Arid does not mean empty. In the dry and barren land, there was life.

They had not seen a drop of rain for two years.

Then it started raining for about four days, a week or so before I arrived.

By the time I got there, it had already stopped. But you could still see the rain had passed through. Small puddles in the road, streams along the empty river beds, patches of soil still holding on to moisture. But beyond that… it was dry.

Dry, dry, dry.

And people live there. They have a life, families and communities there. You move through small towns and life is happening. People are talking, laughing, children running around. You find yourself a little confused by it because in your mind, you have already decided what this place means and have already labeled it as harsh, dry, barren, a desert lacking, and something to feel sorry for.

But no one there is feeling sorry for themselves.

Northern Kenya is a hard place to explain. It just is.

It is wide, open, dry. Very dry and bare. The few trees have learnt how to survive with very little, and the people have learned too. They are pastoralists, keeping camels, goats, and sheep. Not cows. You don’t see cows there. The land does not allow it.

One of the things that struck me is the agreement between people and the land. The people do not try to fight the land not try to turn it into something else. They are just… living within it.

Water is not an after thought there, like it is here. It is the main character. You think about water before you think about anything else. Before meals, before moving, before comfort, before anything. Water is not just life in theory, but is life in daily, practical, sometimes exhausting reality.

And as I moved through small towns, something unsettled me. People were smiling. Happy genuine smiles. Children waved, adults greeted. Life, despite everything I had quietly labeled as "lack," seemed full.

I caught myself thinking, how can they live like this?

Then another thought followed....

How can they not?

This is their land, their  history and inheritance. Generations before them figured out how to live here, and generations after them will continue to do so.

And then the question turned on me.

If one of them came to the green, wet, restless abundance of somewhere like south western Uganda, would they look around and ask, how can you live like this?

Too much rain. Too much green. Too much uncertainty in a different form. Roads disappearing into mud instead of dust. Different struggles in greener clothes.

We like to think comfort has a universal definition. That there is a correct version of life, and everything else is a compromise. But standing in that dry, harsh land, watching people who did not feel sorry for themselves, I started to doubt that idea.

Who decides what “better” means? Is it access to water on demand? Is it green landscapes and full rivers? Is it predictability? Is it ease? Or is it something else like belonging, familiarity, knowing how to live in the place that raised you, being at peace with the rules your environment has set.

The truth is I felt more sorry for them than they felt for themselves, and that says more about me than it does about them. We measure other people’s lives using our own rulers, then act surprised when the numbers don’t make sense. In fact, the problem is not the life, it is the ruler.

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That rain will come again, or it won’t, but they will adjust either way. Camels will still walk. Goats will still search for shrubs. People will still wake up and live. And somewhere far away, in places where green is abundant and water is taken for granted, we will still be asking ourselves why we are restless.

So maybe the better question I should ask is not which life is better.

Maybe it is this: What does it mean to live well, where your feet are?

From where my feet are.