| Peace! |
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
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