Trip to Turkana in Kenya

By Anthony:

We recently spent a week traveling around Kenya visiting World Renew programs and partners, and Bible colleges.  Part of the reason for this trip was to look at some places we could consider working at in the future.  There is a lot we could write about the trip and the colleges, but this post is going to focus on visiting the town of Katilu, in Turkana district, of Northwest Kenya.  World Renew is doing direct implementation in this area, and we wanted to see what projects they were doing.  (Direct implementation means they are doing work directly instead of how they normally work by giving consultation and financial assistance to a local development organization).

The first day we drove across the border to Kitale.  We were proud of ourselves that we navigated the border crossing without paying someone for help with the vehicle documentation (both times, there and back), something even our Ugandan friends don't always feel up to doing.  If you've never been to a border crossing in these countries, it is nearly impossible to describe the chaos, confusion, and traffic jams there.  There are many little offices you have to visit, filling out forms for immigration, your vehicle, police check, etc.  It makes me claustrophobic just remembering it.  Try to picture 1,000-2,000 trucks lined up blocking most of the road, and having to drive off the road or on sidewalks just to make it through.  But we made it. We were also pleased to have no issues with police wanting bribes. 

The next day we drove from Kitale to Katilu (in Turkana), with a World Renew staff member named Simon.  He took his friend Patrick, a government agricultural officer, with us who also has a home in the Katilu area.  It was a very long drive and although it is an international highway, it was perhaps the worst and longest road we've been on in our lives.  So bumpy!

It started out very beautiful with a very nice road. 

But the farther we went away from Kitale, the more potholes there were.  It must be harder to get the construction work done farther away from the big cities (or the government cares less about the more remote places). 

But it got worse.  Eventually instead of dodging potholes, we had to dodge the remaining pavement.

Although this might look like a smooth dirt road below, let me assure you that much of the time we were going about 30 kilometers an hour (18mph) or less in order not to be jarring everyone in the vehicle up and down.  Even though it's a dirt road, it was like going over speed bumps and potholes for 5 hours of driving.  The whole drive took about 7-8 hours.

The region of Turkana is a little bit insecure since the Turkana tribe and the Pokot tribe frequently raid each other to steal cattle.  There are people who own guns and sometimes vehicles are in danger of being attacked on the road.  Because of this World Renew had us travel with police for our safety.  The buses and taxis travel these roads daily without police protection.  But just to be on the safe side, for a couple stretches of the road, World Renew staff make sure to have police riding along in the vehicle.

While in Katilu, we stayed at a Catholic teaching center for catechists.  Being in such a remote place there are not a lot of guest houses around, but this was a wonderful welcoming community and we really enjoyed getting to know our brothers in Christ there.

In this area, World Renew works with several communities, but all of the people they work with are Turkana.  They mainly work not with the original residents of the area, but Turkana people who fled their homes during the post-election violence in Kenya back in 2007-2008.  They fled to this area and lived in IDP camps.  Because of this they are very poor, but have been aided by World Renew and other organizations.  World Renew is transitioning from giving relief to now bringing development programs and trainings.

Here is a photo of Simon in front of water tanks that World Renew helped put up to improve the water supply and irrigation for the people of a few of these original camp communities.  They also recently have been giving agricultural training, including the use of a shade house, showing the community how they can partially sustain themselves through kitchen gardens.  Most of the area is just sand with shrubs.  But in the places where they have irrigation, gardens can actually grow.

Here is the first community we met with, and they shared about their history and how World Renew has helped them.  It was very exciting to find out that the language of Turkana is very similar to Ateso, so much so that we used some of our Ateso and the people were shocked at our knowledge and understood most of what we said!

Here is one of the World Renew Kenya staff, Chris, who has been working in Turkana for many years now.  He does not live there but has traveled there regularly to work with these communities.

In the photos below is this same community group, with several World Renew staff and some other government visitors.

Next we visited one of the agricultural programs the government workers are doing to help in the area.  These women are working on a government farm in which they have been given some land to garden.  In the video they are greeting all of you.

The government has been helping many people through what is called an "irrigation scheme."  They are channeling water from this river which has given about 500 families very good land for farming.

There are lots of donkeys around in Turkana, and I hope to get one someday.

We drove and visited another community nearby that World Renew is also working with.  Can you find the road?

Photos of the second community group including the chief of the area.

Driving in Africa is often interesting.

One exciting thing for me was that our translator for the visits was a Reformed pastor in the area (Reformed Church of East Africa).  There are many Reformed churches in the Turkana region.

We really enjoyed our time in Turkana and perhaps some day we can make brief visits there to do TLT or livelihood trainings.  If we did, we could even have a head start on the language because of its similarity to Ateso.  We don't know, but we will see where God leads.  Here are some other random photos from the long drive.