For Va. Teacher, Kenya's Troubles Are Far From Distant

"I'd rather spend time talking about the kids whose lives have been affected and whose stories you might never have heard about."

Kenneth O. Okoth worried all through December about the close presidential election in his homeland of Kenya. Things could get tense, the high school history teacher told friends and neighbors. Pray for our country.

But the violence that erupted in Kenya after the contested presidential election Dec. 27 was worse than Okoth had imagined. The streets teemed with thugs. Members of ethnic groups that had lived together in relative peace for decades turned against each other, looting and burning homes and stores.

Then Okoth heard that members of a gang called Mungiki were roving the streets, raping, mutilating and killing men and women. He knew he had to get his family out.

Okoth, 30, who teaches at the Potomac School in McLean, left his home in the slums on the outskirts of Nairobi in 1997 for a scholarship to St. Lawrence University in Upstate New York.

He went on to get a master's degree, marry a fellow teacher and settle in Southeast Washington.

But strong ties to his home remain. Not only does Okoth support his mother and several family members, but for the past several months, he has been the de facto head of a school in his old neighborhood that serves orphans and other impoverished children of the slums that ring Nairobi.

Okoth worked feverishly by telephone and e-mail to arrange transport to safety in Tanzania for six female family members and one of his brothers; his 58-year-old mother later returned to the Nairobi hospital for treatment of a kidney ailment.

In the days that followed, the violence raged on. Close to 800 have been killed and 200,000 displaced. Okoth said that he has a measure of peace knowing that his family is safe for now.

The school is another story. The modest building was shuttered because of the violence, and only half of the 90 children have trickled back since it reopened this month. Dozens remain in hiding or in refugee camps, or else their fate is unknown.

Voiceless Victims

Since the violence began, Okoth has been running in high gear, giving end-of-semester exams, fielding late-night calls from his family in Tanzania and making fundraising trips throughout the mid-Atlantic region to garner support for the school in Kenya.

He has also become somewhat of a spokesman on Kenyan conflict, speaking on National Public Radio and appearing in other media outlets. Over and over, he explains his position: The politicians and their entrenched special interests are what is truly hurting the country, and the real victims of the conflict are the poor residents of the slums, no matter what their ethnic affiliation.

Members of opposition leader Raila Odinga's Luo tribe rioted and burned stores after their candidate narrowly lost the presidential election last month, an election they say was rigged in favor of Kenya's president, Mwai Kibaki, a member of the prominent Kikuyu tribe.