Pray for Peace in Kenya

Dearest friends and family,

We greet you with hopes for peace in the New Year. As you have probably heard, there is much unrest in Kenya following the national elections on Dec. 27. We are fine and are staying in Lamu, a small island off the northern coast of Kenya, just south of Somalia. This is a very peaceful place and a small town where everyone knows each other. It is a popular tourist destination that is very friendly and welcoming to outsiders, and we are meeting a lot of other travelers here as well – from the States, England, Canada, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Israel, France, Spain. We are staying here until things cool down on the mainland. The locals have told us that there is very little crime or violence in Lamu, and that this is the best place we can possibly be in Kenya during this time of conflict. We have actually been having a great time here and have made the best of our situation by spending time sailing, fishing, and swimming at the beach. Life in Lamu is continuing as normal and the locals are reassuring us that Lamu will remain peaceful and safe.

We are not sure what news you are getting about Kenya right now, but we know that many of you have been afraid for us. We thank you for your concern and your prayers of peace and protection. We hope to share some more information with you so that you will have some stories from the ground here in Kenya (not the sensationalized version that is undoubtedly being reported on CNN, Fox News, etc.).

Here is the background as far as I can explain it:

For several months, polling around Kenya revealed that Raila Odinga (of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement party) was the leading candidate, although incumbent President Mwai Kibaki (of the Party for National Unity) was starting to catch up. Kibaki’s campaign slogan was “Kazi Iendelee!” (Let the work continue) while Raila’s symbol was the orange and his slogan was “Chungwa Moja. Maisha Bora” (One Orange. Better Life.). Many people we interviewed said that they preferred Raila to Kibaki because they want change, a new constitution, and an end to corruption.

A bit of history: Kibaki was elected president in 2002, representing the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC), a coalition of many opposition leaders including Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, the opposition presidential candidates this year. In 2002, NARC promised to end corruption, to change Kenya’s constitution, and to end the “tribalism” or ethnic divisions in Kenya. However, since 2002 the Kibaki government has been implicated in several scandals, with evidence of widespread corruption and grabbing of land, money, and government contracts. Also, Kibaki tended to nominate and hire mostly Kikuyu people from the Mount Kenya region in major government positions. And the referendum for a new constitution was stalled and beaten by Kenya’s Parliament. Although the Kibaki government claims that they have improved the Kenyan economy and have developed roads, schools, markets, and hospitals, the majority of the Kenyan people continue to live in poverty and unemployment. There seems to be widespread criticism of the policies of this government and agitation for change.

Right before the 2007 elections, the polling revealed that Kibaki and Raila each had about 40% of the votes, with Kalonzo Musyoka of the ODM-Kenya party trailing with 15% of the votes. There was some violence leading up to the elections, especially in the Rift Valley where there were clashes over land between Kikuyus and Kalenjins. There was also some violence directed to candidates, especially women candidates for Parliament and between ODM and PNU supporters.

On Dec. 27, Kenyans went to the polls. The election itself was mostly peaceful although some people complained that they could not vote and were told they were not registered. There was some violence at some polling stations, and there were some election workers who protested that they were not paid enough. Raila himself went to vote in his district of Langata/Kibera, and found that his name was not even printed on the ballot! Election observers from the European Union, the U.S., and other countries were deployed throughout the country, and they have reported widespread problems with the way the election was conducted and how the votes were counted.

It appears that the presidential election may have been rigged, since it took almost four days for the election results to be counted and declared. The elections had been decentralized with individual polling stations in charge of counting the votes from their constituencies. Although the votes were counted locally, they were then sent to the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi, where the Electoral Commission of Kenya was meeting.

Raila Odinga was first declared the winner, with a margin of 300,000-1 million votes more than Mwai Kibaki. On December 29, Raila’s apparent victory was printed in the paper and declared on national television. We watched a hearing with the Electoral Commission of Kenya which reported the results stating that Raila had won the majority of the citizen’s votes in seven of the 9 provinces. The only provinces where Kibaki was leading were the Central and Eastern Provinces.

However, on December 30, the Electoral Commission had another hearing declaring the “Final and Official Election Results”, declaring that Kibaki was the winner. It is said that there was a power outage in Nairobi, where the votes were being counted, and that afterwards Kibaki was found to have 40,000 more votes than Raila. Right after these results were declared, Kibaki was sworn in as President on the same day. Later, the ECK chairman Kivuitu said that he was pressured to release the results before he was really sure of the accuracy of the counting. As of Jan. 2, he said that he is still not sure whether or not Kibaki really should be president, since it is not clear who has the majority of the votes.

As a result, there has been violence, looting, and killing in some parts of Kenya – especially in the Western Province near Kisumu and around Nairobi and Mombasa. These are large cities and the violence has mostly been centered around the cities. We have been communicating with the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and with friends in the cities who have reported widespread fighting, killing, rapes, looting and burning of stores and houses. The worst situation was a church that was burned with dozens of women and children trapped inside who were seeking refuge. There have been over 300 reported deaths so far, and over 150,000 internally displaced refugees. Many others are staying home, and they have no access to oil for transport or cooking, or to food since the shops are all closed or destroyed. There are also widespread power outages, and the banking system is completely down. There is little access to cell phone credit, which is a pay-as-you-go system, so it is difficult to keep up communications with friends and family in distant places. Everyone is staying close to home and there has been no traveling for several days.

On Jan. 2, we heard that Nairobi and Mombasa had cooled down, and that the General Service Unit (GSU military police) and other police were heavily deployed throughout the cities. Shops had opened again in the cities and it seemed that things were returning to normal. However, Raila called for one million people to come to an ODM rally to be held at Uhuru Park in Nairobi, the large central park next to downtown, on Jan. 3 (today). Kibaki banned the rally and called for heavy police deployment throughout the city. This morning we have heard that the rally is taking place and a large crowd is moving from Uhuru Park to Kibera and Langata, Raila’s home constituency. Police have been deployed heavily throughout the city. Kibera is the largest slum outside of Nairobi and has been the center of much of the violence so far. We are praying that the rally will be peaceful and that Raila will ask his supporters to protest without violence. However, the situation is very tense and it might escalate again after today’s rally.

We are staying in Lamu now and just waiting for things to cool down. We came here the day after Christmas on a bus, and we are glad to be safe and surrounded by kind people and new friends. On election day, we were impressed that everyone we interviewed in Lamu told us that they will accept whoever becomes president, that they are just praying for peace. Everyone went to the mosque or to church that day to pray. This town is predominantly Muslim and everyone is continuing to pray and work for peace. The central teaching of the Islamic faith is “Do No Harm”, and Islam itself means “peace.” The clerics in the mosques are urging everyone to continue to be peaceful and to love one another. Although Raila is also the preferred candidate here, there are a few PNU and Kibaki supporters who are mostly Kikuyu migrants from upcountry – who come from either the Central Province or Nairobi. It is very peaceful here and the locals have assured us that there is little risk of violence here since they have much security with the police, Administration Police, the Kenyan Navy base and the U.S. Marine base.

Do not worry about us – we are safe here in Lamu and we will be careful about waiting until it is safe elsewhere before traveling from here. The only concern here is that we are very remote, and that the supplies to the island come from the other cities on buses and boats. Since there is an oil shortage and a ban on traveling in the cities, there are few supplies coming to the island now. Our biggest concern right now is not having access to our money, since there is one bank in town and its ATM machine is broken. The bank is only accepting cash for exchange. We are saving the little we have and have been helped by some friends – other travelers and the local people. We had a kitchen at the guest house where we were staying, so we could cook food and boil our drinking water. We have stockpiled dry food supplies and we have access to fresh water. If we run out of food, we can also go fishing with local friends – there is a great supply of fish in the ocean, and there are coconuts and mangoes growing on the island. We figure that if we run out of food, we can live a long time on fresh fish and ugali – corn meal porridge which is very filling.

We have had to move from our guest house since we had no money, but we are staying with a friend’s family. As luck would have it, on our second day in Lamu we met a young Rastafarian artist, Gitaa, who was a friend to Jack O, a boy that I lived with in Nairobi back in 1995 with my friends Martin and Wilberforce. Jack was 15 back then and I was 21. He moved to Lamu three years ago to stay with his sister Rose and her family, and he works at Kizingo, a hotel on the other side of Lamu. He happened to be in town on Christmas and New Year vacation, and Gitaa took us to his house. Jack was so shocked to see me and was so happy that we were brought together. He kept saying “This is like a miracle!” and “This is Jah’s plan!” He introduced us to coconut wine one day in the village of Wiyoni, where we met a lot of local people who were happy to celebrate with us. We also had a great time together for New Year’s Eve, when we drank a few beers at a quiet bar on the beach, and then took a long walk for three hours around the island. We walked along the beach, watching the fireworks and the moonrise, and explored the sand dunes and coconut and mango groves in the moonlight. The next day we went sailing in a dhow, an old wooden sailboat, with some other friends. They sailed around the “mashindano”, a race of sailboats in the harbor by Shela beach, and we watched from the water as the sailboats sped by. It was the best New Year’s celebration that we have had in a long time.

When Jack had to go back to work at Kizingo, we asked his sister Rose if we could stay with her. She still remembers me also from 1995 and has welcomed us warmly. We are staying with her and her eldest daughter Melba, who is home from college in Uganda. Melba also cannot travel back to school now. Rose’s other children are in Nairobi with their father, and she is very worried about them as the men in the community have to stay up at night guarding the houses with machetes to ensure that no thieves come in. Rose said that we can stay with her in Lamu until her children return from Nairobi. By that time, we hope that it will also be safer for us to travel back to Mombasa and Taita, to reunite with Mjomba and his family.

As far as we know, the Mjomba family is fine and we are still communicating with text messages, and I talked to Mjomba on the phone on New Year’s Eve. They say that Taita is peaceful but Mombasa has been violent. The Mjomba family members in Mombasa are staying in their house for now, waiting for things to cool down. We hope to see them again soon.

My research has been stalled since we cannot return to Taita, but I have been making good connections with women’s groups here in Lamu and I am considering interviewing them and learning more about their work. In Wiyoni village, I met a large group of women who recently started a women’s community development organization called Tuungane Wiyoni (Let us join together Wiyoni). I also met a woman named Mama Naomi who is a seamstress who started the Lamu Women’s Poverty Eradication and Education Program. I also met a British woman who has lived here for 4 years as a volunteer with the British equivalent of the Peace Corps. She started a waste collection and environmental conservation program called “Lamu Safi” (Clean Lamu). All of these women have invited me to work with them and they are excited about my research.

We hope that you all are well and that you will keep in touch with us via email. We do not have much access to email or internet right now but you can text message us or call us and it does not cost us anything. Again, my cell phone number is 011-254-725-285-351.

We love and miss you and ask you to pray for peace in Kenya,

Cat and Joe