One of these villages is Piyaya, where we have spent the last two days. To get there, we drove across the short grass plains which are now dotted with thousands of wildebeest, as they move slowly southwards on their annual migration. Their numbers have increased four or five-fold over the last 40 years, so that they now outnumber livestock in the district, and take much of the grazing that would in the past have been used by cattle.

Piyaya's primary school, dispensary and village office are sited at a small trading centre, which also hosts the weekly market. But the Maasai homesteads are far flung, some as far as 60km from the village centre.

Oxfam is the first development organization to have reached Piyaya. Our guide is Rahab Kenana, herself Maasai, who has worked as Oxfam's livelihoods officer in the district for six years. In villages like Piyaya she is often called 'ntida' - 'favourite wife' - because of the huge impact of Oxfam's work. The Village Chairman, Simon Nairiamu, greeted us and took us to his homestead, set on hillside two kilometres from the trading centre. Simon shares the homestead with two brothers, their mother, and a sister and her family. Simon and his brothers have five wives in total - Maasai men take more than one wife, if they are wealthy enough in cattle to pay the bride-price. Communal life within a single homestead allows the combining of herds so that labour can be used economically. This is especially important now that more and more children are going to school, rather than spending every day caring for livestock.

We were lucky to arrive at the homestead just as the families' sheep and goats were returning from the plains, where they had been grazing around temporary camps since July. As the sun dropped behind the hills that surround the homestead, the animals crossed the river bed and grazed their way slowly up the hillside to the homestead. The youngest kids and lambs were carried by the herders. A scene of organised chaos ensued outside the brushwood fence of the homestead. After living together as a single flock for months, the animals now had to be split before they could be moved into their individual family enclosures. The young herd boys dragged animals from one side to the other, only for them to race back as soon as they saw a chance. Finally the flocks were separated, and the sheep and goats were led group by group into their enclosures within the homestead.

Oxfam has been working in the district for many years, and with the onset of drought in 2003 became involved in providing relief food. Piyaya is in one of the driest areas, and suffered badly in 2004. Oxfam responded with food support, but also trained community animal health workers to provide basic treatments such as de-worming. Livestock were also vaccinated against East Coast Fever, the biggest killer of cattle. As a result, animal losses in 2005 in Piyaya, and the nearby community of Malambo, were much less than in some neighbouring villages. To better enable the communities to respond to droughts in the future, Oxfam has promoted the organization of women and youth groups, and provided funding for the community to build a grain store and develop preschools. The store is almost complete, and Oxfam has provided a start-up supply of 300 sacks of maize, and a supplementary fund to buy more. This will ensure that there is food in the community when milk is not available. The store is managed by the newly-formed women and youth groups. The groups oversee the sale of the maize, and the purchase of new supplies from towns in the agricultural areas outside Ngorongoro District.

Yohana Olesonjoi is a member of the youth groups, and acts as book-keeper for the women's group members who sell the maize. He is clear about the advantages that Oxfam has brought to the community. 'As youth we work hand in hand with the women. In Maasai communities, women have always been disregarded. But since Oxfam came and brought us together to work in these groups, it has brought equality. Before we thought women did not know anything. But we have come to see that women know some things that we do not know, and can advise us.

What we also think we can do to safeguard our community is to go for education. We want to ensure that as many children as possible are taken to school. We need our own teachers, and doctors and lawyers, if we are to protect our own future.'

I was unaware before I arrived in Nushki that I was travelling with a rain goddess but this was the third time that this had happened to the writer I was with. Shortly after our arrival the sky began to darken and eventually in the late afternoon the rain started. A night's rain may not even begin to make a dent into a serious water shortage but it had quite an impact on the landscape. The desert appeared to be covered in milk. The earth was so hard from months of no rain that the water could not penetrate and the rain sat on the surface making travelling very difficult. Our jeep at one point balanced on the edge of a huge hole that was invisible under the milky lake.

On this first visit before the rains began, we had spent several hours in the camp. The men were heavy in discussion with the Oxfam team as were the women heads of households. The boys were all very visible, some of them playing in and around the camp but I couldn't see many girls. As I wandered around, I found and photographed several young girls, working together or helping their mothers with domestic chores, preparing the fire for cooking, making and baking bread and helping with the few animals that were about.

When it was time for us to leave I looked over to see some of the boys playing on the sand dunes above the camp, sliding down and then racing back up to the top again. I went running over and up the sand dune to get a photo of them playing. The girls, having finished their chores, all came rushing over to join in. Life in a camp isn't always easy but it's always great when you see children enjoying their surroundings.

On another Oxfam trip a year or so before this I'd been in a Peruvian camp rather inappropriately named the promised land. The inhabitants had lost their homes in floods caused by 'el Nino'. As I watched some young boys surfing down the sand dunes one of the camp leaders told me that they were all practicing as they hoped that sand surfing would become an international sport and that they felt that something good could come out of the El Nino disaster as their relocation would allow them a perfect chance to perfect the art of sand surfing.

Education is so important but it can be so taken for granted when its readily available. I was quite moved then, as I was again during my recent trip by the lengths people will go to get an education.

In Ghazi Abad, one of the poorest areas of Lahore, Khoj works with women and children providing education and literacy training. Khoj has developed its own teaching method which uses phonetics and is based on everyday issues and so relevant to the women's lives.

In Khoj I met a woman who had arrived at the organisation as an illiterate housewife and just a few years later she was running her own small business and was standing for local government elections.

This time in Lahore I met an inspiring 19 year old who had benefited from an education from a similar organisation to Khoj. She spoke of the importance of education in the development of Pakistan and how she wanted to train as a teacher to make sure that the next generation receives the education necessary to guarantee Pakistan's progress.

As I listened to her this image came to mind. The teacher in the photo could easily be her in a few years time.