Long time ago, when we were still small,we used to live in a small village called Mawe, it was a very remote dry area that only the strong hearted would stay there for long.
If luck knocked our doors, we would be lucky to at least receive rain twice in a year, and that is the time we would be in a position to do general cleaning in our homes using the clean rain water.
There was an old woman in the village called Taabu,she was a mother of eight children and always looked miserable. She had tried to use all tricks so that his crops could grow but all her efforts were thwarted by the hostile climate of that area.
Things worsened when this year, only certain areas of the country received sufficient rainfall and the worse hit drought area was our village. She had nothing to count on survival as all the animals she had treasured for sale, all died as a result of hunger.
Her children fell sick, one after the other, as a result of malnutrition,till she was forced to feed them on wild fruits, that she always woke up for, early in the morning to go and pick them in the forest.
I felt pity for Taabu, but there is nothing I could do to assist her.She looked so weary and one would easily mistake her for a grandmother.As days went by, she was unable to persevere any more and she had to stop her children from going to school, as they could not concentrate on empty stomachs.
As the innocent people continue suffering for the faults not of their own making, the fat cows are busy cashing in more notes and squeezing them into their already full pockets.
Our selfish political leaders have ended up destroying our natural resources for their own interests. Right now, they do not want to move out of the Mau forest,yet people have not only lost lives, but also their source of income,the animals.
Tourism sector, that helps to boost our economy will be affected in the long run, as most animals have been forced to migrate from their natural habitats to other places in search of pasture, while most of them both wild and tame have died as a result of hunger.
Together, let us stand up and embrace a culture of protecting our environment from destruction.
Anne and Fiiu said,
November 2, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
Hi!
We are two students from Finland. Our names are Anne and Fiiu. We are 18 years old and go high school.
It is very sad that you and people of your village have so many problems, but it is great that your family is still together.
You told about the problems after the fire. It is terrible to lost everything. Have you any property left anymore?
In our country people have to study. So it is very different than in Kenya.
We hope that you get to college in some way or get some other nice thing in your life.
All the best for you and other in your village.
Anne and Fiiu
By the way… your last name Njoki (without the first letter N) means a river in Finnish.