Soar Kenya

We continue to post letters as they reach us, first removing anything that would identify the sender.  Kenya is a dangerous place to be.

If you can send any funds at all, please do so.  If you prefer to deal with a charity that’s been around for a longer time, send the money to the Red Cross.  It doesn’t matter who gets the credit for sending money as long as it is sent.  Please, please help them.  Thank you.

Mary,

Hi, hope you are fine. Things are so bad here for all of us. I am so stressed I cannot understand. I suffered a lot in 1998 when my house was burnt to the ground. I was replacing one thing at a time, but now I don’t know where to run to or who to help me. On 31^st December when it started I was able to move my elderly mother (96yrs old) my two daughters and my son’s children to a house in town. My husband, myself, my son and my nephew we have been sleeping outside around our home together with the rest of the people in our area. We don’t know when they (Kalenjins) can strike. They have already burnt houses belonging to Kikuyus and Kisii community.

We opened Schools on 14^th January but only 370 pupils reported back, we are only four teachers who reported back. We lost one of our parents; most pupils are starving to death because their parents’ stalls/shops were burnt. Many pupils are reporting to our Schools from else where. The Schools in our town are in chaos, they are overflowing with pupils. Please Mary we are not able to feed these poor pupils. Some boys have gone to the streets to sell paper bags in order to get food for themselves and their siblings’ but the community is very hostile.

Pray for us and help us. 

Hallo Mary,

Thank you so much for your love, care and concern. Friends like you keep us going. Things are getting better and we are getting busy by the day trying to sort out a few of the problems we are facing and those that we can handle.

I am very tired today but i won’t complain because this evening, i feel i have achieved so much. This week has been very busy for us, working at the school and at the show ground. Most kids who did not report this week have confirmed that they will report next week.That makes me at ease and happy. I discouraged some of them from traveling the last three days because of the demonstrations which left so many people wounded in various parts of the country.
 We have a number of our students displaced and in various camps, so we are working on a way to bring them to Nakuru. They have no money, uniforms , books , food e.t.c. but that can always be arranged once we get them here. I am from the show ground now and we just put up a list with names of the school going kids and the names of schools they will be attending until we get a permanent solution to this problem. That was the greatest achievement of the week. As an educationist, I know the importance of education and its great to know that these kids will still go to school. We also put in place a programme for the small kids. They have a field where they can play and a few university students - rotaractors are taking them through a nursery education programme. Things at the shelter box are going well and I am so proud!  A system we have put in place is running despite the many problems these people are facing. Little by little, we are getting there. I hope we can eventually get enough tents for the 2000 people at the Nakuru show ground. The living conditions are pathetic. 

 We promise that every coin sent to us will go to the intended project. .

Thank you so much for your continued support. I pray the country will be safe for you to make your trip. I can’t wait to meet you Mary.
My love to Don.

Love you always,

Happy New Year to you all. It is my sincere wish that the New Year 2008 comes to you with all the blessings and opportunities of succeeding at all you try.  It is a mixed situation here in Kenya. It is now about 19 days since we voted in the presidential and parliamentary ballot and it is 16 days since that which we all dreaded happened to us at home. Violence broke out suddenly the moment the presidential ballots were announced. The process is said to have been flawed on both sides, much more so twisted in favour of the incumbent President. Kenya is made of a host of tribes to which many of the politicians run to draw their support. Unfortunately, hatred towards some tribes especially the Kikuyus must have been stirred up strongly by the leaders on their campaign trails. This was evident with the violence directed at Kikuyus who have settled in what is considered non-Kikuyu country. It was most serious in Eldoret and its surrounding Agricultural areas which has seen a steady influx of Kikuyus who buy farms and settle down to Agriculture. My family had done similarly and bought land and built a home about 20KM from Eldoret town. At that particular time, I was home and it was surprising to hear loud and rough knocks on the door by apparently good neighbors in the dead of the night asking all of us to leave. We didn’t have time to salvage anything and they immediately set our house ablaze together with everything that was inside. They looted all others things on the farm and basically reduced us to the owners of the only things they probably could not take away from us: hope and the clothes on our bodies. We camped at a local church for some time until the violence subsided somewhat and we have been working hard to relocate to places that can afford us some safety in Central Province to stay with relatives. Some of my family members are already gone and others are still camping near here in Eldoret town show Ground. We are all hoping we are able to get them to move as soon as possible. It is hard to believe all that happened. It has been very devastating. My family was fairly able to feed and maintain itself from the much they would grow on the farm, but now all that remains only in our memories. It is certainly going to be hard to settle to new life because most of my kin and kith knew only one life – the life they lived on the farm and not jostling for space and good will from relatives elsewhere. But it has already happened. I wish all this was a dream, it is not. It will be hard to put these deep divisions in our country’s populace together again. It is obvious that the Kikuyus who have borne the brunt of alleged rigging only hear of Kibaki like all other Kenyans. They see him only on TV or when he is passing by. They benefit from Kibaki’s administration in the very way all other Kenyans have also benefited – that is to say there is nothing, imagined or real, that is given to us as Kikuyus just because a fellow Kikuyu is President. In reality, this struggle for power belongs to those at the top who know what prize they are eyeing and not the minor Kenyans who are taking off at each other’s neck because of a twisted election. When will this end? It was so exciting working hard and achieving some times and failing at other times, knowing that all that was part of the natural way of life. But then, it is scaring to know that your entire sweat and indeed your very life can disappear just because someone else thinks you hold a divergent opinion in a contest. It is indeed very unfair. But Kenya is home and we have to work to make our home a better home. I have been immensely disturbed by all this but we pray that God helps us all regain meaning to life.

Remember us in prayers all the time.

We received word that the cargo after bad weather delays is now caught up in congestion in Mombasa.  We will post updates from Kenya , regarding the children, teachers,families and properties as soon as we hear from people on the ground there.

Calm is slowly returning to most towns in Kenya. Kisumu and Eldoret were the worst hit……these are the bedrock of opposition politics and the residents in Kenya’s western belt felt most cheated out of a clear presidential victory. To date, 300 people have been reported killed countrywide. In the hotspots, women, children and the aged are the worst hit. 20 women and children were raped and assaulted yesterday in Dandora area of Nairobi. It is just appalling!

Nakuru was calm today and businesses re-opened. People actually reported to work. The only no-go zones are Barut where Hopewell and Barut primary schools are. That’s also an opposition stronghold and all the Kikuyu who live there had their houses burnt down and chased to the other side of town. Kalenjin felt betrayed. All this makes no sense. Several families are staying in classrooms at Hopewell which is regarded as a safe haven, probably for the charitable work it has been doing for everyone there. The protagonists may know that if they mess up with Hopewell, their only supply of water will be gone and dying of thirst would be worse. Another hotspot in Nakuru was Rhonda where Little Saints and Hopewell Junior Academy are. About seven people were killed at the peak of the post-election riots. As we speak, normalcy is returning to Nakuru. Eldoret is still hot after 40 people who had sought refuge in a church died when the church was burnt down by protestors.

On the direction things will take, we await tomorrow’s million-people rally at Uhuru Park in Nairobi which has been called by opposition leaders to state their way forward. But this may signal another round of fresh and worse chaos if the government continues its hard stance and bans the rally as it has said and gone ahead to ring the park with armed security personnel. The president called an urgent meeting of all newly elected representatives at State House this afternoon and this may open an avenue for talks to resolve this mess.

The staff of Hopewell and all are safe and sound. Thanks for your prayers and concern. Library building was to restart today but the contractor was asked  to wait a little longer until conditions fully normalize.

If only a good majority of Kenyans were well educated, we wouldn’t be having such a morass of a situation. People would not have idolized the tribal leaders and would have instead respected other people’s political positions and been proud of and found strength in our diversity.

Will be back tomorrow with hopefully a positive looking update.

I am taking this chance to wish you a happy new year and a prosperous 2008.Here in Kenya it is not happy new year, it is a sad new year after the incumbent rigged the just concluded general election.  Currently the situation is tense and people are fighting, killing each other in different parts of the country.  If there is anyone who intend to visit Kenya, I will suggest that they put that arrangement on hold until things cool down.There is a protest countrywide and the opposition leader Raila Odinga has called on his supporters for a peaceful mass action.On Thursday 3rd, there will be a rally in Nairobi organised by the opposition

I suspect that things might be worse than it is at the moment.  We are just praying that the electoral commision will reverse the dicision and declare Raila Odinga the legitimate winner of the 2007 general election.  Today calm has returned in few cities but this, I think it is just temporary.

The schools are supposed to reopen on 7th that is next Monday but if things continue the way it is at the moment, then I think it will be impossible.  We are just hoping that the situation will change and those who rigged the election will see the reality and reverse the trend.  Already the commissioners who were overseeing the election process have admitted that there was anomaly with tallying.The European Union has also questioned the credibility of the results.

We are living in fear because communities are targeting each other.  There are those who voted for the incubent and those who voted for Raila.

We recently received this letter and share it with our readers.  I have chosen to omit any information that might identify the writer.

 It has been a most trying time for our country after the elections. The parliamentary ballot was good but the presidential vote was massively and openly rigged by the incumbent who, after a hastily arranged closed door swearing in ceremony, ordered a media blackout, banned all forms of gatherings and unleashed heavy contingents of the crack Para-military police into the streets of all towns in Kenya. The declaration of the incumbent as winner sparked massive riots across the country; 90 people have been killed as of this evening in Nairobi, Kisumu and Eldoret while Kibera and Mathare slums are literally in flames. Property has been destroyed in all cities including Nakuru. Nairobi city centre is a no go zone for civilians and is ringed by the police. Public transport has been paralyzed and tension remains high all over the country. Food is fast running out and businesses remain closed. We hope the political leaders get some sense and realize that Kenya is far more important than any one of them and that the interest of this beautiful country should come first. There is currently a standoff and we don’t know what the end game will be. Four electoral commissioners have just owned up to the mess and called for an independent inquiry into the presidential results as a way forward. The opposition has called for mass action starting this Thursday to force the president to step down. The situation doesn’t look very promising but we only hope and pray that life goes back to normal as soon as possible.