Getting Closer to Reality

We’re rookies …. first timers…. privileged to serve as International Relief Managers (IRMs) with CRWRC for 3 months in Kenya on a food distribution project in the Mount Elgon area.

But the real story is in the individual lives of the displaced households whom we serve.

Being displaced means abandoning your home and livelihood to escape violence – beating, killings, the burning of houses, and looting. The abuses come from militia groups, police and even the special forces sent to stop the violence. War breeds hunger. But let’s get closer to reality. Meet 30 year old Nelly Charotich.

She arrives at the distribution site in Kaboywo today along with 699 other beneficiaries who come monthly to collect 50 kg maize, 10 kg beans and 500 grams of iodized salt. She was met with tears from fellow IDPs because they know she gave birth only 5 days ago and that she had walked carrying her baby for 2 hours (downhill) in the dust. They know her story. They share her pain.

Imagine running from the police into the forest and giving birth to your child there. Imagine raids by militia men followed by beatings from the police who are looking for the militia men. Imagine the whole family huddled in their hut sleeping on 2 mats, having no belongings but a few dishes and some tattered clothes.

We walk down the mountain path to the cluster of thatched mud huts overlooking the valley.

There is a small cooking pit on one side of the 8 foot diameter mud hut where Nelly lives with her husband Geoffrey and their five children - 4 boys and one girl. We are invited inside. What an honor to have the opportunity to see their home. We have permission to take photographs. It is dark inside. We soon move back outside to talk and meet their neighbors. We ask questions and they share the stark reality of their existence.

The family had lived in Chebuke where they had a small farm and grew their own food but ran in fear in February 2007 when violence erupted. They fled to an abandoned house in another village where they stayed until September, living from the kindness of well wishers. Violence again forced them to move, this time to Kaboywo high up the mountain on the edge of the forest. The forest looks peaceful and serene. Geoffrey tells us that approximately 10,000 people are living in the open air in those trees… hiding from the violence.

We ask if they would go back to Chebuke if peace returns. He looks very disturbed and tells us ‘no’ – because of the bloodshed they witnessed – it would be too traumatic. Many who left because of the police actins do not want to go back.

Back to today – the family has no food and no money. The CRWRC relief food is keeping them alive. They are a very grateful to have been receiving food since October. They are good farmers but they cannot plant crops on land which does not belong to them. Geoffrey helps harvesting maize or weeding but does not get paid money – he is given a small amount of food in exchange for his labor. There is no work now. His shoes are unmatched and patched together by hand stitched pieces. Not much of the original shoes remain. This is a sign of deep poverty.

But Nelly is cheerful although she is very hungry and her children are sick with worms.

Their neighbour has an old maize grinder which is shared – it takes 1 hour to grind 1 kg maize. Then they will use their precious firewood to cook ugali. Tonight they eat.

One more thing – they asked us to name their newborn daughter. We named her Grace, Nema in Swahili, for we believe that it is only by God’s grace that mother and daughter are alive, and it will take the grace of God to keep them.

A few months form now it will be the rainy season. The hut will leak.