Day 13: Today we went to visit another village that supplies LIME with cattle. On the way back we stopped at Dadab the refugee camp that I mentioned earlier. The camp looks like a makeshift town the building are organised in parallel streets and even though they are made of wood and recycled tins from the aid food it looks pretty organised. There are all sorts of shops. We had lunch at one of the refugee’s camp restaurant … yes restaurant! The place is very rudimental but there is a concrete floor, pretty impressive for the location, and a satellite TV. I guess the most amazing thing though is the atmosphere. If felt like any fast food in the western world. People were coming and going a very efficient service. Yussuf explained that these people are mostly from Mogadishu and therefore are time conscious … a very big contrast with the Kenyan Somali who are moving at very slow pace.
Before heading back to Garissa we stopped by the CARE office where we met the programme manager Mohammed Qazilbash. In Dadab CARE is responsible for managing the camp on behalf of the UNHCR. Mohammed was telling us that the biggest problem the camp has is the fact that there are 20000 youth roaming the streets with nothing to do. Rapes and loitering are raising and the situation could get out of hand. Mohammed described himself as a “mayor” of a city his job everyday is to make sure that the “citizens” receive water, food, electricity, education and other basic services.
Finally when we were visiting one of the pastoralists I had a brief chat with the chairman of the pastoralist Nahat Esman Ibrahim. Ibrahim is a father of 3 kids is 34 years old and as well as helping his fellow clan members in selling their animal suns his own contracting business. Ibrahim gets up everyday at 6 and runs around in equatorial Kenya trying to make a living in these harsh conditions. He is very passionate about LIME this pastoralist is one of the few that has women directly involved in the trading of cattle, generally a male dominated business amongst the Somali. In order to encourage women participation the PPC. In order to encourage women participation the PPC waived the membership for women. Maybe Lime should subsidize the membership for women so to increase the social impact of the project. When I asked Ibrahim if the project impacted the community he was quick in responding that since LIME started the number of kids, especially girls, that dropped out school feel dramatically since now parents have now money to pay the school fees. When I asked if he had any questions for me his first reaction request was to have CARE to give some money to the community for a bursary for students. I had to quickly explain that I was in position to make that kind of decision. Nevertheless I explained to him what CEP is trying to do and he concurred with me that is probably the best thing CARE can do. People around here are so used at NGO starting a project and then leave that they all worry what is going to happen once LIME ends leaves. So to hear that CARE is working hard in order not to leave hopefully gave him some reassurance.
The more I find out about the LIME project the more I think this is the best development work that can be done I haven’t been this excited about an assignment in long time! The encouraging thing is that even though LIME is not making money at the moment there are plenty of people making lots of money in the livestock business. Therefore there must be a way for LIME to be profitable and at the same time provide relief for the poor! I might not find the solution but at least I want to help as much as I can.