Lake Turkana Trip: Days 1 & 2

Friday morning, bright and early, all 18 of us left for a weeklong class trip to Lake Turkana, which is in the Northernmost part of Kenya, nearly 1,800 miles away from Nairobi. Anytime I mentioned this trip to one of my Kenyan friends, they were always like “oh when’s your flight?’ and I had to explain to them that we were actually driving. The roads to Turkana are noted as some of the worst in Africa. As an American it is hard to even imagine what the roads are like for as soon as we left Nairobi, we said goodbye to paved roads. It was a bumpy, dusty, and hot ride that took us over 19 hours to complete. Luckily, we did not drive straight there, we stopped off at different tribes and different campsites along the way to spend the night and to learn about the lifestyles of the people living there.
Since Nairobi is south of the equator, while driving North we passed the equator line. We stopped at a village where they proved to us that we were standing on the equator. North of the equator water funnels clockwise, south of the equator it funnels counterclockwise, and on the equator it funnels straight down. It was a pretty cool feeling to be standing directly on the equator.
The first night we stayed at a Samburu village located in an enormous game reserve. We went on safari there and saw beautiful wildlife including elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, and leopards. Although we didn’t see them, we fell asleep to the sound of lions roaring and then were woken up during the night with elephants fumbling around behind our tents. The next day was spent with the Samburu, who taught us about their traditions and culture and performed various traditional dances for us. The Samburu is a pastoralist tribe—which means their lives depend on the herding of livestock. Since the Samburu do not harvest any agricultural products, their entire diet consists of cow milk and blood and the occasional slab of meat. We learned about the traditions of the tribe, which being a liberal Westerner, was quite disheartening. The Samburu practice polygamy as well as both male and female circumcision. The men are circumcised around the age of 20 and are not considered true men until they are. We were told that the circumcision ceremony for men is very serious and that around 30 men are circumcised together. Although we were skeptical about the validity of this practice, our Samburu guide insisted that the men are not allowed to show any pain, whether it be verbal or physical while getting circumcised, or else they are speared to death. We all found this hard to believe, but the Samburu swear that this still happens to this day. Although this seems harsh, it is nothing compared to the treatment of women in this tribe. It is Samburu culture that men who are in the warrior stage of their lives, which is usually their twenties and entails them to go raid cattle from other tribes, are entitled to have many different “girlfriends.” In this case, a man presents a girl of his liking, typically between the ages of 8-14, with a plethora of beads that the girl wears in the form of elaborate necklaces. The relationship between the girlfriend and boyfriend seemed to be based purely on sex. After the girlfriend stage, girls are usually married by the age of 14 and can marry men up to the age of 60. They have no choice in the matter and are forced to marry whether they want to or not. Additionally, before she is married, the girl must be circumcised. Apparently if a girl decides that she does not want to be circumcised, she can be kidnapped from her home during the night by the elder women and forcibly cut. One of the most disturbing stories that our guide told us was about abortion. He told us that there was a young girl who got pregnant before marriage so the female village elders attempted to abort the child. The way in which they did this was to have the girl drink a gallon of black tea, then they rubbed oil all over her stomach, and apparently several of them stood on her and tried to stomp the child out. Not surprisingly, the girl died and even though we were all incredulous, our guide insisted that this was reality. I had a hard time believing that such traditions still exist, however, after much reading and discussion with my Kenyan friends, I have come to accept that what we were told is reality and not just a tourist ploy. Ultimately, our first two days were both exciting and informative and I will try to write soon about the rest of the trip. Tutaonana!