Maasai-father seeks new pastures in the slums of Nairobi

The drought has forced Lonineo Sabaya (33) to give up life as a pastoralist on the plains of Northern Kenya. In order to earn money, he has been forced to take up a job as a guard and coal salesman, far from his family and life as he knows it. He does not believe there is a future for pastoralists in Kenya. When he told me his story, I understood why.

It took Lonineo Sabaya 11 days to walk from his drought plagued home in Northern Kenya to the Kibera-slums in the capital Nairobi. Neither water nor grass is left in his home region. His wife and two-year-old son are still there and they starve while waiting for him to send money. Lonineo is not the complaining type. He told his story with excitement.

 I arrived in the slums after having walked for 11 days from our home in Pokot. My cattle were dying and we had no money. It was a simple decision to leave, even though I will miss my son

Carcasses had replaced grass 

When his cattle herd had shrunk to three, Lonineo Sabaya gave up his traditional life as a pastoralist. It was easy for him to explain me why he will never be a true cattle herder again, as he had realized it on a trip from Pokot to Turkana in Northern Kenya.

“Instead of grass, carcasses of cattle, goats and camels met me. I had gone there to fatten up my six remaining pieces of cattle, but I returned with just three starving cows,” he said.

He left the cattle in his brothers care, said goodbye to his wife and son and headed south to try his luck in the Nairobi slums.

“Finding my way to Nairobi was quite easy. I met many other Maasai´s along the way, who shared their food with me. I spent one of the nights in a hotel room. The other nights I mainly slept in temporary Maasai camps or out in the open,” Lonineo Sabaya said about his long walk of 400 kilometers.

Now he is far away from his family that survives on emergency aid back in Pokot.

“I am here, because I want to support my family and I could not do that back home,” He says sadly.

It is evident, that the traditional nomadic lifestyle of one million Maasai´s and two million others from nomadic tribes is threatened in Kenya. Farmers fence the fertile land and build green houses where they can find water. During the droughts, pastoralists have nowhere to take their cattle anymore.

In North Eastern Kenya, the droughts have changed everything. The area used to have two rainy seasons a year. It has rained once in almost three years that I have been in Kenya. Climate Change is so evident that everybody, even in the smallest village, talk about the longer and more frequent dry spells as facts. They do not necessarily blame CO2 emissions or industrialization. It has become dryer and dryer for 25 years, but the elders still believe that the steady rainy seasons will return and that their grandsons will get enormous herds of livestock, just as they had themselves. Its men like Lonineo Sabaya that notes with certainty, that the traditional life belongs to the past. 

Five roomates to one room

Lonineo Sabaya was quick to find work when he arrived in Nairobi. He settled with a pay of 3,000 KSH (22 euro) a month as a night guard.

I share a room with five other Maasai´s, where we take turns to sleep. Two of them are like me and have just arrived in Nairobi

Despite this, the indomitable man is putting his bets on earning enough money to buy into three of his friends business of selling coal along the alleys in the Kibera-slum.

“Coal is big business in the slum, where people have neither electricity nor gas. I can probably earn around 10.000 shillings a month (75 Euro), if I start up a good business. Unfortunately, I speak neither Swahili nor English, so it will be very difficult in the beginning” Lonineo Sabaya, who has never attended formal school, explained.

I have meet Lonineo a couple of times. After a month in the slum, he had given up his traditional Maasai outfit. Jeans and a t-shirt are apparently cheaper and smarter in Nairobi. He had started to use Swahili expressions and his determined Maasai way of walking had disappeared. The family was still out of sight.

ActionAid works in Pokot, where Lonineo’s family still lives. His family is probably surviving on relief aid that we are distributing. I hope his wife is one of the women my colleagues are training in farming. When I visit the farm projects, I meet many women who have been left behind by their husbands. If the men are still herding cattle, they normally return from their long walks. If not, many men chose to start a new life. I have no doubt that Lonineo wants to reunite with his family. I however do not know if it will happen.

Join our HungerFREE campaign!