My Trip to Dadaab

During the months leading up to our move back to Kenya, Dadaab was frequently in the news. Lately, it has fallen from the front pages, slipping from the attention of western media who are more concerned with Hollywood, which star was seen with whom, who was arrested, and what he or she was wearing.
Dadaab. Yawn. Why should we care?
Dadaab plays desert host to five camps, home for nearly 500,000 Somali refugees.
They arrive, one thousand in number EACH DAY. Malnourished and driven from their homeland by violence and famine. And Dadaab becomes their refuge.
But as I sat and experienced Dadaab last week, I wondered at how such a desolate, hot place could be considered a refuge.
It's all a matter of perspective, huh? At least in Dadaab, the refugees aren't dodging bullets from Al Shabaab. At least they are given a small ration of oil, sugar and grain.
I arrived with a small team eager and willing to do surgery in a primitive camp hospital. There, I found a hardworking staff accustomed to doing without. There was a gunfight on the Somali border. They brought some of the wounded to us. One boy (was he Al Shabaab?) was carried in suffering from a gunshot wound to the neck. He had obvious spinal cord injury. I wanted an x-ray, but none was available in the camp hospital. We could move him (risky) to a local district hospital, but they don't do x-rays on the weekend. OK, so I felt I was being asked to fight Mike Tyson with one arm.
The UN council for refugees have been trying to resettle the Somalis, but I was told they only moved 800 refugees out last year. When you compare that to the thousand that arrive everyday, you understand the math of overcrowding.
I spoke to a Kenyan working for the Kenyan CDC. He spoke in solemn terms: "We've logged over a thousand cases of measles in the camps since July." Wow. I guess vaccinating our children against these horrible diseases is a good idea.
In the midst of the camps, the UN staff stay in a compound surrounded by a triple razor wire fence. In the evenings, they gather at outdoor tables and drink cold Tusker beer and in general seem to try to forget the suffering around them. I cannot pretend to understand what motivates them. Guilt? Perhaps they get a charge out of life in a dangerous setting? Perhaps they are working at understanding their own plight? Maybe they enjoy patting themselves on the back for a good deed done to the poor.
What about me?
My motives are impure. Sure, I desire to see Christ treasured by all people. I desire to be light in a very dark place. I want to love the refugees or at least be a channel of Christ's love to a people without much hope. For me, this isn't have-to work. It's get-to, a matter of grace. But, somewhere within my motivation to serve Christ by serving the poor, I too, enjoy the admiration of others, the excitement of working in a place where armed escorts are the norm and the odds are stacked against you. But, in my honesty, I come back to Christ and offer my work as a gift of gratitude. My gift is far from perfect and my motives will never be pure, but I'm encouraged that God never requires me to perfect my motives before offering what I've got in my hand.
It was a long trip, nearly 12 hours of bus-travel, culminating in getting stuck in the sand just outside our UN compound in Dadaab.
Yes, Dadaab is a hard, dry, hot place, where time crawls with sweaty determination. For a half-million refugees, it's home with no other destination in sight (some have lived there for twenty-plus years!). At the end of a few days, I got back on a bus and headed for greener pastures, a luxury not afforded those whose life is defined by a number assigned by the UNHCR.
The contrast of seeing Dadaab is good for me. I think I'll whine less. Praise more.
And soon, I'll return to serve Jesus there again. Because I'm pretty sure He lives there too.

Harry