At first, I took Solomon Kariuki for what he said he was – shy.  In groups, he tended to stay at the back, contributing more smiles than dialogue during conversation.  “I sit back, especially around people of higher classes.  I am not the man to take control.  When I was young, I would have my own cocoon when it comes to leading others.  I have a phobia.”  Why, then, is this reticent young man interested in being a mentor?  For one, Solomon recognizes other youth in their protective wrappings, and knows how to talk to kids that seem unapproachably quiet.  And second: Solomon is not the introverted person he describes – he is, like most of us, more than he seems.

Solomon

The mentoring program in Nakuru originally started at Solomon’s university as an investment club for students.  Once they formed, members had difficulty identifying worthwhile investments, and it was Solomon who introduced the idea of mentoring.  Solomon then selected 20 students (10 men, 10 women), many from the investment club, to learn more about mentoring – all of them then participated in Ripe for Harvest’s first mentor training.  Each of the mentors picked two mentees; the mentees could be anyone – from the neighborhood, or a local school – the only guideline was to choose a person between 13 and 17 years old who is the same sex as the mentor.  Abby Onencan, director of Ripe for Harvest, believes this age is a crucial time for young people to have a mentor.  Solomon chose a neighborhood friend – a sixteen year-old boy – as his first mentor, and a second that was selected by a nearby high school (the principal chose students for the mentors that were going through difficult challenges in the hope that the mentors could straighten them out).

Solomon didn’t have any trouble talking with the neighborhood mentee; the other young man, selected by the school principal, was more challenging.  In their first meetings, the mentee hardly made eye-contact with Solomon, and he often made up excuses for missing meetings.  And this is where Solomon’s hidden talents of thoughtful observation and keen problem-solving came in.  For both mentees, Solomon anticipated some awkwardness of meeting in a formal setting, so he made the get-togethers more casual. His neighbor loved rabbits, so on his visits Solomon helped him make a hutch for the pet rabbits, and sometimes they would go on walks looking for herbs that the rabbits could eat. They would find themselves talking about schoolwork or challenges with parents as they played with the rabbits or collected herbs.

The young boy who was slow to open up loved video games.  He was often out of the house, spending his mom’s money at internet hubs with other gamers.  Solomon was worried about how much time the boy spent in the arcade – and mostly concerned with the company he kept there – so he suggested to the mother that she buy the boy a bicycle, and she agreed.  The boy loved the bike.  He and Solomon would get together and repair it, and with Solomon’s guidance the boy went to the arcade less and less.  Even after the bicycle was stolen, the boy didn’t return to playing video games; instead, he asked Solomon for help with his classes.  “He listens to me, and has respect for me,” Solomon said.  “I really appreciate that.”

I asked Solomon what qualities a mentor needed to have, and he told me about how he chose the mentors from his school.  “I didn’t pick the popular people – I picked the quieter students because I could tell they cared about people.”  These quieter students possessed perseverance, willingness to do voluntary work, were self-motivated and creative, and “they had an aspect of goodness” Solomon described, “like people who go to church.  Basically, they were honest people – and approachable.”

Leader of leaders

And it was around these students that Solomon shone – rallying them together for meetings, motivating them to engage with their mentees in creative ways, and listening thoughtfully to their frustrations that sometimes arose during mentoring.  Solomon was, despite his ideas about himself, the leader of this empathetic clan, calm and welcoming in every interaction I witnessed.

I asked Solomon what could be added to the mentoring program to strengthen it, and he didn’t hesitate: more training.  Sometimes the challenges mentees face are serious, and the mentors are not sure how best to help them.  The mentors also wanted more opportunities to be together – to learn from each others’ experiences and form a stronger support system between them.  Right now, there aren’t enough funds to have events or trips for the mentors; there aren’t enough funds to continue the program.

Do you want to continue being a mentor? I asked Solomon.  We have taken an afternoon hike and he and I were sitting on the porch of an abandoned house, away from the other mentors.  He has become more animated as we talk, and with this question there is renewed steadiness and certainty to his voice: “we have made a commitment to these kids,” he said, “so we will continue mentoring them even if there is no more funding and the program ends.  If we don’t, who will they have to talk to?”

Solomon at Menengai Crater

Now I’ve returned to where we should be: nearly in the present.  We visited Nakuru and the mentors before the IDP camp, so this is the last out-of-order set of entries.  The dates we were in Nakuru: July 1oth-13th (the IDP camp was the 13-17th).

The mentees and their mentors

Mentees and mentors from Nakuru gathered at Flamingo Primary School, ready to tell us their stories.  During one-on-one interviews with each of them, we learned how important Ripe for Harvest’s mentoring program had been for the mentees – and how much the experience had changed the mentors.  Here are a few of their stories:

Mentees:

Diane, Sarah, Becky, and Edith

Diane Chivadika – 14 (blue shirt in picture, far left)

Becky Chelimo – 14 years old (second from right)
Edith Akoth – 15 (far right)

Edith’s sister, Sarah, offered to mentor her and asked that she recruit a couple of her friends as mentees.  Edith chose her best friends Diane and Becky, and the three of them would meet with Sarah every week, going on hikes together or enjoying ice cream in town.  Individually, the girls were nearly silent – together, the giggles and conversation didn’t stop.  Starting and finishing each other’s sentences, they told me about having Sarah as a mentor:

At first, we didn’t understand what mentoring was all about.  But after Sarah explained to us, we would talk to her about our lives.  Sometimes parents can’t understand like Sarah can.  We like to talk to her – yeah, we really like it! [-others chime in]  When you keep problems to yourself, it can affect your studies.  When you have someone to talk to, you feel better. Some of the problems Sarah helps us with?  Boys, other students saying bad things about us because of what tribe we belong to.  Some of the boys at our school are doing drugs, and she talks to us about that.  Sarah helps us refocus on our studies.

Ishmael and Gerishon

Gerishon Muraya – 13 years old (on right, in blue)

When Gerishon and his mentor, Ishmael were together, they were always laughing.  They ran across the school field, chasing each other and rolling into a pile on the ground like brothers.  During group activities, Gerishon would keep his eyes on Ishmael, and drew noticeable confidence from the way his mentor led other students and made everyone welcome.  Gerishon told me in our interview how the mentoring has affected him:

You are free with Ishmael and he can consult with you.  Even in my classes, it has changed my studies.  He tells me how to handle my problems.  Even at home, I feel better.  My relationship with my parents is better – we used to have quarrels all the time.  When we started the mentoring, it wasn’t easy – we had to get to know each other.  But now, my performance is better.  I want to continue seeing Ishmael – he has clearly been nice to me.

Mentors:

Sarah Otieno

Sarah Atieno Otieno – 22 years old

Sarah is the eldest child of five, and is in her third year of college as a communications and technology major.  She loves singing at church and cooking pancakes for her family.  Sarah went above and beyond with her mentors – finding ways to take them out on every meeting, buying them snacks with her own money, and even encouraging girls to reflect on the challenges that young women in Kenya face (they each wrote a paper on the topic and shared it with Sarah).  Here she shares about her experience mentoring her sister and her friends:

It was challenging at first to mentor my own sister, but she opens up more in the group with her friends.  All of the girls are more able to open up with me now, after some time together.  We talk about challenges in school, discrimination from other students, boy and girl stuff.  I like to take the girls on outings when we get together – it breaks the tension.  We go hiking a lot.  How has mentoring changed me?  It opens up my mind.  You have to be ready for the mentors – if they have problems I don’t know about, I have to research, to talk with other mentors, so I can learn how to help.  With more training, we could do better.  If the mentors could meet more often, we could share what we go through and support each other.  I’d like more training in how to be creative as a mentor – like other techniques I could use, or how to help mentees with their difficulties.  We [as mentors] need to be able to address questions skillfully so the mentee feels empowered.  I want to teach my girls how to avoid being manipulated by young men.  If we could get more funding to take our mentees on outings and have snacks for them, I could do more; right now, I am using my own money.  Do I want to continue mentoring them?  Oh yes, definitely.

Ishmael Kingori

Ishmael Kingori – 22 years old

Ishmael is gregarious, quick to lead in a group and immediately comfortable around younger people.  He is a business of commerce college student, close to finishing his degree.   I asked him about his meetings with his mentee, Gerishon:

In the first meetings, the process of mentoring was still forming in my mind.  But I had a feeling from within about mentoring.  Sometimes we talk about drugs – he is just in 8th grade, but he feels a lot of peer pressure.  One of my mentees is often sent by his uncle to buy alcohol for him.  I advised him to do what he’s sent to do but to know himself.  I’ve changed because now I have someone to help out.  I have a role to play, and I know there is more to life.  Do I want to continue mentoring?  I can’t leave at this stage.  I know this boy is going to high school, and he will be in need because he’ll have things to share about how he’s expected to be in life.  This is a passion, you take it seriously – and to be our best, we need more training.  Some topics are challenging to talk about, especially drug issues and one how mentees should compose themselves.  Mentors also need a mentor to talk to during the training, and during our time with mentees.

As soon as we got out of the matatu and began walking towards Lelmolok camp, we met him.  He approached Charles like an old friend, shaking his hand vigorously and following us to camp.  His clothes were darkened by a layer of soot that seemed to cover him from head to foot; his jaw was more lax than normal, and his eyes tended to drift away from you when he talked.  I never learned his name, but everyone knew him.  And everyone treated him the same way – “he did too many drugs in high school and now he is like this [look of disdain in man’s direction]”, “do you have people like this where you live?  People who are made stupid?”  He was ignored, politely shut out of conversations, kept away from free food, by everyone – except Charles.  During our long walks to some of the resettled homes, Charles would ask the man questions, respond to his lost threads of conversation – he paid attention to him.  There were warm and charming interactions between Charles and the kids at the camp, sure, but these were easy to appreciate.  What convinced me that Charles was a most unique person and a natural mentor was one quality in particular: he didn’t make distinctions between people.  He listened and cared with undivided attention – whether the person was a former drug addict or a smiling child – he knew the most important thing he could do was be present.

Charles Wakibia

Charles began to work with Ripe for Harvest at the urging of his cousin, who also happened to be Abby Onencan’s secretary.  Charles gathered together a group of students from his school, Moi University, and formed a youth mentoring club.  It didn’t take long for the mentors to pick the location of their mentees; the IDP camp near to school passed them by so quickly on their rides to school, and they were interested to meet the people inside the tents.  At first, Charles was hesitant to be a mentor at the camp.  He knew the families would value an intangible service like mentoring much less than material resources.  Emotional needs are not prioritized in Kenyan communities, Charles explained to me.  If you need a house, more clothes – this is what takes precedence.

When Charles and the other mentors first came to the camp, they were met by countless families – many who came from other camps – thinking Charles was there to take their kids to better schools, to pluck them from their overflowing classrooms and send them to bigger cities with promises of college and work.  This is the first big change Charles saw in himself with the start of the mentoring program: he had to learn how to communicate skillfully with a crowd (and fast).  Charles took on three mentors at the camp, ages 13 to 15.  The kids were shy and hesitant to open up with Charles, more so than he had seen with other youth.  But they were clearly appreciative of the weekly visits, and Charles was determined to find ways to live up to their gratitude.  He organized a clothes drive at his university, gathering enough clothes for all the children to have something new to wear.  He was concerned with the noticeable gaps in the tents, and rallied the mentors to repair the tents, one by one.

Charles talks to the kids of Lelmolok

On a weekly basis, Charles met with his mentees, playing games at first to relax them, and then listening to how their week had been.  The mentees often talked of the incessant teasing at school.  Charles encouraged the mentees not to let the other kids upset them.  He drew lessons on how to support the kids from his own mentor – his father.  “He has a way of making difficult problems look simple,” Charles said, “He gave me the feeling that problems have a short lifespan.  He used to say, ‘tough times don’t last, but tough people do.’  I really believe that.”

Charles is in his third year as a civil engineer student, and he sees his academic focus as a way he can give more to this the camp and its residents.  “I want to improve their living standards with my training – maybe better water, or improved roads.”

Charles knows he may not be able to assist these kids and their parents as much as he wants to, but the simple desire to help pushes him to try harder.  It is his hope that with more training and funding, the mentors will be able to provide some other services like clothes and tent repairs and, eventually, reconciliation programs for youth from different tribes in the area.  If the youth can overcome their anger and fear of one another, Charles explained, then maybe this violence will not continue to destroy communities.  Charles is not as tough as his father’s motto – his soul is a gentle one – but his determination is lasting.

After speaking to the men and women of Lelmolok, we were eager to hear from the mentees – those youth who were the whole reason for our visit and for the mentoring program itself.  We were enthusiastic; the kids were what we should have expected: tired, cold in their torn jackets and indifferent to the interest of more white people coming to collect information and give, well, nothing.

We asked them about their experiences with the mentoring program, and their focus was material: they remembered the clothing that the mentors brought for them once, and the books they could sometimes afford to offer to the mentees.  The emotional support was secondary to these young people.  And why was that so surprising?  When you have lost everything that was a comfort, and there is already a cultural tendency to keep emotions in rather than letting them out, the gift of a new dress or a pair of pants without holes is paramount.

I’ve included short summaries here of my interviews with mentees.  While it was difficult to assess the significance of the mentoring in their lives, it was clear that they felt recognized by someone outside of the camp – and this may be more than enough reason for continuing the program.

Lucy Njoki

Lucy Njoki - 14 years old, 7th grade:

I like the mentoring program because they bring us clothes.  I wish I had a school uniform because other children tease me.  They make me take off my sweater when I arrive in the mornings to show I have no uniform.  When I’m with my mentor, we play games and talk about how life is going.  My mentor told me to try and forgive and forget.  [Have you? I ask.  Lucy replies, monotone and without thought, yes]  We are resettled now, but we still don’t have any food.  I have painful memories about living in the outdoors without food for days [after the violence]; my mentor encourages me to move on from these painful memories.

[What would you like to change about the mentor program?]  Maybe we could have small field trips?  Mentors could also give more guidance about life lessons – how to handle difficulties.

Note: Margaret (the chief woman at the camp) told us that most of the teachers at local schools are Kalenjin, and during the morning flag raising they tell the children from the camp to hide behind the toilets because they don’t have uniforms.

Joseph Munene

Joseph Munene - 16 years old, school grade unknown:

The mentoring program is good.  [Why? I ask] Because when some of us left the showground after the violence, we didn’t have clothes and now we do because of our mentors.

[Tell me about a time when your mentor helped you] Once there was a time I had a problem with clothing – I didn’t have enough – and my mentor helped me get clothing.  I was having bad thoughts about Kalenjin kids who were my friends and didn’t tip me off when the violence was about to happen [and they knew].  My mentor encouraged me to have forgiveness.

[What do you want to improve about the mentor program?] I want assistance with buying school books.  My parents can’t afford them.  I also want help paying for high school.

When we sat down with the men of Lelmolok Camp, we learned more about the grim political divide between the local tribes.  In the last couple of weeks, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced he had a list and he wasn’t afraid to use it.  After the 2007 election, Annan assembled a list of all the individuals who incited the violence – from the top tiers of government all the way down to the local level.  He has been patiently (perhaps too patiently?) holding on to this list, occasionally telling Kenyan officials that if they do not try these perpetrators in a Kenyan court, the list will be handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) – and nobody wants that.  In keeping with Kenyan time, the matter was delayed.  Done with his waiting, Annan released the list to the ICC, and now it is just a matter of time before the names are made public and trials begin.  This would seem like a positive change for the residents of Lelmolok camp, but in fact it could be deadly.

The elders of Lelmolok

The elder men at Lelmolok filled us in: local Kalenjins (remember, those who were displaced are the rival tribe, Kikuyu) see any charge against their local officials as a reason to attack the Kikuyus.  It is Kikuyus’ fault, they say, that our public officials are facing these serious charges.  The Kikuyu men say they have overheard local Kalenjins conducting community meetings – minus the local Kikuyus.  In these meetings, the Kalenjins are reportedly planning to kill 10 or so Kikuyus from the camp, the argument being that burning their houses was not enough to make them leave.  Most of the Kikuyus living in the area are bracing for the worst.  Many of them have even less motivation now to start a new home; what is the point, the men tell us, if everything will only be destroyed again?

Where his house used to be

Photo: Kate Cummings. Location: Lelmolok IDP camp, Kenya. Partner: Vital Voices

The women told us their difficulties on getting by, caring for their families; the men, they told us what really happened on December 30th.  Along with the destruction of households, two people were killed that night – a 73 year-old woman and a 40 year-old man.  One of the men, sitting near the back of the group, told us he was with the man who was killed.  It was my house, he described, that was the first to be burned.  It was just after dark and he was in the house with his friend when he heard screaming.  He came outside and saw nearly 500 young men (all of them youth between 20-30 years old) surrounding his property, carrying bags of stones.  The agile youth hurled stones at the man, who ran back inside the house; moments later, the thatched roof to his kitchen was set on fire.  He and his friend moved to the living room, just as his windows were shattered by sledgehammers.  Corn husks were thrown in fistfuls through the broken windows.  The young men threw matches on the husks, setting the entire room ablaze.  The man ran out of the house and into the woods, leaving the other man inside.  Running blind in the dark, the man collided with his friend who had managed to escape as well.  When they reached an opening in the forest, another band of youth were waiting.  They threw more stones at the men, and the man telling the story was able to run through the crowd and to a grove of banana trees.  He watched from the shelter of the leaves as his friend was stoned to his knees, and then broken by sledgehammers, leaving him motionless on the ground.  The youth threw husks on the body and lit it on fire; a warning, said the storyteller.  The area was insecure for days, and the man could not get to his friend’s body.  The dogs had eaten most of it by the time he was able to safely return to the field.

How do you feel about forgiveness?  I asked, tentatively.  The men are out of energy: at first, when the election violence in 1992 took place (that’s right, it has happened with every election – 2007 happened to be the worst), we felt like we could forgive.  But because it is so frequent, we have grown tired.  We don’t even have to wait for 2012 (the next election) – as soon as the list is made public, we will be unsafe again.

Life in a tent

When we arrived at Lelmolok IDP Camp, the women and men were assembled, waiting for us.  We learned that only about five families still live at the camp; most everyone else has been resettled back to their land.  The people who came to speak to us had walked – some five minutes, some half an hour – back to the camp, and were now gathered under the sparse shade of the camp’s young trees.  We met with the women first, Charles and Francis (Kenyan university students who lead the mentoring program) translating for us.

Women of Lelmolok

Each woman told us her story of how she came to live in the camp, what her displaced life was like, and how resettlement was – or wasn’t – different.  Here are two women’s lives, in brief: Susan and Margaret.

Susan at her saloon

Susan is 28 years old, a mother of two, a member of the Kikuyu tribe, and was a farmer before the election violence.  She used to grow cabbage, collards, and raise chickens.  On the night of December 30, 2007, her farm and livestock were burned and her house destroyed.  The following weeks were similar to that described by Beatrice in the previous interview – a week at the District Officer’s residence, then over to Eldoret’s cattle showground, and finally relocated to the camp.  At first, Susan felt unsafe at the camp; local Kalenjins were restricting the Kikuyus’ movements outside of the camp’s boundaries, and threatening to harm anyone who strayed far from their tent.  A reconciliation program was established in town, and it seemed to relax tensions for a time: Susan began to leave the camp during the day, even returning to her land for a few hours each day and farming with the hope that the next day her crops would remain untouched by her neighbors.

Susan and her family have resettled back to their land, but life has not changed significantly.  Her family is still living in a tent, the same leaky one they had at the camp, and they do not have enough money to fully reinvigorate their farmland.  Now that aid donations have stopped, it is essential that Susan grow most of her own food.  She manages to grow collard greens and spinach, and has even started a local hair salon in the nearest town to earn an income.  Her husband has taken on temporary work as a driver-for-hire, and between them Susan is hoping to have enough money to add more crops to her farm next season.  That is, if the rains come (they are late) and the present crops yield a decent harvest to sustain them.

What you should know: the government gave most displaced families a one-time payment of 10,000 Kenyan shillings (about $130) to cover general costs during their displacement.  This money was usually spent on food, bedding, and latrines for the camp.  This money was not sufficient for rebuilding a home, since the average cost for a very basic home in Kenya is 50,000 shillings or, for a more permanent house (like many of them had before), around 150,000 shillings.  Prior to May of this year, Susan’s family and others in the camp were receiving monthly aid rations as follows: 6 kg of flour per person, 2 kg per household of dry porridge, and one liter per household of cooking oil.  I needn’t tell you this is not enough to live on, no matter how frugal a family, like Susan’s, tries to be.

Margaret

Margaret is 56 years old, a single mother of five, and is the informal head of women at Lelmolok Camp (and Susan’s mother-in-law).  Before the election violence, she was a farmer with a small business in town selling milk from her cows, vegetables from her farm, and assorted house products.  Since being displaced, Margaret is limited to farming, and doesn’t produce enough to sell at the market.  At the time of the violence, Margaret was living next door to her son and Susan.  She heard commotion down the street and ran out of the house to see her son’s house on fire.  Margaret and Susan, carrying Susan’s children and only what they had on, hid in a nearby field for two days, eventually reuniting with Susan’s husband.  Margaret’s property – worth an estimated one million Kenyan shillings (roughly $13,000) – was turned to ash.  Along with her belongings, Margaret had her children’s school certificates stored in the house.  Without these documents, her children (ages 13 to 37) cannot get a job or continue schooling.  When she went to the school for help, they printed a letter to serve as a substitute for the burned certificates – but there was a catch: these letters had to be signed by a local councilor for them to be valid.  The local councilor demanded a bribe of 5,000 shillings for each child (more a month’s salary for an employed Kenyan – an impossible amount for Margaret who is without work), something he knew Margaret could not pay.  Hence her son’s temporary work as a driver, despite his university education.

I asked Susan and Margaret what actions they would like to see take place against the perpetrators.  Susan: I am willing to forgive because if I seek revenge it will be an endless cycle of violence. I asked how the violence could have been avoided.  Margaret: Local leaders could be less divided – they are the ones who incited the violence so they are the ones with the power.  And what is it that you want to be different about your lives?  I asked.  Both Susan and Margaret replied: a house.  We just want a house.

Resettlement

Lelmolok Center is surrounded by cornfields and the distant, rolling hills of Kenya’s western highlands.  The earth is red and the abundant crops are often freshly painted by rainstorm.  This is not a setting in which you would expect to find internally displaced people (IDP’s), living in leaky tents with barely enough food to survive.  When we think of temporary communities sprung from violent displacement, we tend towards images of inhospitable deserts – not verdant farmland just outside of sizable cities.  Refugee camps are often located in harsh settings because (and this is oversimplified) the neighboring countries in which refugees find themselves are not keen to give up productive land so it may be smothered by the foot traffic of countless foreigners.  IDP camps, they are the lesser known places, and IDPs themselves – they are a forgotten people.

The road to Lelmolok

IDPs are different from refugees in one big way: the are citizens of the nation in which they are displaced.  They have not crossed any international borders.  How have they lost their homes in their own country without swift compensation?  Often, it is an internal conflict targeting a specific population, causing mass movement of people – but not quite all the way to country borders – out of their homes and to, well, usually no known destination.  The conflict can be ignited by local citizens and it can also come from the government itself, as is the case in Sudan where it is the government that is, among other things, bulldozing inhabited slums on a regular basis.  It is internationally agreed that only national governments are responsible for IDPs – the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is intentionally blind to IDPs because they are still technically under the jurisdiction of their own country.  But what happens when the government is in fact to blame for the displacement, or at the least is complicit in the unjust movement of its own citizens?  This is how the begrudging and eventual forgetting of IDPs begins.

Home

In Kenya, it was not the government itself that incited the movement of thousands, but it was the political ties of certain ethnic groups that led to the eruption of violence.  Just hours after the presidential election results were announced on December 30th, 2007, locals took to the streets, selected neighbors homes, then burned, looted, and sometimes killed, those inside.  Why: the president who was said to win the election was the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki.  Many Kenyans were hoping for the victory of Kibaki’s opponent, Raila Odinga.  It was argued by Odinga’s supporters that Kibaki rigged the election.  And here is the explosive ingredient: Kibaki is Kikuyu, Odinga is Luo.

Kikuyus and Luos are two of the many tribes in Kenya; almost every Kenyan strongly identifies with their tribe of origin, and the livelihoods associated with that tribe.  The Samburu tribe I lived with in June is one of these tribes.  The Kikuyu tribe comprises the majority in Kenya.  Just as there are specific tribes, there are also certain areas each tribe hails from.  If a Kikuyu is found outside of Central Province, for example, he or she is considered to be somewhat of a foreigner, and may even have land taken from them without reprieve (despite having legal ownership) in other provinces that are more strongly associated with other tribes.  This deserves an additional note: the first president of independent Kenya – Mr. Kenyatta – was Kikuyu.  At the time he came to power, tribes were intermixed in many areas, but there were more distinct boundaries between different tribes’ areas of influence.  Kenyatta forcibly moved Kikuyus out of Central Province (encouraging, he said, “ethnic integration”) and settled them in other provinces, inserting his tribal influence in areas that were previously dominated by Luo, Kalenjin, and others.  This was over thirty years ago.  Kikuyus outside of Central Province today – no matter how long their lives in other parts of Kenya – are seen and often treated as guests who have overstayed their welcome.  It should also be noted that I interacted almost entirely with Kikuyus during my visit to the IDP camp, and my perspective has been heavily influenced by the Kikuyu experience.  Luos and Kalenjins have a crucial say in this matter – and I regret that I have not collected it to share with you here.

When Kibaki “won” the election, several non-Kikuyu tribes were enraged and saw this as a stolen victory of the entire Kikuyu population.  The Luo tribe was targeted, in turn, by the Kikuyus, because of Odinga’s affiliation.  The Kalenjins aligned themselves with the Luo, equally furious over Odinga’s loss and collectively, on December 30th 2007, they went to any nearby Kikuyu home or business they knew.  Sometimes these Kikuyus were next-door neighbors, or in-laws of the very people who were now storming their houses, taking their chickens, and setting fire to their roofs.  The violence continued for days, even months in some places, and the small towns in the western highlands of Kenya were some of the most affected.  Kikuyus here were already seen as glorified squatters, and the violence unleashed on them was unmitigated.  That is how this IDP camp, initially overflowing with 150 families, began.  One of the camp members is the actual owner of the land; she gave it over to the wandering families who had nowhere to go after the night of December 30th.

Mother and daughter resettled

It took nearly two months for the election controversy to reach a tentative solution.  Kibaki was named president and Odinga, prime minister.  The two former enemies now share power (although it is widely known Kibaki wields the stick), and the divisions within their government only grow each month.  Kenyans are already talking about 2012, when the next election will take place and another rupture in civil society is all but inevitable.  Despite the current political compromise, very little action has been taken to resettle those people who lost their homes, family members, and livelihoods.  Kibaki doesn’t claim responsibility for the tribal conflict, nor does Odinga – it was not our fault that people took to their roots and sought revenge, both of them reason from their velvet-upholstered chairs and gated communities.  With the government’s familiar forgetfulness, the IDPs at Lelmolok have no other “legal” guardians; they have become orphans with parents, without homes, and the sight of someone else’s corn growing all around them.

Veronica

We have come here to meet the young people at Lelmolok, and here about how Ripe For Harvest’s youth mentoring program has affected their lives.  It has been a year now since local university students have been visiting youth at the camp, coming every week to offer guidance, and sometimes just listening, to the kids between 13 and 17 years old.  In coming blogs, I will introduce you to the mentors and mentees, and to how important it is that we be present for each other – that we be, I’ll say it, human with each other, and listen.

After staying with Abby Onencan until July 10th, Luna and I left for Nakuru and Eldoret - two cities to the west of Nanyuki, where Ripe for Harvest has been conducting its youth mentoring program for the last year.  We wanted to meet the mentors and mentees to hear their experiences about how the mentorship affected their lives.  Those stories will come in later blogs.  Before leaving her welcoming home, we interviewed Abby about her relationship with Vital Voices, the challenges she faces as a women leader, and how she manages to balance all of her responsibilities.

Abby Onencan talks about finding balance in her life, and her role as a Vital Voices Global Advisor