A Conversation With Edinah Samuel

Edinah Samuel was the Fieldwork Logistics Manager for Pipe Dreams, DAWNING’s investigation into the impact of water scarcity on the lives of women and girls in Kenya, which was recently published as a book by FotoEvidence. In that role, she led the coordination of all fieldwork on the ground in close collaboration with Raul Roman, the project director. She secured permits, facilitated access to over 20 communities across five counties, managed the schedule, and vetted and recruited multiple local assistants in each county. She was also deeply involved in the substance of the investigation and led some critical interviews.

Fieldwork for Pipe Dreams was relentless: three full weeks without a break, most days requiring over 16 hours of undivided commitment from a team of 25 professionals. Edinah was at the center of it all. She is a Kenyan research scientist working on water, sanitation, climate change, conflict, and fragility, and a recent Oxford University graduate, where she completed an MSc in Water Science, Policy and Management as a Mastercard Foundation Scholar at Linacre College.

The conversation below has been edited for length and clarity.

When you think back to the fieldwork in Kenya, what is the first image or moment that comes to your mind?

Nothing, perhaps not even climate change, will matter more to humanity’s future over the next century than the fate of water: its scarcity, or its uncontrolled “abundance.”

It is too easy to see communities that depend on wild natural resources and the vagaries of untamed rivers as backward, left behind by progress. The truth is quite often the opposite: it is they who understand how to make the fullest use of their natural resources.

This conviction is what led us through a host of journeys across geographies to find out why and how, and what happens when communities face the vulnerabilities of the water crisis. And in every place the water crisis was tied to something different.

“People get killed over what we were trying to understand.”

Along the way, we met many water custodians. We explored what happens to the communities surrounding a large reservoir when it is constructed. We sat with women whose families had been pulled apart. We spoke with women seeking survival after a swelling of a lake that has erased their main source of livelihood. We spoke with an invisible group affected by water access — the transgender community.

We went deeper to understand the role of government in addressing the water crisis and livelihood access as a result of climate change. What was more fulfilling was coming face to face with water-cartel systems in urban and rural contexts.

Field logistics is often invisible work. What was one challenge during the investigation that people outside the team would never guess happened?

Every day was a new challenge, but I would single out the water cartels in Kibera.

People get killed over what we were trying to understand. The cartel system is one of the most sensitive and politically charged subjects in the Kenyan water sector. It is not easy for anyone to speak openly about water theft. And yet we managed to get direct access, first-hand accounts of how that system operates.

“The investigation constantly pushed us into territory we had never imagined entering.”

What people would not imagine is how it happened in real time. Raul Roman was with the leader of one cartel. I was working a separate lead across Kibera. I called him: I have another cartel leader. We split —Raul stayed with his interview; I went to mine. The cartel leader I spoke with told me things that were not easy to hear. It was a life-and-death conversation, and we both knew it.

That day in Kibera made me understand something about this project. It constantly pushed us into territory we had never imagined entering.

What was your most difficult moment during fieldwork?

There were two moments that were particularly difficult.

The first was in Kibera, the day we spent waiting to speak with members of the trans community about their challenges with water access. We waited for hours in complete uncertainty.

“Trans people in Kibera experience unspeakable violence.”

Trans people in Kibera experience unspeakable violence, and the environment was very tense. The vulnerability required of the people we hoped to speak with was enormous. It took multiple contacts and very careful conversations to get people to see our team that day.

The second was in Baringo, investigating sex trafficking. The women we spoke with there had lost everything and they showed a courage I had not anticipated. They were open in ways that surprised me. They shared vulnerabilities I was not sure they would share. That is not something you can plan for. You can only be ready to receive it.

Was there a moment when you felt especially proud of the work you were doing?

The governor of Turkana. In an airplane.

We had been looking for him for a week. He was the one figure we had not been able to reach, and we were leaving Turkana. We had done everything we set out to do in Turkana, which is a very challenging region to do research, including some remote areas that were experiencing violence over water and land resources.

And then, on the plane out, the governor was sitting right in front of me. He agreed to speak. He was open. Camille Sachs and I interviewed him. And then Nick Parisse photographed him.

If you had to describe DAWNING’s fieldwork in Kenya in a few words, what would they be?

Complex and intense, but professionally fulfilling.

Looking back now, what did the project teach you about your own country that you hadn’t seen before?

Water scarcity is discussed constantly in Kenya. But the solutions being proposed rarely reflect what is happening on the ground.

“The chasm between ground-level realities and power elites is a structural problem in Kenya.”

A development partner arrives, builds a borehole worth millions. Construction finishes. And then no one uses it —because it sits on contested land, and neither of the two communities that need it will touch something that belongs, in their minds, to the other. That is not a water problem. That is a social problem that a mere technical solution cannot tackle alone.

Pipe Dreams taught me to see the disconnect between ground-level realities and power elites more clearly, and to take this chasm seriously as a structural problem in our country.

How did working on Pipe Dreams change the way you think about your own role as a professional?

Pipe Dreams meant a before and after for me.

Before, I was working within water science, producing findings, doing what researchers do. But I had begun to feel the weight of a question I could not fully answer: how does any of this translate into change for the people we are studying?

The disconnect between the science, the policy, and the local reality was something I had sensed but not yet named clearly. Pipe Dreams named it for me. That is part of what drove me to study at Oxford.

“The water crisis in Kenya is serious, and how it is affecting women and girls makes it urgent.”

One thing Pipe Dreams clarified for me is that water governance and water management are not the same thing, even though we use the words interchangeably in Kenya. Governance is about policy, regulation, the institutional framework. Management is about local practices and service delivery.

Conflating water governance and management means we often cannot identify where the actual failure is. That distinction sounds technical but getting it wrong has real consequences for real communities.

When you look back at this investigation, what does it mean to you personally?

It is hard to look at Pipe Dreams. The water crisis in Kenya is serious, and how it is affecting women and girls makes it urgent. There is so much to be done. The questions are so complex, and we don’t have the answers yet.

When I look back, I see the weight of what remains unanswered, and the responsibility that comes with having seen this crisis up close.