Kakuma – “my future is so bright, I need sunglasses”

I have been doubting for a while about how honest I was going to blog about my experiences this time. Things are getting more and more extreme, which has happened gradually for me, since I have been on the road for about 2 months now, but I am not sure whether my messages will still come across the way I want them to. Up until now, you have been able to read the real thing. I am not sure whether it is wise to keep it like that, but I have decided that I will. So take a seat and prepare for a story about my trip to Kakuma.

Kakuma is a refugee camp in North West Kenya, and today it is home to about 43.000 refugees. I arrived in Lokichoggio about a week ago, in a small airplane. The area is not safe, it has UN security phase 3 which means that UN staff is not allowed to travel independently. I was picked-up by a WFP vehicle and a police escort to drive to the camp. The police escort looked rather intimidating to me, so I figured these guys would be able to keep potential bandits at bay. I felt like being in a movie again.

During the one hour drive to the camp I saw things I could only know from national geographic documentaries on tribal culture in deserted areas in Africa… The area is dry, so dry. It is inhabited by Turkanas, I saw them walking on the side of the road, with their necklaces, piercings, their typical clothing, their weapons and their cattle. I tried to take pictures of them from inside the car, not realizing I would get up close with them a few days later.

WFP has a compound close to the camp with offices and small houses for its employees. Close to this compound are two others, one for UNHCR and one for the NGOs. On my first day, I had yet another security briefing, now including more information on violence in and around the camp, and scorpions. Nice! I met the WFP staff in the afternoon and then I started to feel sick. The next day I did not visit the food distribution, rather I visited the local clinic, consisting of a bed, some chairs, 2 doctors, 1 microscope, some medicines, some ill locals who were looking at me for medical advice and many, many flies. I was diagnosed with malaria. Yes, you can still get that even if you are taking medicines against it. Luckily it was a mild form, and once I was on the right medication, the problem was fully solved in a couple of days.

After all that, I was finally was able to conduct my work on the ground. I spoke to the partners of WFP, I visited refugee households, I met the food advisory committee and I had long discussions with WFP staff. MixMe in Kakuma – now that’s a real challenge. Anyone at DSM who is interested in some really harsh training on “customer orientation” should go take a look in Kakuma. Yes, we have developed a great product that can really help refugees to become stronger and healthier and have less anemia, but if many of them refuse to take it, why is that the case? Can you imagine, refugees, I repeat, refugees, who have basically nothing, going to the food distribution standing in line to pick up their ration of food, and then just leaving the boxes of MixMe there. 70% of them did just that last week. Or worse, picking up a box, and then instead of taking it home and using it, throwing the sachets of up in the air, watch how they shine in the sun, and then walk away. You can probably imagine how it hurts me to see sachets lying around on the ground all over the camp. I am so convinced that it is good for them, and I watch them struggle to survive even, and for a short moment I felt like they do not want to accept our help. But this is not the way to look at it. Apparently the product does not serve their direct needs. All we can do is respect that, and think of ways to make it attractive to them, either in product form, communication, or anything else we can think of.

The problem and the reasons behind it are very complex and I can write on and on about it, which I will not do here. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me directly if you’d like more information – or if you have any suggestions!

Now, my dear readers, after all this negativity, do not despair! There are also refugees who are very happy with MixMe, and just to talk to some of them and to see how grateful they are (for having more active children, for feeling healthier and energized to work, or to make love more often ) makes everything worth it. There is a group of body builders in the camp, they lift weights they have made out of steel and cement, and they like MixMe so much, that they made a show a world refugee day to advocate it to the rest of the community – without even WFP knowing about it on forehand. We need to build on positive things like that that and spread it further amongst the community.

Another great thing is that the WFP staff really believes in the product and they will not rest before it is a success. I am so impressed with their passion, their commitment and their personalities. I cannot even begin to imagine how hard it must be to work in a refugee camp. The trick, they have told me, is to empathize, not to sympathize with the refugees. I am grateful that we have these people on the ground where they are needed most.

I came to Kakuma just in time for the bicycle festivities. DSM has donated bicycles to the volunteers who are in the food advisory committee. These people have been key in the success of MixMe, and they were eager to discuss with me how they think we can improve it. They appreciate it very much that DSM actually takes the effort to send people to Kakuma and listen to them, and they clearly said that to me. And they were really happy with the bikes!

Just before I visited some households I read Brams comment on my blog, asking about children and what their dreams are. It stayed with me, and in one of the families we visited, the 8 year old son was at home, he had malaria (!) and felt too weak to go to school that day. He was just sitting beside his mother, listening to our conversation on MixMe. His mother did like the product, however the family took it only took it a few times per week, because it increased their appetite and there is not enough food available. After we had finished our MixMe talk, I asked him what his dream for the future was. He lit up and shared with us that he wanted to become a pilot. He went on about that for a while, and then indicated that being a teacher could be OK too, as long as he could get an education he would be able to manage, actually, he concluded “I just want to get out of this place”. During his story his mother was looking at him the way mothers look at their children, with a mild smile and eyes that are lit-up with love and pride. Once he finished, she started to cry. If only she would have enough food to take care of her family… Today she had food, it was recently distributed, but after 12 days, when all the food is gone and there are 2 days left before the next distribution…

When walking around in the camp, it is hard to imagine that these people have all fled their countries because of war and violence, they all have a background like that. Some of them have requests that I cannot do anything with. An old man came up to me, told me that all his friends had been able to move to Australia and that he wanted to go there as well. He had pains in his chest, and he grabbed my hand to examine his chest. Just because I’m white does not mean I am a doctor!

And then there was a cat walking around in one of the huts of a household we visited. A cat that looked healthier than the average refugee – it actually looked a lot like the cat we had at home when I grew up. I asked the women if she fed it – yes she did. What did she feed him? Meat, she told me. Meat?! How often? Once a month, she told me quickly, when the family ate meat. Other than that, the cat got porridge. WFP only distributes rice, split peas, salt sugar, corn soy blend, and oil. If refugees want to eat anything else they need to barter their food, so they can get meat or other things from the village or even from shops in the camp, but this means less kilocalories of their other food. And then she is feeding a cat, with meat even?! I just could not understand that.

The host community, the Turkanas are everywhere in the camp, and they do not want to be photographed. In fact, they reacted pretty hostile when I did try to photograph them. They know that white people just love their looks, and they probably get photographed all the time by us. The are very poor, and more food-insecure that the refugees, who at least get the food distribution. Many of them work for the refugees (e.g. repairing clothes,

selling chicken), and get paid in food. WFP has several projects to help the hostcommunity as well, and I visited a few of them. There are water pumps or dams that keep water from the rains longer so that the land can get more fertile. This is done as a token of appreciation to the host community, and to increase their acceptance of the camp on their grounds. They can work for WFP to help build these assets for their communities, and they get paid in food if they do so.

When we went out to look at these projects, I got the chance to talk with some of them, without them being angry all the time. They can be pretty intimidating, and men have a round knife around their wrists – once I realized what that thing was and what it was used for, they became even more so. It is hard to imagine what life is like for them. There is no money to allow for all children to go to school, so you make a strategic selection of which ones go and which ones stay at home. One girl was pointed out to me, and I was told she was too pretty to go to school. She could sell livestock at the market later. If the rains do not come one year, you can lose everything they have. You are only a man if you steal cattle from another community, so your cattle can get stolen all the time. These people constantly live on the edge. Once I understood that, I think it is no wonder they yell at me for taking their photo. And when we visited their villages, looked at their projects, and showed an interest in them, they were very nice. They even invited me to dance with them!

As you can see, I can go on and on about this. I will leave you with this for now, and will keep you posted on more adventures to come. This weekend I will explore Nairobi further with my DSM colleague Damiet Koenders, who is here for a WFP assignment as well. You can read her story on http://damietkoenders.whereareyou.net.

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