For Expatriates, Kenya's Torment Is Their Own
Shock Waves From the Unrest Reach Those Far Away

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 1, 2008

"Is everyone safe?"

"We good. bullets still whizzing in Kibira."

"Mostly safe. Not sure you'll hear from Fridah soon. I understand they relocated to Nakuru a week or so ago."

"Mwafugas are fine, save for the 1 day we missed milk and bread. And we don't all carry machetes. . . . Till we meet, stay blessed."

-- E-mail exchanges between

Mkawasi Mcharo Hall of Silver Spring

and relatives in Kenya

When "the Youths" came to kill them because they were Kikuyu, his sister put his 93-year-old mother on her back and ran a mile to a church, a supposed refuge from the post-election violence that erupted in December in Kenya.

But the Youths -- that's what they called them -- set the church in Eldoret on fire. When his sister tried to escape, again with his mother on her back, the Youths beat her.

She dropped her mother as the blows rained down. The Youths poured gasoline on mattresses and blocked the door. She picked her mother up again. But the fire grew so hot, so impetuous, it forced her to drop the old woman a final time before climbing out of a window.

Samson Njoroge sits in Hyattsville, telling the story as it was told to him by his mother-in-law. He had eight relatives who were trapped in the church; the 4-year-old son of his brother was killed.

His mother burned to ashes, he says. They did not give her the privilege of dying the way an aged woman should die -- in peace. He looks at the floor. Still today, weeks after the violence, with a political settlement finally at hand, he does not know where his sister is.

"It really hurts," says Njoroge, pastor of the Ebenezer New Testament Church of God in Riverdale. "I would like to go and find the remains of my mom. But now knowing this has happened, I being a pastor, knowing churches were burned and some have been killed, you don't take the risk to go."

This is the torment of the Kenyan diaspora -- people who have transferred from one culture to another, carrying with them the familiarity and pride of their homeland, then watching helplessly as Kenya descended into weeks of ethnic strife. And now trying to piece together a different reality for Kenya, wondering whether a power-sharing agreement can heal the hurt.

They are dazed by the violence, trying to explain that not everybody carries machetes, that what some called tribalism is not tribalism at all but distinct ethnic groups with a disagreement. Trying to explain that the clashes were more about land and politics and money than ethnicity in a country still grappling with the vestiges of colonialism and, more recently, of misrule, a place where more than 70 percent live in poverty.

They wait, watching the handshake of politicians whose elections produced mortal enemies -- but who now, after the hundreds killed, the hundreds of thousands left homeless, say they are in agreement.

"Even the thought of the president sharing power with someone else, that is unheard of in Kenyan politics," says Maurice Kinyanjui, who lives in Silver Spring. "I can't believe it is happening. This is what people have been praying for."

* * *

Mkawasi Mcharo Hall is sitting in a coffee shop in Silver Spring. No stomach for tea. From the window, you see people hurry about their lives, beating the sidewalk to and fro as the clock tower catches time.

"Every Kenyan in the diaspora knows someone who knows someone who is running away . . . fleeing or being killed or been rendered homeless," she says.

Hall, president of a group called Kenyan Community Abroad, says the violence was devastating and widespread. She has a cousin in Kenya. The cousin lived in Kisumu. The cousin is Taita, as is Hall. The cousin married a man who is Kikuyu, the largest ethnic group and that of President Mwai Kibaki. "When the violence started," Hall says, "they had to flee because the husband is Kikuyu. They fled through three cities trying to find peace."

"I'm mad," Hall says. "Disappointed. I feel betrayed by politicians on both sides. Regardless of the party. I feel betrayed because the common Kenyan went to vote, having nothing in mind but to cast a vote, with no power to rig, no financial power to bribe. Only with the hope to influence the destiny of Kenya."

Hall's family lives in the town Mwatate in Coast Province, in a part of the country that is neither Kikuyu nor Luo, the ethnicity of Raila Odinga, the opposition leader. It used to be thought of as a safe place, "but even they have experienced some violence," she says.

She spoke to her father recently. "My father assured me, the kind of thing a parent would want to tell a child. He said, 'Pray for the country. Pray for the leaders, that they do the right thing.' "

* * *

Kenya, which gained independence from Britain in 1963, has traditionally been one of the most politically stable and prosperous African nations. But violence erupted in December after a disputed election, with Kibaki's predominant Kikuyu targeted by other groups, including the Kalenjin and the Luo. More than 1,000 people were killed and some 600,000 were forced from their homes. Some people called the violence "ethnic cleansing."

Kibaki claimed presidential victory, but Odinga alleged that the count had been rigged. And outside election observers said the results were flawed. Nonetheless, Kibaki was sworn in even as fires of protest blazed.

Thursday, in an effort to quell a threatened new round of bloodletting, the two men agreed to a power-sharing formula that would make Odinga the prime minister.

Hall is hoping for reconciliation, that the killers will be brought to justice, that those displaced in the violence will find a place to live. That the country heals.

"It is incumbent upon every community leader, from clerics to teachers, law enforcers to local government, to rise up and speak reconciliation across ethnic divides at every turn."

* * *

Three men are sitting in the pastor's office of the African Church of the Nazarene in College Park. The men are organizing a fundraiser to send humanitarian aid back home.

Although the violence in their country split along ethnic lines and although these men admit there are Kenyans in the Washington area who now are reluctant to associate with people of other tribes, they had come out on this recent Saturday night to help overcome such divides.

They do not agree on the roots of Kenya's problems: Is it the historic tension over land? The historic tension over Kikuyu dominance in the economy and government? Or a combination of both?

"I lived there most of my life," said John Mbuvi Ndambuki, the church's pastor. "Kenyans are not tribalistic. I moved and lived in different parts of Kenya. I never felt I didn't belong because I was from a different tribe. I see this as an event people are willing to exploit for their own benefit."

Anderea Onwonga, president of the Kenyan International Community, says there is "an element of tribalism. I call it tribal cleansing." Onwonga, who is Kisii, says, "The election led to tribal cleansing. After two or three days. The killing was targeting specific tribes. The Kisii people, they were hunted down like dogs. . . .We have to preach, 'When you see a Kenyan, see them as a Kenyan, not as a tribal person.' "

Ndambuki, who is Kamba, says: "To fight, kill and torch houses. You have a combination of a lot of issues -- land, tribalism, hooliganism."

James Sang, 48, a Kalenjin, was born in Nakuru in the Rift Valley, the epicenter of the crisis. "The fundamental problem we have is poverty and illiteracy," says Sang, a systems administrator. "The two issues spawn a lot of problems. . . . Less than 10 percent of the land is arable. Thirty-three million people are fighting for 10 percent of land. People depend on land for their wealth. We don't have enough land."

* * *

Maurice Kinyanjui, executive director and founder of Jamii International Outreach Ministries, which runs an orphanage in Kenya, sits on a floral-print chair in his home in Silver Spring. He worries about the orphanage he built back home. The kids have no parents to protect them.

He is on the telephone, punching in numbers to call home. He is using a calling card, requiring a delicate mix of patience and faith. After 10 tries, he gets through to his younger sister, Anastasia Waithera, in Nakuru. They speak in Swahili. He translates.

The place is hot, she says.

I'm freezing, he says.

She reports the violence has died down. "Now it's peaceable. Things are back to normal. People can travel all over the place now. But the politicians are still negotiating."

Waithera, 27, was in Nakuru when the violence erupted. She witnessed people being beaten, chased out of their houses, their furniture burned. "It was a very sad affair," she says to her brother, who interprets into English. "All I could do was pray and ask for divine intervention."

Kinyanjui repeats what she tells him: Those whose houses were burned now refuse to go back. There is still a lot of insecurity. They fear that if they go back to their farms, they may be attacked again. The fear is still fresh.

There has been a public relations campaign in the media to mend broken friendships and divided tribes, she tells her brother. "The people realize it is not tribal," she says. "It is all politics. People realize, 'Why are we killing ourselves? The politicians are not killing themselves.' "

Kinyanjui translates a final question: Will Kenya return to what it was or will it forever be changed?

But the line has gone dead.