After only a couple of hours we arrived at our camp site for the night.
The next day we headed East for several hours towards Samburu, till we
came upon Lomut.
Here we would finish off a roof on a school which Paul
and Harmon had started a few months earlier. The community here were
truly marginalised, but had made fantastic progress in a number of
key areas thanks to their Chief. Philip Domoikwang Yarapong at 43 years
of age is the elected leader of this community, which numbers 5,208 people.
This very lively and charismatic leader told me about the problems
of his people and the lengths he had gone to in trying to resolve them.
The most worrying problem of all was the theft of animals, or rustling,
by neighbouring tribes. Historically, such skirmishes would have been
dealt with by spears and arrows, but the availability of illegal weapons
entering from nearby Uganda means that the AK47, G3 and SLR frequently
prove to be the more effective solution. This year alone 1400 people
have been shot dead through inter-tribal conflict.
Philip has set up
a Committee with his counterparts to tackle this and other important
issues. The Pokatusa Committee takes its name from the first 2 letters
of the most dominant tribes: POkot, KAramujang, TUrkana and SAbai.
The big irony is that many of these disputes arise due to natural events.
Drought causes herd owners to seek alternative grazing areas, which
leads to trespass. Returning herds will inadvertently pick up animals
from neighbours en route, which constitutes theft, and there are many
other connotations.
Through the Committee Philip is also challenging
issues which lie at the very heart of African culture. His top priorities
are education, gender issues and the cessation of female genital
mutilation, his own community has very much taken the lead. He proudly
displayed the new latrines which had been built and his kiln used to
fire bricks made from local soil. This vibrant, optimistic character
was so enthusiastic about his initiatives, one would find him difficult
to ignore. As we talked, so work on the roof progressed and by mid afternoon
it was done.
The Chief came to talk to me sometime asking me if
I knew where he could get some lights for the children to learn by. This
was such a strange happening, because only weeks before our visit to
Kenya I had a telephone call from Roger Mugridge in Cricklade who had
ingeniously devised a solar powered lighting system he wanted promoting.
The charity ‘Lights
for Learning’ specifically targets schools just like Philip’s
and after a very successful meeting at RAF Lyneham, I was left
most impressed with Roger’s gadgets and agreed to do whatever
I could. Here then was the perfect opportunity for Project Albert
to help out, so it was agreed that we would provide a lighting
system in the coming weeks. The Chief then had buckets of freshly
picked mangos and oranges presented to us. These wonderful fruits
would explode into heavenly flavours on the first bite. We were
also to be treated to some spectacular singing and dancing, with
everybody joining in, including Neal!
When the dancing was over we left Lomut and West Pokot
to head back to Paul’s place in Kitale. We got beer from somewhere
and once again enjoyed hot showers and plenty of hot food. |
