Where else can we get food if not from this very hard soil? This is the question I envision as would come from my mouth if I were one of the hundreds of Tepeth people living atop Mt. Moroto at the delicate border of Uganda and Kenya.
At the level of learnt people (Ugandans), the debate about the plight of the Karimojong just cannot end. The difficulty results from stinging poverty as measured mainly by the level of hunger. The arguments of intellectuals about this.... I staggered with one on facebook the other day until I don’t know...
As I plot a route to Adulai village someplace in the corners of rocks up the Moroto Mountains; deep emotions fill me. This is caused by the painful sight of young things struggling with life in this isolated spot of the world. The sight reminds me of Lokito, the little boy I met in Napakakimul village last November. Lokito like I narrated to girl friend then; wore nothing to cover his skin but had a fat bundle of firewood on top of his frail head.
His story is: Lokito stays with a deaf, blind, crippled grandma. This is too much...it sounds like an exaggeration but true. Very true. I rejected the info until a stopover at the corner where Lokito and old Nakolong subsist.
Lokito does the cooking, hunt for water, tilling the rocks to grow some sorghum... He has no house, but struggles to thatch cabin where the old thing sleeps. About links of this family, I never got transparency and cannot have it on pen and paper. The only believable chapter says the Turkana people of Kenya in a revenge attack killed 15 people same night in the homestead that was. The incident happened close to a decade ago. Baby Lokito and old, deaf, blind, crippled Nakolong were left, for they could add no point to the revenge project. End of the recollection.
Back to Adulai, The young girl struggling with the weight of a hoe is Nadiim Achuuka. She is young for that work but she has to do it in order to be able to eat. The Tepeth people have fertile soil with fair vegetation coverage but the rain is unpredictable. It can come and go away when it likes and the crops will dry. When heavy long down pour is achieved, the crops are swept away. Look at that background...looks good for agriculture, but the Tepeth have never had food.
NGOs and government agencies like NAADS work here. They put effort and double effort but tomorrow the Tepeth will again go die in Kenya because they need food. Some analysts now say building the capacity of the people on crop growing is the way to go. But will the Tepeth grow crops on rocks? How about the water erosion? We probably need a multibillion dollar project to straighten things for the Tepeth and the Karamoja people at large. But most importantly these people’s voices are not hard. Leaders?
Somehow when you are here, here in this Adulai route, you can deem that the decentralisation policy and the splitting up of the Country into small pieces as Mr. Museveni is doing might create some difference. Just some difference I say. I simply just say. A mere statement.
Ok, you might think a leader for the people of Adulai, one for the people of Didi, another for those people of Nauut in Tepeth-land; or separate ones for the people of Lokali, of Kalapata in Dodoth-land; or independent ones for the community of Toyepetoto, Nailikonyen in Bokora could be helpful for them in parliament. Other communities in villages like Losimit, Sakaale in Pien including the villagers of Kadaam and Loroo in Upe could be heard crying too!
But when we get to know book, we tend to have intellectual forces. Intellectual forces cannot allow us agree on one theory. When one person designs a strategy, other brain workers will first critic it. They’ll strive hard to find more weaknesses and limit the projected advantages. This discourages the ‘trial and error’ method that experience says is the reason for success of most scientists in the world of physics. Mine is prayers what about you?
