The Other Church

By Peter Chepkonga

On December 27th 2007, Pastor Robert Birgen, of African Inland Church, Chepsiria, stood patiently in line at the Kapkuis Primary school polling station in Kuinet, a few kilometres north of Eldoret town. When he reached the polling booth he saw Mzee Kamenya, an old Kikuyu neighbour of his since the early 90s, asking the electoral agent to help him out.
‘Fill in for me, Raila for Presidency,’ the old man said loudly.

Though the polling station’s majority of voters were Kalenjin, there were also members of other tribes, mostly small scale farmers and teachers who lived in the area. Most of them had bought land in the 1980s and 1990s from two white farmers who were leaving the area. Kalenjin locals who had lived on the land since the countrywide, ‘One Million Acre Scheme’, in which the government re-sold the White Highlands to Kenyans after independence, also sold land to members of other tribes over the years. Both co-existed un-problematically till the 1992 and 1997 clashes which served, relative to what would be the 2007 post-elections crisis, as mere hiccups of upheaval. If single families had upped and left in both elections-related clashes, the last became the ‘clash to end all clashes.’

On the evening of December 31st President Kibaki was inaugurated and Pastor Birgen remembers hearing screams and war cries echoing all over the valley. The next day, a Monday morning a tractor load of about 50 people, all Kikuyus, drove up to his church and asked for refuge.

‘These people who had come from Ziwa and were heading to Eldoret sought safety in my church. My immediate neighbours, most of them natives, had no problem with them staying there. The problem was people from other places, far flung villages, who were not happy with that arrangement,’ Birgen says. Ziwa is inland and about 42 kilometres from Eldoret where most non-Kalenjin families were forcibly removed.

Emissaries were sent to warn Pastor Birgen that ‘these people’ were not wanted there.
Later the next day, on January 1st 2008, a group of armed youth in their hundreds came and surrounded the church. They wanted all the people inside the church to leave. Birgen and other church elders pleaded with them. Already, the Assemblies of God church in Kiambaa, that would become famous had been burnt they same day at noon. When he spoke to members of the gang, some said: ‘I cannot go to Nairobi and express my anger to the President, but if I can do the same through his supporters here, then he will get the message.’

The next 7 hours were the longest of his life.
Earlier before the gang had congregated, members of the church had spotted Kalenjin youth trooping towards Kimumu, a non-Kalenjin settlement in the area and in the heat of the moment almost committed the most foolish act of their lives. Birgen’s wife intervened preventing the situation from escalating into another Kiambaa.

The gang remained patient and kept vigil for 7 hours till around 11 p.m and a unit of the General Service Unit arrived and escorted the displaced people from the church.

Today, Birgen believes that the violence was beyond tribal cleansing. ‘All those who sympathised and voted for the government, natives or not, were being targeted.’

When questioned on ideas of heroism, Birgen, a calm proud man in his 30s, shrugs.
‘I even helped someone move to Nairobi without a problem. But that is another story.’
The difference between the Kiambaa church, a few kilometres away, might be that it did not have a brave Kalenjin pastor to fight for it.

‘They say that there were men, women and children there but the young men in the church were conducting night raids and so the Kalenjin warriors retaliated. Some claim that there were passing and stoned,’ Birgen recounts.

‘The youths went there, asked all the women and children to leave, however, some skirmishes had already started, and women and kids couldn’t leave … also, the old and young men in the church refused to let the women and the children out. So the warriors lit fire to the church to kill the energetic young men in the anger.’

‘They set the building alight and burnt everyone in the church … that is against Kalenjin custom. Women and children are always left alone,’ Birgen says shaking his head.

AIC Kijabe Mission Hospital – Replenishing Life & Hope to All

Driving down the escarpment on the Nakuru-Nairobi highway past Limuru, the road opened up to the great escarpment view point. Curio shops eager for tourist stopovers are set up by the cliff displaying bright coloured kikoys all set against the substantial drop of the valley with Mt Longonot at the horizon. Specks of iron sheet roofs shimmer in the dull noon sun and there are several squares and rectangles of browns and greens of people’s shambas spread across the bottom of the valley. In all the years plying to and fro this highway this scene still takes one’s breath away.

We were headed to Kijabe town an hour’s drive from Nairobi, our destination was a small mission station set up by the African Inland Church Missionaries in the late 1800’s. The town’s name is derived from the Maa language meaning “the windy place” proof of this evident in every person we passed swathed in some kind of warm woolly apparel.

AIC Kijabe Hospital is nestled at the edge of the Great Rift Valley escarpment in Lari division of Kiambu district. It is a frontier of sorts of Central and Rift Valley province. Turning off the highway the thin windy road spiraled down through thick forest into the Kijabe Mission Station about 2km from the town.

For the longest time Kijabe Hospital has been a landmark for those seeking affordable treatment from far and wide. It started when a group of missionaries began a medical unit in 1915. It has grown since then and now has inpatient, outpatient, maternity and paediatric sections. The total bed capacity is 249. The hospital sees an average of 300 people daily with a large percentage of the people coming from as far as North Eastern, Somali and Ethiopia.

The mission hospital has hit the headlines over the decades mostly under rather tragic circumstances; some well-known ones date as far back as the pre-colonial days. In March 1953, the few survivors of The Lari Massacre sought treatment at the hospital after the brutal attack by the Mau Mau who accused them and their Chief Luka of being British collaborators. Black and white haunting images of those who survived, eyes full of fear and with bandaged broken and slashed bodies at the hospital beds sent shockwaves the world over of the growing rebellion of the Mau Mau and their plight for freedom. The 80’s and 90’s were notorious times for traffic accidents along Kenyan roads and this brought them thousands of casualties. In more recent times, they received the injured from the Nairobi bomb blast tragedy in 1998 and their care and compassion brought them recognition from the then Head of State.

During the post electoral crisis earlier this year, Kijabe Hospital sent medical teams to various camps including Naivasha, Kirathimo and Nakuru. While in attendance they were able to attend to not less than 800 people in each camp. About 60 of them each month since then still need clinic checks and the hospital accommodates their medical needs. This kind of help has strained the hospital financially having incurred costs of about Kshs. 1.6M. The surgery and treatment of the 4 children from the Kiambaa church burn is over Kshs.900,000 and growing.

“At Kijabe, we do not just mend or fix ailments; we also preach and provide hope and compassion to the patients. We do not turn anyone away; our priority is not money but their welfare physical and spiritual. Our compassion must be the reason we have patients coming from far and wide.” said Mr. Julius Marete the hospital’s Executive Director.

Walking past the full waiting room the sick sat calmly each bearing their pain and waiting for their turn to be attended.

Bethany Kids, the pediatrics ward of the hospital deals with the more common pathological diseases but are also equipped to deal with complicated procedures or conditions.

Some of the special conditions they deal with include:

• spina bifida – a birth defect where an incomplete closure of the nureul tube results in an incompletely formed spinal cord.
• hydrocephalus – where the child has an accumulation of fluid in the brain causing an enlargement of the head.
• cleft lip
• burns
• club feet
• hypospadias – a birth defect of the urethra in male children involving an abnormally placed urinary tract opening
• ambiguous genetalia – a condition where one has more than one sex organ

Specialists from all over the world give their time to perform these operations mostly at no cost to give these children a new lease of life. They limit the pain and rehabilitate children.

While at the children’s ward we stopped by to see some special patients Mercy 14, Mary 16, Jedidah 4 and Anthony 11. The children were victims of the recent post electoral violence barely surviving a church fire in Kiambaa a small village in Eldoret at the height of the violence. They had fled from their homes after they were attacked and property gutted following the announcement of the presidential poll results.

Strangers to each other before the fire, a friendship forged amid the twist of tragic fate. A Good Samaritan risked driving them through the then dangerous Eldoret- Nairobi highway after spending sometime without much medical attention at an Eldoret hospital.

“These children are very special to us and are such a success story. We are so proud of them. When they first came their burns were festered due to lack of proper medical attention. Even after skin grafting and several reconstructive surgeries they hardly suffered any infection. They were so positive and brave and now you see them around the hospital smiling and looking much better. Some of these things have nothing to do with us but more to do with the hand of God.” says Joshua Omolo an anesthetist at the hospital.

We found some young volunteers going through school-work with the children from books donated by well wishers.

“When nobody visits them, sometimes we walk into their room to find them all quiet thinking most likely of their dark future. The constant question on their lips is where to go from here.” said Sister Brenda Gathenya the Nurse-in-Charge, Pediatrics.

Mercy’s mother, Margaret Nyambura was a nursery school teacher before and had to leave work to raise her children; her husband was a farmer and the breadwinner. The children are terrified at the thought of returning to where they once knew as home and their harvest and home was all set ablaze.

Mary’s and Jedidah’s (the little one was in the local Kijabe mission nursery school at the time we visited as she has recovered) mother, Serah Wanjiku Kariuki was a farmer before the post electoral violence. Her children are too traumatized to go back and she is looking for a way to resettle elsewhere with a duka perhaps so as to support the young ones.

Anthony’s mother, Peninah Wangui Mbuthia is a skilled tailor and is wondering how to start her life again. They lost everything in the attacks. She is mostly sad because she lost her cherahani which earned them their daily bread”.

In the meantime, they are all thankful for at the very least they escaped with their lives. Just barely.

The hospital also has HIV clinic that cares for just under 5,000 patients. In the height of the violence the operations were disrupted but they were able to reach a large number of their patients who required life-saving ART medication by using their community health workers, volunteers and staff members.

“Among our patients we can take you to the doorsteps of 98% of them. We have regular follow up programs from the hospital and have 27 sites throughout the country for people to receive care and viral management.” said Fredrik Kimemia, Senior Programme Officer in the HIV/AIDS clinic programme.

For many, Kijabe hospital is an oasis of compassion and as we walk away, our hearts are warmed by the hope we see in the eyes of the people walking up and down the corridors of the hospital.

As so says Mahatma Gandhi, “be the change you want to see in the world.” Indeed AIC Kijabe hospital is living up to this by standing out as a Kenyan Shujaa at hand when needed most to replenish drained life and hope of our nation, generation after generation.

Planting Seeds of Peace

In the last ten days of January, as the violence in the Rift Valley spread from Eldoret to Nakuru and then Naivasha, the nature of the aggression changed. From political, the rationale became personal – and as a result wildly out of control. By the beginning of February, as helicopters circled Naivasha, the outskirts of Nairobi were in flames. Thika rioted, and angry protesters besieged Limuru. Closer into town, Tom Oketch, walking to his home near Kibera from a long tough day struggling to implement peace initiatives with a blindly angry public could only watch when two people were lynched in front of him.

At this point, he nearly gave up. Eighteen hour days, seven days a week, full of talks, discussions, peace meetings; all of it seemed pointless as he watched the irrational murder taking place a few feet away, unable to help the victims or remove himself from the situation.

“I felt it was all futile,” explained Tom. “I knew I could spend hours in discussion with someone who promised to remain calm, but could and did turn to violence just as easily and irrationally the following day, his eyes and ears blind for the brief moments it took to snuff out another life, to loot or burn houses and businesses. I was watching it happen”

It was as if a madness had affected everyone and it was out of control, resulting in gruesome killings countrywide.

Fortunately Tom didn’t give up. The following day he attended the regular Peace forum organised by CCP, and reported on the grim state of affairs. He returned to the regular beat of peace meetings, and kept trudging, kept working.

Tom is a volunteer – both with the Lavie Foundation that came into being in 2000 when the Nubians clashed with Luos over rents in overcrowded Kibera, and of the Nairobi Peace Forum that drew together 33 groups during January 2008 in a bid to coordinate a cohesive strategy to cope with the post election violence across the slum areas of Nairobi.

A practiced peacemaker his experience at Lavie, made him wise to the signs of burgeoning unrest. Walking the mud-rutted tracks of Kibera before the election he saw more markers of dissent as tribes polarised -He heard tough talk at the regular Sunday meetings in Kamakunji on a Sunday where Luos would meet and discuss both politics and local affairs. The split began to form – Luo’s with ODM and Kikuyus with PNU. He knew a crisis was close at hand.

On the day of election tensions were running extremely high. Many Luo names were missing from the electoral register – including Raila’s. ECK chairman Kivuitu came to visit Kibera and told people they could vote even if their names were not on the register, and even without ID’s. This cooled the situation down a bit. Tom and fellow volunteers circulated at the meeting, targeting leaders, asking them to talk to the few people they could, urging them to keep peace. “This approach, with time has impact and prevents too much agitation,” he said.

But there was little Tom or any of the volunteers could do in the fretful uncertain days following the election. The violence surged up and around them. They went from Kibera, to Mathare persuading people to stay calm but tempers ran too high.

“All we could do was inform police of what was happening,” said Tom “It wasn’t helpful because the police were so biased as well as liberal with the teargas and bullets.” They often called off planned actions – like in Toi market where a crowd threatened to burn them and they had to run from the meeting they were trying to set up. They couldn’t even go to places like Katwekera because of the militant way the Luos there held out and fought against anyone who tried to enter.

At about this time the Nairobi Youth Forum came into being. A conglomeration of organisation working in slum areas, it was formed to provide a comprehensive network of activity across all the poor urban settlements and it elected Tom as its representative.

Each day NYF responded to calls for help. “One time we had a gang stopping people at night and robbing everyone. They had taken over a road in Korogocho and forced all passers by to pay each time they entered or left. We were able to scatter them with the help of the provincial administration.”

As things began to calm down they held forums, mixing all tribes in often heated discussions, allowing people to air grievances. They did street talks – stopping at a cobblers or groups playing chess and engaging them in conversation “Everyone wants to talk politics,” he said “we would add to the debate by asking what sort of peace they were creating and reminding them of their role in the atmosphere of the place they lived. That sobered them up and often resulted in people reflecting on their role in the violence.”

Still he feels that their work – even though it consumed him night and day – is just a dribble in the sea of humanity squished into the densely populated parts of Kibera, Mathare and Kawangware where he works. “We might reach 100 people in a day – in a place where there are 800,000. It’s a long and slow process.”

It was often disheartening. Tom met many dishonest peacemakers, particularly pastors who would say one thing to him, and then incite violence from the pulpit with their followers.

“I learned that people can do anything,” he said “We are all very civil and then we turn into animals in a moment. It has been a revelation to me – anybody has that potential. I even saw clergy looting – carrying things away from burnt-out shops.”

Tom hasn’t flinched in telling truths, however painful. He is not the sort to use the expression “a certain community”

He reported on the partisanship of the Red Cross in distributing aid, and on how Martha Karua and Beth Mugo took food to Jamhuri IDP camp and insisted it be served only to Kikuyus. He’s taken umbrage with the violence perpetrated and organised in Kamakunji by the Luos.

In his regular updates at the CCP meetings Tom aims to represent the mood of the slums as accurately as he can.

“Most people living in these areas don’t live as they would have wished to. They can’t find work, can’t bring people to visit especially if they are from a more upmarket estate. So they get trapped in their villages getting drunk and angry. They do without food or health services, struggle with water and suffer many indignities.”

He spends much time currently trying to help with employment. He leapt at the opportunity to use 100’s of black plastic crates generously donated by a flower company to help small businesses start again using them in a variety of ways – for storage, carriage, and construction.

He spends much time correcting myths – “People don’t believe there aren’t jobs available and think that Kibaki is hoarding all the high and low paid for Kikuyus. Of course that creates enmity. Many people regard jobs in town in offices or factories as real work, while running a kiosk or a small business is considered temporary until a “proper” job can be found. We teach them to see their entrepreneurship as valid and important since they have created a job for themselves.”

Right now he is actively searching for funding for small organisations who do strong grassroots work but don’t have the right legal set up to access established funding streams.

“Tom is so busy,” said a co-worker. “He has given so much time, energy to bringing about peace and harmony.”

“There won’t be papers written about me,” he said modestly, “but I know I contributing to helping this bad situation. “I wrote statements, made calls, walked the streets, and worked on conciliation. This is my passion. Right back to school and college I was the sort of person that challenged and questioned issues. I liked working with others and I liked dealing with social problems. This has been the biggest challenge of all, but if one person responds and lays down his panga, then I know I have helped clearing a way forward.”

Power, passion, pride – Bamburi Rugby Super Series

The weekend of the 28th and 29th of March 2008 was a positive one for Kenyan rugby internationally and locally. Across the world in Hong Kong, Kenya beat China, Portugal and Scotland to finish top of their group and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Hong Kong Sevens tournament. In the process Dennis Mwanja scored his 51st try to become Kenya’s leading try scorer in the sevens version of the game, and Kenya moved up one place to 5th in the International Rugby Board Sevens World Series table. Kenya is now an established and respected side in Sevens World Series with a reputation for athletic, fast and strong players.

As the rugby world in Hong Kong was falling asleep after a hard day’s work, the rugby world in Nairobi was waking up in tense anticipation for the most important weekend in the rugby season so far – the semi-final weekend of the Bamburi Rugby Super Series, the elite 15-a-side competition.

The Kenya Rugby Football Union (KRFU), the governing body of rugby union in Kenya, had a vision to transform Kenya into a leading international rugby-playing nation not just in sevens but also in the full 15 player version of the game. To realise this vision KRFU had to do a couple of things. First of all KRFU had to establish who the best rugby players in the country were, and secondly KRFU had to have those players participating in intense competition against each other. The Rugby Super Series was born. As the proverb goes, uhukuma mu luhya, nuwahuka hango, “to have respect in the world you must first be respected at home”.

The annual Rugby Super Series, sponsored this year for the 5th year in a row by leading local cement manufacturer Bamburi Cement, brings together the top 180 rugby players in East Africa. Club teams pick their top players and merge these players with the top players of their partner club to form a Rugby Super Series franchise for a total of six franchises, five franchises from Kenya and one from Tanzania, all named after different animals.

In a day of hard fought battles the Rhinos (made of players from Kenya Harlequins RFC and Mwamba RFC) defeated the Cheetahs (drawn from the players of Impala RFC and Nondescripts RFC), while the second semi final saw the Lions (made up of KCB RFC and Mombasa Sports Club RFC) defeat the Sharks (a Nairobi universities select side). The Buffaloes (made up of Kenya upcountry rugby clubs Nakuru, Kisumu, Bungoma, Egerton University, Maseno and Moi University – Eldoret) defeated the Twigas (a Tanzania select side) in the 5th place playoff.

The true winner of the day was the game of rugby. Fans were entertained, battles were fought on the pitch, standards of play increased and perhaps most importantly friendships were cemented not only between team mates but also between players on opposing sides.

On Sunday morning Kenyan rugby fans woke up to news from Hong Kong that the national sevens rugby team had taken the fight to the mighty Fuji losing 10-0 in the quarterfinals of the Hong Kong sevens with national sevens team coach Benjamin Ayimba assuring fans that it is only a matter of time before Kenya claims that prestigious scalp as well.

Like their compatriots in Hong Kong, players from the national 15 a-sides team as well as players from all the Bamburi Rugby Super Series (BRSS) franchises had a busy Sunday in Nairobi. On this Sunday however, Kenya’s top rugby players would leave their mark not on each other but, in a positive way, on their community. BRSS Chairman Aggrey Chabeda, BRSS Tournament Director, Auka Gecheo, Bamburi Representative Sypie Nyinza, Kenya Rugby National 15s Team Manager Wangila Simiyu, BRSS Director – Events Management Josephine Were and BRSS CSR Officer Thomas Arigi together with over 20 players and fans paid a visit to the National Spinal Injury Hospital on Lenana Road in Nairobi. Following a warm welcome from Dr. Maurice Siminyu, his management team and curious patients the rugby players armed themselves with buckets, mops, brooms and bleach and proceeded to give the hospital a good scrubbing. This was an opportunity for the top rugby players in the country to contribute to their community as well as an opportunity for them to sit, talk and encourage and make new friendships with the patients and the staff of the National Spinal Injury Hospital.

Hong Kong to Nairobi, the rugby pitch to pitching in to help in the community, driving mauls, driving brooms, passing balls, passing buckets, up and unders to lifting spirits, this was a weekend in which rugby was the ultimate winner.

Praise Poem – Stephen Derwent Partington

We praise the man who,
though he held the match between
his finger and his thumb,
beheld the terror of its tiny drop of phosphorous,
its brown and globoid smoothness
like a charred and tiny skull
and so returned it to its box.

So too, we hail the youth who,
though he took his panga on the march,
perceived it odd within his fist
when there was neither scrub
nor firewood to be felled,
so laid it down.

An acclamation for the man who,
though he saw the woman running, clothing torn,
and though he lusted,
saw his mother in her youth,
restrained his colleagues
and withdrew.

We pay our homage to the man who,
though his heart was like a stone
and though he took a stone to cast,
could feel its hardness in the softness of his palm
and grasped the brittleness of bone,
so let it drop.

We laud the man who,
though he snatched to scrutinise
the passenger’s I.D.,
saw not the name – instead, the face –
and slid it back
as any friend might slide his hand to shake a friend’s.

And to the rest of us,
a blessing:
may you never have to be that man,
but if you have to,
BE!

Praise Peom was written in Kenya, January 2008. Stephen Derwent Partington is a teacher in Kenya, and a poet. He lives and works just outside Machakos and is a member of Concerned Kenyan Writers. A collection of poems, SMS & Face to Face, was published by Phoenix, Kenya. Stephen is the Exhibitions Consultant for Generation Kenya.

Two Brothers Kidogo

Daniel Nduati’s phone was ringing when he and his brother, Peter, met me in Dagoretti on a recent afternoon. I’d come to visit the rescue shelter the two young men had opened for children displaced by the new year’s violence, but an unrelated matter came up first.

“There’s a lady who says she wants to see us,” Daniel said, putting his phone away. “I don’t know who she is, but she’s just down the street.”

We drove to a nearby matatu stage, where a small, stout woman in a pink business suit climbed into the front seat, introducing herself with a sad smile.

“I have a friend,” Elizabeth said quietly, “who told me you could help my son.”

We drove off, bouncing along the pitted streets of Dagoretti Market with Peter behind the wheel and Daniel in the back with me. Everyone said hello. Peter said all his friends call him OP; Elizabeth nodded, then explained that her boy was addicted to drugs.

“Which ones, exactly?” OP asked.

“Gasoline at first,” said Elizabeth, “but now I think glue also. He used them a long time ago, but stopped for a while when we took him to the hospital last year. Now he’s started again.”

The two brothers took turns asking question, gently but firmly, the way you pull out a tooth.

“How old is your son?”

“Twenty.”

“When did he first start sniffing?”

“When he was eight.”

“Where does he get the money?”

“He charges batteries.”

“Your boy has absorbed these drugs deeply,” Daniel concluded after a few minutes. “They are in his blood, in his brain. He’s helpless now, and angry because of that. He is angry at you and everyone who loves him. But we can make him better. Tomorrow, we’ll come to your house and talk with him. And later we’ll bring him to stay with us for a while. He needs to be around other boys who have gone through this kind of thing.”

There are no shortage of such boys in Nairobi – Daniel is one himself. Though no hint of it remains in his smooth, quietly flamboyant manner, when Daniel was thirteen he ran away and spent four years on the streets of the capital, addicted “to every drug I could get my hands on.” He was seventeen before a religious awakening finally brought him into church and convinced him to move back home.

His return to his family led to a theological scholarship in Norway, from which he graduated in 2000 and came back to Kenya. Together with his brother’s help and the financial backing of private donors he’d met abroad, Daniel founded a shelter for street children in the shade of the Ngong hills: the Emmanuel Boyz Rescue Center.
Over the past seven years, Daniel and OP have ushered over three hundred street children through Emmanuel’s doors. Not a bad resume for two guys in their mid-twenties. But as 2007 gave way to a dark new year, the brothers realized that one Emmanuel wasn’t nearly enough.

“A few days after Kibaki was announced president,” OP recalled, “I called Daniel and told him: we have to act swiftly.” Calls had been pouring in from IDP camps desperate to find living spaces for their burgeoning populations. But Emmanuel was already full. OP squeezed a few homeless Luo boys in from Dagoretti, knowing they would be killed if they stayed on the Kikuyu-dominated streets… but the pressure to bring in more grew literally by the hour.

On January 4th, less than a week into the chaos, Daniel and OP rented a two-storey, five-bedroom house on Dagoretti’s Waithaka-Ruthimitu Road, and started driving in families by the truckload. They called their new home Emmanuel Kidogo.

“The first group we brought were sixteen street kids from Korogocho,” OP recalled. “They were so traumatized they forgot all about their drug habits.”

But as more victims kept flooding in to Kidogo, the silver lining grew increasingly thin. Leaflets signed ‘Mungiki’ began appearing on doorsteps throughout Dagoretti, including at Kidogo: All Luos and Kalenjin are our enemies, they read. You have 48 hours to leave before we burn your houses.

“We ferried in all the non-Kikuyus in the middle of the night,” Daniel said. “Once they were there, we warned them not to step outside. Man, it was tense.”

Eighty people were living at Kidogo at the height of the chaos. Many had left by the time I visited, driven by OP and Daniel to family homes outside Nairobi. But 30 boys remain for Kidogo is now a permanent home.

There is Jacky Karanja, the ten-year-old bearer of a vicious scar now running the length of his right leg. A street child from Dagoretti, he’d jumped on to a speeding lorry to escape a scene of tear gas, machetes and stray bullets; he escaped all these only to lose his grip and fall at such velocity that the pavement tore the flesh off his bone.

And there are the three Karioki brothers: Hosea, James and Joseph. Aged seven, nine, and eleven, they were tending cattle in Burnt Forest when the fields caught fire on December 30th. They raced back to the house in time for their mother to hide them in a cow shed. She then ran into the granary to distract raiders, who locked her inside and burned her alive while her children watched through a crack in the wall.

More than half of Kidogo’s children were orphaned in the post-election violence. “They’ve lost all trust,” said OP. “We have counselors who talk to them every day, and slowly they are opening up. But it’s extremely hard to get them to talk about what they’ve been through.”

With their past in ruins, it can at least be said the boys have a good shot at a positive future. The most immediate threat was resolved when Daniel and OP organized a meeting with the local Mungiki, convincing them to leave Kidogo alone.

“In fact,” said Daniel, “they’re now protecting us.”

Meanwhile, 28 of the boys are enrolled in school or vocational training, depending on their age. The remaining two are joined by a dozen kids from the neighborhood each day – Kidogo doubles as a kindergarten, tended by the pastor who now lives here after his own home was destroyed in the skirmishes.

“You know,” Daniel said, “we can’t wait for the government to step in and solve everything – we have to act now. We have to get these kids in school, and we have to teach them to love each other.”

“Only when we educate the children that we are all Kenyans,” OP added, “can we expect change. That’s why we’re focusing on the kids. They’re our foundation. If we give them the right information, in ten or fifteen years we’ll be living in a very different Kenya.”

Arno Kopecky is a Canadian journalist and travel writer currently based in Nairobi. After spending most of his twenties on a surfboard, Arno moved to New York city for an internship with Harper’s Magazine. Since then he has written extensively for Canadian and international publications like The Walrus Magazine, The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, as well as Kenya’s own Daily Nation newspaper. He is an editor at Kwani?.

Mercy’s Mission

For three days after the hurried December announcement that Kibaki was to be president, Mercy Gichangi sat in her house, stunned and afraid. As 2007 gave way to 2008 she could find no cause for celebration. All around her, chaos was in charge. Day and night she could hear shouts and wailing, could see bashed-in houses and torched kiosks, the result of angry citizenry on both sides giving vent to their feelings about the General Election. Many of those rioting, yelling, and beating were youth, and that touched Mercy. It was this that gave her the push she needed to come out of hiding.

She was sure her skills as a consultant, formed through a university degree in economics, a training stint in Leadership at the National Democratic Institute in Lavington, a Master’s in International Relations, and experience in Mandera and Southern Sudan would be of use. Stints in Mandera and Southern Sudan had tested and honed this expertise.

“I was particularly interested in gathering and mobilising young people to think differently,” she said. They are, after all, our future, which is very bleak if they are the ones taking to the streets, looting and burning their neighbours.

Mercy first made it to the PeaceNet meetings. However there was already a youth co-ordinator there. She had heard of another group, Concerned Citizens for Peace (CCP) through a news item on TV, and decided to try there. And it was here she found her niche.

“CCP struck me as more individual oriented rather than NGO focussed,” explained Mercy. “Their approach is that if you have an idea, they will support you, but you have to run with it. You have to do the footwork.” That was fine with her. She had plenty of ideas. And she was ready to run.

Together with other volunteers and with a force that belied her slight, pinstriped frame she set about creating a structure that linked the various young people initiatives she came across. A network of 30 youth leaders from 20 groups across the slums formed a network called Balozi wa Amani to help co-ordinate a slew of peace initiatives. They in turn teamed with a host of NGOs ranging from UN Habitat to the Mwelu Foundation. Soon Mercy was co-ordinating a group of 60 people that made up the new grouping Concerned Youth for Peace (CYP).

Everyone worked on a volunteer basis, and everyone worked with a fierce energy, tackling each event with greater urgency in their desire to help mitigate the rising tides of violence in the slums. They arranged peace meetings, and created a countrywide National Youth Violence Prevention week. They organised football matches in Korogocho, a fashion show in Kibera, peace walks in Dandora, theatre in Huruma, poetry in Embakasi, community dialogue in all areas – anything that brought both sides together and allowed them to interact non-violently. Event after event was planned in Dandora, Mathare, Kibera, Huruma, Kawangware, focussing on reflection and forgiveness.

“I became adept at seeing things from the perspective of these marginalised young people,” said Mercy. “It gave me a whole new understanding of the problems those living in poor urban settlements face. Gainful employment, finding relevance and all the frustration that the absence of these can bring is as much a part of the issue as ethnicity.”

Of the various initiatives she co-ordinated, she feels most satisfied at the outcome of one of the first, a Night Vigil. “We had people coming from all the slums to attend the open forum, to speak their minds, and to cry. It was very moving to see these young people come forward to elaborate their opinions as to the way out of the conflict.”

But it wasn’t all easy. For the first six weeks she kept a low profile as she organised events, afraid that her actions might make her a target for retribution. “Because I worked with people from all communities, I stayed out of the limelight I didn’t want to be harassed by those who felt I should only work with those in my tribe. It has been a time of such pain – there are many who have really hard feelings because they lost a relative, or a business – or everything.” Then there were those who took one look at her tiny frame and dismissed her for being too young, too inexperienced. It was sometimes very discouraging, she said.

In the recent past, , Mercy has worked with the Mediae Trust – makers of TV soap Makutano Junction, and Slum TV – who arrange screenings of motivational movies to show a special episode of the popular programme that directly tackles violence and tribalism. “We had viewings in the evenings to distract youth from more harmful activities,” she explained. “It’s a great series made by Kenyans for Kenyans and including all tribes in the production and the performances.”

“Even though our audience know that it’s actors, I see many of them in tears when they watch that episode,” she says of the many screenings that Slum TV have made of the special Tribalism episode around Nairobi. A snippet is available for viewing on YouTube:

Two months on and she has seen much positive come out of their work. “The best is always when I see someone begin to turn around through a community dialogue or a training day and say that this can’t be allowed to happen in our country. Then I feel great, as though I have in some small way been able to help bring about transformation.”

CCP gave me a network to work with, and, in setting up CYP, it allowed me to help my country in this time of suffering, said Mercy.

As she makes her way back to the relative quiet of her home, she knows that she has played her part in the effort to achieve that peace.

Shalini Gidoomal is a freelance journalist, writer, businesswoman and inveterate traveller, born, and currently living in Nairobi. She has worked extensively on various UK and international magazines and newspapers, including The Independent, News of the World, Today, FHM, GQ and Architectural Digest. She profiled five Northern Irish photographers for the book Parallel Realities, and has worked in Kenya for the Standard and Camerapix. Her short stories and non- fiction have been published in The Obituary Tango, Jungfrau and Kwani 04. She is editorial co-ordinator for the GenerationKenya45 project and festival director of Kwani Litfest 2008.

We apologize for the incorrect images when this story was first released on our site.

Vuma Kenya

Vuma Kenya is an events inspired initiative based on mobilizing citizens globally to create awareness and spread the message that together we can make changes. Founded by Harvard medical student Karimi Gituma, Vuma focuses on bringing people in the “diaspora” together with different charity organisations trying to reach out.at a grassroots level in Kenya.

She explained; ” When the violence broke out, I felt I must do something.” So she did, and 2 weeks later VUMA Kenya was born.

“Our slogan is A New Kenya Reborn. Vuma is the product of discussions and reaching out to people from all sorts of backgrounds, delving back to my childhood and highschool days reaching out to folks that I haven’t talked to in over 10 years but one thing that brought us all together was our uniform deep seated concern for the direction our country was headed and the need to DO something about it. Our country will not weather this storm another 5 years from now and it is our imperative to do something to change the tide, we cannot go back to “business as usual” our typical Kenyan response. Kenya is forever changed, our lives are forever changed and this whole fiasco has left an indelible mark on every fiber of the Kenyan social, political and economic fabric.”

Vuma launched their organization VUMA KENYA on February 2nd with a large benefit concert in Boston featuring some of Kenya’s finest artistes including Eric Wainaina. The money raised went to the Kenya Red Cross. Part of Vuma’s focus events include corporate and social meets, concerts and campaigns. They aim also to link and network groups interested in peace and humanitarian initaitives.

Vuma’s next major projects include panel discussions in the US on the Truth and Reconcilation Commission, and a partnership with CCP Kenya, which will see Vuma Kenya raising funds through their Ten4Ten campaign in their new role as founders of CCP-USA.

The Kenyan Diaspora Takes Action

GRACE, ‘BABY BRIAN’ AND THE HUMANISATION OF THE INHUMANE

It is a great pity we don’t know/ When the dead are going to die/So that, over a last companionable/ Drink, we could tell them/ How much we liked them –
Bernard O’Donoghue, ‘Going Without Saying’

There are certain types of violence and suffering that can not be hidden: whole villages burnt to the ground, teargas canisters falling like obscene snowballs, people of ‘a certain community’ trudging in their tens of thousands to IDP camps. All very visible, very public, and we can tut-tut from the safe-side of our TV screens.

And yet, there is sometimes a violence that is so real and vile, so intense, that even the image-loving media will suppress evidence of it, for fear that such photographs will ‘inflame’ yet more wrongheaded passion, more violence. Such photographs circulate in small but dynamic whirlpools, from private email inbox to inbox, and on the obscure blogsites of the concerned. Like doppelgangers, you get to see them only if you are very lucky. Or unlucky.

But if there is tragedy of the type that I will come to mention, there is also, sometimes, extraordinary kindness and humanity. Occasionally and impressively, this is from strangers, and is of a sort that can not of course compensate for death, for loss, but which can at least remind us that we are all capable of goodness, that we can all exhibit virtue and care.

***

At the height of the post-election violence in Kenya, a disturbing photograph was snapped by a Reuters photographer. Certain international media houses ran it, but here in Kenya it was only visible to those with the correct internet associates. Let me, in an attempt to dissociate myself from the shock that I first felt on seeing this picture, try to unemotionally describe the scene. Perhaps bullet points are miserably appropriate:

• the flimsy door of a one-or-two roomed house is ajar, and through the doorway we see …
• battered old chairs, covered with net-curtain material
• a fourteen-month old baby sitting on one of those chairs, crying
• a teenage mother, the baby’s mother, sprawled face-up on the floor, dead, a large stain of irremovable red blood seeping across the bare concrete from her head

And that, visually, is that. Of course, the scene had a cause: a policeman’s bullet. Whether that bullet was fired in error or intent, we should let an investigation decide, perhaps. Presumably, though, the child, ‘Baby Brian’, is not aware of the niceties of the Kenyan legal system. What he seems aware of at the time of the photo is only the taste of tears and the indeterminate absence of something vital.

That might have been the end of it: once more, we might have just looked at this photograph, tut-tutted or shed a weakly cathartic tear, and moved on to the next image, forgetting Brian or his innocent mother, Grace. Probably, that’s what I was going to do in those post-election days of image overload.

No, such a story can not have a truly happy ending, not yet, but it can and does have a continuation that is something of a palliative. For all the right reasons, a Kenyan named Joseph Karoki featured the disturbing Reuters photograph on his Blogsite, josephkaroki.wordpress.com. Joseph didn’t want us to just ogle at this picture, to ooh-and-ahh or enrage – rather, he wanted to help Baby Brian and his family, and give others the opportunity to help. Along with other friends in Kenya, he traced Baby Brian and his remaining family to a village near Naivasha. Then, working with the family, he began to raise money for, initially, Grace’s funeral and (an ongoing project) an educational fund for Brian’s future. The details of how to donate toward this secure fund appear both on Joseph’s Blogsite and on the website of VUMA KENYA, a non-profit initiative based in the US.

Grace Mungai has since been buried, with the dignity that a stray bullet denied her. Deprived of life in what should have been her joyful teenage years and the early years of motherhood, Grace at least now has the cold comfort of lying somewhere more tender than a concrete floor. For that, she has her family to thank, but also the kindness of strangers who took all the indecency of that image and converted a little of it into kindness, into grace.

So, is there a hero who has emerged from this appalling situation? Sometimes it’s impossible to identify one figure when all the players exhibit something of either integrity or innocence. Perhaps, in macabre fashion, we can perform a version of an Agatha Christie denouement:

• Jeremiah, the father of Brian and the husband of Grace, certainly. He is the silent player, who does not feature in either the photograph or in my inadequate prose
• Baby Brian, yes. Not because suffering is noble, but because like all children he has the potential to grow into a forgiving young man. He can not grow by himself, no, for who can now wish isolation upon him? Rather, he can do it with the support of family and his new-found well-wishers who can prove right the old proverb that in Africa ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. Sometimes, a global, web village
• Grace? Like so many others, she is an accidental martyr, missed by all who knew her well and loved her dearly, but also, no doubt, by those strangers who she herself must have at times shown kindness to.
• Us? Potentially, if we either act on this case, or if we ourselves do the right thing in difficult times
• Joseph Karoki and the VUMA KENYA diasporans? Yes, and obviously Yes, for they took what might have been a hidden shock and sympathy, and they acted upon it, realising that tears alone are inadequate. They combined pity with practicality, and so got something done. Something that reminds us that in those days when we rightly worried because neighbour turned upon neighbour, there were also strangers who turned positively to strangers, and who lent a hand, even across the reach of the Atlantic Ocean

Most importantly, to my mind, we are reminded that we do not ever have to suffer in silence when we are ourselves wronged, or accept that someone else’s suffering is ‘their own problem’, safely distant from us. Rather, we are humbled into the realisation, the healing realisation, that we all suffer when the innocent suffer, and that we can all, all of us, no matter how ‘little’ we are made to feel in comparison to the so-called ‘Big Men’, be better, be good, be human.

Stephen Derwent Partington is a teacher in Kenya, and a poet. He lives and works just outside Machakos and is a member of Concerned Kenyan Writers. A collection of poems, SMS & Face to Face, was published by Phoenix, Kenya Email: stepartington @ yahoo.co.uk.

The Preacher of Peace

Soon after the post-election violence in Kenya started, Ochieng’ Nyawire took up the role of roving peace-maker in the streets of his Kiambui neighbourhood, armed only with his Bible and his prayers. He argued endlessly for peace, facing down angry police officers and equally angry neighbours as he preached reconciliation and calm even at the height of the violence. I asked him what led him to take up such a potentially dangerous role and he gave me one of those unsatisfying answers: basically, he said he did it ‘just because.’ When I prodded further, looking for some more existentially satisfying answer, he said it was ‘just his nature.’ However, he describes himself primarily as a preacher in the Christian Family Church “I am Timothy’s helper,” he said. The large Bible on the table before him was testament to his devotion.

Ochieng’ Nyawire is a 37 year old father of two boys. His Kiambui neighbourhood is one of the many impoverished urban settlements that dot the city of Nairobi and hold 60% of its 3 million people. Kiambui is in Eastleigh South Location within Kamkunji constituency. It borders the Airforce base on one side, Uhuru Estate on another. and Buru Buru Phase One on a third. It is divided into 4 subsections called Kosovo ( where Luos predominate), Sagana (Kikuyus ), Nyamira (Kisii) and Vihiga (Luhyia)

In relating his tireless activities as a preacher of peace in the different sections of Kiambui, Ochieng’ talks without anger and bitternes, even though he himself had been threatened with violence and reprisals during the worst of the violence. To him, Kiambui is a place where violent death takes place beside acts of unbelievable generosity and love. A life is lost and another life is saved, just as easily. In addition to narrating his own efforts to bring peace to his neighbourhood, Ochieng’ relates many incidents when he was sheltered by Kikuyu people who remained his friends. He sought them out purposefully when he found himself in the middle of a bout of violence in the wrong locale. He talks of these encounters with a simple matter-of-factnesss that belies the terrible events that have been taking place outside the flimsy mabati structure keeping him safe. .

“I was at home in Kiambui when the violence started on the night of 29th December, ,” Ochieng’ says.

When they announced Kibaki as President and had the swearing-in ceremony, I was worshiping with my wife, praying for calm in Kenya. People heard us and took it as celebration that “our” president had been sworn in. Missiles thrown at us. We were attacked. We remained indoors behind locked gates until the next morning. There was gunfire outside and a lot of noise and commotion. .

The next morning, I woke up and went outside my compound around six am. I saw terrible destruction all around me. Many buildings had demolished and razed to the the ground. There had been much looting of residential houses and business in the Kosovo area. Most of the structures that had been attacked belonged to Kikuyus and a few belonged to Kambas. I was heading in the direction of Sagana but there was a contingent of the dreaded General Service Unit (GSU) in the area.

The GSU and police had shot and killed a man who was apparently too drunk to obey orders. The man shot was said to be from the Luo tribe and the police officer who shot him was said to be a Kikuyu. . This made people in the neighbourhood very angry and raised tensions to volatile levels. I talked to the police and GSU and asked them not to use force on the people because it would only raise temperatures. I was afraid of what might happen.

Fortunately, the GSU listened to me. They had been telling people to stay indoors, but I also made them understand that people felt that it was actually dangerous to remain indoors, because they afraid that they would be attacked by the Mungiki militia.

I asked the police to patrol along the river that divides Kosovo from City Carton which is predominantly Kikuyu and to stop the residents of the other slum called City Carton from coming across the river. . The Police consented to undertake this patrol, but when they tried, they found that the residents had barricaded the way and would not let the police and GSU through. However, I went and negotiated with these residents, and after our discussions, they allowed the GSU access to patrol.

I could see that it was a very dangerous situation. The police and GSU had guns. I did not want the GSU to unleash violence on the people. It was like a tinderbox—any small thing could have set off even more serious repercussions. The people living in Kosovo are proud of their reputation of never retreating from a fight or a confrontation.

Negotiating for a peaceful resolution with the residents of Kiambui and the GSU went on for forty minutes. Many of the people in Kosovo were not happy with me. They did not want me to reason with the security officers. They were ready for confrontation. They felt I was trying to appease the police and colluding with ‘these people who have stolen the Presidency from us.’ They said I was toning down the issues too much. They felt that I should be war-ike and confrontational and not cede any ground. Some of them were saying loudly;

–Let them kill us!

But eventually I prevailed and things calmed down and the people let the police and GSU through.”

Ochieng’ Nyawire continues to pray and work for peace for all Kenyans and peace in Kiambui and its neighbourhoods. He practices what he preaches—a true Kenyan hero.

Betty Wamalwa Muragori is a writer who lives in Nairobi with her husband and three children. She also writes as the poet Sitawa Namwalie and is a member of the Concerned Kenyan Writers.

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