Our difference’s the beauty of our country

 “You know these Luos...” is a statement I know very well. Despite the fact that it hurts me to the core, when such a statement is made with the sole motive of criticizing a group of Kenyans from the tribe where the love of my life hails from, I still have to bear it as some people continue to recklessly utter these tribalism inclined words all around me. I must say, however, that many a people in Kenya are learning how to co-exist with their brothers from another tribe. Even as this is the case, we cannot wholly shut down our eyes and ears to those who are still deeply engraved in the cocoons of tribalism; sadly, I have to interact with some of them and their negative reaction towards people from other tribes takes me aback to think about my boyfriend and other kind hearted people from the Lake region. 

Many will say that I am biased towards where my ‘mister’ comes from, swearing by the ‘red bible’ will do no good, neither is biting a handful of soil make things better; the fact is simply that I am not biased, on whatever ground, towards any tribe, be it from the Lake Region or any other. If you are meeting him for the first time, you would probably think that he is a Swahili since his name ‘Badia’ (Swahili word for fake) says it all; however, his very dark complexion betrays him and creates a sweet confusion…mmh don’t they say that “The darker the berry…” anyway, I proudly tell my friends and others who care to listen, that my ‘mister’ man is from Lake Region. 

The Desiderata has taught me humility in its true meaning and it is from it that I will quote some words for your reference, “As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons...” Having been raised up in a Christian family, I very well understand the act of forgiveness; however, I have grown up to appreciate the importance of peace.  As far as I am concerned, peace entails understanding that I am neither perfect nor an island; understanding that if I appreciate and love people, then I will live a good life. Peace entails the revelation that we are different and born with strengths and weaknesses; understanding that at any one point, I am a compliment of someone else, their efforts, beliefs, lifestyle, and culture. I have appreciated that I cannot live alone and succeed; rather, I clearly appreciate that I need people around me, since united we soar unimaginable heights!

Dear ones, our country is made up of 42 tribes for a reason; the reason which says that we all exist to complement one another. Believe me when I say that Kenya would be a very boring land without the Maasai culture marked by the Maasai lesos, morans with red hair, spears, and cows; what a plainly boring land it would be without the pictures of the Luo men fishing in Lake Victoria and their women balancing heavy baskets full of fish as they take them to the market…the list of the spectacular sights we see from various tribe’s cultures is endless… I bet you agree with me that, indeed, this is a beautiful country! I therefore, beseech thee, let us appreciate one another. The differences exhibited by each individual, clan, tribe, are what make our country to shine with beauty. Remember, one Meru may be hot tempered but not all of them, just like one Kikuyu can be willing to give anything to have money, but not all Kikuyus.

Happy and peaceful 2015 to you!

An Article by Sarah Makena

Co-founder Ukabila Zi Society

Purpose Accomplished at Death? Only God Knows…

My sweet mama is now 75 years of age. I thank God for her life; the God of Kirinyaga has preserved her life since she was born years before the State of Emergency was declared in Kenya. She was unique; a ‘white girl’ with black hair. Many a young man would come from villages far and wide to see this ‘white girl’ who had black, long, shiny hair...oh was my mama beautiful? She was not tall and not short, she had a beauty gap in between her teeth on the upper jaw…probably now you understand where I borrow some features from (wink). Oh mama, the woman who brought eight of us, my siblings and I, to this world. Today, we are six out of the eight, who mama gracefully carried in her womb and raised amidst all the challenges of motherhood and hard economic times. One thing, however, happened as she later narrated to me when she was sure I had grown up enough to understand. 

One day, she carried her 3 year old third born child, a son whom she had named after my uncle from my baba’s side; they went to the shamba, to tend to her arrow-roots near the river. That day my eldest brother, her second born son, had gone to school, he was in nursery school; mama was determined to educate all her children despite the fact that she was denied education. Yes, her mama, my grandma, decided that mama would not join school during the Emergency in 1950’s because she feared that mama’s mind would get ‘corrupted’ by the ‘white man’; she preferred that mama stayed at home and helped her fetch water. Despite this, mama clearly understood the importance of education. Therefore, when she enrolled her second born son in school, mama was left with no choice but to always bring along with her the youngest son to the shamba. She did not have anyone else to look after the young boy.

As usual, she put the boy on the ground, in the shade of a tree, and went to tend to her arrow-roots. It was a beautiful sunny day, rain had poured two days earlier and the arrow-roots had sprung back to life. Their leaves, very green, were swayed from side to side by the morning breeze, a motion that revealed the sparkling drops of water, which resembled ice-crystals in the morning sun. The nearby Kiwe River was full of life as the clear waters collected from rain and various springs uphill made their way down hill and smoothly swept every bend in the canal. The water was clear, as clear as rain water...this was a rare sight because Kiwe River passes through some lands that have brown loam soil, which dissolves in the water during the rainy season and turns the water brown; actually, my mum always avoided fetching water from Kiwe River until two weeks after a heavy downpour. For those two weeks, she would use the water she had trapped from the rusty roofs of our house into her black plastic container. 

A bright day can be mistaken to be a day of fortunes and when the opposite happens, we tend to draw a lot of conclusions; we suspect all types of causes…evil people who do not wish us well, malicious beings who are after our happiness, whose aim is to cause us bad luck and misfortunes. I must say it takes a strong God-fearing heart to know that sometimes things happen, not because of malicious people but because of God’s will, natures will if you prefer. One day my mama told me, “sometimes, it is nature’s only way of teaching us some real difficult lessons, other times it is God’s only way of taking back what He had given to us, for each one of us has a purpose on earth, the purpose of which only the Creator knows.” She went on, “None of us knows when their purpose in the world is complete.” 

According to mama, my brother who I never got to meet, cried and cried, he did not stop crying no matter what mama gave him, he was rushed to hospital but he was not sick, the  doctor could not prescribe any medicine, the boy cried  up to midnight when he finally stopped…up to this day. The following day, mama sort answers and could not find any, her friends and relatives came up with all sorts of theories, but none could be proven, none has ever been proven up until this day. Despite the pain, mama learnt to accept some happenings the hard way; she accepted that her son was gone, that she would never hear her son cry again, that her son would never make noise for her to listen while she tended to her arrow-roots at Kiwe River. 

This story saddens my heart every time I think about it. However, it teaches me a big lesson, which I very much appreciate, that each one of us has been created for a purpose, the purpose which we never know when it is accomplished, and only then, after fulfilling our purpose does the creator come back to take that which is His. 

I remember listening to Dr. Myles Munroe a few weeks before he passed on, as he passionately talked about living a purposeful life on JKL Live in one of Kenya’s Television channels. His words moved me and from hence, I decided to determine my purpose in life and fulfill it. A few weeks later, when Dr. Munroe passed on I was shocked, I fought back tears; this was a man I had listened to three weeks ago and now he was no more, I had woken up that morning to news that this transformational man of God had died in a plane crash. Then, I realized just how short life is; I appreciated the reason for living a purposeful life as I fondly remembered when Dr. Munroe declared on national television, here in Kenya, that he was completely emptying himself to fulfill the purpose for which he was created on earth; with these words Dr. Munroe had prophesied his end time. 

Today, however, I ask myself, “How many people get a chance to prophesy their end time?” As this question lingers in my mind, I remember that my late brother, who passed on at the age of three, who cried and cried for hours until midnight did not prophesy his death, otherwise mama could have been psychologically prepared to accept whatever befell her. I write this article with a grieving heart, this is not because I have lost any loved one, a favor which I cannot forget to thank God for. Believe me; crossing over to a new year, safe and sound, is not a mere favor, glory, glory, to the Most High. But look, it saddens me that even at this time and age, many a people have not appreciated nature’s will, that each one of us has a purpose on earth, and once the purpose is accomplished, despite one’s age, the creator shall fold our old skins, work tools, and carry us to a place neither of us has been to before; a place where we shall leave and never return to our loved ones!

I refuse to be convinced otherwise! I strongly believe in creation, the Supreme God, nature, and purpose…otherwise, only the poor would be condemned to die at a tender age and the rich to live forever. Money does not buy life; only the Almighty, who most of us believe in, knows the day and the hour, and when He decides that your purpose in this paradise is accomplished, He folds your work tools and whisks you off to another place where you live with angels happily ever after! 

To all the souls that have left us, “May you Rest in Eternal Peace”

Happy New Year readers…I wish you abundant blessings in this New Year 2015!

An article by Gladys Muthara.

The Irony of Celebrating Peace

Peace!

 Being the country-side girl I am, from rural Eastern Kenya, I grew up not knowing either war or fear. As most of you may agree, growing up in the country-side is always fun due to the peace that reigns in those regions, well, at least most of the regions in Kenya, because as we know some parts of the country can be very volatile due to ethnic clashes among others. 

Growing up in the country-side is fun, the only fear you experience is that of darkness, chameleons, millipedes, and centipedes…well, this is not real fear because, for me, it would end as soon as I held the millipede by the neck and strangled it to death. But I feared chameleons, their ugly and bulging eyes that threatened to pop out of their sockets every time they saw me, coupled with their constant colour change especially when they stepped on the bark of a tree or on the soil. But did you know chameleons can be gorgeous, yes they can be very pretty, just like a bouquet of well assorted flowers; imagine a chameleon that steps on a bunch of yellow, pink, blue, and green flowers! You don’t want to know how such a chameleon can be colourful. That notwithstanding, I dread chameleons; do you remember the story about this old chameleon that stuck on a very beautiful girl’s head and refused to go away as it held on to the girl’s long and curly hair? Well I guess you know that when a chameleon sticks on your dark, long, and wavy hair, your uncle will have to shave it off. Now you know why as a young girl, growing up in the countryside, I feared chameleons. I also hated the fact that Cain disappeared into the darkness after disagreeing with God; hence, every day when darkness set in, I feared walking in the dark to avoid meeting with the gigantic and black Cain because I believed that he could strike me with his long sword! 

Darkness, chameleons, and millipedes aside, life was peaceful in the country-side. I knew not a word like war, terror, and militia to name but a few.  I knew not Mungiki, Alshabaab, Boko Haram, Alqaeda, and other threats to peace. Guns only became real to me as we sat for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education examinations; I remember this day with nostalgia, not just because it was the day that marked the beginning of the person I am in terms of being a learned friend, but because it was also the first time I got to hold a gun. The policemen who had been deployed to our examination centre were very friendly; would you believe that they not only allowed us to touch the guns but also take photos with them holding the guns…ooh, how sweet memories flood my thoughts every time I hold my small, green, tattered album to see the photos I took those days!  Believe it or not, before this first encounter with guns, I only knew that guns existed in movies. Being the strict parent he is my dad would never allow us to watch movies, believe me when I tell you that we even had to watch TV with a pen and paper in our hands, just so we could write any vocabularies to use in those English essays. Surely dad, it did not have to be that serious…anyway I came out of it just fine…and watch this pace as I rewrite history. 

The world I lived in was a peace haven; so peaceful was it that the reality of clashes and election violence seemed like mere stories. The year 2007 came and I was old enough to feel the tension in the country. The reality of how dangerous this was going to be dawned on me when we got a new neighbor who had relocated from Eldoret. The country was burning, day in day out television channels showed demolished houses, many of which were razed down by fire. The sight of mass exodus as people ran away from the volatile regions, leaving behind everything they had worked to achieve for years, made me realize just how precious peace is. The effect was no different when I reported back to school in 2008 and found out that the only students who had reported back to school were from Meru region.  

No sooner had I gotten over the trauma of neighbors hacking each other to death, the word terrorism sneaked into my dictionary of life. People were being killed through improvised grenades in Wajir and Nairobi. The president could not stand to watch his citizens being killed like chicken and as a result Operation Linda Nchi was born; the KDF was determined to secure our country from what now had become a regular assault by Alshabaab. What followed after KDF’s entry into Somalia was a series of attacks and sacrifice of the lives of innocent men, women, and children. To this day, we live in deep fear; the other day our nation was on high alert as news spread like wild fire that there was a threat to attack major malls in Nairobi and Mombasa. I remember clearly on 9.21 when I decided to stay indoors after I received a security alert message via Whatsapp! Around the same time, our leaders and youths were preparing to celebrate the International day of Peace. I am very sure that majority of our leaders had actually been invited to various events to deliver keynote speeches on this day of peace. 

Personally, I was invited to attend the celebrations in one of Kenya’s public universities, which was organized by emerging leaders of the country. But even so, despite the invitation, I was reluctant to attend the celebrations. I felt there was nothing to celebrate; so many people were dying in the world over, with the recent example of war-torn Gaza and Ebola-struck West Africa.  I stand to be corrected if I am wrong by saying that majority of us do not know peace. How would I have peace, of mind and heart, when there are no jobs yet the cost of living keeps on sky-rocketing here in Kenya? How can a woman in Awasi celebrate peace if she has to trade her body for water? How can needy university students celebrate peace if they have to take to the streets in demonstrations for their Helb loans to be disbursed? Tell me; how I can celebrate peace if I go to the matatu stage and find our ma-three charging double the fare, from sh. 70 to sh. 150? Isn’t it ironical that we keep on celebrating the International Day of Peace world over, yet we barely experience the peace itself? 

I know I sound like a pathetic and hopeless citizen, but even so, I won’t deny it. Every day I get frustrated by the challenges that deny me the joy of having some peace. Believe me, I am not at all against this day of peace celebrations; however, there’s a disturbing concern that refuses to let go off my heart. The concern of what we achieve by spending lots of money and hours in celebrating a mere day instead of channeling those resources towards the building of peace itself. Our brothers and sisters, our children and grandchildren, have become so intolerant to diversity. But how would they learn about peace yet there is nothing like that in our schools’ curriculum? 

Dialogue after dialogue, conference after conference, celebrations after celebrations yet we never come up with tangible solutions. I challenge us all to work towards attaining that peace that we so much want to celebrate. They say peace is a state of the mind, and I challenge you to help your brother achieve it through your own little way. I look forward to a day when I shall walk in the dark without fearing to be attacked, a day I shall look at my neighbor from a different tribe without suspicion, a day I shall go to shop in a mall without thinking about a repeat of the scene at Westgate Terror attack…this day, I shall walk in the streets and declare that I am celebrating peace! 

Peace to you all!

An article by Sarah Makena

Co-founder Ukabila Zi Society