Although I don't really consider myself one, I could be classified as an internally displaced person. I was born in Uasin Gishu, District of Rift Valley Province, in Kenya. This happens to be a region predominantly inhabited by the Kalenjins, the fourth largest tribe in the country. Prior to the first multi-party elections to be held in the country in the year 1992,these communities (the Kalenjin consists of many sub-tribes) lived in peaceful co-existence with other tribes such as the Kikuyu, to which I belong, the Luo, Luhya and others. The Kikuyus are traditionally farmers and since independence, have gradually bought land in various parts of the country where they practice their farming. That is how my parents came to acquire land here, alongside many others. Basically where we lived consisted of two farming estates, Nyawira and Kiluka. These accommodated over 100 families who practiced both commercial and subsistence farming in addition to pursuing their careers such as nursing, teaching, and medicine, as well as trading activities.
Life was generally good. We lived in relative peace and calm with our neighbours. We were small children then, and had come to know our Kalenjin friends whom we interacted with, both at school and at home, as brothers. We were brought up by Kalenjin house girls as both my parents were teachers. We adored their culture and enjoyed the many cultural events they held, such as their intricate initiation ceremonies. In my class there were only two Kikuyus, the rest being Kalenjin, but you could not even tell the difference as we were so close and the language difference had, in time, been surpassed, so we could speak basic things in their language and vice-versa. They had grown to be our brothers. During weekends we would go herding the cattle together. While there, we would play different games and hunt. This we had come to learn through our association with our Kalenjin brothers, who were experts.
During the various seasons in the farming calendar such as ploughing, weeding, and harvesting, our farms would be filled with young Kalenjins who provided most of the labour. They were impressed with the way we grew our crops and would enjoy our food, mostly traditional foods such as githeri and irio which basically comprised of maize, beans, and potatoes mashed into a fine mixture. We would play games and in the evening they would receive their pay and go home to prepare for the next day. Our lives had been interwoven with a thread of mutual trust, love and respect for each other, cemented by intermarriage between members of the two communities, which bound us together.
All this came to an abrupt end towards the end of the year 1992.
The wind of change was blowing across Africa and many governments were under pressure to do away with the single party system and embrace multi-party democracy. In Kenya this was particularly being advocated for by the Luo, Luhya, and Kikuyu who felt that they had for long been marginalized from the government. The then president was from the Kalenjin tribe. We were children then and could not understand much of what was happening.
In time, the government had agreed to allow multi-party democracy and many parties were registered, most of them led by the Luo, Luhya, and Kikuyu. The campaigns for the country's first multi-party elections had began in earnest and the excitement of going to the polls to elect a president from among many could be felt in every village across the country. But this would also turn out to be a time of great anguish to many families due to loss of life and property that accompanied the agitation for the changes.
For some families the pain would be even greater. This is the agony of losing not just family members but also land, livestock and all that one had worked so much for in life. It's the pain of losing it all that drove many to even commit suicide.
Tension had been building up. There was talk that something bad was about to happen. No one knew exactly what, but it could be felt. The friendship that used to exist between us and our friends and neighbours of many years was slowly getting strained. The children we used to talk and play with could no longer come near us. Why? They had been warned that we were bad people, that we were opposition sympathizers, that our leaders were planning to bring down the government, that we would take their land. In other words, we were enemies and were to be avoided like the serpent. We could not comprehend it all. We could not understand the anger and hostility that was being directed at us. We were too young to understand. Marriages between the two communities were breaking up, the Kalenjin women were going back to their parents, and their men were sending our women back home. House girls and other domestic staff were leaving their jobs and going home. There was a sense of fear, panic and insecurity among the members of the non-native tribes.
Soon reports were reaching us that young people were being recruited to fight, that caches of firearms had been discovered at our ports of entry destined for the Rift Valley. Rallies where only members of a certain community were allowed into became common. People began carrying weapons in broad daylight. Those who could fled their homes to rejoin their families in their ancestral lands.
And then it all blew up. In a period of eight weeks hundreds of previously lush lands lay desolate. Where houses existed only piles of ashes remained to give testimony. Many lives were lost. Families were torn apart and crops that had been ready for harvesting razed down. Many packed their belongings and fled, only to find all roads blocked. They were made to leave all their belongings beside and walk away, walk away to a future that lay so bleak, walk away from what they'd sweated for all those years. Some just broke down and died, some suffered trauma they've never recovered from, wounds that have never healed.
We weren't there by then. Mother had taken us to our grandparents' home where it was safer. She had managed to carry some of our belongings and leave them at a church in Eldoret town, the District Headquarters. Each day new reports came, “so and so is dead,” and our just completed house that had cost mother so much (my father had died five years earlier) had been razed to the ground. So much was lost.
Soon the elections were over. Schools were re-opening for the New Year. Many had not even settled and so could not proceed to the next classes. By the time they joined new schools, so much material had been covered they had to go back to the previous class. Some would never see a classroom again. It was so sad. Luckily we were able to enroll in new schools in the town and proceed with our studies, but one of my brothers had to repeat, as interviews for his class had already been concluded despite his having topped his class in the previous school.
We stayed there for just a few months. Soon we were to relocate to Nyandarua District in Central Province which is predominantly inhabited by the Kikuyu to which we belong. The thought of settling somewhere away from our native home was too terrifying. Without realizing it walls of fear had been erected on our paths, walls which though surmountable have impacted us so much that none of us considers settling away from town in the near future.
The most difficult part has been collecting the pieces and starting all over again. Though we were able to get help from relatives, most of our then neighbours have found it difficult to pick up again. Sometimes you pay them a visit in their smoke-filled huts on the outskirts of major towns and you can't help shedding tears at their stories of the agony they have to undergo each day to get something to put in their mouths. And yet in their eyes there is the hope that one day they will be able to go back home and start all over again where they left off. Some have given up the fight and their only hope in life is that we, the young, will read and help them in future. They tell us: “Work hard, one day one of you may even become the president and help us get our land back. Then we won't have to beg as if we never had our own homes.” Theirs are tales of agony. Of going through something they feel they hadn't been destined them for. Meanwhile they lay their hopes on God and on their children that one day they shall be able to again tread the streets of this world as respected men and women that they were before.
For me the quest to know what really happened has caused me great pain. Sometimes you want to ask about a friend, but so many times the answer has been “You didn't know? He also died in the tribal clashes” or “No one has ever heard from him” or even “He gave up the struggle and committed suicide.” So you don't want to ask, you don't want to hear that yet another died, you don't want to hear of how one is struggling after a mental breakdown. You want to walk away, to forget it all, to think it never happened. You want to go back to the life before it all happened, but you can't.
I still long to go and see the land of my birth. I still long to go and see the land I spent the first seven years of my life. I still long to spend the evening with Kipchumba, my best friend whom I haven’t heard from for the last 12 years. But above all, I long to know the truth, to know how and why it all happened. Only then can the wounds truly begin to heal.
« return.