Kenya: And boy did it rain hard!

Save the Children teams were smack in the middle of programme delivery in the hot scorching sun (to which we have grown accustomed), when the skies opened, as we say here in Kenya, and rain fell in Wajir.

It was quite exciting, I must say, to experience and see what we thought was a mere notion after a good three years of drought.

And boy did it rain hard! No, seriously. It was unrelenting. And a week down the line, it was clear that we had to shift gears in our operations.

Streams

Amid the happy pastoralists, the joyous children playing in puddles and the not-so-pleased teachers whose students didn’t show up for class, were the aid workers.

We now had to cope with roads being traversed with ‘lagas’- streams with varied depth and breadth-which were blocking access to the children and families we work with.

On one day there were actually six cars stuck in the deep, sandy, flooded roads. Rescue cars were sent out to help, some having to rescue each other!

It is not just the aid workers that are having to put in extra effort. The communities on the outskirts of the towns are pooling their funds to cover their manyattas with roofing tents and plastic sheeting to keep their families warm at night and the cold and rain at bay.

All in all, humanitarian work must go on. We are having to put in a lot more effort to respond to the new needs that are emerging from the rains as well as the ongoing needs of the food crisis.

This post was written by Sylvia Mukenya, Emergency Officer for Habaswein, Kenya.