THE LAND OF SHABA - WILDERNESS OF ISIOLO

HOW SOFTLY OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS…

On this brilliant Friday morning, we depart from Meru Town/County and head North for Isiolo County where we are scheduled to attend a Water and Sanitation (WASH) Inter-agency Coordinating Committee (ICC) meeting at the Sarova Shaba Lodge.

Isiolo town is located on the Great North Road, barely 50km from Meru town. Despite the proximity to Meru, the climatic contrast could not be more diverse. Whereas Meru town has this nice cool mountain weather, Isiolo is a hot, dry and harsh savanna affair.

By some lucky toss of the cosmic dice, Isiolo County happens to be smack in the middle of the Republic of Kenya. It straddles what is currently referred to as the LAPSSET. (Lamu Port & South Sudan Ethiopis Transport) Corridor. This vision 2030 project will consist of a pipeline, road and railway corridor that will link the oil-rich South Susan, Ethiopia and Northen Kenya to the port of Lamu. (Lamu Port and South Sudan Ethiopia Transport) corridor. This VISION 2030 project will consist of a pipeline, road and railway corridor that will link the oil-rich South Sudan, Ethiopia and Northern Kenya to the port of Lamu.

  

Isiolo’s infrastructure is looking up to better times, in addition to the newly tarmacked, Great North Road that passes through the town; there is a brand new airport and a sewage system under construction. There is also land demarcated for a resort city that can only portend better economic times for the residents of Isiolo County.

As you get into Isiolo town you are met by this beautiful Catholic Church on the right and an imposing mosque opposite it on the left side of the road, perhaps a pointer of the ethnic and religious diversity of the county. Shaba national reserve is a further 30km up the Great North road, in the neighborhood of Archer’s post. All along the 30km stretch, we have several Kenya army and British army training schools. The rough open terrain must make for good training grounds for soldiers…

We turn off into Shaba National Reserve a few kilometers before Archer’s Post. At the park entrance we are informed that for a Kshs. 500/- ticket per citizen, you can access the Shaba National Reserve and the neighboring Buffalo Springs and Samburu National reserves for the rest of the day at no extra charge.

The Shaba Sarova Lodge is truly a diamond in the rough, an oasis of tranquility in the parched arid northern plains. Nestled on the shores of the great River Ewaso Nyiro, the lush green gardens and whispering palms is the last thing you would expect on the arid plains. Chirping birds only interrupted by the naughty chatting of the monkeys or the bark of curiously sinister-looking baboons that keep staring me down. There are tens of murmuring streams crisscrossing the lodge, adding to its allure of tranquility. The centerpiece of the lodge is this huge curvy pool reflecting the perfect blue of the cloudless sky. The crocodiles of the Ewaso Nyiro are perhaps the main attraction here, but elephants, giraffe, zebra, buffalo and impala abound too.

After a tiresome morning listening to presentations in a hot humid conference room, we are headed for the village of Arti to view some on-going health projects. The local health promotion officers have been trying to get the villagers to turn their villages into an “Open Defecation-Free Zone” under a project commonly referred to as CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation).

Arti is this Turkana village of about 300 households 15km off the Great North Road. In another time, the Turkana tribesmen lived closer to Isiolo town and shared pasture and water resources with their Borana neighbors. The dry times came and pasture became scare, animals started to die and tempers flared. Ethic clashes over pasture and water-rights caused them to move further and deeper into the wilderness.

The village is certainly not a picture of prosperity and every day must be a struggle to survive; a struggle to get a morsel of food, a struggle to get a drop of clean drinkable water. Despite these incalculable odds, the residents of Arti have continued to make the best out of their situation. They have not let poverty get into the way of their sanitation and water quality.

The CLTS project has had extraordinary success in this village. Every household has dug up a pit latrine, quite a feat in these rocky arid plains. The locals sprinkle wood ash around the pits to control houseflies and maggots to great effect. The latrines are also equipped with apparatus for cleaning up hands after visiting the facility all made from locally available materials.

What is most impressive about this village is the way the locals have taken control the small matter of water quality. Every household has this water filtration system that uses ceramic clay filters and plastic buckets to clean and store their water which most would consider unfit for human consumption. The village can boast of reduced incidence of water-borne diseases because of the home-grown solutions to their problems.

After the inspection tour of the water and sanitation project at Arti we return to civilization with renewed trust in humanity – that we will always find a way to survive no matter the circumstances.

My question would be, “What can we do to make life a little easier?”