n the distance birds are singing as a blanket of dust covers this homestead, the faces of the children just shows that they have faced difficult times in their lives, they are malnourished not because the home lacks food but for the simple reason that the person who looks after them is too old to take care of them for these are the children dumped by their mother so as to be looked after by the grandparents who themselves can barely manage to support themselves in this hostile environment that is North Eastern Kenya.
These children are products of sexual relationships between somali women and men from down Kenya as somali people in North Eastern refer to non somalis that work and live here, the children are regarded as ‘haram’ or bastards that impacts their future negatively as they are forced to live with the psychological and physical abuse of being children of ‘adomeys’ a derogatory term used by somalis to refer to non somali people.
Halima not her real name is a mother of a young baby boy who has just turned a month and is married to a Luhya man, she met him in 2013 in Wajir, she was 18 and him a 28 year old army officer who used to pass around her homestead in the township area of Wajir, ” after a couple of meetings and talks i felt i was in love with him and i decided to run away with him as i knew my parents would not accept him for he is a non somali and even worse a non Muslim”, Says Halima as she fights tears as. In the end she was denounced by the family and now lives with her husband in Nairobi and has no communication with any member of her family a fact that truly hurts her more than anything she says it was her wish her mother would at least see her child and bless him instead her mother hates her for having a child with an ‘adomey’.
For Amina not her real name, her life has been a nightmare compared to what Halima has experienced she was beaten mercilessly by her family especially her brothers after they caught her in a room belonging to a teacher from western Kenya in Mandera town, ” they tied me up and whipped me for sleeping with an adomey and called me a prostitute”, says Amina, her family even called a religious leader to pray for her as they believed that the man bewitched her.
I talked to one Muslim and somali cleric in Mandera and asked him why the heavy handed treatment of Somali women who fall in love with non somali men especially the non Muslim ones and he said that the families are mainly conservative and feel that they are losing their dignity and pride if their daughter gets involved with a non somali but in terms of religion Islam accepts the relationship as long as the man is willing to convert into Islam.
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And at the homestead in the beginning of our story Khadija the grandmother tells us her daughter was impregnated by a non somali police officer and she gave birth to the twin boys they are 12 years old but look as five year olds the mother left them when they were a couple of months and never breast fed them due to the shame she run away and now lives in Nairobi as a miraa seller and the little she makes sends to the mother to take care of the boys. Indeed the fruits of her love has gone sour and its the innocent children who suffer.
In Mandera, Wajir and Garissa some households have tales of their daughters running away with non somali men and in some instances stories abound about fathers, brothers and other family members beating up and locking the women in the houses so that they don’t go to meet the men and in extreme circumstances they have been reports of the non somali men being brutally beaten or killed by the relatives of the woman in revenge for what they say is spoiling their daughters and sisters.
Love has never had a boundary or respected religion but the truth is if love is caged or denied it is bound to fight and in northern kenya no matter the religious or tribal differences it has shown that it could be ignited but sometimes that very love can also cause pain in the end