MSG FROM JOYCE ONEKO, SUNDAY APR 6, 2008, 11:07 A.M.
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From: Joyce O.
Date: Sunday, April 13, 2008, 1:54 PM
Subject: Msg from Joyce Oneko, Sunday Apr 6, 2008, 11:07 a.m.
ID: 260473

Dear Friends,

I have been postponing sending you any further email, hoping that very soon I would come back to you with good news about power sharing and all. As you may all know, we are still discussing how Raila and Kibaki will share the cabinet, and how they will start bleeding all of us dry to pay the fat salaries of the extra ministers! It makes me remember my history and how the Germans and the British curved up Kenya, Tanganyika et al.

As the politicians discuss their plum jobs, the Kenyans who fought for them to reach where they are, are either having no jobs, or are spending wet nights in IDP camps. To make it worse, as soon as the donor agencies saw Kibaki and Raila shake hands, they breathed a sigh of relief, saying everything is now alright and things are going back to normal. The result is that in some camps like Mathare where we work, there have been no food supplies, the mobile toilets that were set up at the camps are overflowing, and with the current long rains, people are sleeping in their wet tents. Our classes are rent with different types of "music" from children's coughs and sneezes, and most of the time we are playing with and teaching children standing because it is too wet to sit down.

Yes, we are still at the camp, playing with children, and holding women group peace meetings. We are trying in our small ways to help women IDPs and those from the slums to hold joint meetings, to encourage the ones whose houses were not completely destroyed to go back where we think they are safe. We have visited several houses in the slums and are working with women who are willing and feel safe enough to return, to find out their most urgent needs.

My daily prayer is that the leaders will stop long enough to realize that the real problem is how Kenyans can once again feel safe enough to go back to some semblence of their life before the elections.

Amani,

Joyce