In response to these comments I am posting more LCVR images. As I was preparing the images, I was struck by the backpacks in hallways, books on tables, and hallways empty of students, all busy in class. As a photographer I am always looking for views and angles that give a sense of a place, the proximity of elements, how the light defines or accents its features. I look for places that feel like they have history. In this series, the photo of the base of a spiral staircase struck me as one of those places that someone would have marked as their own via a memory or experience. The green benches under the trees also seems to hold stories. I hope these images trigger more memories.

I drove out of Nairobi in the darkness of early morning to catch the commuter train into Nairobi station, boarding somewhere just outside of Kikuyu as the day was dawning. Trains are fascinating unto themselves, but thousands of people depend on it daily to get into Nairobi for work and return home to the outlying areas. Space is at a premium long before the train reaches Nairobi station, and just when you think it has reached capacity there is another stop. My intention was to make photographs inside the train, but that turned out not to be possible once I was packed in.

Early morning near Kikuyu

A schoolboy boards

Travelling the countryside

The train caters to every type of person

Pulling into Nairobi station

Depature

The local restaurant near the station. It's one of my favorite places to hang out.

You can still get a cup of tea for 10 shillings.

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.

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.

Mohinder loves nature and in particular shooting wildlife with very wide panoramic shots and would disappear into the bush with his family for weeks. These pictures have been used in calendars, picture books and magazines. As a TV news cameraman Mohinder has roamed round the world always carrying his Leica stills camera round his neck to capture some rare shots. He was the first photo and TV journalist to capture the plight of Iranian Kurds behind Khomeini’s lines and his extraordinary first pictures shocked the world generating a lot for sympathy of Kurdish sufferance.

(editor’s note: For this photo essay I have chosen pictures of Mohinder in the field as an appreciation of the hard work involved in collecting stories, especially prior to the digital age.)

Additional reporting by Nick Ysenberg