our weekend.

After getting home from the slum on Friday, Kyle and I frantically started packing for what we thought would be a weekend safari trip to Amboseli, a national park near Kilimanjaro.

Instread, right after we finished packing, we got a call from our safari operator and told us that it would not be possible for this weekend unless we could hire him as a private guide - which we cannot afford to do. So, he will keep looking for another group going next weekend instead.

Since our bags were already packed, we decided to go on a day trip to GilGil and Vermillia IDP.

View of the IDP camps from the nearby cliffs

In Kenya, (especially in the Rift Valley) there are hundreds of IDP camps. These are groups of Internally Displaced Persons who lost their homes and possessions as part of the 2007 election violence. In 2007, the two candidates for presidency were from opposing tribes - Kalenjin and Kikuyu. There was hostility in communities that were a mix of both groups, and many Kikuyu people's homes and possesions were burned. People were even killed over voting a certain way. Before the violence, they even owned farmland, cattle, shops and businesses.


Now, the displaced persons live in camps with other IDP's and some have yet to recieve any compensation from the governement. Since the land that they were temporarily resettled to is literally in the middle of nowhere, they have a hard time getting any income. They lost all of their posessions and now live in tents provided by the governement and await food being dropped off. Sometimes it can be weeks or even a month between being provided food. The government has said that they will be resettled as soon as possible. The IDP's are still waiting.

Because of this, some of the volunteers that we know have started a school there, so that the children who live in the camps can continue with their education while they wait in limbo for a permanent home. They also put in a well, to give them clean drinking water. 

The water pump and the school

We decided to visit our friends that volunteer there - Erin and Katrina.
They took us on a great tour of Vermillia A and Vermilla B - two groupings of tents that they work with. There are about 300 people living in their camp. Imagine the entire population of Roland (Kyle's hometown) being violently forced out of their homes and living in tents.

An IDP tent

Erin introduced us to some of the people living there- One woman makes bracelets to sell to other volunteers that visit the IDP camp during outreach. She gets 300 shillings for each bracelet - about 5 dollars - but outreach only comes every two weeks, so she depends pretty heavily on selling them during an hour visit with volunteers. Kyle and I are each getting one - They're quite nice.

Another woman we visited made sisal bags by weaving - she used the profit from selling two bags to purchase a cage full of baby chicks. She hopes to raise them and sell them to cars passing by on the highway. She can also sell the eggs, and use them to provide food for herself and her family. She was extremely excited to show us her chicks. She was bouncing up and down, clapping and smiling.

The excited lady's chicks.

It was good to see that people here are not too discouraged by their situation. It would be easy to become depressed after what they have gone through, but they all look out for one another at the IDP camp. The woman with the chicks told us that they do not know what the government will decide about their situation, and they do not know when - so they have to get by as best their can without their help. 

We also got to scale some cliffs near the IDP camp while we were there. It was tiring, but the view was great!

On the cliffs near IDP

On Sunday, Kyle and I went to Hyrax Hill. It is a prehistoric site. It had a museum and some artifacts. We also go to see the actually places where the artifacts were uncovered. It was neat. Kyle was excited for it. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable - even though his name tag said that he was Hyrax Hill's security guard. We also got to climb hills at Hyrax hill. Apparetly we're hikers now.

Okay, thats all for now - love you all. Bye bye.
I'm going to try to get Kyle to post about the medical camp we held at the slum last week. Hopefully that one will be up soon.