Tribal-political clashes

I was a young lad, early 90s. Maybe in nursery school. Our home, Burnt Forest, Rift Valley. Peace prevailed then skirmishes came very fast in '92, a general election period. My fatherhad a good job there before hell got unleashed while mother stayed at home looking after me and my younger brother, their only progeny at the time. Kikuyus like us had to leave because some Kalenjin men had been incited, allegedly by “politics professor”. Matiba and Kibaki were posing a formidable challenge to Moi and that didn’t go well.
Houses were being torched in the night, from our house we could see fires in the distance and hear battle songs. Fires lit the sky and we acted fast. We carried few belonging, locked the house and headed to the nearest Catholic church. So many Kikuyus were there, we all slept in the church, mattresses on the floor. Men stayed watch. I could hear men talking of arrows being used by the attackers. I couldn’t fully understand what was happening but worry could be seen on the faces. I was angry though because a man had called my mother “Wee mama harakisha…” My mother wasn’t ‘Wee mama’, she was Mama danji1. How could he! If I was a big guy I’d have whooped him hard.
We believed the church was safe, it’s where God would protect us and the marauding Kalenjin men could not enter the big church. During the 2007 elections, Satan had made goons disregard God’s house and they had torched a church with people in it, can’t be forgotten. Two days later, I remember a big old Mercedes lorry transporting us away with our few belongings. We got to Nakuru any stayed with relatives for a while. Years later my father sold our house in Burnt Forest and bought a land somewhere else in Central province. Looking back, I feel sorrow for those who lost their loved ones and property. We moved on though. I had sworn not to return to the godforsaken Burnt Forest, yet we used to hear of people returning to their farms. We moved alot as my father sought job transfers and ended up in Nairobi. My dear mama passed on in 2006, two weeks before I sat my KCSE exams, a blow I took time to recover from. By God’s grace I was best in our school. She’d have seen how well her son was doing.
I feel utter hatred for politicians diabolic tricks. I understand refugees escaping tribal-political clashes seeing as we would have been part of them.
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Pole. Nice you have moved on!

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such is life my friend,such is life

NAKUMBUKA HAPO 1992 KUNA TIME GSU WALIINGIA KISUMU NA FUJO NILIBEBWA NA MADHE MBIO KWA MGONGO MPAKA NYAWITA

pole kwa yaliyokupata. Mtu anisaidie na collection ya battle songs, za kikuyu… lugha ya mama.

MANKI I THOUGHT WE NI MPOKOT

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No, your father bought land… not a land… ask him.

Wachia hapo. A group was gormed? :slight_smile:

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Too bad no employer will spot your language proficiency here.

Pole kwa masaibu yaliyokupata…Life is always a learning curve

Life likes giving lessons to humanity at one time or another, Such events can build people to be who they turn out to be or embolden them.

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pole.

Pole… ent through similar ordeal in Molo.I was around seven but in one way I think it was a blessing in disguise coz if we continued living there my life would have been very different and not in a good w…

What would you have become in Molo?

A potato or pyrethrum farmer’s wife by the time i was 16

I also would be someone else. Thank God we moved on and moved away.