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.