My year and a half of humanitarian work in one of the world's most recognizable refugee camps, Kakuma Refugee Camp, has come with experiences beyond my hitherto pedestrian realm of thought.
I have never been so shell-shocked, amazed, dazed, amused, excited, homesick, emotional, awestruck, dismayed and giddy all at once. I think I have been going through an outer body experience and only realized that hey, I'm not dreaming so I need to pinch myself and WAKE UP!
Truth be told, my work here started on an extremely strenuous note - at the height of South Sudan's emergency and the ensuing influx into Kenya. Hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers crossed Kenya's border with South Sudan and the result was that every waking hour of my life was transformed.
I came face to face with the realities of what it looks like (for one can never understand how it FEELS like unless you are a refugee yourself) to escape conflict and war. To have under a minute to grab what matters and run for your life. To crouch through bushes under the cover of darkness surrounded by a cacophony of gunfire, explosives and war cries. To see your loved ones die right before you. To not know where your children, spouse, parents and siblings are. To be an unaccompanied child, separated from safety and comfort, shivering in the cold night, crying for your mother...
It is an inexplicable feeling.
It left me numb. I couldn't feel, couldn't breath properly; I felt like Hazel Grace Lancaster in The Fault in Our Stars.
And yet I had to function.
I had to document all these events through words, pictures and sentiments. I had to let the world know that what was happening in South Sudan was a huge stain on the world's conscience. I am not sure how I was able to do it.
20-hour days and hardly any sleep. Unacceptably copious amounts of caffeine and sugar in my system. Phone calls back home every evening to keep me sane. I was numb. I couldn't feel any more. But I needed to. It was the one thing I HAD to do to feel like I was doing SOMETHING. I couldn't break down because it was my duty to contribute to the organization's appeals for both material and financial support for this emergency.
I was reporting on the situation hourly, daily, bi-weekly, weekly, monthly. There were donor missions to the camp every other day. Teleconferences every day. Ten different versions of reports and requests for these reports from ten different departments. The Kakuma office, the Kenya office, the regional hub, the headquarters; I felt like I was living in a parallel universe.
Those first six months really did me in. I was going at 100 miles per hour and I obviously crashed head first into the ground. Yes - literally. Crumpled in a heap on the floor when my body couldn't take it anymore. The elements - all of Kakuma's harsh 35 degree heat, dust storms and vast array of bugs (some were suspiciously pre-Jurassic critters) finally sunk their clutches in me and dragged me down. And like the Titanic I sunk.
I woke up in a hospital bed with an IV tube down my arm and a fever that would put the devil's toes to shame. My body was racked with sickness. Interestingly, I was not even aware of just how ill I was. All I kept thinking was how much work I had pending and oh my God did I send my report?? Good grief there are donors from Australia around; who will handle them? Christ, I didn't share their itinerary with my boss!!!
I was eventually sedated and out of it.
Next thing I knew I was being med-evaced to Nairobi. It was quite a curious affair to me; I felt like an extra in an episode of Grey's Anatomy or something. It was surreal. Hmm...I have just remembered that when I was aboard the plane, my phone was on the entire time. Does that mean that the 'switch off your mobiles' narrative that has been conveyed to passengers all these years is one big lie? I shall ruminate on that later.
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| Being med-evaced to Nairobi after collapsing on the job. |
Anyway, I spent five listless days in a hospital bed having to contend with nurses poking and prodding my body, tasteless hospital food and INJECTIONS!!! God I hate needles! Shiver shiver...
When I was finally discharged I remember it was a clear sunny day with azure skies stretching out for miles. I felt like I had emerged from an ancient Egyptian crypt. Home was a dream; everyone fussing around me. I had not felt so pampered in years.
Returning to Kakuma after a month away was like starting afresh - but with a new set of eyes. Everything was in clear focus and I was back with a renewed energy. I was armed with my camera and pen and ready to do what needed to be done. I had initially worried that I would break down again but as one of my colleagues who comes from the area told me, "my sickness was Kakuma's way of welcoming me to her bosom."
I now have a new found sense of respect for Kakuma and her formidable bosom. It is this place, with its harsh environment that is paradoxically gentle and nurturing of refugees and asylum seekers. For over two decades, it has been home to over 185,000 refugees who have fled all manner of atrocities to seek refuge. And Kakuma has opened her arms and held all these vulnerable people to her bosom.
Like her landscape, her people - the Turkana, are tenacious and resilient. Her beauty lies in her sunrises, her sunsets, her vista of shaded hills dotted with camels and donkeys, her willowy women adorned in beads bursting with colour, her weathered men in their feathered caps and omnipresent wooden stools (ekicholong) and sticks (aburo).
It is in these vast arid lands which I previously couldn't point out on a map that I have finally found myself; found my purpose in life.
I work with wonderful people - true humanitarians with eons of experience and hearts that bleed for the refugee cause. It is so inspiring to wake up to this everyday; to FEEL and to WANT and to BELIEVE and to SEE what happens around me.
I have made friends with refugees; I have come to see myself in so many of them. I am constantly taken aback by our similarities and the fact that this term REFUGEE is NOT an appropriate descriptive term. It does NOT define any of these amazing men and women, boys and girls, young and old. They are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, sons and daughters.
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| These precious Somali girls are the future. They make my job worthwhile. |
They are students, teachers, doctors, architects, security guards, laboratory technicians, models, singers, actors, trainers, community health promoters.
They have dreams, aspirations, feelings, desires.
Above all, they are hopeful.
Hopeful that every new day will bring them closer to realizing their dreams.
Hopeful that the senseless and pervasive effects of politics and war will cease and people will learn to look at each other as God desires us to.
I am a humanitarian. And it is because of my brothers and sisters in the camp that I do what I do. They are just like you and me.
I would love to think that my work will one day be considered as powerful in the way that one of my favorite writers, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie described as "...the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”
Here's to another 1.5 (multiplied by 20) years of getting to know refugees and learning from them how to be a better person.
I'm loving: We Fall - Emmanuel Jal ft. McKenzie Eddy
