Peter Elim: "The cows left in the 1980s"

Peter Elim is a resident of the Kanakurdio area in the Turkana region in northwestern Kenya. Elim, a pastoralist, talked to IRIN about how he had been affected by the changing climate.

"During our grandfathers’ time there were different types of grasses here, some for the cows and others for the goats and sheep. Now there's no grass, the land has become barren.

"We are now seeing some strange things. The sheep are feeding on plants they would not normally be eating.

"The cows left in the 1980s when the situation started changing. That is when the vegetation started declining. Before then, in the 1970s, we could keep cows here but not any more.

"The only places left to graze the cows are in the south where there is insecurity.

"In the early 2000s the drought started persisting and what was left of the grass cover was gone.

"Before, the rains would come in February and March to May. Now the rains don't come in April. Before, we could even have six months of rain.

"Now it rains for a day in a month, if we are lucky. The rains are too little to allow grass to grow.

"We were expecting the rains in June but they did not come. We have now been reduced to following the rains much more than before.

"When we hear that it has rained in Lokichoggio [one of the main towns in the region] we go there, if it rains in Kainuk [an area south of the district] we also go there despite the risk to our security.

"The lack of pasture has made the food problem very bad here. When people see a vehicle passing, they rush to see if there is food aid.

"We rely on those who have managed to educate their children when they visit to give us some little money. Here, most children do not go to secondary school.

"We also go to the lake to look for work among the fishermen, helping them clean their boats to earn some money."

aw/mw