Trip into West Pokot

Joe and Nancy are friends who live on our compound. Their ministry is teaching Bible classes to preachers. They have lived in Kenya for six years and travelled

many places teaching their classes. The past several years they have concentrated on the West Pokot area. They've been wanting to take us into West Pokot for quite some time to show us the area but it hadn't worked out until last week. We had a wonderful time seeing a new part of Kenya and appreciated seeing where some of our students come from.

First a little about the Pokot. The Pokot are originally a nomadic tribe raising cattle and goats. They measure their wealth by the amount of animals they own. They don't slaughter their own animals for meat as they are more valuable alive. They only use them for their milk to drink and make butter and cheese and to pay bride price (dowry).

Today there are two groups of Pokot: the hill Pokot who are both pastoralists and grow crops, mostly corn and sorghum, and the plains Pokot who are strictly nomadic. They live in a remote area that's only about an hour from here. There are few roads in West Pokot, so they are still isolated. Due to this, many still live in the same way they have for hundreds of years. The vast majority of homes don't have access to electricity. Today the raise goats, cattle, camels and donkeys. The area is considered a semiarid area as you can see from this photo.

We spent the day driving to see the area in their four-wheel drive vehicle. We needed that four wheel drive several times as in places the road resembled an animal path.

Some of the interesting sights we saw included:
* some people wearing traditional dress
* herders (typically young boys)always carried a bow and arrows
* older men carried their walking staff and a small stool that is used to either sit on or rest their heads on while reclining
* women carrying firewood on their head (that's not unusual even in Kitale)
* a heard of about 50 camels being driven to a different location
* beautiful scenery
* driving across several dry river beds

Probably the most exciting part was when we got stuck. Joe is an excellent driver. We came upon a low section of the road that had standing water and mud. There was a tractor pulling a wagon loaded with huge rocks that was stuck to one side. We watched for about 10 minutes while Joe was deciding whether to turn around or try to go through the mud. Another four-wheel vehicle came from the opposite direction. He came on through just fine so Joe decided to try it. We weren't so lucky and got stuck. There is a wench on the front of Joe's vehicle.

So he crawled out of the car, climbed over the hood and got down in front of the vehicle. The cable was about 50 feet long. There was a stump that it was able to reach. Of course during all this time we had quite an audience watching us! Several of the men were helping. After about 30 minutes the wench was able to pull us free of the mud and we continued on our way.

We continue to be amazed that a country as small as Kenya has such a wide diversity of geographical features and is so beautiful. It is a privilege to be living and serving here.

To see more photos from our trip click here.