Kakuma Chapter 1
Kakuma is a weird and challenging place, with flashes of magic and beauty that surprise you just as you’re starting to lose faith. I first came to Kakuma in July 2015 to spend eight months working for an international NGO as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Program Manager, and later managing all office programs as Acting Field Office Coordinator.
I was lucky enough to live and work with some of the most motivated and inspiring people in the area, from both the refugee and host (local Kenyan Turkana) communities. The bulk of my time there was spent managing and teaching a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) capacity building program, with short courses teaching dozens of people about basic WASH skills such as handwashing and water boiling, and a longer higher-level course on water and wastewater engineering. It was an incredible experience to see the participants’ hunger for knowledge, and how a small amount of information could have a real impact on people’s livelihoods, health and wellbeing. As a result of the course, people not only changed their behaviour but that of their communities; carrying out Community Outreach sessions to teach their friends and families the skills and techniques they’d learned, and building handwashing stations in their living compounds. They learned useful skills that helped them gain work with NGOs and local businesses including water authorities in the area. We also had outside experts come to conduct specialist WASH training including handpump repair, business skills and hydrogeology. A team of 9 geophysicists visited from Canada and conducted an extensive groundwater mapping project in the area, assisted by a team of the WASH course participants who gained real-world experience and practical skills. This mapping project was very successful and led to the drilling of three highly productive wells which are now being used to supply water to a new refugee camp nearby. At the end of the six-month course, participants came up with business ideas and presented their business plans to a panel of local experts. The two best ideas are now registered businesses, and will hopefully go on to contribute sustainably to the local economy and WASH situation.
It was great to see the benefits of the course, but the participants worked hard and earned every drop. That’s what was most striking. Education opportunities are severely limited in the area, and there are a lot of very sharp people with very little available to occupy them. As such, they are willing to invest and sacrifice more than I imagined possible, for the chance to learn in the hope that it will lead to bigger things in the future but also a lot of the time just for something to do. People would walk several hours each way through 40oC heat and numerous real dangers, arriving parched and dusty, with pen and paper in hand but no water bottle. Two of the participants once arrived breathless, having jogged several kilometres during the hottest part of the day from their morning course in Computer Science to make sure they didn’t miss a moment of class. One afternoon a South Sudanese participant arrived half an hour late in shirt and tie, with thick mud up to his waist. It was rainy season and he was late, so he’d decided to take a shortcut through the muddy, fast flowing river! In response to these we moved to a more central location and encouraged walking in groups (and not through rivers), but the dedication still blows my mind.
The team I worked with were incredible too. We had several talented facilitators taking care of the short course, from the refugee and host communities. Watching them facilitate was inspiring — the way they engaged with the entire class, an assortment of Kenyans and refugees from all over Africa, was really something to behold and thoroughly entertaining to watch and be part of. They’d use some really fun techniques like jokes and different types of clap — if someone got a right answer, they might give them a ‘mosquito clap’ where the whole class claps in different directions as if trying to swat a mosquito, or a ‘generator clap’ that starts slow and builds up into a frenzy. There would be course opening and closing ceremonies with refreshments and long speeches; I initially found these uncomfortable and overly formal, but by the end thoroughly enjoyed them — they were fun, the speeches were entertaining and a good chance (for me) to tell silly jokes, and overall they were a great chance to celebrate people’s hard work and to inspire them to spread their knowledge and use it into the future. I became close with the facilitators, and found it hard to say good bye at the end of my time there. One of the hardest moments was when Michael, an incredibly gifted South Sudanese refugee, left to go back to South Sudan. He’d been in the camp for over 10 years since he was 12, and it was a scary thing for him to go back. I was really worried about him, but he’s now back at home and doing well.
That first stint in Kakuma was fascinating and exhausting — by the time I finished I thought I was thoroughly ready to leave, but when it came down to it, leaving was quite difficult. The big highs and lows are quite hard to leave behind, as is the stimulation of having interesting and unexpected things happening every day. That’s why I ended up coming back, a few months later…
