ERODO STORY

Blood and land story in Turkana

 In 2002, life was still very precarious. Esther had now established herself as a maize farmer -the crucial decision which allowed Erodo to continue his schooling - but Christopher was determined to keep on herding. “Pastoralism will survive,” he said. “We’ve followed this way of life for centuries. The problems we are facing are not new. Our forefathers had them, and they managed alright.

Erodo was born into the Turkana tribe, cattle rearing nomads who have roamed the range lands of Northern Kenya, for at least four centuries. It’s a way of life that has little connection with settled society and its social values.

  Erodo was born into the Turkana tribe, cattle rearing nomads who have roamed the range lands of Northern Kenya, for at least four centuries. It’s a way of life that has little connection with settled society and its social values.                          

 Instead of having more children, Esther wanted to focus on the wellbeing of the ones she already had, but this had brought her into confrontation with her husband, Christopher.

  Erodo's life has been one of serious hardship, lived in the shadow of violence. When he was still a baby, the community came under attack by armed cattle raiders – or shiftas. It was not the first and certainly not the last of many times they would be in mortal danger.

 By the time Erodo was three, Esther had given birth to 11 babies. Among the Turkana, the role expected of a wife is to do as she is told by her husband and to produce as many babies as possible.
  

Esther decided to leave Christopher to build a hut within an hour’s walk of a school. The child born into nomadic tribal society was now a schoolboy.





 

Filmmaker Bruno Sorrentino has been filming Erodo and his parents for 20 years, ever since he was born in 1992. Their precarious nomadic life and sheer endurance have been played out against a background of lawlessness, ethnic violence, and political corruption across Kenya.