Reaching the El Molo on the remote northeastern shores of Lake Turkana is no mean feat. It’s like travelling to another planet. By road, it takes several days from Nairobi to cover the 500-kilometre through an inhospitable desert.
I wonder if anyone would ever attempt it on foot as did the Hungarian Count Samuel Teleki von Szek and Lieutenant Ludwig von Hoehnel who undertook a 13-month journey between 1887 and 1888 to “discover” the last of the big geographical mysteries of East Africa – the “great black lake,” or the “Empasso Narok” that the intrepid Joseph Thomson had heard about at Lake Baringo from the Samburu visiting from Mount Kulal in 1883.
The Hungarian nobleman- cum-adventurist was also among the first Europeans to tell the outside world of the El Molo community. On reaching the shores of the world’s largest permanent desert lake as well as the world’s largest alkaline lake, he wrote “…no living creature shared the gloomy solitude with us….there was nothing to be seen but desert – desert everywhere. To all this was added the scorching heat, and the ceaseless buffeting of the sand-laden wind….”
Count Teleki estimated that there were 200 to 300 El Molo living on the barren windswept islands off El Molo Bay. The El Molo at first thought the strangers were women because they wore clothes.
Near Allia Bay, the Count’s party met another group of El Molo, between 150 and 200 living on two sandbanks rising above the level of the lake. These settlements have since disappeared without trace.
Teleki describes the El Molo as having a kind of amphibious existence, scarcely differing from that of the crocodiles, which they killed and consumed…their sole possessions being one or two cows, a dozen sheep and couple of dogs.
The men, he reported were circumcised in the Mohamedan manner and all the men carried a two-legged stool to sit on which also serves them as a pillow at night.
Present Times
Little seems to have changed for the El Molo in a span of a century. The Maa-speaking hunter-gatherers were at one time said to be the smallest tribe in Africa but over the past 50 years, they have intermarried with the Samburu, Turkana and Rendille and their numbers increased.
However the last old people to speak the El Molo language passed away in the 1970s and the language is no longer spoken by the people, who now speak Samburu and can only mime the songs of their ancestors. However it is termed dead language for though it may have no speakers, it is in use for certain customs., just like Hebrew and Sanskrit, two of the world’s oldest languages.
There is also an attempt to revive the two languages – though whether they will ever become commonly spoken native languages by the communities is a matter if debate. On the other hand, an extinct language is one that is replaced by another one such as many native American languages were replaced by English and other European languages.
The El Molo men still carry the rudimentary two-legged stool as most of the desert men do; their population is still one of the smallest in the world – about 1,000 individuals – the population increase is due to intermarriage; they still hunt for fish and crocodiles and own little livestock. As their ancestors did, the men sail on tightly-bound doum palm rafts.
They still, as Count Teleki observed, suffer from a high fluoride intake which causes discolouring of teeth and the protein rich diet deforms their bones.
Visiting the community a few weeks ago, on the barren-dust wind-swept village of the El Molo called Layeni, about 10 kilometers north of Loyiangalani, doum-palm thatched huts form a cluster on the black volcanic rubble on the edge of the lake shore.
Across is the sacred island of Lorian with its four shrines representing the four clans of the El Molo.
In the afternoon heat, the few men, mostly the old and the school-going teenage boys remain in the village with the women. The rest are out with the livestock looking for pasture or fishing in the lake.
A group of reed-thin aged men with wrinkled faces while away their time playing the ancient board game under the shade of the rondaval while others nap with the two-legged stool placed firmly under the neck for support.
Guya Lowa is a respected elder for he knows where all the Nile perch spots in the lake are.
He jokingly says that El Molo is the Maa term for “people who cannot walk” because legend has it that after they reached the lake from the long trek across the desert they could walk no further. His wrinkled face and sparse frame tells of a hard existence at the mercy of the lake and the sun.
Lowa is a worried man because of the dwindling fish stock in the lake. Immigrants communities from other parts of the Kenya have been fishing here using dragnets with a small mesh size, catching even the immature fry. To add to the woes, they have very little say in dictating the price of their fish and with no cold-storage facilities, they cannot store the fish for long periods.
The men have heard about the projects being talked about – the wind turbines near Loyiangalani to add electricity to the national grip and the stalled dam on the Omo river which feeds the lake. But it makes little difference to them because they are not involved.
He and the people of his generation watched helplessly as their language disappeared in their life-time. One of the reasons attributed to this is the little support by the government to improve their lot.
On other hand, life is changing slowly for the community.
There’s a generation of school-going children for whom life in the remote, desolate village will not be enough.
Teenagers like Job Muchu and Saitoti Lemotu want to train as doctors and help their community to progress.
But if all fails, fishing like their ancestors will be the last resort.
Food, pasture and water have always been the community’s worry.
The relief food from the government is inadequate.
Food, pasture and water have always been the community’s worry.
The relief food from the government is inadequate. Despite all-odds, the El Molo still survive. But for how long is the question?
