By Hans Johnson
KENYA – It’s about midnight in the Rift Valley.
I walk back alone to the mud hut I am living in when I hear something coming towards me. I think it’s a dog at first. Shining my flashlight ahead it quickly darts behind a bush to take cover. What I see is not a dog at all, but a desperate and hungry hyena.
“Hyah! Hyah!” I shout while stamping my feet and waving my flashlight. I run inside the hut like there is no tomorrow!
Over the years I have been in Kenya, never have I known hyenas to be daring enough to charge a human.
This is a bad sign.
DROUGHT
I came to Kenya at a time when many of my Maasai friends were coming to terms with the fact that they faced a seemingly unending drought. Entire stocks of cattle – a Maasai’s main source of wealth – gone. Dead from a hunger that was afflicting humans and animals alike.
The USGS recently concluded that “The increased frequency of drought observed in eastern Africa over the last 20 years is likely to continue as long as global temperatures continue to rise. This poses increased risk to the estimated 17.5 million people in the Greater Horn of Africa who currently face potential food shortages.”
How far would you walk for water? In the Maasai community of Loita, there is little choice but to walk hours, even days during periods of drought.
The wild animals were so desperate for food that they were risking their lives to try to snatch malnourished livestock from Maasai villages.
My close-encounter with the hyena had me carrying a traditional Maasai club-like weapon called an orinka where ever I went at night. Unfortunately there is no defense for the Maasai against a drought that steals their cattle and dries up the rivers they drink from.
Each drought leaves a number of young and elderly people dead. It attacks Maasai communities like a ravenous hyena leaving scraps in its wake.
Many communities in Kenya receive NGO and government aid during times of drought. Though this is certainly not a sustainable solution, it does at least provide some relief. There was one community I encountered on my travels at this time that had received no aid. In fact, this area of Kenya is so remote that there are no roads for miles around, just endless rolling highland savannah where rain is life.
In good times the cattle are fat, there are celebrations, ceremonies and blessings of green grass. The Maasai live a largely pastoralist life depending on cattle to sustain their livelihoods.
In the early 1900′s the British took control of current day Kenya through underhanded dealings, moving the Maasai onto less fertile reserves. Restricted to so-called “group ranches” retained after independence and increasingly hampered by lengthier periods of drought, many Maasai find themselves struggling to maintain a lifestyle that has worked for so many generations before them.
WATER FROM MUD
It was a hot and dusty afternoon when I came upon a large group of women and children sitting outside their homes in Loita. I approached an elderly woman holding a young child in her arms. When she lifted her head I immediately noticed that she was blind. Taking her hand in mine, and speaking the little Maa (language of the Maasai) I know, I asked her how she was doing.
Kisingu's family waiting for women to return from sifting water from mud during a drought.
“We are all dying,” she cried.
It had been almost 8 months since the last rainfall. The Kenyan government estimated that 3.5 million Kenyans faced starvation. Among them was the elderly woman I met, Kisiongu, and her thirty other children and grandchildren.
By this time they had had no food or water for two days.
“The problem is water,” she explained. “When there are no rains, there is no grass. The animals are dying. We don’t have money. We don’t have crops. We depend on the animals that are now dying because of the drought.”
Kisiongu at her home in Loita
I tried to imagine myself back in America, waking up one warm day and finding no water coming from the tap, setting out across a barren landscape in hopes of finding something to drink.
No matter the season, it is the role of women and girls to collect water for their families. Already, many walked from dawn until dusk. They may carry up to 25 liters of water on their backs for miles.
On this particular day Kisiongu’s daughters had gone to a distant dry riverbed to sift water from mud. I could hardly wrap my head around the daunting task of trying to supply an entire family with drinking and cooking water by sifting water from mud!
QUICK FIX
I returned to the US and began coordinating efforts through the Maasai Community Connection, in conjunction with other non-profits to bring food and water to the communities in the area. One Maasai community with a large supply of piped water even offered to fill a tank with water and drive it to the remote area where Kisiongu lived.
Tea? No. This is the quality of the water some families in Loita are made to drink.
But those were temporary fixes. What is needed is a long-term solution.
Returning with a group of Maasai volunteers, we set out to interview a wide range of people in Kisiongu’s community, including Kisiongu herself. We found that not only was the lack of access to water a key issue, but the quality of water was as well.
According to the United Nations, “Some 6,000 children die every day from disease associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene – equivalent to 20 jumbo jets crashing every day.”
COME RAIN OR SHINE
One of the best possible solutions brought up in interviews, focus groups and in talking with community leaders was to install large rain water collection tanks able to collect and store enough rainwater to last through a drought.
“I don’t know how to tell those who are not here,” Kisiongu told me before we parted that first afternoon. “I talk to you because you ask. It’s important because people are dying. When people come and ask, it seems they care.”
The Maasai Community Connection is doing more than asking questions!
We are working with community members to finalize plans to install large rain-catching tanks near Kisiongu’s home in Loita, in January of 2012. Our goal is to supply as many men, women and children with clean and accessible drinking water year-round as possible.
For many of us climate change is an inconvenience at worst. For people like Kisiongu, it can mean the difference between life and death.
Though we can not give a concrete figures as material and transport costs continually fluctuate in Kenya, we estimate that from start to finish one tank will cost between $500 and $600 USD. We welcome all contributions towards the project. Since we are an all volunteer organization ALL donations are pumped directly into the project!
