side of the road. I was told it was being shipped to Juma to be put onto the Nile river. Hmm. The nicely paved road went through the dry riverbed a few times, and our hosts told us about a recent incident where an IRC health worker was driving with some colleagues from another NGO and they got caught in a flash flood. Their jeep was immediately submerged in the river. Two of them made it, two of them didn’t, including the IRC health worker. Very sad. The river that we saw was dry as a bone, but we were told that when it rains, the river floods, which causes serious issues in the camp since it’s basically along the river, and there’s no bank. When the rain stops, the water is absorbed into the earth, and it becomes dry as a bone again. Two states: flooded and dry. What a place.

We arrive in Lokichoggio a bit early and went to a lovely safari hotel for a soda and few minutes of relaxation. Getting there, we drove on some of the worst roads of the whole trip, but then there were these gates and inside was an oasis. What a nice feeling, but somehow hard to absorb something so nice being right next to such a poor neighborhood. Oh well – the contradictions of Africa, I guess.

Short jet to Nairobi, taxi to the hotel, an excellent Indian meal with Marc, and collapse in the hotel.