After the presidential election of 2007 tribal warfare brook loose,
leaving 1500 dead and 600,000 homeless, unable to return to their
homes in fear of what might happen to them. Over two years have
passed and many families are still desperately seeking help to build
shelters, educate their children, and merely survive the harsh
environments they were forced into.
I mentioned in a previous post that VICDA has asked a few of us to
help build homes at an IDP camp and I have decided to take a break
from Maasailand and assist families at the Rongai IDP camp, located
near the city of Nakuru. This particular camp has 244 people, most
still living in tents provided by the government in October of last
year. For two years prior to that they were living in shelters made
out of whatever materials they could find, many not surviving due to
disease and starvation. In December the government finally came
through with materials to build sustainable homes, but with little
manpower it has been challenging for many people to finish or even
start on the construction of their homes.
I am now 4 days in at the Rongai IDP camp and it feels great to be so
exhausted after a hard weeks work. I and three other volunteers have
helped build homes for 3 families so far, all of which are elderly
couples who’ve lost children due to the post election violence. The
houses are not made out of metal sheets like I expected, but they are
very similar to the manyattas, minus the cow dung (thank goodness).
They are quite sturdy, lasting for supposedly 30-40 years. Since the
frames on most of the homes are up, we have been packing more mud than
possibly imaginable to form the exterior walls. Despite it’s
simplistic construction, it has proven to be back-breaking, arm
throbbing, and knee aching work.
We all wake up to the sound of each other’s groans instead of the
goats we’ve grown accustomed to at Rosemary’s house. And although we
can barely walk by the end of the day and are taking part in something
that should probably be featured on the television show ‘Dirty Jobs’;
I am happy to be here, working alongside these families that have lost
everything, but can still put on that bright Kenyan smile I have grown
to know so well.
