![](\"http:\/\/new.kendallharmon.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/Ladies_of_Marabit.jpg\")
\nPhoto: Ladies of Marsabit, Laurel Moffatt<\/i><\/p>\n
As at any conference, ID badges dangle on lanyards around the necks of all the delegates. The lanyards at GAFCON are actually fine strands of beads. Here utility meets delicate beauty.<\/p>\n
When I first received my badge, I didn\u2019t think much of the lanyard. That\u2019s a nice detail, I thought. A touch of Africa. But there\u2019s a story behind these strands of beads. A good one.<\/p>\n
Each one of the strands of beads that the 1300 delegates wear this week at GAFCON was handmade by women and girls in the Marsabit Diocese of northern Kenya. Small strands of loving kindness.<\/p>\n
They have made these under the guidance of Alice Wangui, a Mother\u2019s Union worker for this area, and Mama Sue, who is married to the bishop of this diocese.<\/p>\n
\nPhoto: Ladies of Marsabit, Laurel Moffatt<\/i><\/p>\n
This is a place of Hot and Dry. The deserts have names I had not heard before. My mouth works to pronounce them, the syllables lying like rocks in my mouth:
\n Turlbi
\n Kargi
\n Marikona
\n Isiola<\/p>\n
This is a place of Push and Pull. Where tribes war over those fleeting commodities, water and pasture.<\/p>\n
The names of the tribes as new to me as the names of the desserts in which they live: Borana, Ledile, Burlge, Gabra, Saburu, Turkana,<\/p>\n
The Borana and Burlge fight as I write.<\/p>\n
Life is Hard and Dry, Alice tells me. It\u2019s a place where rain does not deign to fall. Except every two years. Or three,<\/p>\n