Richard Ekai

Richard is 44 years old. I have seen him before at the distribution at the Katilu village. He’s always smiling and helping people with the heavy grain sacks, 50 kilos = 110 pounds. He is not a paid distribution assistant but he helps anyway.

Before the post election violence of January 2008 he lived near Eldoret with his wife and 8 children. He made and sold charcoal for a living. He had a three bedroom house on a ¼ acre of land. He is proud of what he had, he felt prosperous. His family had a TV, radio, 3 bicycles, 3 dense mattresses. He said one truck would not have been able to carry all his possessions.

Richard’s 15 year old son often slept over night with his friends who were from the Kalenjin tribe. Richard is from the Turkana tribe. One morning Richard learned that during the night his son had been beheaded the “friends” he was staying over night by. Richard’s house and all his possessions were burned. Richard fled with his family to Katilu in Turkana which is where his wife grew up.

In Katilu Richard is trying to put his life back together again. He works as a casual labor in the fields where there is an irrigation system that has canals that divert water from a nearby river. The irrigation project includes over 600 acres and is being expanded to provide irrigated land for more people. Richard hopes to get a plot of land of his own.

I went to the irrigation project. It is beautifully peaceful and quiet to view. There are trails with huge trees covering them with shade. It reminds me of a painting I’ve seen of Jesus walking on a path shaded by very high huge trees, Jesus is shown teaching the disciples as He is walking along the path. There is absolute silence. The fields all have people hoeing and weeding the maize and sorghum. There are many hand water pumps. I came past one pump that was surrounded by large trees and bushes. The pump was on a raised cement platform. There was a group of women and girls who were washing cloths, drawing water to take to their homes, they were talking, laughing and bathing. I sensed that this was a regular daily event that they enjoyed.

Before each distribution there are short speeches that the local minister, and we in the Relief Team make to the large gatherings. The ministers lead in singing and prayer and then we each say a few words. Before I had heard Richard’s story I was telling the crowds that after the August distribution there would be no more distributions in Turkana from CRWRC. I encouraged the people to seek God’s guidance in determining where they could best make a living to support their families. That if they could make a living in Turkana, wonderful. But if they couldn’t earn a living in Turkana then they must think of moving some place else where there is more opportunity.

After hearing Richard’s story and others like it I found it hard to tell them to move away from the security of their tribal homelands and move to where there might be more opportunity. They had tried that and had suffered terribly.