“Drought and cattle theft have reduced me to a beggar”

I was worried that readers of this blog may be thinking us a little callous or ignorant since we have not mentioned properly the famine which the UN is now calling the worst in the Horn of Africa for 60 years.

I can assure you we’re not blind to it, though we do feel pretty helpless (beyond donating a little money that is). In our VSO training we talked about the huge complexity and unfairness of development issues, and how it’s very easy to get overwhelmed and feel “frozen” into inaction. Too true.

Kenya is a country with so many climates, geographies, and peoples, that it seems to be normal for those in bustling, temperate, rich/poor Nairobi to sometimes not know, or not notice, the situation for those in the arid, desert north. Until last week it would have been easy to forget ourselves. We asked a few Kenyans in Nairobi about the drought but got fairly un-explanatory answers. It seems “drought” is normal here, whereas the declaration of “famine” means much more.

Then last week, it felt like Nairobi woke up to the situation with the launch of the “Kenyans for Kenya” appeal. Spearheaded by the big businesses here (The Nation Group, Safaricom, Kenya Commercial Bank), the appeal aims to raise Half a Billion Shillings in four weeks (about £3 million). By the time I write this it will be out of date, but after just a few days, ordinary Kenyans with little money have donated an amazing Sh61 million by M-Pesa**. And the first consignment of food bought with the money is on its way to Turkana in the north to feed about 21,000 people.

The Kenyan government estimates that it will need more than Sh10.5 billion for relief, with the Treasury providing Sh8 billion, and a shortfall of Sh2.5 billion. The media here talks about the huge support provided by the World Food Programme, the US, the EU and others.

Meanwhile, in Dabaab on the border with Somalia, the world’s biggest refugee camps, built for 90,000, are now sheltering more than 400,000 Somalis fleeing the drought and conflict there (about the population of Bristol).

Anyway, I could write for hours but I guess I just wanted to say (to myself and you) that Kenyans are not just waiting for hand-outs from the western world, they’re helping each other just as we would. And there’s lots of reasons for this drought. Is it about a lack of water? Yes. Is it about poor government? Probably. Is it about a need to modernise agricultural practices? Maybe. Would more modern technology and better infrastructure help with all this? Yes. Is it about the conflict in Somalia creating an impossible burden of refugees on a country already struggling to feed its own? Yup. And would it help if Somalia wasn’t half-ruled by militia groups that refuse to allow aid into their country? Definitely.

So – it’s certainly challenging my view of Kenya and East Africa. I hope this helps a bit in explaining the situation (from a totally subjective, non-expert viewpoint), and avoids being one-dimensional about the crisis. There’s obviously much more useful sources of info if you want to read more. For Helen and I, we will continue to try to help in our small corners of Kenya’s challenges. They told us this wouldn’t be about “changing the world”, and they were right. But maybe we can do a little good, even if just by sharing our experiences here.



** M-Pesa deserves a dedicated blog-post at some point, which I shall be entitling “How mobile phones are transforming Africa”. It’s a pioneering service which allows Kenyans to transfer money from one phone to another. This allows the millions of Kenyans without bank accounts to pay, save, transfer and trade. And it’s so easy it’s now becoming the way to do business here.