Marsabit

Marsabit.  It’s a bit like Mars, but without the long trek across the solar system. Though after nine spine-rattling hours  along a dusty, boulder strewn road, I staggered out of the 4×4 Land Rover looking as if I’d just spent a month in space.  The landscape was an incredible mix of red volcanic rock and sand that stretched out for hundreds of miles, and just for effect, we passed several massive craters that could have easily swallowed a city block or two.  The occasional tree jutted incongruously out of the sand as if in defiance of nature’s attempt to wipe out life in this wasteland, though like the landscape they were harsh and twisted things, covered in spines and spindly leaves.  The air was a parched 95 degrees and it was beyond imagination that these were the few winter months of cool season.  Hot season would be a searing experience.

Picking my way through the rocks and spines, I was greeted by the reason we had come to this place.  A small cinder-block building filled with the last thing you would expect in a desert wasteland: school children.  And not ragged, malnourished waifs, but neatly pressed, vibrant youth.  They stood at rigid attention before a flagpole as a dozen senior boys performed a series of marches before raising the Kenyan flag.  Then, amidst a flurry of giggles and pushing, the 100 or so children, from first grade through eighth, scattered across the dusty school yard to their respective classrooms with many a curious glance in our direction.

This is Torbi, a small outpost community that lies deep in the Chalbi (sp-) Desert, cuts across northern Kenya like a giant ribbon.  7 nomadic tribes inhabit this region, some tracing their ancestry back to ancient Egypt.  They have been etched and shaped by the landscape, tall and proud; their vibrant clothing and beaded jewelry almost a gesture of defiance in the face of this punishing environment.  Most are nomadic pastoralists, driving herds of camels and goats from water-source to water-source, picking at the sparse vegetation along the way.  Like so many resource-scare regions, conflict is a part of life, as tribes battle for possession of water and grazing lands.  The day before we arrived in this community, a rival tribe stormed the village and stole 100 goats, killing a man in the process.

Education, like water is scare, but just as essential for future generations. Population growth, decreasing seasonal rains, over grazing, and chronic isolation paint a picture of the desperate need for education of tribal children; without it they are predestined to live out the same existence as the generations before them.  These and other stories tumbled out of the principal’s lips as we sat on wooden chairs in his dusty office.  While most African cultures are typically passive and indirect, the people here speak their minds with short, matter-of-fact statements, as if words are like water and too precious to waste.  There was little doubt that his words were not an exaggeration.  If anything, they downplayed the struggles faced by these families who have no choice but to balance the forces of nomadic living with the need to settle in one location so their children can attend school.

One question remained to be asked: what allows children to attend school?  The answer was as obvious as the giant dust devils that swirled on the horizon outside: water.  Without it, there is no feasibly way for children to attend school.  Groundwater is buried 700 feet underground, and often times it is brackish and undrinkable.  The only other viable means for obtaining water is through massive rain collection systems.  Which is precisely what BWM has partnered to build.  We funded catchment systems at 6 schools this last year and are in the planning phase for reaching the remaining 26 schools in this region.  The goal is to provide enough storage to provide students with water sufficient to meet international standards throughout the year.

As I watch two boys, barely 8 and 10 years old, drive goats across the desert it’s a reminder that the world is not a neat and tidy place where problems have straight forward solutions.  These are a people who live in the most desolate of circumstances, and the problems they face are an entanglement of complex factors that have baffled development organizations for over 40 years.  We are one small part of this solution, but it is a critical part, and I am excited to see the transformations that will take place in these schools as we join with them in building hope for the future.