It is interesting to hear how differently the two groups in Lelmolok Internally Displaced Persons Camp addressed the challenges that they are facing now:

Group 1:

(1)No house

(2) Leaking tents

(3) Lack food

(4) Lack safe water for drinking

(5) Poor sanitation and health care

(6)Exposure of women to rapes and children to molestation

(7) Hostile community environment

Group 2:

(1)   The fear holds the community from making any investment and development

(2)   Land Ownership is still not guaranteed

(3)   Local employment policy is against hiring Kikuyus—So no job more than farming, no extra income

(4)   Local government corrupted aid goods

(5)   Food shortage

(6)   Insecurity

The first group was all consisted by Kikuyu women and the second group was all consisted by Kikuyu men.

Why there is such a big difference between women’s thoughts and men’s even those women and men are family members and experienced the same trauma due to the 2007 post-election violence?

“(It is because) the day-to-day life of women and men are so different.” A community development assistant said during the community facilitator training held by Ms. Abby Onencan, a global advisor of Vital Voices in Nanyuki, Kenya.

On the contrarary with busy women, men in Eldoret Lelmolok IDP Camp still have leisure time to play chess.

On the contrarary with busy women, men in Eldoret Lelmolok IDP Camp still have leisure time to play chess.

Although the Kikuyu communities in Nanyuki are different from the ones in Eldoret, they share the commons of social background on the issue of gender balance.

During that workshop, under Ms. Abby Onencan’s entitlement, I, as a fellow of Vital Voices and The Advocacy Project, conducted a session of Gender Awareness and Gender Balance in Community Development to the local governors who take in charge of empowering the community in their wards.  The participants were divided into three groups to profile 24-hour life of a typical local Kikuyu woman/man/youth from their communities.

The man’s character was described by the first group of CDAs as a 35-year-old unemployed farmer and his daily life was profiled as below:

On 5:00 a.m., he wakes up the women in his family and goes back to sleep. On 7:00a.m., he gets up to milk the cows and takes the milk to nearest dairy. From 8 to 9, he takes the breakfast prepared by his wife and gives order to his wife and children. From 9 to 10, he collects folders for the cows and goes to his farm to till the land until 1:00 p.m. He then takes the prepared lunch. After watering animals and repairing fence, he walks to the local market for news. During the whole four hours from 4p.m. to 8 p.m., he is drinking spray and talking with other men about politics. Around 8p.m., he goes back home, takes prepared supper, enjoys entertainment such as watching TV and A.O.B, and then sleeps.

Compared with this typical local Kikuyu man’s daily schedule, activities that a normal local Kikuyu woman did in a normal day, described by the second group of participants, exploded over the table on the flipchart.

5:00 a.m  She gets up and prey. Then she lights the fire, prepares the breakfast for her husband and children and takes the older children to schools.

6:00- 7:00 a.m. She assists her husband & younger children to dress up, feeds animals, fetches water, etc.*

7:00-10:00 a.m.  She fetches food for family and animals, etc.

10:00- 11:00 a.m. She attends community meeting, feeds animals, etc

11:00a.m.- 1:00 p.m. She prepares lunch for the family and then takes her lunch.

1:00-2:00 p.m. She goes to the local market for marketing.

2:00-4:00 p.m. She fetches firewood and water, etc.

4:00-6:00 p.m. She prepares supper, etc.

6:00-8:00 p.m. She feeds the family, cleans up the home, waters the animals, watches the children to do homework, etc.

8:00-10:00 p.m. She washes clothes for her husband and children, takes a bath, A.O.B. and sleeps.

I was having a headache by just listening to and writing down all these activities done by this represented woman character. According to one definition of working–“activity involving mental and physical effort done to achieve a purpose or result”–the typical local Kikuyu women work 17 hours a day, compared with 7 hours a day for local kikuyu men.

However, represented by the characters in this profile, women in Kenyan rural area work so much but barely do anything that advances themselves. Or, women work so much (on basic housework) so that they do not have time to advance themselves by talking about politics, reading or receiving any education. Or, the reason that they have to work so much is because they do not have alternative methods to raise themselves or to be independent.

Even more sadly, women in Kenyan rural area work so much only for increasing the family properties that are not under their control. While the men in the families who work much less hold main accesses, benefits and controls on most family assets such as houses, land, cows, goats, furniture, electricity, etc, women only have their total control on the chickens. The only benefit that women can obtain from these assets is domestic use. (For example, they can drink the milk milked from the cows that belong to their families.)

Women’s loads, in the rural of Kenya, yet end up with just feeding their husbands. The youth, who graduated from schools without being employed, also rely on their mothers– they only work for 4 hours per day with little income and waste the rest of the day by doing nothing. (Also shown by the profile mentioned above) No wonder the Kalenjin youth in Eldoret were so easily “incited” by a “salary” of 300 shilling/day, paid by local politician, to constantly cause violence against Kikuyus in this region post the election in 2007.

At the end of this post, I guess it is not hard to answer several questions about the gender issue in rural Kenya.

Who work most? Women. Who benefit least from their working? Women. Who suffer most during and post the social traumas such as the 2007 election violence? Women.

How to solve this gender imbalance?

The answer for this question is probably not as easy as “empowering women”, as the gender issue is not about women but the relations between women and men.

To better balance the relations between genders in Kenya, the hope may be left for the next generation under RFH mentorship program.

To better balance the relations between genders in Kenya, the hope may be left for the next generation under RFH mentorship program.

*etc means there were some activities were not written down due to limited space on the flip chart.

While women in Eldoret Lelmolok IDP Camp were trying to do everything to make their family tent as a home, men just wonder their life by playing chess all days.

Women in Eldoret Lelmolok IDP Camp were trying to do everything to make their family tent as a home.

“It is because women and men are different.” It is even not an answer.

“We have been forgotten by the government after 2007 election violence.” Said a young Kikuyu woman, mother of two young children in the Eldoret IDP Camp.

During the most turbulent two months after the 2007 election, most Kikuyus in this region moved constantly from shelter to shelter, relying on the aid offered by their relatives and churches.

Almost one year and half after the election violence, the Kikuyu internally displaced persons are still living in the tents.

About six months after the violence, most IDPs had moved to camps across the country, such as the IDP camp in Eldoret where the tents were being supplied by the Red Cross, Catholic Relief Services, and USAID. The Kenyan government made a one-time grant of only10,000 shillings (US $130) to each household in order to cover lost or destroyed household items. And up until March this year, IDPs had been receiving food rations from the Red Cross amounting to 24 kg flour, 2 kg soybeans, 2 kg porridge flour and 1 litre of food oil per family of four per month only.

“We had to calculate exactly how much we use for each meal, but we were lucky compared with the families who have older kids.  My younger kids did not eat as much, one is six and the other one and a half years old,” the Kikuyu young mother continued.

“That time, we even had to pay a fee to use the private-owned toilets nearby.” The mother-in-law of the young mother continued, “We were basically living in filth until the mentors of Ripe For Harvest brought us some clothes donated by their university schoolmates. They also assisted us in digging ditches around the tents to reduce mosquitoes and relative diseases.”

Before this toilet was donated by the Red Cross, the refugee even had to pay the fee to use the personally owned toilet.

The Kikuyus also endured intense emotional trauma in the 2007 post-election violence. “We felt we were betrayed by our Kalenjin neighbours—they guided the Kalenjin youth to burn our house.” The mother-in-law of the young mother said. “We [Kikuyus] had intertribal marriages with Kalenjins. But after the violence, a Kikuyu woman who had married a Kalenjin man was chased away by members of the Kalenjin family.

Today, while most families who live in the Eldoret Camp have resettled in their own lands, many are still fearful, and feel that they live in a hostile environment among their Kalenjin neighbours. When we asked them about the effect of reconciliation meetings between Kikuyu tribe and Kalenjin tribe held by the local government after the violence, most of the Kikuyu refugees said it did not work as most Kalenjins who participated in the meetings were either forced to come or came just for material handouts.

When we asked the refugees what they thought about their Kalenjin neighbours now, the Kikuyu women in the camp said, “We want to forgive them as we are all living in the same land.”

However, Kikuyu men said, “We are tired of forgiving—local Kalenjins attacked and harrased us after every election since 1992. They destroyed, we rebuilt. They destroyed, we rebuilt. Now we are old, and we cannot afford to spend what remains of our lifesavings rebuilding. Let justice be done and the perpetrators punished. Otherwise, how can we feel safe doing anything to restart our day-to-day lives?”

A Kikuyu man standing on the mud where his house was used to be. One of the reasons that he is still living in the tent is because he did not have any money to rebuild his home. But also, as he stated resignedly, “I am less and less tempted to rebuild my house as I don’t know how soon it will be before I lose it again.”

The Kikuyu women’s desire to forgive is admirable, but there is sense in what the men’s demands for justice. Will justice be delivered through the International Criminal Court?

On Friday 17th July, the EU announced it would aid the International Criminal Court in the Hague bring to justice the suspected perpetrators of Kenya’s 2007-2008 post-election violence (See Daily Nation http://allafrica.com/stories/200907161023.html). This international prosecution process is moving forward at a surprisingly fast pace, however, the shattered lives of the Kikuyu refugees that were largely destroyed in the Rift Valley about two years ago have barely begun to heal. Just a day before this announcement, we, as Fellows of The Advocacy Project and Vital Voices, were in the Kikuyu Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Kesses, Eldoret, finishing up our interview on the Ripe For Harvest Eldoret Mentorship Program in a leaking family tent during the afternoon storm.

The Ruin of A Kikuyu's Home

A man in this camp, around 50 years old, told us he had been living in Eldoret as a farmer since 1974. During most election periods (1992, 1994, 1997 and 2007), he said, there were riots caused by locals (mainly from the Kalenjin tribe) against the Kikuyu tribe (as a minority in the Rift Valley area) under the manipulation of politicians. The riots of 2007 were the most severe. He suspected that the local Kalenjin residents began preparing for the riots since 2005 during frequently ‘public’ meetings that excluded the Kikuyus in the region.

During 2007 national riots, in Kesses most Kikuyu owned properties were totally destroyed; their lands, homes, clothing, food, cows, goats, and chickens were either burnt or stolen by members of tribes who voted for Odinga. A 56-year-old single mother told me the total assets that she lost due to post-election violence amounted to 1,500,000 shillings (about US $20,000).  (The average rural worker made 2000 shillings a month, and so her loss amounted to roughly 10 years wages.–See the Article of “Labor Market Institutions and Employment Opportunity in Kenya” )

In this group, most women are above 50 year-old--They still have to struggle with raising themselves, their children and their husbands.

However, the loss of property was nothing compared to the loss of human life. A 73 year-old Kikuyu woman and a 40 year-old Kikuyu man were killed by the locals. “At 6:00 p.m. the evening the election results were announced.” Another man in the camp described his experience of the 2007 election. “My friend and I were in my house. We heard screaming and then saw hundreds of local youths carrying stones in bags to surround my house. Then they began throwing stones through the kitchen window. Some of them began using hammers to destroy my living room. Others were gathering dry maize in order to set fire to my roof which was made of plants leaves.”

“Fortunately, I managed to escape and hid under some banana leafs,” he continued.  “However, my friend was caught by another group of youths while fleeing the home. I watched him get stoned to death by those local youths…”

“…The district officer and his attendant received news of [my friend’s] death and was trying to find some fuel for the car so that he could move my friend’s dead body. However, the youths blocked them. The officer ordered the gang to give way, but a fight erupted and he was forced to shoot a Kalenjin youth on his leg. The officer and the policeman were then killed by the mob and my friend’s remains were eventually eaten by dogs.”

Across the country, over 800 people lost their lives to post-election violence, and around 600,000 people who survived were often left with nothing.