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Written by Dipesh Pabari

Tuesday, 30 June 2009

Destruction constructed...

"This will go down as the worse day of my life. In the emergency room I step over the dead to reach for those dying. They were out of supplies. They had to use the same needle to suture multiple people. They were out of IV's in the hospital and all drug stores in town are closed. Called the owner of Eldochem and he met me at his shop within 10 minutes. Loaded my car to the brim with all of his IV fluids, tubing and suture sets and returned to the ER. Many burns along with at least a hundred with lacerations all over their bodies. Too many were just bodies. We lost an unknown number of children in Eldoret in a single church fire. Best guess is >30 children may have died in this single blaze. Many of the burned adults and children survivors are in our ER."

"More people have died today in Eldoret than the number reported in the media for all of Kenya! Got our food truck and formed a caravan: Armed guards in front and behind, our truck, I was in a Kenyan Red Cross truck. We drove to the Eldoret airport to pick up supplies flown in to us by the Red Cross. We loaded literally tons of wonderful supplies and just got them back to the hospital. Even included a Red Cross trauma surgeon who flew up with the supplies. The drive to the airport is just too much. There are fires in all directions as homes and shops burn. Literally hundreds of refugees walk along the road. Sometimes it is 30-50 children and a single adult walking along carrying what they can. The road itself was cluttered by large stones that represented road blocks where they look in the car for those who are the "wrong tribe". There must be 20 blocked areas in that short drive. Most abandoned but not all. Passed many burned out homes and shops on the way. Standing on the tarmac of the airport, I could see smoke coming up on the horizon in all directions. I have pictures but lack the courage to even look at them myself much less send them until I relax a bit."

"It is my understanding that things in Western Province are pretty stable. The bulk of the crisis is in Rift Valley where we are, Nyanza, Nairobi and Coast. Those who flew in on the plane describe smoke coming up all along between Nakuru and Eldoret. I will not be able to process what I have seen; perhaps never understand my feelings. Be assured that the human genome needs many more years of evolution if it can get there biologically. The only way I can see to jump our inherent flaws as a race is to encounter something deeper in our lives than just self. It is a precious thing to have a deep feeling of being changed by our faith."

Never take that for granted. It is all that gives sanity to what I have seen today."

PRINA SHAH
b.1973, Nairobi, Kenya
Live and Work in Kenya

This was first published on Sukuma Kenya.

Dipesh Pabari
		About the author:
		Dipesh Pabari is a Kenyan writer and freelance education and communications consultant. He sits on the Editorial Board for Awaaz Magazine (a journal for South Asians in diaspora) and Wajibu (a journal of ethical and social concern).
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