Kakuma field report #3: What counts

When does conflict stop? The easy answer would be when the peace agreement is signed and the guns stop shooting, right? When is a refugee officially in a post-conflict or non-conflict setting? Does it start when s/he crosses the border into a different country? Once s/he's been through registration and settled in a refugee camp? A month after being there? A year? After s/he's been resettled to another country? Over the ten days I spent in Kakuma refugee camp, I kept checking in with myself to ask, 'what is it I'm looking at?' A camp, yes, and it seems calm. Peaceful. But after talking with the IRC program managers in health, nutrition, community promotion, women's protection and empowerment, and HIV/AIDS, I began realizing that just because I couldn't see or hear violent conflict didn't mean the camp is a place of refuge from other types of conflict. 

Rates of sexual and gender based violence are high in Kakuma, as are rates of malnutrition and diseases such as lung infection, malaria, and water-borne illnesses (though for the record, they are at or below UNHCR's standards). There are over 20 nationalities represented in Kakuma camp, and tensions between groups, often those that have moved from the same country and have a history of dissonance, are stressed when they're told to live side-by-side. Forty nine percent of the refugees in Kakuma are from South Sudan, a young country that's been in conflict since its independence in 2011. The majority are women and children, many unaccompanied minors, who have left their homes because of violence and insecurity. And it's not as though they're coming to greener pastures, either. Turkana County, where Kakuma camp is, is one of the driest, hottest regions in Kenya. Seasonal droughts are broken only by torrential heavy rains that lead to flooding, which virtually halts all movements of aid organizations for weeks at a time. 

Meeting with refugees, volunteer refugee workers, and IRC staff got me thinking about how people, countries, NGOs, grassroots organizations, and international forces stop conflict. What compels violence to finally lay down arms and come to the peace table? A B.A. in diplomacy and world affairs has taught me that there's no one, universal, fool-proof answer, nor should there be. Often though, the human collateral of conflict - the casualties and the refugees and the internally displaced - become a reason for ending it. Rhetorically anyway. Western audiences love numbers and statistics, as if a staggering death toll or breath-takingly swift increase in refugee numbers are enough to bring everyone to their senses. How many times has an infographic with bright colors been used by organizations or politicians to demonstrate the scale of a conflict? What these don't and can't show is the weight of a conflict, the emotional and mental weight of a conflict, which its casualties bear long after peace has been declared. And what's more, human numbers do not compel those engaged in conflict to stop. And isn't that what matters? The refugees keep crossing borders and the aid organizations keep scrambling to count them all and account for their needs. International audiences become tired of the numbers, bored by their ineffectual impact and the continuation of conflict in spite of the narrative told by the numbers. The human brain doesn't cope with disaster through numbers, and when conflict is made into an Excel sheet of statistics and data it becomes in-human. The numbers are crucial for humanitarian management and budgeting, but then the human becomes a number in the transaction. 

My question then is, when do we stop counting? When do conflict numbers stop and post-conflict numbers start, and what exactly is it that's being counted? It's easy to lose the human life in the numbers. I'm deeply grateful I was able to gain a sense of the humans behind the numbers that I crunch on a daily basis, but I now find an anxiety attached to the numbers too, that the narrative I'm telling isn't the right one. 

Kakuma field visit report #2: Listening in

"What they have said is, that the country you come from is very good," offers the

IRC refugee incentive worker who is sharing our van ride through Kakuma refugee camp. I blink back at the fifteen or so young faces peering at me, kids living in Kakuma 4 where we've stopped to visit a family. For the past five minutes or so we've been drawing pictures in the dust on the side of the IRC van, our only shared language the goofy smiley faces and squiggles that now tag the vehicle. 'If only I thought to bring a soccer ball to kick around,' I think lamely ('lame' because when was the last time I kicked a soccer ball or was remotely athletic in the heat). I've been reprimanding myself for not knowing more Swahili, which I'm not confident would have helped me communicate with these kids anyway. They'll say something and laugh, rolling their eyes and giggling behind hands, and I can only guess that they're laughing at this sweaty, red-faced white lady drawing crooked cartoons on the side of a car. But now this. "The country I come from is very good." I flashback to the mesh-covered bulletin boards in the mainstreets of the camp and in front of the hospital that host UNHCR's lists of names, names of refugees who have been deemed eligible for resettlement and whose numbers are being called. A rigged lotto. A black-and-white-and-read-all-over Ellis Island. "Ah," I say, "yes, I'm from there." I look out and up over the glinting aluminum roofs, roofs that cap mud-brick houses that roast to well over 105F every day, and see their peaks mirrored in the Rift's steepled craggs that ring the camp. This camp, that I've come to see and to experience and to absorb and to learn from. I suddenly feel indecent, as if I've stepped into a hushed-toned conversation I wasn't meant to hear, an intruder and an outsider to the place of refuge and respite. 

Kakuma 4 hosts the approximately 47,000 new arrivals (mostly from South Sudan) who have come to the camp since January 2014, and it feels much newer than the rest of the camp. The most established area, Kakuma 1, hosts mainly Somali and Ethiopian refugees and feels like a bona fide town, with a bustling shop-lined main street, school yards, bota-botas weaving through traffic, shiny new cellphones lining stall shelves on the side of the road. The incentive worker we've met up with tells me about his work - he's a zone manager in Kakuma 3 - and how in August he's being resettled to Nashville. I tell him about my obsession with the TV show, which gets us talking about music. He reminds me a lot of one of my guy friends from college who has an encyclopedic Rolodex of music knowledge and the enthusiasm of a true music lover. He asks who my team is, referring to the English Premier League, and I respond that I'm too diplomatic and support all the teams, which gets me an eye-roll and hearty laugh. EPL is huge in the camp, he explains. Everyone supports a team, the most popular being Arsenal, followed by Manchester United and Chelsea, and on big game days huge crowds gather in open fields to watch the matches. Soccer (yes, they do call it 'soccer' here too) has a major following; four years ago the Lutheran World Federation ran a program that supported a soccer league in the camp. Each team drew 5 members from 5 nationalities, and there were teams for various age groups. "Parents loved going to see their kids play in matches and celebrate afterwards!" chimes in our security escort, Raphael. "You'd look out onto the field and couldn't even tell where the players were from, it was just one team working together." Though co-ed, there were an equal number of boys' and girls' teams, and the leagues became community fixtures. Players would pool their money and give it to LWF to buy a trophy for the bigger matches. But after three years, the funding for LWF's program dried up (ie. donors lost interest). No funding meant no field maintenance, no soccer balls, no uniforms, no trophies or ribbons, and no cleats, so the leagues became defunct. 

Such is the story of grant-driven funding; a need is identified, so a program is set up and funded. When the program performs well, the needs are deemed met and funding looks elsewhere. As we drove the dusty road back to the IRC compound, a line from a Seamus Heaney poem kept playing over in my ear, that calls for a time when "the longed-for tidal wave/ of justice can rise up/ and hope and history rhyme." 

Kakuma field visit report #1: Day 3

Though the blinds are shut, I can tell it's morning because the birds have started loudly chirping, as if to announce to the compound, "it's already too damn hot!" I hear a tap-scratching on the floor and panic: 'Was that a cockroach? A scorpion? Will I have to live out the rest of my life in this bed?' I snooze my alarm as many times as I can to prolong the moment I'll roll out from under my mosquito net and face the heat of the day. A new day, though, means an opportunity to absorb life as an IRC staff member at Kakuma Refugee Camp, and nothing, not even 100 degree heat and blazing sun, will deter me from stepping into that role. 

My day here starts at 7:45, with a quick breakfast and a daily anti-malarial pill, then it's off to the office where I set up my laptop and get to working on the day's agenda. This week, I've been working on a quarterly internal, IRC newsletter that will be disseminated to all Kenya staff about activities and programs in the country program and their impacts on various groups. I've also got on my desk grant a few reports for a number of our projects that are due to donors like DFID, UNICEF, and BPRM. I'm also trying to make myself as useful as possible to the Kakuma IRC staff, so I end up doing odd jobs throughout the day. 

At 10, we have chai tea, which a wonderful woman named Irene brings to the desks. Kenyans love tea time, clearly as they're drinking it in heat over 100F. My dad always maintains that a hot drink on a hot day is a great thing; I personally think the jury's still out on that one, but I'll say 'yes' to tea time nonetheless. By this point, I've gone through 4 or 5 water bottles (see, Mom, responsible!) to the astonishment of my Kenyan colleagues. I try explaining that as a matter of fact, yes, if I didn't drink this much water and plaster myself with sunscreen multiple times a day, you would be peeling my unconscious, melted body off the floor. I wasn't built for heat or sun and as a mature adult I acknowledge that. Also, there's no point fighting it, I've been flubbered by the heat one too many times. 

From 1 to 3 we take lunch. The NGO compound rations energy from 1 to 3, so the power is off which makes working quite difficult. It also makes for an ideal excuse for a siesta. All hail the afternoon nap! The food is quite good at the IRC cantine: boiled cabbage, rice, stewed beef, and (sometimes) beans, all of which are pretty staple Kenyan foods. 

After 3 it's lights on and back to work until 5:30, when the power is shut off until 7. This energy ration time is for Second Shower (not as wasteful as it sounds) and Reading Outside. I've just finished reading World War Z, which is about a worldwide zombie war and is one of my new favorite books. Seriously, Max Brooks blurs the line between reality and fiction so well and weaves in so many familiar geopolitical and real-world issues that it's a compelling read. And it got me thinking about how I would fare in a zombie apocalypse (spoiler alert: I do very well and am a key player in the ultimate success of the human race). But since finishing, I've picked up Little Bee, a story (fictional) about a Nigerian refugee girl who immigrates to/seeks asylum in the UK. It's spectacularly written and provides a narrative that somewhat parallels the stories of refugee beneficiaries I've met here in Kakuma. 

After the power's back on at 7, I've been doing a bit more work then calling it a night and watching an episode of The Newsroom, which is written by the same guy that wrote The West Wing and is equally engaging and nerd-worthy. Then it's attempt-to-fall-asleep-in-the-heat and day's end. 

I'll be stationed in here in Kakuma until next Friday, when I'll return to Nairobi. I'm hoping to see more of the camp and meet some of the beneficiaries while I'm here. It's been humbling and inspiring to meet the IRC staff that work here, and I'm proud to be a part of the family. 

Over the Ngong Hills and through the Rift, to Kakuma camp we go

What do a family-size bag of matoke chips, 5 bars of chocolate, dry shampoo, a wrap skirt and a beloved copy of The Devil Wears Prada have in common? They're all packed away for my first trip to 'The Field.' On Wednesday morning, I'll board an ECHO flight bound for Kakuma refugee camp, in northwestern Kenya's Turkana District (see map at right). Kakuma was once upon a humanitarian disaster built to house 90,000 refugees. It is now home to 180,000, the majority of which hail from neighboring South Sudan. For six months now I've been responsible for the grants that fund the IRC's programs there, and I'll be the first Princeton in Africa fellow to make the trip since 2011 or '12. The monumental privilege of going to the camp and seeing firsthand the IRC's work there, not to mention the jigsaw puzzle of humanitarian aid coordination, is just beginning to sink in. "Manage your expectations" has become my mantra because despite having become intimately familiar with the programs, funding, statistics, challenges, and successes of the programs, I have no idea what to expect.

I do know that AccuWeather.com tells me the current highs are 41 Celsius (didn't even know it could go that high) and that I should wear close-toed shoes, "because scorpions and snakes." Suddenly, I find myself regretting all those wasted, procrastinated hours watching Say Yes to the Dress and wishing instead I'd paid more attention to Bear Grylls. Anyone who's known me in heat upwards of 78F with a sea breeze knows that I have the temperature threshold of an artisan milk chocolate bar and the temperament of a two-year old who hasn't slept in 24 hours and just can't with the crusts still on the PB&J. So, I'm going. It won't be pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm going and I couldn't be more thrilled. 

Safaris the eye can see

Recall your first memory of the Lion King... the thrill of the unknown in the 'Shadow Lands', the spooky majesty of the Elephant Graveyard, the sweeping savannah and the harmony of animal voices rising into one great chorus of hakuna matata. I can now attest that the 'wild' Kenya is actually not so farfetched from Disney's portrayal and that the circle of life really is a pretty glorious thing. My mom has come to Kenya and last week we went on the safari of a lifetime. We spent three days in the Chyulu Hills; on the southern Kenyan border with Tanzania, the conservancy is set against the dwarfing frame of Kilimanjaro. We then flew to the Maasai Mara, with sprawling plains and endless blue skies. 

I've never quite experienced the specific freedom that an open-sided Land Rover offers. I am very impressed by the durability and no-nonsense of that vehicle and can now attest that the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland actually replicates the jarring movements quite realistically. It's been so long since I've gone top-speed with the wind in my hair (our windows are always up in Nairobi to deter theft), and we really did feel one with the environment. It's no wonder the old-timey colonials used Land Rovers for overlanding and general colonizing. 

The two "camps" we stayed at were in conservancies, as opposed to the national parks. Conservancies tend to be highly eco-conscious of their impact on the environment and work in partnership with local communities to provide safari and lodging services. At Campi ya Kanzi in the Chyulu Hills, the camp leases the conservancy land from the local Maasai community and operates the camp in partnership with the Maasai. Our hosts were gracious and experts on the flora and fauna of the hills. We spent a memorable morning 'drive' with our two guides trying to find an elephant with no luck, only to find five later that afternoon less than two minutes from camp! I was humbled by their openness and eagerness to share their homeland. Before the safari I was wary of the whole scheme: privileged travels, usually white from Western countries, going to ogle animals and locals in a quest to live out some colonial nostalgia that was borne in watching Out of Africa. Instead, I found an organization that is equal partnership Maasai and nature conservationist that offers visitors an opportunity to appreciate the nature and wildlife they aim to protect. The trust that Campi ya Kanzi funds supports schools and clinics in the local Maasai villages and takes local children on field trips to the conservancy. Our second stop, Saruni Mara in the Maasia Mara, had a similar ethos to Campi ya Kanzi and connected us to the conservancies in the vast Maasai Mara. Our timing could not have been better: it's currently low-season, so there were very few other tourists, and its 'baby season' on the savannah so we saw young lions, elephants, zebra, cape buffalo, hippos, jackals, mongooses (mongeese?), wildebeest (one that had been born just a few hours previously!), and a variety of antelope including impala, hardebeest, topi, Grant's and Thompson's gazelles. 

Below are some of the safari landscapes and animals we saw!