AISHA MOHAMMED

My name is Aisha Mohammed, and I am from Dabel, Moyale. I am 43 years old and the mother of eight children. My husband passed away a year ago. As was his daily custom, he woke up at 05:00 in the morning, took his breakfast and went to work. The village he was to reach was thirty-six km away, which meant trekking the whole day, reaching the place in the late afternoon. On his way, under the scorching sun, he passed along unmarked tracks through the bushy hills full of shrubs, wild animals and poisonous thorns. This was where he met his death when hyenas attacked him.

My husband was gone then, and life became hard as he was our lone breadwinner. We struggled to put food on the table and for many days we went to bed hungry. I would walk long distances to fetch water and collect firewood, which I later sold to buy flour and cooking oil. My daughter stopped attending school to take care of the younger ones when I went looking for food.

This did not last long as we have received two pregnant goats from the Goat Project. Our grandmother said one of them would give birth to twins as she had been massaging its belly. Everyone is eagerly waiting to drink the nutritious goat’s milk. The village shopkeeper has already booked our milk to sell in his shop. We will use the money to buy clothes, uniforms, food and also build a small house for Abdi and his brothers. We will give the first kid to Ayan, who lost her husband early this year.