Blog from Kenya: Desperate Needs
Joni Byker, Woman's Literacy Program Manager and Communications Manager for our office in Liberia, is on temporary assignment to report on our work in drought-stricken Kenya.
I had the opportunity to come to Kenya to help with the communications for our response to the incredibly large famine. So, here I am, on the opposite side of the continent.
Boy, is it opposite of Liberia! Liberia is so lush, receiving over 200 inches of rainfall each year. It is mostly tropical jungle, and very humid. Northeast Kenya is dry. I mean really dry. There hasn’t been rain in over two years, and has caused a very large famine for not only the Kenyan people in this area, but for Somali refugees who have fled into Kenya for assistance. SP has a DART (Disaster Assistance Response Team) team deployed to this area to bring relief to the starving, sick victims of this drought.
It is downright dry, windy, and dusty. Everywhere. You drive down the road and there are caravans of camels and donkeys carrying jerry cans full of water from the nearest source. If you are one of the fortunate ones, your community has a working borehole, or a river. But the majority of communities do not.
Water pans that would hold massive amounts of water in the past are now bone dry. The Kenyans have tried digging 10-15 feet holes in these watering pans, hoping to find water. What they do find is only a few inches of extremely dirty water. So what do you do when your main water source—a source that has never gone dry—is gone? You spend your days looking for water.
Most of the women have to walk 20-30 km to find water, load up all of their animals, and make the journey back to their settlement camp. Sometimes, when a borehole is dug in their community, the water is full of salt and undrinkable. The conditions are dire and I haven’t even seen the worst areas. Malnutrition is everywhere. Animals need water, as well as their owners.
Thursday and Friday I was able to tag along with our Water and Sanitation staff as they provided six nearby nomadic settlements each with 20,000 liters of clean water. Here, water is life. It keeps your animals alive, which keeps your family fed.
Right now, a typical Kenyan or Somali refugee in this area only has 2 liters of water per day to use. I also heard someone say today that the water problem is so large they only have enough water to bathe once a week. Knowing that this is an immediate response, we fully understand that trucking water isn’t the best for the long run. But it is best for now, until a more sustainable intervention can be made.
We serve a big God. Nothing is impossible for him. Please join me in praying for rain.
Please click here to read the latest about our response in the Horn of Africa.
