Who will save the poor of Central Province........

A mud walled tin-roof thatched house in Githumu, Gicici area.
Efforts need to be made to improve the lives of people
 living in such houses. 

There is an untold story in central province. The story is lost largely due to statistical figures that claim that living standards are very high. What with the coffee, tea and food sufficiency stories that say relax, Central Kenya is better than the rest of country.

There can be nothing further from the truth than this.

I have just returned from a journey I dubbed “Tracing the roots of my fathers” in which I went to Githumu market in Kandara Division of Muranga County. I witnessed firsthand how the first quartile of the population in the area is reeling under the immense weight of poverty. For them, only God knows what next and this will not be said because it is not part of the statistical mean.

Like any other poor place in Kenya, a good number of the residents live in mud walled tin-roof covered houses that I am reliably informed were built in the early seventies.

It is a life off a Chapter of Ngugi wa Thiong’os The River Between where when you look around all the stories you hear are of the “ahoi and ndungata”. This people whose fathers lost their lives fighting for freedom and didn’t have a time for their families, make a life picking tea for the landowner’s; majority of whom are the scions of Ngati.

What saddens me though is that school dropout rates and teenage pregnancy among the poor is rampant.  I even saw a guy wearing a combination of cold fighting armour -muddy gumboots, big green pullover, black woolen hat, – tell his colleague that he would join the gym so that he could garner enough strength to deal with his opponent.

It made me sad that there was nothing I could do. I did not know whom to blame for the rot. I for one was angry that a bar I have seen since I was a child is doing booming business. I saw it sell busaa as a child, I saw it sell Kuguru’s Chakula Kinywaji and now it is making a killing selling Ma-Kc and anything else lethal.

For once, Government has forgotten about the lower quartile of Central Province and it basks in the glory of high statistical figures as a mark of development. The provincial administration that should ensure parents take responsibility for the development of their children have gone on holiday. Whenever they resurface, they rather spend their time hunting down the Mungiki rather than address the real cause of the rise of such groups.

Secondly, area residents who have made it big in business and academics have left the area. They have relocated to Nairobi and other major towns and rarely comeback to inspire the residents of the little extremely cold and muddy town on the foothills of the Aberdares. Word has it that the only time they come back is when they are running for political office and want area residents to vote for them.

I do not know what to make of NGOs that operate in the area are a happy lot. They have exploited “the wound” beyond measure. They are happy to show the world that they care by spearheading anti-jigger campaigns. They in essence have not helped address the problem and would rather the people remain poor. Otherwise what will be the basis for justification of the funding proposal?

In my own assessment, I think the problem in the area is largely historical and needs concerted efforts to equip the sons and daughters of freedom fighters to find a place where they can enjoy the fruits of the country’s freedom.

For starters, the government and area residents have a responsibility to ensure that they improve their wellbeing. It will begin by Government waking up and seeing beyond the statistical mean while the residents have to shed off the Ahoi mentality.

Ends……….