rememberthegoat

Poverty and inequity make oil protests inevitable in Turkana, unless both government and oil companies take great care to support local communities in the early stages of exploration and extraction. Putting aside for a moment all other issues, legitimate or otherwise, that surround oil exploration in Turkana there is a fundamental problem that has not been sufficiently addressed. That problem is a perception of inequality arising from extreme poverty and marginalisation and, in the broadest ... Continue Reading

Outside my house is a Flamboyant tree. It is aptly named. Once a year, near the end of the long six months dry season, when everything, including itself, is just bare gray brown twigs and sticks, it burst into flower. This huge tree, without a single leaf, buds and in the space of a few days is draped with large red flowers. They cover every branch like a heavy red snowfall. No other plants appear even to be alive at this time, in the last week or two of the deepest dryness before the rains. ... Continue Reading

People fight wars over oil and it is predicted that in the near future people will fight wars over water. There is now evidence to suggest that the remote, arid Turkana district in the north west of Kenya has both. Turkana district, especially the northern half, is very poor, politically marginalised and with little in the way of infrastructure. It is peopled largely by nomadic and semi nomadic pastoralists whose skills and traditional knowledge enable them to live, without the aid of modern ... Continue Reading