The end of the earth

I am, right now, almost literally at the end of the earth. At least it seems that way. Somewhere near the border of Uganda in the northwest corner of Kenya, far from even the faintest signs of civilization, is a refugee camp called Kakuma. That's where I am.

This morning we met Martin in Nairobi and ran a few errands. Downtown Nairobi isn't all that different from any major metropolitan downtown area. Nice sophisticated shops, fancy high-rise buildings, smartly dressed urban sophisticates, banks -- the whole thing. But once we left on a propeller plane from Wilson Airport for Lokichokkio, we entered another world.

You don't have to fly far north of Nairobi until there is little evidence of human habitation. Within a half hour or so by air you enter Turkanaland. The Turkana are a proud nomadic people -- herders who move their cattle, goats, sheep, camels and donkeys from place to place, depending on where they can find water -- which is almost nowhere right now. Americans might recognize the Turkana from National Geographic Society articles with pictures of statuesque people, women with brightly colored layers of rings around their necks -- usually only half-clothed. Women cover the bottom half, and men only the top. (I'm sure there's a good Darwinian or anthropological reason for this that I do not know -- somethine to do with fertility or the propogation of the species, undoubtedly!). We couldn't see them from the air, of course, but once we landed in Lokichokkio (or Loki as the locis call it), and began our drive to Kakuma, the Turkana appeared everywhere -- sometimes out of nowhere -- walking through the bush, alongside the road (or not), some herding animals, others walking to or from the market 20 or 30 miles away.

But let's go back to Loki first. It's a town of about 30,000 or so people, in the middle of NOWHERE -- very near Kenya's border with Sudan. Loki is an outpost for lots of NGO's (non-governmental organizations) doing humanitarian relief work in Sudan. It was also an outpost for the rebel SPLA during Sudan's long and brutal civil war in the south. Lots of interesting characters here -- from African warlords and mercenaries, to American evangelical missionaries, to international relief workers and bush pilots - and of course, the Turkana. If you want to get the flavor of Loki, read a novel called Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo. It's got lots of twists to it, showing just how fraught with seen and unseen dangers the whole business of relief in a conflict area can be. Sometimes very well-intended people end up doing a lot more harm than good.

Lots of UN or NGO types use Loki as a gateway to Kakuma, about 100 km away. Martin found us a ride with some LWF (Lutheran World Federation) folks and off we went. From Loki you always go in a convoy with a couple of police escort vehicles. I didn't really want to know why -- but when the vehicle we were in had a flat tire, and we had to stop along this desolate road out in the bush, all the vehicles circled around us, our driver got busy changing the tire, and the police with their firearms stood on guard. I'm not sure what we had to fear from a bunch of scattered, half-naked people, but apparently someone knew something that I didn't. I felt very safe -- hoping only that one of those guns didn't go off accidentally.

I can't tell you how dry this area is. All the riverbeds -- the "lagas" in Swahili (of which there are many) -- are bone dry. During the rainy season, however, the waters come rushing down from Uganda through these channels in sometimes violent torrents of water. Martin described them as fast-moving lakes. In one of them we saw the rusted carcass of a lorry that hadn't made it across, now half buried in the dry riverbed.

Thoughout the desert landscape there is scattered scrub brush, but little that looks even remotely edible for livestock or human. And no water. One of the more interesting features on the landscape are these large, sometimes as high as 15-20 feet high, earthen phallic formations. Your imagination can go wild out here in Turkana territory -- cultic objects for a fertility cult??? No -- they are anthills. Little tiny ants -- not big jumbo-sized ones. Just goes to show what you can do when you work together.

Well, I haven't even gotten us to Kakuma yet. Kakuma Refugee Camp was opened by the UN in 1992 -- after the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan entered Kenya (all 15,000 or so of them). They had arrived at Kakuma's predecessor camp just outside Loki, but the Sudanese airforce attempted to bomb that camp (the bomb missed its target), after which the UN and the Kenyan government decided to relocate the camp farther away from the Sudanese border, and put anti-aircraft missiles in the area. The Sudanese government considered the camp a recruiting ground for the SPLA (they were right about that). But it turns out that most of the Sudanese boys were much more interested in education than they were in taking up arms in the struggle -- although some of them did that, too.

Martin was working at Kakuma as a protection officer for UNHCR (United Nation's High Commissioner for Refugees) at the time when the 15,000 Lost Boys arrived from Sudan. Afier their 4-5 year saga of wandering through these harsh terrains, enduring unimaginable dangers from civil war, lions, and lack of food and water, and some of the harshest weather conditions on the planet, Martin met them as this cloud of skeletal, starving, naked, shoeless boys approached the camp. He asked them, "What do you want from us?" (as all humanitarian workers are trained to do). The boys said, "We want to go to school."

Martin Masumbuko has lots of stories. I don't have time for all of them tonight. He achieved rock-star status among the Lost Boys, and they all still get a big smile on their faces when you mention his name. He helped those who ended up in the US get there to begin their new life.

More about Kakuma tomorrow, I hope. It really does feel like the end of the earth -- but, strangely, also like the beginning of a new life for many of the tens of thousands of people who have fled their homelands in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo, and other places to be here. I always thought it was so strange that Martin spoke so fondly of a refugee camp at the end of the earth. But now, being here myself, I'm beginning to understand why.