“My friend, how is your Valentine’s like? Here in Kenya it is exclusively a youth affair. The seniors dismiss it as merely foreign culture. Still, shops are still colored by red. I wish you were near! We would celebrate together! Keep good, my friend. Pray for us.”
I was relieved to receive this e-mail last Thursday. I hadn’t heard from its sender, my friend Boniface, in nearly two weeks. I met him two years ago in a once-peaceful region of southern Kenya while he was training to become a priest. Boniface belongs to the Kikuyu tribe, whose members face severe persecution in the wake of December’s controversial presidential election. The election pitted members of this wealthy tribe against a coalition of tribes that have long been at an economic disadvantage in Kenya, and ignited latent tribal tensions when the incumbent, ethnically Kikuyu president declared victory for his party, citing dubious election results. “Ballot papers opened wide Pandora’s box,” Boniface wrote after the election. As he moved from region to region to avoid the often violent backlash against himself and his tribesmen, Boniface wrote to me in bursts about his life and his family. Below are some of his e-mails, reprinted with his permission.
January 12
“Two of my aunts who live in the Rift Valley, where Kikuyus are being ‘expatriated,’ have had their houses, livestock, farm products and all tangible things burnt to the ground. Once this happened my aunts and their families took refuge in a church, but after two days, the same arsonists torched the church in pursuit of the embattled Kikuyus. Next they took refuge in a school, but they felt that danger was imminent when a school was razed in Kericho.
“My family and I are trying to facilitate their escape from the region, but the trouble of their transport is more than we can bear. Their two families total twelve people. The bus fare out of the Rift Valley is about 600 Kenyan shillings [$8.72 USD] each, but the real burden is the basic necessities they desperately need, like food and clothes. I can only pray that when peace is restored, an answer to their need for shelter is presented. For now, they are staying at a police station begging food from the Red Cross. It’s just too bitter to imagine.
“Not forgetting that I am working among the Taita community, things have not been good here, either. Some of the Kikuyus who live here have been looted. We have been threatened to vacate and go back to our ancestral lands. Some have flown for their safety, but not me. I have the obligation to proclaim the good news even at my grave and I’ll not give up on this community. Please keep us in your prayers.”
January 29
“Trouble seems not ending soon. My aunts and their families left the Eldoret police station under an elaborate security detail for Njoro-Nakuru, where they took refuge with my maternal cousin. But after only three weeks of serenity, Njoro-Nakuru has been hit by chaos. The reports I got yesterday are that arsonists burned down the food store, the animal feed store and the kitchen. They were planning to burn the house which my aunts were in but the alarm was raised in time and the thugs flew away.
“The bishop felt for my safety and has transferred me out of Taita to Kilifi, where I have some relatives. Here we are in a fix because the food we receive from family elsewhere is not enough for us, let alone for my aunts and their families included. Hence we fear that bringing them home is a decision in frustration. Yet to decide. Right now they are residing in an open field with others displaced. Food and cover there are as scarce as elephant’s milk.”
February 2
“The political tension has died down significantly, although we have lost two elected members of parliament in two day’s time. The revenge spirit among tribes had died down, but many Kenyans are still in refugee camps, as normalcy is alien.
“Am in Kilifi now, which is comparatively calm. It is a very dry area, unlike Taita, with the majority living below the poverty line. Some basic necessities are amiss. All the same, I feel safer.
“We are just confused about my aunts … No one is definite about the best way to assist them as we have little food here. No one expected the mayhem to go this far. Just confused.
“The priest I am working with seems not to have appreciated my coming here. He belongs to a different tribe and political persuasion and I am told through reliable rumors that he will be sending me to the interior to suffer alone. In the course of one of my discussions with him, he hinted such a thing. If this becomes so I will be away from my family and unable to immediately wire cash to my aunts if they need it.
“Pray for us.”
