Disasters, displacement and a short trip to Nairobi

Destination: Nairobi

When Miss W arrived in our lives in September last year I definitely thought it would be a while before I'd be blogging about my African travels again.  I haven't even finished writing my posts from 2012.  But here I am in Kenya, just over eight months later!  This was an opportunity too good to pass up, and thanks to a wonderful husband (with a bit of help from loving grandparents) here I am in Nairobi at the Nansen Initiative's Horn of Africa Regional Consultations.

According to their website, the Nansen Initiative is 'a state-led bottom-up consultative process intended to build consensus on the development of a protection agenda addressing the needs of people displaced across international borders in the context of natural hazards, including the effects of climate change.'  It was launched by the governments of Norway and Switzerland in recognition of the fact that people who are forced to leave their homes and flee across borders due to hazards such a drought, floods, wind-storms and earthquakes typically fall outside existing international protection mechanisms, such as international refugee law.  In the context of climate change, the number of people affected in this way is likely to increase.  The Nansen Initiative is primarily about identifying what the protection needs of such people are, and the extent to which these are being met by existing laws, regulations and practice around the world.  As part of this process, the Iniative is conducting consultations with governments, international organisations (such as UNHCR) and NGOs in various regions around the world that have been affected by natural disasters.  The Horn of Africa has been chosen as one such area, primarily due to the 2011 drought, which resulted in widespread famine and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, largely from Somalia.

As part of this process, I was invited to prepare a background report on existing laws and policy frameworks that address (or could address) disaster-related displacement in the Horn of Africa.  This is really exciting to me, not only because it is my first official international consultancy (though that is definitely exciting!) but also because it is an opportunity to try and make my academic work useful in practice.  And this is why I decided to pursue a PhD in the first place - in the hope that I could make some positive difference, however small, to the protection of some of the world's most vulnerable people.  In particular, the Nansen Initiative provides an opportunity to advocate for broader protection under the 1969 African Refugee Convention than has hitherto been applied (this is the topic of my PhD - read more here).  As an added bonus, I get to spend a week in Kenya!

The Horn of Africa Regional Consultations are being attended by around 70 representatives from African governments - including Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, South Sudan and Somalia - as well as the UN and local NGOs.  It is impressive to see how invested many governments are in this issue - Ministers responsible for refugee affairs or the environment from at least three countries are here.  My own job here in the regional consultation is to present a preliminary report on existing regional laws and frameworks that might be relevant to disaster-related displacement (of which more later) and then to participate in the various discussions and workshops throughout the three day program.  After the consultations are done I will write my final report, which will feed in to the international consultation in Geneva next year.

Kenya is a long way to come for just a few days.  I told one of the other participants in the consultations that the trip had been a last minute decision.  He laughed and said there is no such thing as a last minute trip from Australia to Africa - he then hypothesised that I had left home before he even knew the consultations were going to take place.  But the trip is totally worth it - it is inspiring to be part of a process which will (hopefully) address some of the massive hardship caused by natural disasters to millions of people every year.  And great to be back on a continent where legal issues are so real and so alive.  My taxi driver from the airport when I arrived on Monday was keen to chat about the constitutionality of several of the government's current activities - a conversation I rarely have in taxis in Sydney!

Nansen Initiative Horn of Africa Regional Consultations

Doing some preparations - Abu Dhabi airport

A room with a view (of cattle in Nairobi)

Addis Ababa Pt I: Visiting the African Union

It feels like an age since I was in Africa.  Since leaving at the end of November last year I have been to the UK twice, Melbourne three times, presented at two conferences and a workshop, started the semester's teaching and got engaged!  No wonder it seems so long ago.  I was reminded of my blog (which stalled rather abruptly after my post about Kakuma Refugee Camp - see here - and around about the time the conferences started) twice this week.  The first was at a meeting, where one of my colleagues complimented me on it and said how much he enjoyed reading it (thanks!).  The other was brainstorming ideas with Richard for our honeymoon later this year, which set me dreaming about a return trip to see my foster elephant, Barsalinga, my little feline friend, Bandit, and perhaps a few more wild creatures great and small.  There was so much more of the big trip after my visit to Kakuma... A whirlwind trip to Addis Ababa to visit the African Union and drink the best coffee in the world, safari no. 2 to the Masai Mara with Mum, Dad and Richard, an evening visit to the Elephant Orphanage for bed time and to meet the keepers, a brief return to Jo'burg before departing the continent altogether, a conference presentation at the beautiful All Souls College, Oxford and then the trip home!  I won't try and squish it all in to one post, I have too many photos I want to share for a start.  So I'll start with Addis...

African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa
The $200m building, built and donated by the Chinese, is already iconic in the capital city and stands in
stark contrast to the rest of the city, which is significantly less developed than cities like Jo'burg and Nairobi.

My three-day visit to Addis Ababa was part African gourmet trail and part search for the holy grail.  In the early stages of planning my big trip to Africa I had intended to visit Ethiopia's capital in search of documents from the drafting of the 1969 African Refugee Convention, the subject of my PhD thesis.  The absence of any such documents is one of the most often noted features of the Convention and is sometimes offered as an excuse for the lack of scrutiny it has received so far - i.e. what don't know what the Convention's drafters intended, so we can't know what it means.  The technical term for a Convention's drafting documents - minutes of meetings, records of discussion and communication between the parties - is travaux préparatoires (preparatory materials) and it is quite common in international law to refer to such documents in order to elucidate the meaning of the terms of the Convention itself.  The fact that noone has been able to locate the travaux for the African Refugee Convention has led more than one scholar to warn me that what I want to do in my PhD (i.e. interpret the Convention) will be very difficult.  My view has always been that not being able to see into the minds of those who drafted the Convention more than forty years ago is hardly a barrier to working out what it means today.  But of course such insight would be both interesting, and potentially useful, nonetheless.

In my two years (so far) of PhD research I've heard numerous rumours and stories about the elusive travaux for the African Refugee Convention, including that they were destroyed in a flood, are currently in storage, will be available 'soon' and that they don't even exist.  The last of these is probably the predominant view in the literature on the Convention.  In fact, recent research by another researcher identified numerous items of correspondence relating to the  Convention's drafting in UNHCR's archives in Geneva (UNHCR were heavily involved in the drafting process at the time).  But at the African end, to date nothing has been turned up.  So while I had initially planned to visit the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa and see what I could find, by the time I actually arrived in Africa I had more or less decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

At the last minute, however, I changed my mind and decided I should at least go and see for myself.  If I could even confirm that the materials didn't exist, then that would be something.  Perhaps then the refugee law community could forget about them and move on.  So, tempted by the relative proximity of Ethiopia to Kenya (compared with making the trip from Sydney) I booked two return tickets from Nairobi to Addis.  I bought two because I was accompanied by my trusted research assistant, Richard, who had initially thought he was coming for a holiday in Kenya, but later found out he was on an archival research mission to neighbouring Ethiopia! (It's just the kind of thing he loves though, so I don't think he minded too much...)

Anyway, I can safely say I was roundly rewarded for my (our) efforts.  On day one of our visit - actually day one was our only day at the AU compound - we were directed straight to an enormous green shed sign posted 'Archives' where, after some gentle (and not so gentle) prodding, we found a decent collection of meeting notes, conclusions and resolutions from meetings related to the Convention's drafting.  Not only that, but we then spent the afternoon visiting the AU's Legal Department, in the very new and very modern Headquarters, where we were treated to many more folders of meeting notes, reports and correspondence.  From a research point of view, the trip was a windfall!  And extremely exciting, given that the documents we viewed were supposedly lost, forgotten or gone to the gods.

As we only had a day, the collection of documents we left with was far from complete.  But between Richard and I, our two cameras, a computer and a phone, we did manage to copy and photograph a lot of material that I would not have been able to get anywhere else.  Perhaps most importantly, the visit established without a shadow of a doubt that it is worth going back for more.  One could hardly describe the African Union's filing and archiving systems as very sophisticated or organised (in fact, one could hardly describe them as systems!  From what I can tell, many senior officials are unaware that the archives even exist).  So a comprehensive search would take weeks, if not months, of scrounging around archives, offices and personal filing cabinets.  But many of the staff we met at the Union were incredibly friendly and helpful, and I've no doubt there is significantly more than what we found in our one day.  So just as soon as I have the time and funding, I'll be going back for sure!

African Union Archives - they really are in a big, green shed. 

Photographing documents - much quicker and easier than a photocopier!

Richard, my trusty research assistant.

Files inside the Archives building, including documents from the Assembly
of Heads of State and Government (AHG) and the Council of Ministers (CM).

Official visitors' badge

Lunch at the African Union HQ - this was somewhat less gourmet than the rest of Addis... 

Our complimentary tour of the new HQ building commences!  Our tour guide, one
 of the staff in the legal documentation unit, was very happy to show us around.
We got a bit carried away and had to remind ourselves why we were there.

Entrance to the Assembly Hall, where the African Union's
Assembly of Heads of State and Government meets.

Inside the Assembly Hall.

The view from HQ.  Being inside the African Union building is rather
different to being in the rest of the city, of which more soon...

Life in a refugee camp

New arrivals in Kakuma 3 - the most recent part of Kakuma Refugee Camp.

It is now over a month since I was in Kakuma Refugee Camp, which tells you just how far behind in my blogging I am.  And while this might sound like a mere excuse for my tardiness, I do think there is an advantage to writing about things some time after they occur.  For any experience, it takes a while for all the details to, first, sink in, and then to stitch themselves together into some form of cohesive whole or narrative.  That has certainly been the case for my visit to Kakuma.

At the time when I left for Kakuma, I had been so busy with my Nairobi field research I'd hardly had time to even build a picture of what to expect.  But when I arrived, I soon realised that the picture had been there all along, formed from years of viewing television charity commercials and the pictures on covers of refugee law text books.  I realised this picture was there because the environment I arrived in felt so familiar, but also because so much of the picture was incorrect.

My image of a refugee camp was a sprawling mass of tents, in the middle of the desert, with harsh winds and harsher temperatures and women wearing bright coloured clothes.  And to this extent, my picture was largely true to the conditions in Kakuma.  Kakuma is hot.  In the week I was there I could do little between meals and interviews but drink water or coke and lie on my bed - and this was apparently not the worst of it, the temperature in Kakuma can reach 47 degrees.  But my picture was also full of the passive, vacuous faces of refugees, arriving en masse, having walked for weeks over mountains and desserts, and being herded into what is in effect a prison.  And certainly this happens.  Had I visited Dadaab refugee camp at the height of the Somali food crisis in 2011, this is likely what I would have seen.  But at Kakuma, in November 2012, it was slightly different.  For a start, Kakuma does not have fence.  It has a nominal curfew, but both refugees and locals are physically free to come and go.  And when I asked the UNHCR field worker showing me around the camp on my first day whether most of the refugees there had arrived by foot, she laughed and said no – most arrive by bus, or taxi.  And like the Kibera slums in Nairobi, Kakuma is a place of much more activity, energy and entrepreneurship than one might at first expect.  I visited numerous clothing shops, restaurants and various repair services, and heard how the aid workers prefer to shop at the market in the camp, rather than in the nearby town, because the produce is better.

But of course this hive of activity and seemingly booming micro-economy reflects the experience of only some of Kakuma’s residents.  I also asked my guide about the conspicuously falling down white canvas tent, surrounded by hastily constructed but much sturdier looking mud-brick shelters.  She explained to me that refugees are issued with the tents when they arrive - the mud-brick shelters are built by refugees themselves, usually with materials obtained from the locals in exchange for food rations.  The lone tent was probably home to a single woman, who could not build such a shelter and had no community support to help her to do so.  Later in the day I also visited the ‘Protection Zone’, a fenced-off and guarded area next to the police station, which is home to those cannot live safely in the camp itself.  There I met three children, desperately keen for their photo to be taken.  Another refugee told me that the children were recently abandoned by their mother, who took off in frustration at the lack of assistance from UNHCR and was later arrested and jailed for abusive conduct.  The children are being cared for by other families in the Protection Zone.  At the Protection Zone I also spoke to a young man, who explained he was there with his father because the rebels who were after them in Somalia had followed them to Kenya and recently attacked them, leaving his father in hospital and him in the Protection Zone.

For my week in Kakuma, I stayed at the UNHCR compound, which is itself quite separate from the camp.  And as most of my interviews were conducted either there, at the nearby ‘NGO compound’ or the Department of Refugee Affairs’ offices next to the airstrip, beyond my introductory tour I spent little time in the camp itself.  Perhaps because of this, by the end of the week I felt little closer to understanding the place than I had been when I arrived.  Every time I thought I neared a comprehensive picture, I would read or hear something that disrupted it entirely.  For example, the legal processes for determining refugee status and selecting refugees for resettlement to third countries outside of Africa seemed surprisingly fair, professional and efficient.  Until I was told on my last day that the refugees residing in the camp are called to their interviews via weekly lists posted on noticeboards throughout the camp.  The effect of this is that those waiting to be selected to leave the camp and find a new life elsewhere, in most cases the United States, must go to the board every single week of their stay – for some, in excess of ten years – to see if their lucky number has come up.  With resettlement being the number one dream of so many in the camp, this system seems rather like a form of torture.  Similarly, I was impressed to see the many clinics and hospitals in the camp – including specialised maternity and pediatric wards – but was later informed that for the camp’s population of approximately 10,000 people, many of whom have escaped torture and trauma, there was not a single mental health professional. 

While there is indeed plenty of life, energy and entrepreneurship to be found in Kakuma, when I boarded the plane back to Nairobi at the end of my week there, I was acutely aware that in doing this, I was highlighting perhaps the most important distinction between me and the refugees who live in Kakuma – the freedom to leave.  It is now more than a month later and, while I sit in a cafe in Oxford reflecting on the refugees I met in Kakuma, those refugees are still there.  Despite the lack of fences, and a rudimentary permit system which allows refugees to leave the camp for health reasons, to visit family or to try their luck elsewhere, for most of Kakuma’s residents there is simply nowhere to go.  They cannot go home, and life in Nairobi means life without the safety net of UNHCR and other NGO services.  So while they wait for something to change - for their resettlement number to come up, or for things to improve at home - they continue to collect their monthly food and water rations and hope that their tent, or mud shack, will provide relief from the blistering sun, or survive the next bout of monsoonal rain.

Inside Kakuma Refugee Camp 

Reception Centre - here, new arrivals will be issued with basic supplies (blankets,
buckets and utensils) before they are issued with a space in the camp

Inside the Reception Centre, this board records the number and origins
of all new arrivals since the beginning of 2012 - 8,268 in total

A refugee volunteer field worker tells my guide about a family with three children whose
 tent has been flooded, forcing them to sleep on water while they wait for a new one.

Sign for one of Kakuma's health clinics 

A Kakuma sporting field.

This tent displays a very new garden.  Refugees are encouraged to use some of their water rations
 to grow food.  Some will eat the food, others will sell it to make money for other things.

Self-built houses under construction. 

The more established homes (some people have been in Kakuma for over 10 years)
have these home built fences and large trees, planted by refugees themselves

A restaurateur displays his menu. 

Selling veggies in Kakuma.  The humanitarian workers at the camp buy their
 vegetables within the camp's small markets - the water rations issued to refugees
make them better able to grow vegetables than the local population.

A sign at the entrance to the Protection Zone warns that 'non-protection [refugees] are not allowed in'.

A woman and child who live within the Protection Zone proudly show their UNHCR documentation.

Three children reportedly abandoned by their mother at the camp. 

A woman explains that while one of the older women refugees in the Protection Zone
 is officially looking after the children - looking after their ration cards and
documentation - everyone within the zone helps to care for them during the day.

My home for the week inside the UNHCR compound.

The compound is sprawling and everything looks the same - these signs are important. 

Speaking of signs - even you-know-who is here.

UNHCR Cafeteria.

The dining hall.

Going to Kakuma

A refugee camp is a very difficult place to get in to if you are not a refugee.  The preparations for my visit to Kakuma Refugee Camp, in Kenya’s northeast and about 90 kms from the South Sudan border, began long before I even left Sydney and required numerous approvals and logistical arrangements.  First there was the special permission required by my university, owing to Kakuma being located in a current DFAT ‘do not travel’ area, then the approval of Kenya’s Commissioner for Refugees then UNHCR had to agree to host me, find me accommodation and a seat on the charter flight between Nairobi and Kakuma’s small airstrip.

In fact I think these extensive controls are entirely reasonable – there is enough to deal with at a refugee camp without having to worry about itinerant researchers, journalists or tourist.  All of these controls are aimed at ensuring that anyone who visits Kakuma does so with at least the intention to make a contribution to the refugees who live there (except for the special permission of my uni, that was about insurance).

Kakuma Refugee Camp is one of Kenya’s two main refugee camps.  The other – Dadaab – is in the country’s east, near Somalia.  The current security situation there, which is quite unstable and has meant that refugee registration and status determination is not currently taking place, led me to decide fairly early on not to visit.  Kakuma, by contrast, is fairly peaceful.  Armed with my various travel approvals, a small bag, a new hat and lots of sunscreen (in Kakuma it gets up to 47 degrees) I arrived at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport at 5.45 am Monday morning for my very first UN Chater Flight (I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit excited).

Check in turned out to be one of the interesting experiences of my entire week in Kakuma.  I had carefully made sure to pack light and avoid any obvious signs of Western wealth.  I left behind my ipod, jewellery and safari lodge cap – this time less because of security, and more because it seemed rather inappropriate to wander around a refugee camp bearing souvenirs from a comparatively luxury holiday.  So I was staggered to watch one of my co-passengers checking in a huge, flat screen TV.  Really?  You’re taking a flat screen TV to a refugee camp?? As I wondered to myself about just exactly who I was sharing my flight to Kakuma with I struck up conversation with the small party sitting next to me in the waiting area.  They introduced themselves as evangelical Christians from the US visiting Kakuma to see the work their church was doing there.  I wondered how well the bureaucratic controls were really working.

The flight itself, on a small, relatively low-flying plane, gave a great view of the northern parts of Kenya.  As we travelled north-west from Nairobi the land got drier and rockier (the air hostess had told us that if we crashed we could use our seat cushions as flotation devices, though I can’t imagine where) until we started our descent to Kakuma itself.

The view from the plane is the view of the refugee camp that everyone knows.  Sprawling tents and shacks surrounded by barren, dusty desert.  What struck me most was not the camp itself – which looked quite established and organized – but the dilapidated dwellings made from branches, plastic and assorted rubbish, on the camp’s outskirts.  I thought to myself what a harsh life it must be for those who travel the many hundreds of miles, sometimes by foot, to refugee camps like Kakuma only to not be let in, either because the camp is full or because of delays in registration.  I later learned, however, that the dwellings I saw looking at are in fact the homes of the locals – the people of the Turkana tribe, who live and herd their cattle and goats on the land surrounding Kakuma refugee camp.

When we touched down on the red, gravelly air strip, goats ran past, a man on a bike stopped and stared, and the kids playing soccer in the dust ran to the wire fence surrounding the strip to peer at the new arrivals, as we disembarked and collected our bags (and TVs) from the rear of the plane.  While the evangelicals hopped into one of the many NGO jeeps waiting beside the airstrip, I joined the UNHCR staff and pilots on the UN mini-bus and headed off to check in to my lodgings for the week, inside the UNHCR compound.

Check in - Nairobi Wilson Airport

Airline safety, UN style

Boarding the plane - it runs twice a week between Nairobi and Kakuma, delivering
staff, visitors and supplies directly in to the camp.  The nearest airport to the camp
is in Lokichogio, a 90 km journey from Kakuma which requires an armed escort.

Aerial view of Kakuma Refugee Camp. 

View of the air strip after landing.

Entrance to Kakuma 3 - the third and most recent section of the camp.

Every NGO you can imagine has a sign in Kakuma - unfortunately I'm
not sure it necessarily means they are doing much there.

Arrival at the UNHCR compound.

Tales of a Nairobi Researcher

Yesterday was the pièce de résistance of my research so far - an interview with Kenya's Commissioner of Refugee Affairs.  The Commissioner is the Head of the Department of Refugee Affairs and reports to the Minister for Immigration, so he is essentially the top guy for refugee management in the country.  It was my third trip to the Department of Refugee Affairs - my first was for an interview with one of their Protection Officers, whose role it is to liaise with UNHCR on individual cases, visit local prisons and police stations to see if 'illegal immigrants' detained there might be asylum seekers, and assist with the government's registration and issuing of ID cards to refugees approved by UNHCR.  The second visit to the Department was to deliver my letter of request for a meeting with the Commissioner.  The Protection Officer I first met with advised me that this would be better than emailing or phoning.  So I went and found the fanciest print shop and paper I could in Nairobi, plastered my letter with as many official looking university logos I could and hand delivered my letter to the office.  And voilà, it worked!

The Department of Refugee Affairs is housed in a castle.  While I suspect it was never really a castle - more likely the play thing of some colonial official with too much money - the fortified appearance, thick stone walls and turrets leave you in doubt as to what this was intended to be.  My regular visits there have made me the subject of some interest to the staff - including the receptionist, who wears a long blue trench coat with 'Refugees are real people' inscribed on the back, and the guards at the front gate, one of whom seems always to want me to buy her tea (I'm not sure from where) and the other of whom wants me to take him to Australia!  It's interesting stuff this research business, so here is a little snapshot of just a few of the interviews I have done in Kenya.

1. Commissioner of Refugee Affairs, Government of Kenya.  Despite the official hoops I had to jump through to secure the interview, and the imposing nature of his office (think white leather padded walls), the man himself was very relaxed, candid and a great person to talk to.  His perspective on refugee protection in Kenya was extremely interesting and very different from most of what I have heard so far.  In particular, he is concerned about the impact that the monolithic humanitarian industry in Kenya has on its refugee burden - while he certainly acknowledges that many humanitarian agencies provide essential and life-saving assistance to refugees, the appeal they hold for people in neighbouring countries, combined with their interest in sustaining their own business, perpetuates the very refugee 'problem' they purport to solve.
2. Head of Refugee Status Determination, UNHCR Nairobi.  UNHCR conducts refugee status determination in Nairobi as well is in Kakuma and Dadaab Refugee Camps.  Here in Nairobi, the UNHCR office has just moved.  When I visited they were still waiting for hot water and a functioning printer.  Despite this, the head of RSD here in Nairobi has been one of the most open and helpful people I have met with so far.  Not only was she very frank about her own work and that of her team, but she even arranged for me to observe an interview with an asylum applicant from the Democratic Republic of Congo - in Nairobi with seven of her eight children - and allowed me to take copies of numerous UNHCR documents that I have not been able to obtain elsewhere.
3. Legal Intern, Kituo Cha Sheria.  As often seems to happen with NGOs here in Kenya, the request for an interview from a researcher gets bumped on to the person with the least responsibilities and (supposedly) the most time.  Having worked in NGOs, where staff do not have enough time to do their jobs let alone talk about them to researchers, I have total sympathy for this approach.  As a researcher, I think sometimes it works in my favour.  Though interns usually have less experience than more senior members of staff, the experience they do have is often fresher, giving them a more critical eye and an eagerness to talk about it.  The interview also gives them a perhaps rare opportunity to be the expert in something, so they are more than forthcoming with information and willing to share stories, perspectives and useful documents.  Possibly the most notable thing about Kituo Cha Sheria (which means Centre for Justice) was its location.  Housed in a building in Eastleigh - a predominantly Somali area - my driver George had warned me not to wear open-toed shoes.  When we got there, I found Eastleigh positively thriving with street-side business, dealing and life - this was one of the busiest and most chaotic places I have been, and that includes India!  The problem, however, is that the 'street' ranges between mud, swamp and river.  When the traffic got too chaotic (5 cars side-by-side trying to forge their way down a road which is one lane in either direction) George pulled up on the side-walk and suggested we walk.  And while I appreciated George's shoe advice, I really think that unless I had been wearing gumboots it wouldn't have made a difference at all. 
4. Justice of the High Court of Kenya and the East African Court of Justice.  This is the interview that gave me the most attire-related anxiety, owing to a Judge suggesting that we meet in one of Nairobi's poshest hotels.  A fascinating man and one who has been involved in some high profile cases here in Kenya - including a Constitutional dispute about the date of the elections which, understandably given the election-related violence of 2007-8, was the subject of considerable attention.  What impressed me most about this interview was the keen interest that the Kenya judiciary (at least some of them) has in refugee protection matters, despite them having very little jurisdiction of such matters at present.  With the assistance of UNHCR and others, they have developed a refugee law training program for judicial officers, conducting regular training sessions around the country.  While the implementation of the program still has a way to go - asylum seekers and refugees are still notoriously being arrested and convicted of unlawful presence, despite their right to be in the country - the willingness to engage with refugee protection and implement improvements was evident in both my interview with this High Court judge and in the 100-page refugee law training manual he shared with me afterwards.

On Monday I will travel to Kakuma Refugee Camp, in the north of Kenya and near the border with South Sudan.  I had initially intended to also go to Dadaab - Kenya's other main refugee camp and the largest in the world.  But owing to particularly bad security in the Somali border region at present and the fact the registration and refugee status determination is currently suspended, I will confine my visit to Kakuma.  I will spend the week in Kakuma.  It will be my last week of 'field research' proper and no doubt will prove to be one of the most interesting.  I really don't know what to expect - like the Kibera slums in Nairobi, refugee camps are mostly painted as sprawling masses of UNHCR tents, poverty, malnourishment and enforced passivity.  However more than one person I have spoken with so far has told me that Kakuma is a place where 'a lot is going on'.  I guess I'll find out on Monday.

Castle House - currently home to the Department of Refugee Affairs 

Me at the Department of Refugee Affairs.  Photos are usually forbidden at official sites,
but I must have looked suitably awestruck and innocent that one of the guards agreed
for me to pose in front of the building.  (Or maybe this was part of his campaign
to get me to marry him and take him back to Sydney....)

We had persevered with Eastleigh traffic for quite some time (including two phone
calls to the office of Kituo Cha Sheria to give an updated ETA).  But after we had been
faced this sight for about 15 minutes with no movement, we decided to walk. 

A birds eye view of Eastleigh 

Refugee Consortium of Kenya.  Along with Kituo Cha Sheria the other main refugee law NGO
in Nairobi.  Like many other NGOs, who have been pushed out of the city centre by rising
 rents, the organisation's offices are now in a former residential home in the suburbs.

A view from the back of the lecture room where I delivered my presentation
on research methods on Day 1 in Nairobi.  Not exactly interview-related
but still relevant to my research so I thought I'd throw it in!