As The Climate Changes, Kenyan Herders Find Centuries-Old Way Of Life In Danger
Out here, in West Pokot County, Kenya, the landscape looks like Mars — red clay, rocks, and in the distance, a mountain so bare, it looks like a giant boulder.
Stephen Long'uriareng, 80, has walked two hours to bring her two cows and goats to this watering hole. It's really just a dam carved out the earth, where the rain water mixes with mud and turns into a dark brown color.
This is not the place Long'uriareng remembers from her youth.
"This whole place used to be green with a lot of pasture. There was nothing being experienced like drought," she said.
In fact, nomadic herders. Only about 3 percent have electricity and more than half the population is not formally educated. That means that to a lot of people here, herding is the only way they know how to survive. But recently, as the climate has changed, the grass here has died and a way of life that has existed for centuries is in danger.
