Being the third born is what saved Fredah Akileng from a child marriage.  As per her tribal tradition, both her elder sisters were sold into a child marriage and she was next in line when she was taken under the wing of IHF.  There is enough to be said about the detrimental effects child marriages have on girls and Fredah feels strongly about the welfare of women in her community. Women have no rights and sometimes no chance of an education. They are expected to marry at a young age, sometimes to men two or three times their age.

Fridah tells of her childhood in East Pokot, Baringo County, Kenya with both wisdom and sadness in her voice.  Her father was killed during a conflict between tribes and sub tribes.  It’s normal, she explains, war and rage between her people, and tribes fighting for the last remnants of water holes before dry in vast desert with no end. Tribes fight for survival and for goats still alive during dry season etc. Though war  is not the only cause of death among men, lack of water and starvation kills as much as war and all go hand in hand. Fredah tells her story without emotion. This is life, this is simply matter of fact and normal for all she has known growing up. Most people reading this article will find it hard to understand let alone imagine the picture that is being painted here.  

Her single mother raised eight children with very little. Without enough children to hunt and gather the tribe will not survive. They love their children as dearly as you or I, that is dear and near to Fredah heart and knowledge. But these parents depend on the children’s labor to keep their tribe in existence despite the numerous deaths. They live in famine in desert conditions that has an amazing beauty of its own, is a part of their being, but it is a harsh desert they are driven further and further into… where they can’t grow crops. This desert seems empty to any westerner yet is alive and throbbing for all her clan, this poverty driven and drought-stricken terrain Fredah calls home. Her mother sold charcoal for a living. The charcoal comes from burning cacti-like-scrub-trees that her people use for cooking. Unfortunately, this means of survival didn’t suffice for long and her mother resorted to selling alcohol.  She didn’t have much choice she says; this is what brought in food so we wouldn’t starve.  Alcohol made from empty corn husks, when one can’t afford the corn, is common. Alcohol numbs the organs pain when hungry and is a common problem wherever one finds starvation in deserts unable to grow crops. Alcoholism is far cheaper than food and a growing problem in ancient vanishing tribes worldwide.