A Day in the Life

It’s seven o’clock and Tierkidi refugee-camp is buzzling of early morning activity. It’s food distribution day, and Nyaboth (16) is patiently waiting for the queue in front of her to get smaller.

No one knows the exact number of refugees in the Gambell-region. But we are at least looking at 250.000. More than a quarter of a million people who are dependent on the food that World Food Program is distributing.

The line is moving slow, but Nyaboth isn’t in a hurry as long as she gets what she came for. Four hours later, she has collected all the items her family is entitled to this month. The previous four hours were more boring than exhausting. Now the tough part comes. The 16-year old has to get 150 kilos of flour, maize, oil, lentils and soap back to her tent a couple of kilometres away.

−I have to sell some of the flour to pay for a wheelbarrow to get everything safely back to my tent, she explains and wanders off to a local retailer. Two kilos for 20 birr ($1), the price will be almost double when the flour is sold again, but the guy who buys rations from the refugees knows he can squeeze them hard as he is their only source of cash.

Nyaboth gets a hand from her sister in law to carry the food over to the boys with the wheelbarrow. It is noon when she finally can unload outside tent #B-B6-H19, where she lives with her mother, an elder brother and a younger sister. Her brother, Nhial (18) asks her what took her so long. He is starving. Nyaboth smiles patiently and lights the fire to start cooking porridge. When everyone has eaten, she cleans the pan, the spoons and the plates before she gets up again. It’s time to fetch some more firewood. We follow her to the bush and watch her as she collects enough twigs and branches to cook her family dinner this evening.

We expect her to sit down for a second when she drops the firewood in front of the tent, but instead she picks up the yellow jerry can and wanders of. An hour later, she returns with the jerry can full of water. Happy that there are no duties before she has to start cooking dinner, in half an hour or so.

−How come you do all the hard work with no help from your brother?

−Everything I have done today has been women’s work.

−So what is men’s work?

Nyaboth smiles before she answers.

−Sitting. Back home they looked after the cattle, but here there are no animals, leaving the men with no other duties than sitting and talking.

Text: Øystein Mikalsen
Photo: Otto von Münchow