GOOD WORKS
“Every person there is a survivor of some incredible, traumatic experience”
-PAUL BAUMAN, P.ENG., P.GEOPH.
As well as Erin Ernst, five others joined Mr. Bauman in Kenya. They were colleagues Landon Woods, P.Geo., Colin Miazga, G.I.T., Douglas MacLean, G.I.T., and Randy Shinduke; and University of Calgary geophysics PhD student Franklin Koch. Another colleague, Alastair McClymont, P.Geo., PhD, helped back in Calgary with organizational details and data processing. “Kakuma was easily the most reward- ing field program I’ve been on because of the humanitarian aspect,” says Mr. Woods. He had previously visited the Turkana region for paleoseismic mapping for a hydrocarbon development, but he never knew about Kakuma until learning about Mr. Bauman’s work there. “To see the camp, smell the smells, feel the heat from the sun, constantly shake the sand out of everything, and see the lineups at the water taps — it really puts things in perspective,” he says. “At times it was hard to grasp the situation
employer also got on board, providing the necessary geophysics equipment. Consent from the United Nations and NGOs at the camp took longer. But the project eventually got the go-ahead, shortly after Mr. Bauman returned to Kakuma last November to teach a second course to a new group of students. Two months later he was back again, this time with a six-member team, 1,400 kilograms of equipment, and a two-person documentary film crew in tow. See related story, below.
the refugees are in. I am not sure that someone like me, with the privileges and relative safety I have in Canada, can ever fully understand what they’ve gone through.” Mr. Woods recalls working one day near a village, collecting survey data by a dry lagga, or riverbed. An elderly Turkana woman was in a scoop hole, almost up to her chest, lifting water into a metal basin for her five donkeys. “It shows how desperate the water situation is there, and what the Turkana and their livestock have to do to survive. For them, it was business as usual,” he says. His favourite memory is interacting with local children, who tagged along trying to help out with the survey work, posing for pictures so they could see themselves on an iPad screen. An estimated 55 per cent of Kakuma’s residents are children. All's quiet on the seismic line? Not when school lets out.
PUTTING THINGS INTO PERSPECTIVE
Slashing their machetes through thickets of thorny acacia, team members thought they had a green light to lay cable near a village just outside the camp. But five angry Turkana men wearing wrist knives and waving sticks at them apparently missed the memo. Fortunately, a village elder they had previously negotiated with came to the rescue, calmed things down, and got their survey back on track. A few days later it was the sound of nearby gunfire — AK-47s, to be specific — that sent hearts racing. Mr. Bauman and the others didn’t know it at the time, but police had fired shots into the air to disperse an angry mob at a nearby health clinic, where a child had reportedly died after being given the wrong dose of medication. “I suppose it’s not surprising that in a place where one’s hold on life is so tenuous, tensions are always ready to be released at any provocation, especially as tragic an incident as this,” Mr. Bauman wrote on his Calgary to Kakuma Facebook page, which tracked the team’s progress. Fortunately, moments like these were few. Indeed, for the Calgary team, the trip was an enriching experience they’ll not soon forget.
FINDING WATER — A DOCUMENTARY IN THE MAKING It’s hard to imagine the daily struggles faced by refugees and locals living with chronic water shortages in northwest Kenya. Alberta film maker Brendan O’Brien will bring their story to life in his new documentary, Finding Water. He spent two weeks in the desert, recording the work of Calgary geoscientists who travelled to Kenya last January in search of new water sources for the Kakuma Refugee Camp and local tribespeople. Mr. O’Brien worked as a geophysical field technician with WorleyParsons before resigning his job to start Red Van Studios and pursue his dream of making movies. Finding Water will provide an in-depth look at the geophysical methods geoscientists use to find water. It will also examine global water challenges and the potential for increased water shortages in the future. The Society of Exploration Geophysicists and
a crowdfunding campaign financed the documentary. Funders will get a sneak-peak at the movie at the end of September. It will be released online near the end of the year.
70 | PEG FALL 2016
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