Hunger is an unforgivable disease because it is the easiest one to cure. It is devastating to wake up in the morning and look east, west, south and north and see that there is nothing green that you can chew. During a drought everything goes yellow and dry. I would walk the roads and search the ground to see if someone had spat out a bit of chewed-up sugar cane. I am not ashamed to say that I would re-chew what I would find. Hunger is dehumanizing. It gets to a level where you do not know how you will survive and you will do anything for a simple kernel of corn.

The thing about drought is that it does not just affect farmers and their crops; it affects everyone. If you think about it, during harvest time farmers hire local farmhands to help with their crops. But when there are no crops to harvest, not only does the farmer lose his or her income, so do the laborers the farmer would have hired. There is a ripple effect that affects the whole community. Few have food and even fewer have money to buy food.

Peter Kimeu’s opinion piece about growing up hungry was published in the September 11 edition of the New York Times.

By Patrick Carney

My last hours in Kenya are coming to a close. I’ve just finished my work, and I think it was a great success. I was able to assist in getting two grant proposals written for Catholic Relief Services’ work during the East Africa Famine.

Although I am excited to come home, there will be things I miss about Kenya and our CRS offices in Nairobi. Take it from me, when you support CRS and our work around the world, know that the staffers in our international offices are great stewards. Our staff here is friendly, welcoming, thorough, very hard-working and passionate about what they do. I’ve been very impressed.
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As the food crisis across the Horn of Africa is intensifying, Catholic Relief Services will help thousands of Somali refugees in northeast Kenya by providing critical services in the soon-to-be opened Kambioos extension to the Dadaab refugee camp.

CRS is making a five-year commitment to work with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to provide 25,000 people with water and sanitation infrastructure in Kambioos, while also aiding the surrounding communities affected by the influx of refugees.

“The vast majority of refugees are suffering from malnutrition, poor sanitation facilities, and live in crowded conditions with a lack of appropriate shelter,” said PM Jose, CRS’ Kenya country representative. “Getting life-saving assistance to the new arrivals is critical, but as we help refugees, we must not forget the impact that these arrivals will have on the host communities surrounding the camps.”
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Somali refugees wait for aid at a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya. Photo by Laura Sheahen/CRS

These past weeks the news has been saturated with images of hunger-ravaged refugees streaming in from Somalia to camps in Kenya and Ethiopia. The Dadaab camps in Kenya receive an average of 1,300 new arrivals daily. The camps are more than 20 years old and built to accommodate 90,000 people; they have swelled to more than 400,000. Getting life-saving assistance to the exhausted, frightened, and famished new arrivals is critical, but as we help refugees, we must not forget the impact that these arrivals will have on the host communities surrounding the Dadaab camps.

The evidence of drought is everywhere.
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Ahada’s four-year-old son was shot while protecting the family’s goats. She and her remaining children fled to Kenya, where they now live in a refugee camp that is filled to overflowing. Photo by Laura Sheahen/CRS

“Aden, my oldest son, was four years old. He was watching our goats,” says Ahada, a Somali woman in her early twenties. “Men with guns came and wanted the animals. Aden shouted, ‘Don’t take our goats!’”

Ahada’s small son was caught in the midst of a chaotic, seemingly never-ending war in Somalia. Armed bandits, militias and other violent groups terrorize the country’s rural population, who are mostly nomadic herdsmen. Children are not spared. Aden wasn’t.

Aden’s death by shooting came in the midst of a drought that was leading to famine. Ahada’s husband was also killed by militants; she knew she had to flee. She’d heard of a country called Kenya, so she took her two children there, crossing the border.
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Pamela Gilardi, second from left, and CRS major gift officer, Barbara Roth, second from right, meet with the Otieno children in their home in rural Kenya. Photo by Pamela Gilardi

CRS Foundation Board member, Pamela Gilardi, recently traveled with CRS Major Gifts Officer, Barbara Roth, to visit our work in Kenya. They witnessed projects that brought water to nomadic herders and met with several children who lost their parents to HIV. They share with us their visit to a home in rural Kenya run by a 16-year-old boy named Polycarp.

It’s the middle of the afternoon when we arrive at Polycarp’s house. A blanket divides the mud structure into two rooms, one for sleeping and one for daily living. The living area is furnished with three wooden chairs, a bench, and a small table. That’s everything. There’s not a toy in sight.

Polycarp is 16, but looks about 12. He lives with his sister, Idda, and four cousins, Mercy, Simon, Vitalis, and Jenipher, who range in age from 8 to 14. First Polycarp’s parents passed away in 2005, and he and Idda went to live with their uncle, Mercy’s father, but all six children were left on their own when he died earlier this year.
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Next week, nine parishioners from Kitui, Kenya, will visit parishes in Minnesota as part of a series of exchanges between the Diocese of Kitui and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. A recent article in the Catholic Spirit describes this partnership, which began in 2004 as a response to the U.S. bishops’ call for greater solidarity with Africa.

“It will be a sharing of faith, culture and life,” says Mike Haasl, global solidarity coordinator for the archdiocesan Center for Mission.

The partnership also has a strong service component. In an act of solidarity, participants at almost 80 archdiocesan parishes and schools gave up all beverages except for water for two weeks. They then donated the money they saved–about $150,000!–to help finance the construction of a series of dams to provide water for villages in the Kitui diocese. Villagers helped build the dams, stretching the donated dollars even further. This teamwork is especially inspiring as drought leaves more and more Kenyans without food, including in the hard-hit Kitui region.

16-year-old Caroline Kanana discusses the alternative rite of passage. Photo by Debbie DeVoe/CRS

During the Easter school holidays, 150 adolescent girls in central Kenya will undergo an alternative rite of passage. Instead of heading to a secluded area for their traditional passage into adulthood, they will spend a week living at a local school attending workshops. Community volunteers will teach them about traditional lore, health issues, and important skills, including how to be a good wife and care for children.

These girls’ seclusion will be very different than the usual ritual. While they will learn the critical lessons they need to become women ready to marry, they will avoid being circumcised–a cultural practice still undertaken across much of Kenya and many other countries.

Liz Quirin, editor of The Messenger-the diocesan paper of Belleville, Illinois-recently met with girls who had undergone the alternative seclusion and wrote a powerful story about this CRS-supported project. Watch our own Web site too, as a story from my prior visit will be posted soon.

- Debbie DeVoe, regional information officer for East Africa

Gilbert Namwonja, CRS Kenya’s information officer, shares how the Dioceses of St. Cloud, Minn., and Homa Bay, Kenya, have built a powerful partnership.

After a week living in the Diocese of Homa Bay in western Kenya, the 20 Catholics from the Diocese of St Cloud, Minnesota, not only knew how and when to say “ero kamano,” but they were using it very well and very often.
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This past Friday, CRS President Ken Hackett addressed our staff in Kenya at a town hall meeting. During his talk, Ken acknowledged the agency’s need to tighten its belt due to difficult financial times.
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