Sanantei had to drop out of primary school to help her mother with chores. As is sometimes the custom when a girl is no longer in school, she was placed in an arranged marriage by her father  in exchange for a dowry of goats that will help provide for his younger children.  Sanantei now has a small baby to care for and household chores of her own. Because she is afraid of snakes and hyenas, she runs to the river to fetch water – but she must walk home due to the weight of the jerry can on her back and the child tied to her chest.  She fills a zippy cup with contaminated river water that smells of cow’s urine. She is only vaguely aware that this water could be the cause of her baby’s chronic diarrhea. She’s not able to breast-feed  because she is undernourished herself and not producing milk. Sanantei hopes her girl child will be well soon, and she hopes she won’t encounter a poisonous black mamba snake during her 2-mile journey home.

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Noinkunyiyi is mid-wife and healer for the people living in Kailer. She has served as the only healthcare provider many villagers have ever known. Without roads or transportation, it’s impossible for those who are ill or in labor to walk in the tropical heat to the nearest clinic 11 miles away. So they rely on Noinkunyiyi for her traditional medicine and birthing care, considering her their doctor. She’s the oldest person in the village, having lived over 90 years, they guess. There are no birth records for the Ilchamus people. She never went to school, can’t read or write and only speaks Maa, her tribal language, but Noinkunyiyi is respected as the expert in ancient remedies and healing rituals. Because rural villages rely on trees as their only source for fuel, the herbs, leaves, bark and pods that she uses as medicine are disappearing; and the sharing of traditional ways from generation to generation is dying along with the elderly. When Noinkunyiyi passes, this will be the case in Kailer. Without easy access to modern medicine, the villagers will be vulnerable to the complications of home births and illnesses previously treated by their wise-woman healer.

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Esther came to our first focus group with a plan and a stick for drawing her dream in the sandy soil – farm ponds to irrigate crops in kitchen gardens. As a child, Esther loved going to school – learning new things and having big ideas. But she had to drop out at age 13 when she was given to an older man in an arranged marriage. Her situation and the five children that followed didn’t diminish her innate sense that women are capable of doing more to contribute to the community than their traditional gender roles. Esther grew to be strong and assertive, believing a woman’s influence is as important as a man’s authority. After her 5th child, she insisted on going to a tech school to learn to sew with the dream of starting a women’s co-op someday – teaching others to sew school uniforms. She did just that. But there’s no time to pursue entrepreneurial activities. Her immediate concern is lack of food. She began the “Kitchen Garden Women’s Group” to share ideas for dry farming. She’s tried growing mangos as a demonstration project; she hand-tills and plants a subsistence garden for her family’s food. But every attempt at cultivation has been thwarted by lack of water during the dry season. This forces her to spend what little money is available to purchase food from others- barely enough to meet her children’s daily needs. It is a financial struggle to keep her daughters in school. She relies on selling goats for fees, but the livestock are dying from the drought. Nevertheless, Esther’s dream of overcoming food insecurity remains alive as does her dream of teaching tailoring skills to empower other women in her community. But it all depends on having access to water.  

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Since they were boys, Sam and Lori have risen at dawn to look for water and grass for their livestock. In the dry season, they used to set up cattle camps with other herders far from their homesteads, sharing a water hole with thirst-starved wildlife. When their children were young, they would pour goats’ milk into cowhide flasks and run it back to the village, maybe 10 miles away, so their kids could have nourishment – then run back to the camp each night. For centuries, daily life for Ilchamus women and men has been centered around finding water. Sam and Lori never had formal schooling, but each acquired over the years an intimate knowledge of the land and weather patterns that dictate pastoral life. Now they are seeing changes. Where once there was open savannah for grazing, now there are fences and privatized water rights. The familiar rhythm of the rainy and dry seasons is gone. They wouldn’t recognize the term climate change, but they know the rain is no longer predictable and does not last long enough to relieve the drought. The livestock are dying. Their skimpy maize crops are dying. The people are hungry. Sam and Lori instinctively know the community cannot sustain itself in the old tradition, but they do not know how the youth of the village can turn to a new livelihood without different skills and above all – water.   CLICK ON Learn More below TO SEE THE PROGRESS BEING MADE TO ENHANCE LIVELIHOODS THROUGH SKILLS TRAINING!