MY 2007 AFTERMATH

I have never really met an age mate of mine who speaks of the 2007-2008 election violence.

Starting this blog platform,five years ago, I began with the story of how my dad traversed walking from KITI to Lanet in a Sudanese shuka in the midst of Mungiki fighters then.

With everything that's happening, I guess it's a trigger to write of it's aftermath. How it felt being uprooted from Nakuru to upcountry.

As a child, you don't expect me to remember much. You are wrong.

Pain has a way to wreck your entire being, to walk with you to adulthood, to be buried in your veins and to die with you.

We moved from Nakuru, my mum, little brother who was then almost two and I. My father stayed behind to see if things would get better. Eventually it didn't.

We restarted life on our own. Transforming the Boma that had been sort of abandoned. Slashing the bushes, peeling the moulds and ferns, removing the ever constant cobwebs mansions. The neighbours would come and peep, curious of these people that had joined them. Language barrier was an issue. My kamba mother didn't know any kale word apart from "chamgei missing".

I started schooling, class one, in a nearby public primary school. "Walking distance". School was difficult. I had joined when the system taught mother tongue as a language. I was so confused why they taught kale and called it mother tongue yet that's not what my mum spoke. The friend I made showed me a hack to passing the subject. Adding 't' to Swahili words to make kale words. I believed her. When a chair was drawn and I was to write it in "mother tongue" I wrote "kitit". Did this for all the other symbols and guess what, I failed everything. Everyone in that class laughed at me.

I was good in all the other subjects and would take the enviable position one everytime. At such a young age, this didn't win me friends, it won me rivalry. We'd go for break to play and someone would say, they are not playing with a 'kokoni'. I never knew it was a bad word till I called an adult that and got punished for it.

The days and years that would follow worsened. They'd ask me why I was wearing shoes to school and if I thought I was better than them. To avoid all these, I'd remove my shoes on my way to school and tuck them in my bag so that I could be like other kids. When my father got me a king's collection bag , someone cut off the tag with a razor blade. Upon reporting, my bag would stay in the staffroom during break time and lunch times.

At home, I watched my mother kill snakes often. Those that crawled from the bushes around. I'd watch her carry my brother on the front and a jerican of water on the back. In my mind, I forever knew that's what a woman should do. She had then slowly learnt or rather been told that a woman in Baringo shouldn't wear trousers. So I casually watched her turning from a diva to a Baringo mother, with lesos and skirts.

She started making friends. She learnt the language of the people and almost forgot hers. In the evenings children would come to our place to watch the TV that we had. That TV that had only three working channels. To mesmerize at the motions of things going on, on the other side.

During the third term of 2009,in my schooling year, I partially lost my eyesight. My pupils were slowly turning white and my white part of the eye turning brown. People were quick to say to my mother that witchcraft had befallen me. In a bid to seek medication, we were directed to an eye doctor in the area called Toisang. I was given medication only that it made it worse. I don't remember what it felt like not seeing. Toisang later was accused of giving wrong medication to several people and he died in 2010. I was saved by a missionary hospital in Kipsaraman. From then, I got superstitious.

I remember the faces of my parents. Sitting with us in a living room and my father reading us Bible stories.Maybe at this time he only, solely, believed in God, because who do you turn to when things hit rock bottom? I remember how beautiful everything seemed but looking back, maybe I didn't see it all. I didn't see the resignation letter sitting there from ISUZU and the start-us that kept failing. I didn't see beyond the smile that told us to say "cheese". I didn't see beyond the food that was set on the table everyday. I didn't have to care what the next day held because I was busy being a child.

I went back to school in 2010. My position was a constant, one. I bagged gifts. These gifts were, jugs, plates, 'kichungi' , spoons and the kind. I'd happily flaunt them at home. Gift is among my love language now maybe because I didn't know other better gifts.

I remember how I used to look at the planes in the sky wondering if I'd ever get into one. The road to Nakuru already seemed so far away and I was already deep in this new reality. Years later I joined Moi Forces Academy Lanet in Nakuru where I started to dream again.

I am afraid for this country. I am afraid that if it worsens another household, another child, will have to feel the pain of being uprooted and resettling.

I forever caption my mother on mother's day as an hardworking one, not because everyone one does but because I saw it.

If only I knew, I would have asked if she was happy here. If running from violence and reinventing herself was what she'd choose again.

 I'm sorry I never asked, Ma.

Now she's about to be Mama wa Engineer and I don't know of a much abundant grace than that.

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Hello my lovely fam

I hope you've been well and have missed my absence

Life update;

Completed my engineering school a month ago and isn't it God!

If you enjoyed this story, please comment, like, share with a friend.

I'm debating whether to do a sequel to these chronicles to highlight the beautiful times in Baringo. Tell me what you think.

If you also have such compelling stories you can reach out to me on bettcaro92@gmail.com 

Or mutai.mutinda on Instagram.

I love you all. Stay safe this June