Lake Turkana: Days 5, 6, 7, & 8

After driving through the desert for about six hours, we finally reached our destination—Lake Turkana. Lake Turkana was one of the major filming sites for the Constant Gardner and the movie definitely represents the area well, and despite the fact that the movie refers to Lake Turkana as “hell on Earth”—it’s really not that bad. The area was definitely one of the most beautiful I have ever seen, the lake itself is enormous and when you look at it it appears as if it is an ocean because you cannot see the end of it or the other side. Surrounded by near desert, the Lake Turkana region is extremely hot and there is a serious lack of water supply for the people who live there. Due to this, we commonly had women and children chasing after our truck and instead of asking for sweets or money, these people merely requested water. Luckily we had packed enough so that we were able to provide a lot of people with jugs of drinking water. The first day we spent in Turkana we mainly just wandered around by ourselves and met some of the local Turkana people. Due to the hot climate, nearly none of the children wear clothing and many of the older men wear only small, thin pieces of cloth around their waist. For us, Turkana was one of the first places where we were actually able to show our knees and shoulders. In all other places that we visited, including Nairobi, we are unable to wear anything that reveals our knees or shoulders due to cultural norms and large Muslim populations. One of the hardest parts of being at Lake Turkana was the fact that we were surrounded by a beautiful lake, however, we were not able to go in it at all due to the large number of crocodiles that live in the water. One of the best parts of the day, however, was when we got to go to a swimming pool that was set up by a local women’s organization in order to help generate money for the village. That night, we slept in small straw huts right near the water and thankfully I’m not bothered by bugs, because we had to fend off rampant mosquitos, scorpions, and tarantulas.
The next morning we took an hour boat ride on the lake to visit a small El Mollo island village. The El Mollo are the smallest tribe in Kenya and due to fighting with other tribes and intermarriage, there are less than 200 El Mollo left. The lives of the El Mollo depend on fishing. We couldn’t walk more than five feet without seeing large piles of fish, left out to bake on the hot rocks and sun. The rocks at the village were so hot from the sun that the fish is commonly cooked just by being left on them during the day. The El Mollo people are also very religious and we got to visit all of the different shrines and learn about their different purposes. We also got to spend some time with the village children and sit in on one of their classes. The teacher and children both were so excited to show us their ability to count and read numbers in English, as most of the people in the Turkana area speak almost no English at all. That night we all went up to the large cliff above our campsite that overlooks the lake. As the sun was setting in the background, we got to watch one of the Turkana villages perform their ritual dances. The villagers were truly in their element and danced well past sunset. A few of my friends from the program and I stayed up late that night well most of the others went to bed. We stayed up talking to one of our Kenyan friends who came along on the trip and he convinced us to have our fortunes told by the village’s soothsayer. The man was quite old and may or may not have been drinking that night, however, it was definitely an experience, for the Turkana people truly believe in his ability to predict the future. The man used his two sandals in order to tell our fortune—our Kenyan friend who did the translating told us that he was able to see into the future based on the way that the sandals fell when he asked them particular questions. Although we didn’t all buy into what the man was saying, it was amusing and an educational look into the Turkana culture.
The last two days of the trip were both driving days on our hike back to Nairobi. The majority of the time was spent driving through barren areas where we saw no other cars at all, only the occasion pastoralist village. One of the most amazing sites we saw was a stop at the Great Rift Valley—the area that is believed to be the birthplace of mankind. Overall, the whole trip was both a lot of fun and highly educational. Before the trip, we all joked about how all of us were going to hate each other after spending 8 straight days with each other, yet it actually brought us all really close together. The trip was a great getaway from the chaos of living in Nairobi and we got to spend time with and learn about many of the different tribes in Kenya. By driving to Lake Turkana we were also able to see a vast, diverse area of the country—areas that most people, Kenyans included, never get to see.