Turkana

My friend Paul comes from Turkana, the remote Northwest District of Kenya. His people are pastoralists, often moving to follow the rain patterns to feed their flocks. Generally they stay as a clan (about 100 people, or 2-5 families) in one area for one month, then move on. He had 8 brothers and sisters but 2 have passed on. There are 14 clans in his tribe, and one cannot marry from within the same clan.

His grandfather had 13 wives and 70 children. A Turkana saying: “One wife is like having one eye.” That is, if something were to happen to that eye, you’d be blind. A typical dowry used to be 30 goats, 10 cows, 5 camels, 5 donkeys and lots of beads, given to the parents. Nowadays, people are much poorer due to a greater population, overstocking and climate change, and pay much less in terms of dowry.

Traditionally, the men wear blankets or nothing at all. The women wear animal skins and beads, covering their private parts. Women who go to school are traditionally considered not to be morally upright and therefore not worthy candidates for marriage. All the men carry around an ekicholong, a small stool used as a pillow for sleeping or sitting.

As pastoralists, they live off their animals. However, very rarely do they kill one, maybe one goat a month. They survive by eating nangarra, a porridge made of salt, sugar, blood and milk. They cut an artery of the goat near the shoulder, draining some of the blood in a pan before using the goat’s droppings to clot the wound. They eat about once a day, usually at night, and supplement their diet with wild fruits and what wild animals they can kill.

He characterizes his people as quite idle compared to city-dwellers. Dancing (edonga) at night is a popular activity, with the men clapping and stomping in unison as they chant out a beat. The young and unwed often do the dancing, with lots of respect shown to the elders. Sometimes the male dancers will shout out the names of their bull.

Christians, predominantly Catholics, have brought a lot of change to the Turkana people in the forms of education, health and lifestyle. Up until last year all eight of the high schools were Catholic. The church built houses for its members and introduced Western clothing, and the first permanent towns were established. Health clinics, roads and boreholes were also built. In this way, the Catholics were more of an NGO than a faith community, and Turkanas won’t come to church if it isn’t offering something in terms of a school, health clinic or food.

Today Paul studies logistics at a local Christian college, hoping to get a job to help his people develop. World Vision paid for his primary education, and another donor from the states paid for his secondary schooling. He was given a camera by an American friend, allowing him to pay his present courses with the assistance of government funds through CDF (Community Development Fund). Presently he is engaged to Phoebe, a woman from the coast, although they don’t plan on marrying until one or both of them have stable jobs… which could be years from now.

Paul attributes his faithful optimism to helping him get through life. He envisions a mobilizing the youth to form a national movement to gain great political representation. Yet as his roommate says,

“The people who matter don’t care,
And the people who care don’t matter.”