Eldoret testimonies 1

Four Friends from Eldoret Friends Church describe their experiences during the violence that followed the 2007 elections

Esther Kinadoso is a Quaker and attends Eldoret Friends Church. During the post-election violence her house was burned down

After the elections in 2007, when they announced the person who had won, there was a tension that started that night. We were not sleeping in our house: we went and gathered ourselves in another house.

When the tension continued, the people who had collected there started moving away from the house where they had gathered, so they ran away from that house. Some went to the police station and others came to this church. Then houses were set on fire. My house was burned on the third day.

I stayed in the Eldoret Friends Church for three days. There were seventeen families and in total there were sixty-eight people. I have five children and the youngest two, aged ten and twenty, live with me. I also had to look after them during this time.

I was sad. And scared. I was given some support from the church, for one month. They gave me food and clothing. I was to go and stay with relatives for around two months.

I have not lost my faith because of this, but it is a challenge. I am still a Friend, still going to church.

Others went to the Eldoret showground, which had 40,000 people sheltering there.

Until now I have hardly been back to my plot. I’m unable to build a house. I have rented a house and I continue to pay rent. Now I live around two kilometres from my old home. I do not know who burned down my house, but I do know that they burned a lot of houses.

I have already forgiven the people who did it. I forgave them because of love, because of Jesus. I had lived with these people for many years. These people were our friends before – were good before – but something just happened. I don’t know what. They changed. But after that, now we are friends. When we meet with them, sometimes they are guilty. But they did not know what they were doing. That’s why I forgive them.

During the violence Jessica Luvai fled her home fearing for her family’s safety

During the 2007 elections after they had announced the winner, chaos started. I was affected where I was staying, tension was there, people were chasing others. I had to escape. I came to this church and I stayed here in the pastor’s house.

I slept in the pastor’s house with four other families and others staying in the small adjacent church school. I was scared, it was such a painful time and I could not bear the pain. I came with my three children, aged seventeen, fifteen, and seven. I was given food while I stayed there and then some money.

After a few days, I was given assistance from the clerk and the pastor. I had to go back to where I was staying. There was still tension, but we had to go back. They had to look for a house where we could stay for a while. We were given the money to rent a house. Before, I was living in Kikari, an estate in Eldoret, close to the church. I went back after a month.

During those times, though there was still tension everywhere, it had cooled down. It was not as it was before. I felt safe. It is not really possible to describe the tension, because it just started, with people being chased, beaten and burned.

Robai Namaemba is a youth evangelist at Eldoret Friends Church

During that time of violence, there was a lot of tension, there was no help and no water, no food so I came to our church to Eldoret for assistance and then take the food to where the children were. So my request is – especially as a servant of the youth department – that we help our youth and we engage them, especially in the work of peace to keep them busy and make them understand the importance of life. I want to thank God for the Quaker youth. They were so supportive, they preached peace and prayed to God, I was able to shift from the area and look for a house somewhere, but I didn’t get the house, all other houses were taken, so as a servant of God I went to my knees and prayed. I found peace and found the need to revive the church and do what God wants. God gave me peace, to just pray until we have peace in that area and in the country. Those that are here were supportive with peace, with bringing support to the church. After that, we had an Alternatives to Violence workshop and many people came.

Phillis Nahumicha had traumatic experiences

I had gone for Christmas at home and where I live, my father was a preacher, so when the trouble started people came to our home for rescue. We didn’t know what had happened. We started hearing noises outside. When we came outside, we saw houses burned. We lived in the farm for three days, lying under a tree. Our house was burned and so we couldn’t access it.

I had a child of five months that started crying at night. I was meant to be transferred somewhere where the child could not be hurt. So during the movement at night, I stumbled, fell and rolled. Because of that I was bleeding for almost one week. So it continued until we went to the church. We slept in the church for two days. People threatened to come and burn the church. We were going to stay there because there was nowhere else to go. Around 3pm I saw people coming. They surrounded the church and at that time people were being given food. It was like I saw a darkness. There were armed people coming to the church – almost 500 people. When people started crying, people heard from afar. Two policemen came to that noisy place, they started shooting in the air. So these people wanted to burn the church, they were advised to go in the field. So the armed people continued burning houses and killing people. They were killing people and then burning the bodies immediately so they couldn’t be seen by the police.

The tension continued, there was no peace, until March. I feel that it was caused by our leaders. So people were acting but they were not aware.

My child is okay, but I have suffered. I still have back problems. My husband used to sell old clothes, but all three bales of clothes were lost – taken by the crowd. Even the house he operated out of got burned. He doesn’t have money to continue.

I teach in the Sunday school. I have been teaching children to have discipline and respect, and not to do bad things. During the post-election violence children aged five to fifteen were used to go and burn houses. That’s why I feel it’s important to concentrate on teaching them discipline in the catechism class. Because of these experiences I have decided to serve God.

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