PhD thesis Title Page Final _Richard Juma - Victoria University ...

with my 3 rd wife. Obviously, it was going to be extremely strange that two
goats belonging to one person should be kept singly at separate
homesteads. Further questions were asked to elicit the actual figures. The
man had 8 sheep and goats with the second wife and 15 sheep and goats
with the third wife. From the first experience, I learnt that the Turkana
nomads do not normally count their animals. They believe it is a taboo to
do so, and may spell disaster. So, whenever they count, they would rather
refer to groups instead of individual numbers. However, none of them
seemed to mind if I counted the animals myself. 64 The whole exercise of
trying to ascertain the exact size of family herds before, and after the
drought thus became painstakingly tedious. I had to cajole and prod to get
any quantitative data from respondents.
3.9 Case histories and mapping.
I did not intend to use case histories or mapping as a source of qualitative
data. Information emerged naturally from the responses to supplementary
and probe questions during the survey interviews. Most of the data
gathered through case histories were recorded in the form of field notes
and maps. 65 Therefore, mapping was only used to a limited extent of
visualizing people’s movements, and their interactions with relatives or
other people outside the community during the 2005-2006 drought and
famine.
Individuals interviewed described how they used to survive during the
drought and famine. A number of them told of their journeys to Ethiopia in
search of food or about having sent their sons or wives out to fetch it.
Others retold their migration histories upcountry to other major towns in
Kenya, such as Kitale and Eldoret, and back when famine relief food was
64 It is generally true that Turkana people do not count animals, but know them
individually. My research assistants made attempts to count the animals in the grazing
lands due to their geographical knowledge of the area. It was also easy to count the
animals as they were led out in the morning and corralled at dusk.
65 Some of the maps will be displayed in chapter 6 while presenting the research findings.
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