Back to Turkana
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Jack Leonard taught in the Turkana desert in 1971 and 1972. He returned for the first time in May 2009 to find that many changes had taken place in the interim.
We reproduce his diary for the week.
Back to Turkana
THURSDAY
"Welcome to hell on Earth," said Sister Kathleen who met myself and my son Piers at Lodwar airstrip. The heat, the sand, the dust in the air, are shocking even though expected.
We are given a lift to Bethany Guest House, in my time Monsignor Mahon’s own house and diocesan headquarters, now run by the kindly Australian Sister Yvonne Channells as guest rooms and a conference room for meetings to co-ordinate development work.
There are now ten orders of priests and fifteen orders of sisters working in Turkana, originating from India, Europe and South America. In the early 1970s there had only been Kiltegan priests and Medical Missionaries of Mary sisters with all except one, Sister Sean Underwood (now Sister Nina), coming from Ireland or Britain.
I walk up the hill to my old house and Lodwar Secondary School. I hear that three former pupils are now professors in American and German universities, another is a high-ranking diplomat, yet another a cabinet minister.
FRIDAY
Piers and I walk into town. On each side of the road what had been sand and rock is now occupied by a boys’ technical school, a girls’ school, community craft projects, a large garage. Everywhere high fences separate properties. Empty plastic water bottles litter the ground where once there had been no rubbish because everything was either recycled or burned.
In 1971, Lodwar was a one street village. Now there is a large town with many shops, banks with ATM machines, hotels, food stalls and a bus station. Where there had been mainly Turkana people in traditional dress, or undress, there is now an indistinguishable crowd in modern clothes.
The twice-weekly visit of a lorry from the Highlands carrying food and post has been replaced by a constant stream of traffic. Where there had been perhaps ten Government and mission owned Land Rovers, there are now 130 licensed taxis and unlicensed motor bike taxis. We drink a soda in a store under a notice saying ‘No Idle Sitting’.
SATURDAY
We are invited to spend the weekend at Nakwamoru by Sister Molly, an Indian nun who runs the Health Centre there. The village is about eighty miles south-west of Lodwar in a corner of Turkana where grazing is disputed between the Turkana and Pokot tribes. The journey takes about five hours, bumping along tracks and across dried up rivers. About half-way we pick up an armed escort because there has been a cattle raid overnight and a report that the raiders are making their way back through the lands we are about to cross. The sandy wastes around Lodwar are gradually transformed into thick bush not grazed because it is a "no-man's land" between the disputing tribes. The further we go from Lodwar, the more traditional the dress and the grass houses.
SUNDAY
I meet Fr Des Millar, now parish priest at Nakwamoru. I worked with Des in Lodwar in 1971. He had been a priest in Turkana before I arrived and in all the years since. Priests like Des live basic lifestyles, often remote from friends and colleagues. Unlike me, he is still youthful-looking and slim in his mid-sixties so it can’t be all bad.
At night, walking outside, I see the lights of a telephone mast on the hills in Uganda and call my wife in North Yorkshire and my parents in Newry on my mobile. In the early 1970s communication with home by airmail took about three weeks for the round trip.
MONDAY
Back in Lodwar, we are invited to the ‘open house’ dinner party given every Monday by an American brother. He cooks spaghetti with a delicious tomato sauce, his Nigerian brothers hand round the beers, people drop in for food and conversation. In my time even the volunteers had a cook/housekeeper (I paid about a fifth of my allowance for mine), Africans and Europeans lived separately and parties were rare.
As we leave, Lodwar’s first rain in fourteen months pours down in torrents.
TUESDAY
At the invitation of Tim Flynn, a volunteer from Tipperary who has worked in Lodwar for ten years, Piers and I are due to go to Eliye Springs, an oasis on the shore of Lake Turkana. However, the road north from Lodwar is flooded where a causeway crosses the river, and is too dangerous for even a four-wheel drive, and our journey is postponed.
I received a visit that evening from Fr John O’Callaghan. Like Des Millar, John had been a priest in Turkana before I arrived and is still there nearly forty years later. He had spent many years developing the irrigation scheme at Nakwamoru before handing it over to local control. He is a typical Kiltegan, tough and practical and good fun to be with.
WEDNESDAY
We get to Eliye Springs. Lake Turkana has shrunk in recent years because of the droughts in East Africa. The lakeshore is now about 100 yards away from the old thatched huts. There is a hotel run by Turkana people who have built a luxurious version of a traditional Turkana hut for visitors to stay in at $100 a night.
Piers and I swim in the lake. The water is clean but green and opaque because of the effect of the sun on its waters which have no outlet. We have been told that there are no crocodiles at Eliye Springs now but we stay close to shore just in case.
Back in Lodwar that evening, we go to see the grave of Bishop Mahon outside the Cathedral. I have huge admiration for John Mahon. The first time that I saw him he was building a wall of blocks, had cement dust on his clothes and deeply tanned skin. I later got to know that as well as being a builder he was a deeply spiritual man, a doctor of Canon Law, had a wicked sense of humour and was a kind boss and host who would treat us to a beer and a cigarette as we sat outside in the light of an oil lamp after dinner.
I last saw him in Dublin when he was recovering from an operation and was desperate to get back to Turkana. As was said of another great builder, ‘If you want to see his monument, look around you’.
Later that evening I am interviewed for Turkana Catholic Radio by one Turkana woman while another operates the sound desk. It would have been beyond my wildest imagination in 1972 that Turkana would have a radio station staffed by Turkana women reporters and technicians. I am asked what has been the biggest change I have seen. Foolishly, instead of commenting on the remarkable positive developments, I say that I was shocked by the amount of litter and rubbish lying around. After the interview I apologise for this but am told that the radio station is campaigning for Lodwar to be cleaned up and they welcome my support.
THURSDAY
We fly out. "I am quite impressed that you spent two years here," said Piers. That was good to hear from my son but, for me, far more impressive is the witness of those priests, sisters and volunteers who have spent many more years than I did living and working in Turkana and who have built schools, hospitals, agricultural developments and a thriving Christian community.
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