The far northern part of Kenya, bordering with South Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda, is known as Turkana and is home to a tribe of Nilotic people of the same name. The land is harsh, arid and rocky expanses of flat plains with rough mountainous patches. Drought is common, a natural phenomena occurring every ten years or so, but the rains always return.
The Turkana people are pastoralists, living with and by their animals. They move their herds and manyattas with the weather, following the rains, which provide their livestock water to drink and grass to graze.
The world is changing faster than the Turkana people. Borders have been drawn, wars fought, and in the past decade, even the climate has changed. The last great drought they remember in 2001. And since that time, they haven’t seen rain the way they once did, what was once forest and green plains, is now desert. Spartan rains have left the soil parched and cracked, rivers and vegetation dried, and life is a struggle.
The past year has been the worst, over ten months without a single drop of rain. The Turkana are surviving solely on the international community, their only water coming from the few bore wells and with most of the livestock having starved to death, the only food is international aid.