IDP camp whose dark clouds have a silver lining

By Patrick Mathangani and James Munyeki

Standing in the middle of lush green farms and picturesque hills, the sprawling shantytown of white tents and iron shacks looks misplaced.

The tents, some worn out and fighting to stay put amid strong gusts of wind, stand like giant mushrooms jutting out of the earth.

Scraggy-haired children sit outside the tents, while some with waning strength play hide-and-seek under the watchful eyes of their mothers.

Ms Esther Akiru sits in her tatty tent, which she shares with her husband and five children.

Four of the kids, the youngest one and-a half-years old, sit with her, scooping handfuls of white rice from bowls.

"Everyday, we wait for a good thing to happen," says Akiru, whose family was tossed out of Molo in Rift Valley Province at the height of post-election violence last year.

"Look at the way my legs are swollen," she says, gently tapping shoeless feet with her thumbs. "I’ve travelled a long distance looking for a job. I did not get one."

Settlement

A woman stands outside her tent in Mawingo Camp, Ol Kalou

Akiru is one of more than 14,000 people living in Mawingo Camp, a settlement for displaced families who bought land in Ol Kalou, Nyandarua last year.

They moved here from a displacement camp in Nakuru Showground after pooling the money given by the Government then to assist them return to their homes.

During the violence that erupted over the disputed presidential election results between President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, more than 1,300 people were killed, about 650,000 uprooted from their homes and property destroyed.

Without food, water, proper sanitation and health services, residents of Mawingo camp live in misery as refugees in their homeland. Yet, theirs is a tale of a people who have refused to give up and have shown the way where the Government has failed.

Since moving in, a communal spirit has flourished.

It was a fit of sorts as the 14,000 family heads, who did not know each other before and only met at the showground, pooled the money to buy 60 acres at Mawingo. They have since renamed the camp Shalom City.

Each family contributed Sh10,000 given by the Government for resettlement and helped raise over Sh14 million for the land.

"We just knew that we had to help each other," says Ms Teresia Wairimu, whose second-hand clothes shop was burnt in Kericho. "We live like sisters and brothers."

There was much fanfare when last year, the families moved into their new home in Nyandarua. But soon, elation turned to despair as they realised they had no food, water or hospitals.

But what worries parents there most is that there are no schools for their children.

The new settlers have turned two previously unused buildings into a secondary school.

However, it has no teachers or proper classrooms. Students who should be in different grades study in the same rooms.

Prospects of a better future for the children are fast fading.

However, the communal spirit is at work again as some residents have volunteered to teach for free at the school.

A child eats inside a family tent in the IDP camp.[PHOTOS: GEORGE MULALA/STANDARD]

Manual jobs

"Our older children who have better education have offered to help the younger ones. But at times, they don’t teach because they too have to go look for manual jobs," says Wairimu whose son, David Kimani, is in Form Two at the school.

A few metres from where Akiru sat, a group of women in ankle-length garbs and white headdresses dances to the steady rhythm of animal-skin drums.

One is chanting in tongues, while several others chant back in unison, drowning the cries of a baby in their midst.

Some collapse in mysterious seizures, kicking and throwing punches at unseen opponents.

This is the prayer place for Hazina ya Kirathimo, a charismatic church that has been offering spiritual nourishment, counselling and encouragement to the residents.

"When we are many like this and share the suffering, you don’t get to feel your pain," says Ms Nancy Wambui, one of the church’s leaders.

Like the others, she too suffered immensely in the violence.

"That man you see over there talking to himself is my son," she says, pointing at a middle-aged man wandering around in tattered clothes.

"He suffered a mental breakdown when a group of people tried to kill him and set his business premises on fire. Then his wife ran off with their two children."

Mothers say children easily catch diseases because of sleeping in the cold tents at night. There are also fears girls could become prey to amorous men, whom they share tents with.

Relief food shipments are hard to come by, residents say, and ask the Government to expand a nearby health facility.

Many of these refugees vow they would never go back to the homes they were evicted from.

"These children were traumatised. We wanted to give them a place to heal," says one of their representatives, Mr Michael Wainaina.