How bad roads and bandits deny hapless Turkana residents a decent plate of ugali

A section of Turkana main road to Lodwar. (Photo: Boniface Okendo/Standard)

Driving from Trans Nzoia to Turkana is like moving from cool paradise to burning hell. The tall green canopy of trees give way to stunted thorny shrubs, miraculously sprouting from sandy soils. Thousands of acres of maize plantations thin away into the horizon. It also gets hotter as you move on, with scenes of people walking by the roadside or vendors mobbing motorists with all kinds of wares. Soon, this is replaced by unattended sacks of charcoal.

The road gets bumpy as the potholes grow bigger. Our first stop is Marich, in Kapenguria. We bump into a police-check and an officer – a woman - comes over, greets us and asks: “Are you the guys that come with water?” This signals that we have reached an area where water is scarce.