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Kenyan family's cry: 'God has cursed us'
3/11/2006
GARISSA, Kenya Mar 10 (CNN): I've covered three droughts in the last six months in Africa.
In July, I saw women, with babies on their backs, walking for miles in search of food in Niger. In Malawi, I witnessed people eating termites to keep from starving to death. Now I am in my native Kenya, where a fourth season without rain has decimated the cattle stock and people fear a looming famine.
Traveling across the hot, dusty, desert landscape this week, I've lost count of the dead animals -- everything from cows, goats, sheep and even camels, the so-called "ship of the desert." One local cattle herder told me that if you see camels dying like flies, then you know you're in trouble.
I spoke with one desperate family, the Ousmans, whom I met standing in line at a food distribution center in northern Kenya. It's a makeshift center because aid agencies can't keep up with the movement of these desert nomads. It's their lifestyle. Even in the best of times, they go from place to place in search of greener pastures for their cattle. Now they have no choice.
The Ousmans -- father Salat, mother Ebler and their five young children -- stand in line waiting to get a corn-soya blend from the United States, rice from Japan and beans and vegetable oil from the Kenyan government.
They are one of about 500 families gathered here for their monthly food ration. Through an interpreter, I learn that Salat used to own more than 100 head of cattle. Now it's fewer than 30. Salat seems depressed. He says he depends on his cattle for his livelihood. He says he doesn't know what he'll do if the long-awaited rains don't come and his stock continues to dwindle.
As we're talking, a water truck rolls up, courtesy of the Kenyan government. A mad rush ensues, and everyone leaves the food line to grab their plastic containers. It's a desperate scene -- men, women and children fighting for the most basic and natural of resources. But they're not filling up the cans for themselves -- it's for their starving animals.
"The animals are our life," Salat says. "If they die, then we die."
Such is life in this northern corridor of one of Africa's so-called better economies. Many experts say they don't understand why Kenya can't feed itself. Peter Smerdon, spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program, says Kenya is doing all it can but that logistics are a major problem.
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