Finding happiness (previously known as Billionaire playboy's secret past)

Chapter 19: The Camp

My apologies, this is a very long chapter... thanks for reading

Kakuma refugee camp is located in a remote area Turkana District, north western region of Kenya, approximately 814 km (more than 500 miles) from the Kenyan Capital of Nairobi. The Kakuma camp is like a small city of about 180 000 people, mostly refugees.

There are a lot of sprawling tents and shacks surrounded by barren, dusty desert. What struck me most was not the camp itself, which looked quite established and somewhat organised, but the dilapidated dwellings made from branches, plastic and assorted rubbish on the camps outskirts. On some of the dwellings you could see a faint UNHCR logo. It made me wonder just how long these people have been here, for a tent to be this bad.

The Refugee camp in Kenya was an obvious choice for us as it is the one closest to our home and we know that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has worked with local governments to establish this UNHCR camp. We feel like there is better protection here.

As it came into our sight, we could see a cloud of dust covering the camp. Everything is brown, buildings and tents that seem to go on and on, all the same tint. Even the little scarce bushes looked dead. This does not look like a new place to start afresh, but a new hell.

There are no playful squeals of children or loud laughter around, it's not quiet either, it's just noisy, but not a happy kind of sound. I wonder what it will be like with my child around. I think to myself rubbing my tummy absently, only to have my mother slap my hand away from my stomach.

"Do you want people to start suspecting something?" she hisses at me.

"Sorry, I just forgot." I say tucking my hands in my pockets.

"Well stop parading it to the whole world then." She's not in a good mood

As soon as we arrived, we realised that we were not as special as we had expected. The place is packed, it's overcrowded with people. They didn't look like they had a better life, in fact, the life we left at home seemed more luxurious that what we were seeing, this place is swarming with people. Everywhere we look, there is one or two uniformed men, holding guns, they look to be patrolling and keeping the peace. I didn't expect them inside the camp, shouldn't they be on the outskirts of the camp, guarding us from the bad people that may want to invade us. I do not like men with guns, well except for one but then he left me and has never made another attempt to contact me. Men with guns either kill your body or in my case kill my heart. They are not good either way.

"Where do we go now and lets all go together, we stick together." Says Nora's grandmother in her old and gravelly voice. We all agree with her and we start looking around the place.

To the left I can see the building with the UNHCR writing on it. We headed that way to get some help. From here I can also see the Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) tent. There is a long line of people there that look to be getting treatment from people wearing white jackets with the MFS logo. I can hear children wailing from here. I guess this is one positive, having medical people close to where we are. At this time, I decide that I'll keep looking at the positives only. Since I got here, the negatives have definitely outweighed the positives. Therefore, a makeshift clinic is better than nothing and it seems there are more doctors and nurses than what we had at home. (I wonder if this is where I'll have to come for my prenatal appointments or will I have to go into the Kakuma city and leave the campsite. I hope so because this place doesn't look like it is equipped to look after pregnant women).

We were still in a state of shock when one lady who looked official, came to meet us and escorted us to the main building which they called the reception area, we gave her our identity papers, she then had our names recorded. We are given vaccines as a first priority. I wasn't sure if this was going to affect my baby but I was not willing to divulge the information here, in front of everyone.