Wilson Airport in Nairobi was busy though it was barely dawn. Single-engine planes lined up for takeoff, one after the other. “Where are they going?” I asked. The answer: “To Somalia, to deliver khat.” Bags and bundles of the narcotic herb were being loaded into other small planes while I waited along with several United Nations staff to fly to Lokichokio.

After an hour’s flight near the Rift Valley, we landed on a runway where some of the parked planes had bullet holes to show for their efforts to provide aid in the protracted conflict in southern Sudan.