My journey to Lodwar, in Kenya's far north, began before dawn. One of those mornings when the city is still asleep and your thoughts are louder than the engine of the car taking you to the airport. 🌅
At 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, I left home for Wilson Airport, headed first to Eldoret, 313 kilometers from Nairobi. Direct flights to Lodwar were fully booked. Thousands of people were making the same pilgrimage north, drawn by a place I knew only in fragments: headlines about drought, images of dust and hunger, and secondhand stories of hardship. ✈️
In my mind, Turkana existed as a caricature; remote, harsh, forgotten. A place reduced, unfairly, to a single story.
But when I finally touched down in Lodwar, something shifted. The dusty runway gave way to a festival of color, music, and laughter. The air was alive with drumbeats and the chatter of friends and families reuniting for Tobong'u Lore, a celebration of community and culture. ✨
Walking among the crowds, I felt a warmth that surprised me. Strangers greeted me with smiles and shared water in the heat. Children danced in traditional attire, and elders told stories under the open sky, weaving the past and present into each word.
At that moment, Turkana was not the harsh desert of my imagination but a place of resilience, joy, and belonging. I realized that every place has many stories—only by stepping off the beaten path can we discover them. 😊
Reference(s):
A long road home: Finding belonging during Tobong'u Lore in Turkana
cgtn.com
