Ruai IDPs resort to sewage for farming

By Bernard Kimani

The sewage area in Ruai that displaced persons call home could easily pass as another upcoming slum.

But one would be forgiven for thinking along that line. Anyone who has experienced life in slums and IDP camps would concede that it is a nasty experience.

At the camp, there are shanties made of tattered polythene and old iron sheets.

However, as the day progresses, the scenario changes, as the young and the old return home, bringing the camp back to life.

They have been working all day long to earn an income. They are evidently burdened by what they go through to survive.

“We are a forgotten lot and even abandoned by the Government,” says Joshuah Njoroge Gathuita, one of the IDP committee members.

The IDPs have taken to farming. The area is dry and what keeps them moving is water released from the Ruai Sewage Treatment Plant and Nairobi River.

The two rivers have come in handy and most of the farming is taking place at their confluence.

Although the water is not safe for farming, to them it’s a necessary evil. “We don’t receive food from the Government, we have to work hard to feed ourselves,” says Gathuita.

Necessary evil

According to Gathuita, the Ministry of Special Programmes has failed to assist them.

 “When we asked the ministry why we were not considered like other people in other camps, we were told that our names were submitted late,” he says.

The names, he says, were submitted to the ministry in 2009 and they were told the deadline for submission was August 2008.

Harsh times

In 2008, Embakasi MP Ferdinand Waititu relocated them from Kirathimo Camp in Limuru.

 He says the MP’s aim was to reduce congestion at Kirathimo camp, where they were exposed to diseases.

It was during the relocation that they missed the registration. According to Gathuita, some of the IDPs returned to their farms while others opted to move out of the Ruai camps due to harsh times they encountered.

“We live here knowing that it’s not our land,” he adds.

Negligible food

However, Gathuita says that since 2008, they have only received food  at the chiefs’ camp six times.

He says the food they received was negligible and hardly lasted long.

Pastor Boniface Githumbi laments that they did not receive the Sh10,000 given by the Government.

“One would be mistaken to think that we are okay, the kind of farming which is our lifeline here is full of obstacles,” says Githumbi. He adds, “It’s very expensive to grow vegetables which help them earn income.”

He notes that farming there is affected by many factors. There are hippopotamus living in the rivers and in the sewerage which is about less than a kilometre from their camp, which destroy their vegetables.

To avoid such damages, the IDPs have resorted to maize farming, which he says attracts hippopotamus less.

Pale shadow

 But he notes vegetable farming is the best although is expensive since one has to hire generator to pump water.

Mrs Margret Wambui, 36, looks back over her life with nostalgia.

 “I don’t see my life ever getting where it was before the 2007 post-election clashes,” says Wambui.

Wambui was a business woman who resided in Narok town. “I ventured into mitumba business,” she recalls.

But today her face displays a pale shadow of her past. At the camp, she recalls how her daughter Teresia Watiri, 12, disappeared from the camp in 2009.

Wambui says her disappearance was mysterious and up-to-date she doesn’t know where she is but only hopes that one day the daughter will come back.

 Her efforts to trace her were futile. She says other than farming, they survive from doing manual jobs like washing clothes for pay in the neigbouring Ruai area.

“Life is hard, there is no clean water, hospital or schools around here,” notes Wambui.