Dear All,
Today was an interesting day, as the counselors from the Friends Church Peace Teams (FCPT) visited the internally displaced people's (IDP) camp at Turbo.
About a week ago, Jodi Richmond of Friends Theological College did a training at the Lubao Center for about thirty plus Friends who had some counseling skills. The plan was for them to then go to the Turbo IDP camp and counsel some of the 4,000 people still at the camp. About thirty of these counselors (six were experienced AVP facilitators plus three youth from the IDP camp that we trained as AVP facilitators just last week) showed up at the Turbo post office and were taken to the IDP camp. The counselors were divided into four groups--children, youth, women, and men.
While the concept was that each counselor would have five people in his/her group, the reality was that most groups had about fifteen. The number of children was overwhelming. They were divided up into three or four age groups and still there were 100 or more in each group. The counseling sessions were done out in an open field. People just stood or sat down on appropriate ridges or rocks - a few school benches were brought out. All told, I think that including the children there were at least one thousand people participating. The youth and adults talked in their groups for at least two hours!!!
As part of the program the FCPT brought some food for distribution. Gladys and I (with others) had gone there the previous week to make the last distribution of the relief supplies we had for the Lumakanda people. We were told that we could no longer give relief directly to the Lumakanda people. What we brought each time was a very small amount for 4000 people. Instead we are now to give it to the Red Cross who will distribute it to a select group--elderly people it was determined. So today the FCPT relief supplies had to be given to the Red Cross, and so it was done. During the counseling time, one group of men required me to come speak to them. Their concern was that if the food was given to the Red Cross it would be sold off and not given out in the camps. At another time two men had told shared the same concern with me. They wanted us to distribute the food right then and there ourselves because they said that those bringing the food would not be stealing it.
Will the Turbo IDP's receive the goods the FCPT gave them? We left the list with George Njoroge, the camp's IDP chairman. I'll ask him and others when I see them next.
On March 22 The Daily Nation had a four page advertisement placed by the Red Cross telling of their work during the crisis including and long lists of everyone who had contributed.
Okay, let us see how the Americans did.
-- American Red Cross--3,250,000/
-- Netherlands Red Cross--147,000,000/ (45 times more than the Americans)
-- Canadian Red Cross--6,876,228/- (more than twice as much).
Under "Governments" they listed
-- USAID--12,543,600/
-- British Government (DFID)--135,000,000/ (11 times more than USAID).
Is American generosity for places in distress really only a myth? Americans, by this measure, were sure far from generous in the relief in Kenya!
But then the Red Cross reports in this advertisement: "This has enabled humanitarian aid to reach each person in IDP camps countrywide." Yet all the previous distributions by the Friends Church Peace Team were made to IDP's who had not been served by the Red Cross. Person after person reported that the Red Cross trucks passed them by and never helped them out. The IDP's who are not Kikuyu claim that the Red Cross (at least in Western Province) only served the Kikuyu and neglected anyone from other ethnic groups.
As part of this effort, Kaimosi Hospital rented an ambulance and sent their head nurse, Irene Gulavi, with some medicines. I wasn't sure if this was necessary because the Government had a clinic at the camp. How wrong I was! She had a long line of people waiting for her services and she was still working away when the rest of us left after 3:00 p.m. This clearly indicated that the Government clinic was not working properly. When I asked folks whom I knew, I was told that the Government clinic had no medicine and so they just wrote a prescription for people to go buy the medicine. But since the refugees didn't have any money to buy the medicine, they didn't. So, in the end, I was sure glad that Irene came.
I talked with a number of the FCPT counselors following their sessions with the IDPs and I heard the following:
1. The youth were still very bitter and could easily be goaded into attacking and killing others.
2. The young women in the camp were being solicited by some of the policemen in the station, and with few other sources of income, some of them were falling into prostitution.
3. Almost no one wanted to go back to their home communities because they knew the people who destroyed their houses; they could see their possessions in the houses of their neighbors. Whenever they visited their former home, for one reason or another, they were asked why they were coming back. When I asked some where they wanted to go, they responded that they wanted the Government to buy land for them in places like Nakuru--which, in my opinion, was perhaps even worse than the Lugari area!
4. One person asked the FCPT counselor why there were no Nandi (the local Kalenjin group that did much of the trouble in the area) in our team. Another asked why the Luhya (the group that most Friends belong to and most of the counselors were from, and the majority population in Lugari District) did not help them out when they were attacked. Interesting questions!
5. Many of the IDP's were very angry with certain Nandi politicians whom they claimed incited people to force them out of their land, homes, and businesses.
I think that the day was a real eye-opener for the thirty or so Friends' counselors. Everyone is supposed to make a report of what they did and learned and on May 2 there will be a committee meeting to discuss this and to discern the way forward. Then the following week there will be another two-day retreat for all the counselors.
I have been asked to be the Chair of the FCPT counseling group!!! I asked them to get someone else, but they ended up selecting me anyway. I didn't think I could really refuse since this is the work I am supposed to be doing.
For me the most poignant time of the day was when we were in the field and I noticed a small toy compound obviously made by the kids. It was built solely of dirt, rocks, and twigs! Quite neatly and nicely done--much more like the home they fled than the IDP camp.
Peace,
Dave
David Zarembka, Coordinator
African Great Lakes Initiative of the Friends Peace Teams
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