jake lyell photography (blog)

Kotido’s weekly cattle market is deep in the land of the Karamojong tribe. It’s a great place for those seeking discount prices on livestock. However, sometimes the great bargains come at the expense of neighboring tribes.

It’s hard to believe it had been five years since I’d been to Ethiopia, not counting the many hours of down time spent making a connection in Addis Ababa’s airport. Recently I arrived a couple days early for a ChildFund assignment in this Horn of Africa country so that I might explore an ancient city in Ethiopia’s exotic East.

Harar’s meandering old town is other-worldly, a step back in time along the caravan routes of the middle ages. Indeed, if it weren’t for Coca Cola’s stubborn presence inside the city walls it may sometimes be difficult to decipher which decade, or even century, you were losing your way in.

Most Ethiopians don’t mind having their photograph taken. It was my original intention to shoot only portraits for these two days I’d set aside. However, I was quickly enveloped in the atmosphere of the town and the eye candy was too much for me.

The green leafy substance seen here is known as khat, a highly addictive stimulant originating from Ethiopia. It appears to be both the boon and bane of Harar. Many farmers spend their entire lives cultivating it. Many women earn their living selling it on the streets. Many people, mostly men, spend far too much time idly chewing it in a hypnotic daze.

The World Health Organization classified khat as a drug of abuse in 1980. Though its use is illegal in many nations, Ethiopia is not one of them, and the country brings in a great deal of revenue every year in exporting the plant to places like Somalia, Kenya, and Djibouti.

Khat does not come cheap. A lesser-quality bag begins at 100 Ethiopian Birr, or about $6, which is about three times as much as the average Ethiopian earns in a day. Consequently Harar’s alleyways are lined with addicts who are broke and sleeping on the street, sometimes begging in hopes of scrounging up money for the next fix. Khat, along with coffee, are Harar’s two main cash crops.

I spent much time indulging in the latter.

For the nerds out there, on each of these photographs I confined myself to either a Canon 16-35mm 2.8L zoom or a 50mm 1.2L prime lens, more so for the sake of continuity than portability.

Amuria Health Centre has been packed beyond capacity in recent weeks, with more people occupying the floors than hospital beds. As the rains continue to fall, more and more people here contract malaria. During the rainy season, when streams rise and lowland areas become flooded, mosquitoes breed in greater numbers.

This health centre’s resources (Amuria has no official hospital) are stretched thin even outside the rainy season. The entire district of over 300,000 shares just one doctor for all its public health centres. He travels around from village to village and is rarely in one place for more than a day. When medicine and supplies are available, the cost is picked up by the government. When they run out, which is all too often, the only option for patients is to pay cash for drips, drugs, and needles from the local pharmacy and bring them to the hospital. “Most of the time the drugs are out of stock because the patients are many and the drugs are few,” says nurse Damali Akello.

Amuria town’s health centre is the largest in the district of the same name. Patients from all over the district are sent to this, the largest town in the district, in order to treat ailments of any kind requiring more advanced treatment. “Severe malaria they refer here,” says nurse Akello.

“Usually six months out of the year I have it pretty consistently. I am always attacked when the rains come,” says Grace Auma, while connected to a drip of sodium chloride mixed with quinine. Pictured above, she’s spent the last two nights on the concrete floor of the centre, her pillow a plastic bag stuffed with a change of clothes brought from home.

Children and pregnant mothers, those whose immune systems are weak, are most susceptible to malaria. According to the World Health Organization, 2,800 children die every day in Africa as a result of the disease. Here in Amuria, nurse Agnes Alungat sees the most deaths when malaria is present alongside other health problems. “We only lost one child the day before because of malaria complicated with anemia.”

Earlier this year, Bill Gates announced that his foundation was in the last trial phase of a malaria vaccine that could change the future of Africa and other continents affected by the disease. It is hoped that within five to ten years a fully effective vaccine will be on the market and available to all. In the mean time, seeking treatment and doing so early is the key. I know this from personal experience, and it seems that all here in the centre tonight know this as well. Thankfully for now it it looks as though everyone here is going to pull through.

I’ve made remote Amuria District my base this year. However, I may not be able to go back for some time as all the roadways into the main town have been rendered impassable by floods. A month ago we were wondering if the rain was ever going to start. Now it has come full-force, isolating villages, bringing down huts, and flooding farmers’ fields. For the moment, more work from PSI has kept me in Kampala. Below, a motion picture of the dreary view from my concrete house in Amuria town.

Nature is never kind in this part of Uganda. Far from the dependable, fertile, rolling hills and mountains of the west, the eastern land of the Teso tribe almost counts on nature’s capriciousness, alternating between flood and famine. “Every year it changes,” says Samuel Opio, a resident of Kapelebyong, a sub-county of Amuria District. “Some years there’s too much sunshine, some years too much rain. This year the rain started in March, and it has already resulted in floods.”

Last year only a few showers fell from the sky causing widespread hunger and skyrocketing food prices. Conversely, 2006-2007 saw some of the worst flooding in memory in northeast Uganda. The devastating waters affected 17 districts and resulted in a 60% crop loss in the northeast, a delayed second planting season, the uprooting and relocation of entire villages, and the outbreak of waterborne diseases like cholera.

There’s isn’t one stretch of tarmac in Amuria District. All the roads are as you see them below. The sandy red mud turns into an all out slip n’ slide at the slightest downpour. While being based out of such a remote area of East Africa has had it’s rewards, it’s also quite challenging.

The village of Asuksuk in Amuria District’s Kapelebyong sub-county has been particularly hard-hit by flooding this year. Mr. Philipo Odella (pictured below) has lost nearly his entire harvest of cassava, peanuts, corn, millet and sorghum. Walking through his cassava fields things look pretty green, but you can smell the roots starting to rot below. “Even if I pull them (the cassava root) up now, there’s not even any sunshine to dry them out.”

“Why not grow rice?,” I counter, but the irregularity of rainfall from week to week makes it too risky a prospect.

“We have appealed to the sub-county headquarters and we are hoping for word that we’ll receive tents and food” says John Robert Ogwang, a Kapelebyong LC (local council leader) and resident of Asuksuk village. While the loss of home and harvest now is nowhere near as widespread as it was three years ago, this is of little comfort to those in Kapelebyong, where most endure the heavy rains in delicate grass huts.

Lake Babati is one of dozens of water bodies known as the Rift Valley Lakes that span the eastern side of the African Continent from Mozambique to the Red Sea. The lake is the lifeblood of the town of Babati in Central Tanzania. Here people draw their cooking, cleaning, and even drinking water. Cattle feast along the densely vegetated shorelines beside women from nearby villages washing clothes. The lake is also home to abundant wildlife including fish, prawns, eels, hippos and many species of water bird.

Like the diverse wildlife found in the lake, Babati is a melting pot for Tanzania’s various tribes. On a given day one may find members of the Masai, Barabaig, Iraqw, Irangi and Man’gati tribes laboring along the shores of the lake or harvesting its fruits from within. However, the tranquil balance between man and nature has shifted as overuse of the lake’s resources have begun to affect natural habitats. Overfishing, excessive water drawing, and the destruction of wetlands for firewood and cattle grazing areas are resulting in dwindling numbers of the lake’s inhabitants as well as receding of its waters.

Beginning a week ago, I’ve left my “desk” for a road trip across East Africa to shoot for myself for a little while. I began where I live in the Kilimanjaro Region and have headed South-West, into Central Tanzania. I don’t have too much of a plan but hope to end up somewhere in Uganda. Highlights from the first few days, in Kondoa District, are below.

My bus broke down toward the end of the journey to Kondoa, prompting me to walk for two hours to the next town.








Various stages of dinner:

The Spirit was unbridled on Sunday down at the Huduma ya Ephata, where I sometimes attend services. I prefer a quieter, more contemplative service and it’s not usually quite this charismatic. However, when the Spirit descends you’ve got to, sometimes literally, roll with it.