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Is this another “Hotel Rwawanda”?
Will it take another Hotel Rwanda’s film from Hollywood for Americans to cry and cry out for these people.
Here are some excerpts from a letter sent to me through Elijah Kurich, the man who supply’s One Village Coffee Kenya Beans.
First watch this clip to know what this man is reacting to: Here the words of a Kenyan to his countries leader. A tale of betrayal and injustice.
AN OPEN LETTER TO SAMUEL KIVUITU, CHAIR OF THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF KENYA Mr. Kivuitu, We’ve never met. It’s unlikely we ever will. But, like every other Kenyan, I will remember you for the rest of my life. The nausea I feel at the mention of your name may recede. The bitterness and grief will not.
You had a mandate, Mr. Kivuitu. To deliver a free, fair and transparent election to the people of Kenya. You and your commission had 5 years to prepare. You had a tremendous pool of resources, skills, technical support, to draw on, including the experience and advice of your peers in the field – leaders and experts in governance, human rights, electoral process and constitutional law. You had the trust of 37 million Kenyans.
We believed it was going to happen. On December 27th, a record 65% of registered Kenyan voters rose as early as 4am to vote. Stood in lines for up to 10 hours, in the sun, without food, drink, toilet facilities. As the results came in, we cheered when minister after powerful minister lost their parliamentary seats. When the voters of Rift Valley categorically rejected the three sons of Daniel Arap Moi, the despot who looted Kenya for 24 years. The country spoke through the ballot, en masse, against the mindblowing greed, corruption, human rights abuses, callous dismissal of Kenya’s poor, that have characterised the Kibaki administration.
But Kibaki wasn’t going to go. When it became clear that you were announcing vote tallies that differed from those counted and confirmed in the constituencies, there was a sudden power blackout at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, where the returns were being announced. Hundreds of GSU (General Service Unit) paramilitaries suddenly marched in. Ejected all media except the government mouthpiece Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.
Fifteen minutes later, we watched, dumbfounded, as you declared Kibaki the winner. 30 minutes later, we watched in sickened disbelief and outrage, as you handed the announcement to Kibaki on the lawns of State House. Where the Chief Justice, strangely enough, had already arrived. Was waiting, fully robed, to hurriedly swear him in.
A few paragraphs later
Do you think of the 300,000 Kenyans displaced from their homes, their lives? Of the thousands still trapped in police stations, churches, any refuge they can find, across the country? Without food, water, toilets, blankets? Of fields ready for harvest, razed to the ground? Of granaries filled with rotting grain, because no one can get to them? Of the Nairobi slum residents of Kibera, Mathare, Huruma, Dandora, ringed by GSU and police, denied exit, or access to medical treatment and emergency relief, for the crime of being poor in Kenya?
I bet you haven’t made it to Jamhuri Park yet. But I’m sure you saw the news pictures of poor Americans, packed like battery chickens into their stadiums, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Imagine that here in Nairobi, Mr. Kivuitu. 75,000 Kenyans, crammed into a giant makeshift refugee camp. Our own Hurricane Kivuitu-Kibaki, driven by fire, rather than floods. By organized militia rather than crumbling levees. But the same root cause – the deep, colossal contempt of a tiny ruling class for the rest of humanity. Over 60% of our internal refugees are children. The human collateral damage of your decision.
And now, imagine grief, Mr. Kivuitu. Grief so fierce, so deep, it shreds the muscle fibres of your heart. Violation so terrible, it grinds down the very organs of your body, forces the remnants through your kidneys, for you to piss out in red water. Multiply that feeling by every Kenyan who has watched a loved one slashed to death in the past week. Every parent whose child lies, killed by police bullets, in the mortuaries of Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret. Everyone who has run sobbing from a burning home or church, hearing the screams of those left behind. Every woman, girl, gang-raped.
Do you sleep well these days, Mr. Kivuitu? I don’t. I have nightmares. I wake with my heart pounding, slow tears trickling from the corners of my eyes, random phrases running through my head:
A few paragraphs later
Ee Mungu nguvu yetu
Ilete baraka kwetu
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi
Natukae na undugu
Amani na uhuru
Raha tupate na ustawi.
O God of all creation
Bless this our land and nation
Justice be our shield and defender
May we dwell in unity
Peace and liberty
Plenty be found within our borders.
Rarely do we allow ourselves pauses, to absorb the enormity of our country shattered, in 7 days. We cry, I think, in private. At least I do. In public, we mourn through irony, persistent humor, and action. Through the exercise of patience, stamina, fortitude, generosity, that humble me to witness. Through the fierce relentless focus of our best energies towards challenges of stomach-churning magnitude. We tell the stories that aren’t making it into the press: the retired general in Rift Valley sheltering 200 displaced families on his farm, the Muslim Medical Professionals offering free treatment to anyone injured in political protest. We challenge, over and over again, with increasing weariness, the international media coverage that presents this as “tribal warfare”, “ethnic conflict”, for an audience that visualises Africa through Hollywood: Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, Blood Diamond.
I wish you’d thought of those people, when you made the choice to betray them. I wish you’d drawn on their courage, their integrity, their clarity, when your own failed you. I wish you’d had the imagination to enter into the lives, the dreams, of 37 million Kenyans.
But, as you’ve probably guessed by now, Mr. Kivuitu, this isn’t really a letter to you at all. This is an attempt to put words to what cannot be expressed in words. To mourn what is too immense to mourn. A clumsy groping for something beyond the word ‘heartbreak’. A futile attempt to communicate what can only be lived, moment by moment. This is a howl of anguish and rage. This is a love letter to a nation. This is a long low keening for my country.
A VERY DISSAPPOINTED KENYAN CITIZEN – Shailja Patel.
This letter appears in Kalenjin Online.
Please pray for our friends in Kenya, may people in developed countries around the world wake up to the power they have in their voice and reach out to tell the stories of injustice, so that the awareness may overwhelmed the powers at work in our world.
Scott
Why “confessions of a failure”
First the definition failure http://www.thefreedictionary.com/failure
fail·ure (flyr)
n.
1. The condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends: the failure of an experiment.
2. One that fails: a failure at one’s career.
3. The condition or fact of being insufficient or falling short: a crop failure.
4. A cessation of proper functioning or performance: a power failure.
5. Nonperformance of what is requested or expected; omission: failure to report a change of address.
6. The act or fact of failing to pass a course, test, or assignment.
7. A decline in strength or effectiveness.
8. The act or fact of becoming bankrupt or insolvent.
Reason for the title:
Confession #1
I am fascinated by the word failure, I am curious about it’s meaning in my life as well as others.
Confession #2
I have lived most of my life and still due to some extent in fear of this word, the meaning of it and how I relate it to my own experience.
Confession #3
It is a provocative title that connotes intrigue and curiosity.
I would like the reader to go through the process of redefining their own feelings of failure as they read.
Who am I?
This is a question we all ask our selves when something breaks down.
Maybe it is our car, our job, our marriage, or our family.
Relationships are the hardest things for me to have break down. Communication is work, and it takes time to develop relationships.
Lately I have noticed a shift in the atmosphere, people are more on edge. There seem to be alliances forming. A shiftiness in the eyes, who is in and who is out.
Why is the one thing we want, the one thing we find so hard to maintain.
I have been apart of some honest conversations about marriage and commitment. People weighing in on peoples choices in relationships. The on lookers making their judgment and look for evidence to convict the guilty.
The issue usually do not lie with the other person. I have found relationships to be a reflection on the broken views I hold so dear. The frame work I try so hard to protect. If I can not speak about it, what I see or experience ceases to be real. Constantly, reconstructing meaning out of my experiences and choices I have made.
People who we can not relate to make it impossible to hold onto the old way of thinking that brought us to that point. We choose in that moment to disregard who they are as different and not worth knowing or we engage in the dangerous dance of conversing with the opposite. This is hard for most people who want to hold onto their world view. People like me.
It is in those moments I ask the question, “Who am I.”
Dinner with my Mom part two
The story goes like this:
My mom and I are sitting at the bar and I lean over my shoulder and look to the right to see a couple in the corner sharing a drink. I would say they are in their thirties. The man is facing toward the entrance of the room, but not looking at his wife or girlfriend. The interesting positioning is of the girl, She is looking over her martini talking to the man as though they are in an engaged conversation.
At first I brush off the awkward body positioning for a frustrated conversation or a distracted guy. However, I find myself looking over the whole night. to my surprise every time I looked the man was faced the same way, when i looked at the girl she was looking at him and conversing. The longer I looked the more I realized how messed up this situation was.
Then my mom interrupts me to tell me about the Polish man sitting at the end of the bar sitting four feet from his wife, which might as well be another table when sitting at a bar. She proceeds to tell me how he got yelled at by the bar tender the other night for being rude. If this where the local pub or hotel, that would be expected, but this is a high end place where the wealthiest this area has to offer come to fill their cup.
After that i begin to observe the situation. This is a room full of mostly wealthy, sad people. Husbands and wives sitting side by side, but not talking. Granted not everyone needs to talk to show they care, but this particular night I sense a dissidence in the room, and I am apart of it.
Dinner with my Mom
Yes I go out with my Mom to really cool bistros I can not afford at this time. Partly because I can not afford the dinner and partly because i do not get a lot out of nice restaurants. With out the people I am with they seem kind of pointless.
In fact a lot of consumer practices seem pointless to me lately.
Like shopping for clothes on Black Friday.
I went, because target was on the way home from my in laws and I needed underwear and undershirts. Target has affordable undergarments that still make me feel like a man, not a little boy or eighty year old man.
However, when I looked at some of the faces of the people shopping they looked, well, Tired.
I guess I don’t have enough money at this time to appreciate shopping or maybe it is because my mom still buys’ me shirts a couple times a year, maybe I am spoiled.
That’s it!
I think I am spoiled, but in stead of making me more entitled to a nice dinner or an over priced pair of shoes, my experience as a Moma’s boy makes me want something more. Maybe I want time with my mom.
Yeah, that’s why I go to “the Park Bistro” and sit at a bar and order over priced food that comes in small servings. And I enjoy it because my Mom enjoys, Just like I enjoy shopping with my wife because she enjoys it, or working with the Poor because my Dad enjoys it.
I do not know what that means for me, but I know I enjoy the story of Life. And I enjoy all the experience God has given me and I am confused by what I have been given. It is to much and yet I want more.
To be continued…
I am a coffee sales rep
Every time One Village Coffee the company I represent has a hard month selling coffee I get down. I ask questions like, can I do it?
You see in the past three months I have accepted the role of the sales manager and primary sales rep for OVC. For the longest time I have fought the feeling of the role I am playing in this venture. It has taken many conversations and people like David to help me see who I need to be.
Why is it so hard?
I have a very large ego. I want to be famous. I want to seem important. I want to feel good about myself.
The only way I feel good about myself as a sales rep is when someone buys coffee. Wow, that sounds tright. But it is true and I want to be honest, because I want to be successful. Meaning, I want to do the best i can do, in the time I have been given. I want OVC to be sustainable and I want the organizations overlooked to have a marketable tool in coffee. I want to connect the consumer to the story of the overlooked people of origin. Most of all i want to be apart of something bigger than me. I want to be apart of what God is doing in this World. I want to be apart of reconciliation, justice, mercy and grace.
Ok, now that I have made more meaning out of what I am apart of, I can sleep and be ok with the fact that tomorrow I will drive to places I have never been in towns I do not know and ask people in coffee shops and stores if they will sample my coffee and listen to the story of OVC. A group of people who started a company around the premise of helping people.
When I wake up and get in my car armed with samples and sales brochures I make it possible for growth, with out me doing this simple job there is little possibility. I accept my job. I accept who I am and I accept the responsibility offered to me.
Who are you?
suggestions for my new blog
Ok here is how it goes:
I get a call on the phone, “What you are saying on your blog is important, but i do not think people read it because it is to ugly.” I love honest friends.
So what does, www.toddhiestand.com do, that’s right he makes me a new blog. I can honestly say it will be hard to top this Christmas gift, and I am not sure how to thank him. I think I will give him more of my clothes and take him out to lunch. I would give him coffee but that is might be overdone.
Ok so here is where the four loyal readers of my musings come into the picture.
I need your help making suggestions for the title.
The title that has been on my mind lately is “confessions of failure” reflections and musings on God, Business, and how it all connects.
What I do not want my blog to be:
A negative perspective. I am fine with Critique, but like my dad said to me in college while we were eating at an Applebee’s, where are pivotal moments happen for young adult, “I do not want to hear you complain one more time till you try to help it..”
What was the it?
It was the Church.
What is the it now…
I think I am still trying to figure that out…
So if you have any suggestions let the fly.
I do not like lectures…
That is probably why I do not listen to many sermons.
Recently a friend was asking me about my community group, in fact I have spent a lot of time talking about this group this past week. The Livingroom is the intentional community I have participated in for the past two years. Here is our blog: www.livingroomconversations.blogspot.com
A couple things about livingroom, we meet intentionally once a week to relate to one another and God. We form our time around these elements: a common meal, communion, prayer, scripture, story, conversations, film, art, council, kids, inward and outward needs, services and play.
There is no one leader/pastor, we all play our roles we accept in the community. My role is a facilitator/encourager/listener/spiritual director.
Most people who know me outside of livingroom context think i am the leader. i guess I fit the profile of how they see the leader. However inside livingroom I am one of the pieces that make up the mosaic that is livingroom. The group of people, some strangers make up the most natural, normal, successful Christian community I have been apart of.
Note: most frustrating issues for new people, Livingroom is what you make it. No one role is held higher than anyone elses role. The children sit in the middle of the room most nights. They are distracting, and we celebrate the mess and normalcy they bring to the group.
We have no one purpose of structure. We organize and re organize every eight weeks in the areas that fit the values of how we see God/Jesus/Gospels/Christian Community expressed in Scripture.
I enjoy the company of people who are in the role of pastor when they are questioning their position… Why?
Because I wanted to be one since I was thirteen.
I had all the experiences of being “called” at a very young age, I went to the right schools and was mentored by the right people.
Now I have a new respect and perspective on the role of the pastor.
I think it is one of the toughest jobs out there.
I think they have become a joke to most of the Western world.
I think they are set up for failure in most institutional church structures. (at times the “lead” Pastor looks like a CEO who’s congregation see as a superhero.)
In this past week i have had lunch, taken walks, had coffee or drank a beer with five pastors in four days and i can honestly say I enjoyed it. But sitting hear now I can not help but think, why?
Here is what I hear: You know what it is like, you do not judge me, you enjoy me as a human being and you respect what i am trying to do.
Maybe we could all treat pastors more like human beings and less like super heros and we might see a change in the church in America.
I do not know, but i think it would be a grand experiment.
What I observe
My life is changing,
I have more of a belly.
My hair is thinning,
I care less about clothes.
People are separation,
Isolation is becoming easy.
Winter is coming,
Depression is setting in.
Friends are situational,
Alliances are being formed.
Disappointment is evident,
Relationships will never be the same.
I want to start having children,
My life is to stressful.
I want to sleep good at night,
My mind wont let me.
I have a fatalistic mind,
But I want to be positive.
There are thoughts i do not speak of
For fear of letting people down.
Pastors have a tough job,
People will allways lift them up.
To a place the do not deserve,
A place they do not want.
Christian have a hard time being human,
But make it easy to feel spiritual.
Churches no longer have loyalty,
Because the iron curtin has come down.
People look at me like I should do something,
About all that is happening.
But all I want to do is listen
Waiting…
What are you observing?
