KENYA: Traditional ways of life are threatened by east African drought, writes Rob Crilly in El Wak, northern Kenya
Adam Huka followed his animals into Ethiopia hoping for better pasture. He found only the same parched landscape that he had left behind.
He retraced his footsteps southwards to the arid borderlands of Kenya before turning back again north into Somalia.
Again he found only dusty depressions where there had once been waterholes. The pastures had dried alongside them.
When each of his 80 cows and his 50 goats had died, he simply gave up.
Huka walked for two days and two nights to reach the makeshift camp of El Hache, just inside the Kenyan border and a stone's throw from the town of El Wak.
Here at least there is water and maize delivered by the World Food Programme of the United Nations.
"These people will never go back to being pastoralists again. Just look around," he says, gesturing at the simple domed shelters that stretch into the distance.
Thousands of nomads - now known as drop-outs to the settled locals - have arrived in El Hache during the past four months seeking shelter from drought.
The domes are designed for rapid assembly and can be carried easily from pasture to pasture. However, five successive failed rains have forced even the hardy nomads, who criss-cross the region with their herds of camels, goats and cattle, to settle in one place and consider their future.
With Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti all affected, they have run out places to find grazing.
The result is a region on the brink of famine, with some 11.5 million people needing emergency aid to see them through the year.
Now all eyes are on this season's rains which have begun further to the south but have yet to arrive around El Wak.
Doug Keatinge, Oxfam emergency specialist, said the situation continued to deteriorate day by day.
"If the rains do not come, then a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent, which is why a robust and swift response from donors is so vital," he said.
"Even if the rains do come, the few livestock that are still alive are likely to die of exposure, roads will become impassable, making food distribution difficult and the possibility of an outbreak of malaria or cholera becomes a grave risk."
Aid agencies fear that the heaped carcases of cattle, goats and camels at the side of every road harbour an epidemic in waiting.
The crumbling animal bones are the most visible sign that a traditional way of life is suffering a calamity.
But pastoralism remains the best way to eke out a living from the arid lands of East Africa, according to Josie Buxton, who manages Oxfam's emergency response programme in the northern districts of Turkana and Wajir.
She points out that the nomads have sustained themselves for thousands of years and today contribute a large chunk of the 10 per cent of national income generated by livestock production.
"Regenerating the economy once the immediate crisis passes will require the international community to provide cash-for- work schemes and livestock management programmes to help pastoralists recover," she says.
"It will also require stronger commitment from the government of Kenya to improve health, education, economic infrastructure and other basic services for pastoralist communities."
That will come later. For now all efforts are focused on distributing water and food to communities that have lost everything. The nomadic lifestyle though is causing problems for the agencies trying to deliver that aid.
Ibrahim Younis, emergency co-ordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières, the only international aid agency currently operating in El Wak, says the shifting populations do not appear on any map.
"It can be very difficult to reach these people," he says. They are always on the move."
Water tankers deliver to storage containers dug into the ground at strategic points where nomads pass.
Sometimes they unload wherever they find herders, pouring their precious cargo into shallow trenches lined with plastic sheeting.
Too often it is gulped down by thirsty goats or dehydrated cows, says Younis.
The human toll is being counted at the tumbledown collection of buildings that is still known as El Wak hospital.
A dingy ward filled with silent children is home to the town's therapeutic feeding centre.
Here Kairi Abdi (20), holds a raggedy bundle of bones in her arms as she explains how she fed 18-month-old Abdullahi Mohamed on nothing but strong, black tea. On good days, when friends lent a little sugar, it would be sweet, black tea.
By the time Abdullahi was referred to the clinic by Médecins Sans Frontières staff, he was about two-thirds of his ideal weight.
These are tough people with no time for emotion, but Abdi is forced to dab repeatedly at her eyes with her headscarf as she explains how her cattle died, leaving her family with no food.
"I can't feed anything because I have nothing to give," she says, as if pleading forgiveness. "If I don't have anything then I must just give anything that I can."