Life gets harder after Kenya violence
- The eruption of anger and violence in Kenya in the wake of disputed elections has been particularly intense in the crowded slums of Nairobi, where almost two-thirds of the city’s population live. WFP spokesperson Penny Ferguson went to a food distribution at Woodley stadium on the outskirts of Kibera.
It is just before 7am at the Woodley stadium on the outskirts of the giant Kibera slum in Nairobi, and already over 1000 men, women and children are crowding in front of the small football clubroom, with more arriving every minute.
Each person who comes through the gates displays a slip of
white paper. It is a ration token from one of the church groups or partner organisations working in the slums and it shows that their family has been badly affected by the waves of post-election violence that have rolled through the slums, in the form of killings, arson and looting.
The two rounds of general food distributions conducted in Nairobi’s slums are a first for the World Food Programme and a first for the independent-minded people who live there.
‘They burned my house’
Jennifer Auma sits with the waiting crowd, her head wrapped in a crumpled scarf that is one of the few pieces of clothing she has left.
‘They burned my house,’ she says flatly. ‘We ran away.’
Mrs Auma says no one in the family was hurt, because their local pastor warned of danger just before a mob torched their house. She and her six children are all safe, but they had to leave all their belongings behind.
‘All is gone,’ she says. ‘We’re staying with my sister, but I need a home.’
Mrs Auma normally makes a living for herself and her family selling vegetables. She says she has been trying to start selling again, but people have little money to buy .
Mrs Auma reaches the front of the 2000-strong queue where Red Cross volunteers are helping distribute food. She has a token which will entitle her to 2100 kilocalories a day for six people: made up of split peas, vegetable oil, biscuits and corn-soya blend from WFP, and whole-grain maize from government food stocks.
Precarious lives
The daily economics of life in the slums is as fragile as the framework of the flimsy wood and tin shelters that its inhabitants rent.
The rickety shacks reflect the precariousness of the lives of those who live in them.
The majority of those who have work are casually employed and paid by the day. On their return in the evenings they spend their small earnings on food, fuel and basic necessities for the family.
The instability created by the election crisis has caused prices to sky-rocket with products such as milk doubling in price over the course of a few days and leaving people unable to afford them, forcing many to turn to WFP for help.
Some 77,600 people, in 10 locations across the city, will have received WFP food by the end of the day.
Life harder than ever
Rose Nyango, 27, is also waiting for a food ration. She usually takes in washing to earn money to feed her family. Her husband’s salary covers the rent and the children’s school fees, while the washing pays for food.
‘But there’s nothing to wash,’ she says. ‘There’s no food, there’s no anything – the children feel hunger.’
Mrs Nyango says life in the slum is harder than it has ever been. “And there’s nobody you can borrow from, nobody has money.”
It’s even difficult finding the money for water, that costs a shilling for a jerry can.
As soon as she can pay for a bus fare, Mrs Nyango says, she will take her children back to her parents’ home in Homa Bay, but the prices have shot up. “It used to be 350 shillings. Now, it’s 1500 shillings, or you cannot move.”
Living in fear
Others say they have no plans to leave their homes, but live in fear. Daniel Owuor, 49, has not walked since he was five years old, when he contracted polio. He came to Nairobi for treatment as a child, then married, had four children, and settled in the city, making his living hawking sweets in the city centre.
He has lived in Dagoretti for more than 20 years, but now, he says, he and his wife have been threatened because they came from Nyanza, not the local area.
‘Even what you have, you fear you will lose. And they don’t care if you are disabled,’ he says.
‘The future, I see a dim light. It is not bright. We just pray God that a miracle will happen.’
The People of Kenya
Thanks to the large number of migrant communities that have settled in Kenya, over eighty languages are spoken throughout the country. English is the ‘official’ language and Swahili the ‘national’ language, both of which are taught in Kenyan schools.
Most Kenyans, however, will speak at least three languages: English, Swahili and their ‘tribal’ or ‘mother’ tongue. Some, who come from marriages of mixed ethnicity, will speak even more. In the rural areas, however, visitors will often find that English is either only sketchily understood, or not at all.
Broadly speaking, Kikuyu, Luo and English are the most widely spoken languages, while ‘up country’ Swahili is spoken countrywide (in varying degrees of grammatical accuracy), and ‘safi’ or pure Swahili is spoken almost solely on the coast. Of the ethnic languages, the majority falls into one of two major language groups: Bantu and Nilotic.
Bantu Speaking:
Luhya, Gusii, Kuria, Akamba, Kikuyu, Embu, Meru, Mbere, Tharaka, Coastal Bantu, Swahili, Pokomo, Taita and Taveta.
Nilotic Speaking:
Luo, Maasai, Samburu, Turkana, Teso, Njemps, Elmolo Kalenjin, Marakwet, Pokot, Tugen, Kisigis, Eikony.
Cushitic Speaking:
Boni, Somali, Rendille, Orma, Boran, Gabbra
Kalenjin</str
The rough translation of the word Kalenjin means ‘I tell you.’ Believed to have migrated from Sudan nearly 2,000 years age, these people consist of an estimated 3 million in Kenya.
Most of these people live in the Great Rift Valley, in Western Kenya. Traditional clothing consisted of animal skins. Either of domesticated animals or wild animals. Heavy brass coils were used as earrings, which stretch the earlobe almost to the shoulder.
Kamba
Also known as Akamba. These are people who live in the semi-arid areas of Eastern Province. They are the fifth largest ethnic group in Kenya. Anthropologists believe that the Kamba are a mixture of several East African people. A large number of them are pastoralists.
The Kikuyu
are of Bantu origin and make up the country’s largest tribal group and their heartland surrounds Mt. Kenya. The original Kikuyu are thought to have migrated to the area from the east and northeast from the 16th century onwards. Famously warlike, the Kikuyu overran the lands of the Athi and Gumba tribes, becoming hugely populous in the process. Today, 20% of Kenyans are Kikuyu.
The Kikuyu also fiercely resisted the British, spearheading the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s that was a major catalyst for the end of British rule. The Kikuyu territory borders that of the Maasai, and intertribal raids on property and cattle were once common. Despite this, intermarriage between the tribes occurred, and there are many cultural similarities between the tribes today.
The Kikuyu are the most best politically represented tribe in Kenya due to the influence of Jomo Kenyatta, the first president of Kenya. Initiation rites for both boys and girls are very important ceremonies and consist of ritual circumcision for boys and girls. Circumcision for boys and female genital mutilation for girls (although the latter is slowly becoming less common). Each group of youths of the same age belongs to a riikaan (age-set) and passes through stages of life, and their associated rituals together. Subgroups of the Kikuyu include the Embu, Ndia and Mbeere.
The Luyha
are of Bantu origin and are made up of 17 groups. They are the Second-largest group after the Kikuyu, but occupy a relatively small area in western Kenya centred on Kakamega, where they settled around the 14th century. Population densities here are incredibly high. In times past, the Luyha were skilled metal workers, forging knives and tools that were traded with other groups, but today most Luyha are agriculturists, farming groundnuts, sesame and maize.
Smallholders also grow large amounts of cash crops such as cotton and sugar cane. Many Luyha still have a strong and powerful belief in witchcraft and superstition, although, to the passing traveller, this is rarely obvious. Traditional costume and rituals are becoming less common, due mostly to the pressures of the soaring Luyha population.
Maasai
are the definitive symbol of ‘tribal’ Kenya. With a reputation (often exaggerated) as fierce warriors and a proud demeanour, this tribe of Nilotic origin has largely managed to stay outside the mainstream of development in Kenya and still maintains large cattle herds along the Tanzanian border.
The Maasai first migrated to central Kenya from current-day Sudan, but in the late 19th century they were decimated by famine and disease and their cattle herds were routed by rinderpest. The British gazetted the Maasai Mara National Reserve in the early 1960’s, displacing the Maasai, and they slowly continued to annex more and more Maasai land.
Resettlement programs have met with limited success as the Maasai scorn agriculture and land ownership. There is strong taboo against ‘piercing’ the soil and the dead are traditionally left to be consumed by wild animals.
Maasai women are famous for their vast plate-like bed necklaces, while men typically wear a red checked shuka (Maasai blanket) and carry a distinctive ball-ended club. Blood and milk is the mainstay of the Maasai diet, supplemented by a drink called mursik, made from milk fermented with cow’s urine and ashes, which is shown to lower cholesterol.
At around the age of 14, males become el-moran (warriors) and build a small livestock camp (manyatta) after their circumcision ceremony, where they live alone for up to eight years. Before returning to the village to marry. Morans traditionally dye their hair red with ochre and fat. Female genital mutilation is common among the Maasai, despite the best efforts of various human rights’ groups.
Tourism provides an income to some, either through being guides and camp guards (askaris), selling everyday items (gourds, necklaces, clubs and spears), dancing or simply posing for photographs. However, the benefits are not widespread. In recent years, many Maasai have moved to the cities or coastal resorts, becoming doormen for hotels and restaurants.
The Rendille
who are of Cushitic origin, are pastoralists who live in small nomadic communities in the rocky Kaisut Desert in Kenya’s northeast.
They have strong economic kinship links with the Samburu and rely heavily on camels for many of their daily needs, including food, milk, clothing, trade and transport. The camels are bled by opening a vein in the neck with a blunt arrow or knife. The blood is then drunk on its own or mixed with milk.
Rendille society is strongly bound by family ties, and these centre around monogamous couples. Mothers have a high status and the eldest son inherits the family wealth. It is dishonourable for a Rendille to refuse a loan, so even the poorest Rendille often has claims to at least a few camels and goats.
Samburu
Closely related to the Maasai, and speaking the same language, the Samburu occupy arid areas directly north of Mt. Kenya. It seems that when the Maasai migrated to the area from Sudan, some headed east and became the Samburu.
As with the Rendille, Samburu warriors often paste their hair with red ochre to create a visor to shield their eyes from the sun. Age is an important factor in assigning social status and a man passes through various stages before becoming a powerful elder in his 30s. Samburu families live in a group of huts made of branched, mud and dung, surrounded by a fence made of thorn bushes.
Livestock, which are kept inside the fence perimeter at night, are used for their milk rather than for meat.
Swahili - Although the people along the coast do not have a common heritage, they do have a linguistic link – Kiswahili (commonly referred to as Swahili), a Bantu-based language that evolved as a means of communication between Africans and the Arabs, Persians and Portuguese who colonized the East African coast.
The word Swahili is a derivative of the Arabic word for Coast is Sahel. The cultural origins of the Swahili come from intermarriage between the Arabs and Persians with African slaves from the 7th century onwards. The Swahili were to become one of the principal slaving forces in Africa. Almost all Swahili practice Islam, although it usually takes a more liberal form than that practiced in the Middle East. Swahili subgroups include Bajun, Siyu, Pate, Mvita, Fundi, Shela, Ozi, Vumba and Amu (residents of Lamu).
Turkana
are Kenya’s second-largest tribe in Kenya. The Turkana are one of Kenya’s more colourful (and warlike) people. Originally from Karamonjong in northeastern Uganda, the Turkana number around 250,000, living in the virtual desert country of Kenya’s northwest. Like the Samburu and the Maasai (with whom they are linguistically linked), the Turkana are primarily cattle herders, although, recently fishing on the waters of Lake Turkana and small-scale farming is on the increase. The Turkana are one of the few tribes to have voluntarily given up the practice of circumcision.
July 20, 2008
Categories: Uncategorized . . Author: Abdi . Comments: Leave a Comment
