- Disaster volunteers say more other houses are still incurring cracks pushing more villagers each day into the camp.
- Peril still awaits those in the school as the water systems had since been contaminated by the faecal matter from the latrines.
Image: MAGATI OBEBO
It is lunchtime but here at Nyasasa Primary School in South Mugirango, in Kisii, it is every soul to itself.
Those who had moved out of their collapsing houses scramble for what has been brought in by the well-wisher of the day.
It is a dog's race to survive amid low food donations. Today luck settled on a meal consisting of boiled maize with no beans.
"... just to fill the stomach as we wait for any other relief food, it hardly come by, though " Stella Kemunto, 50, tells the Star as she drags one of her seven children to sit down by the blue gum shed in the school compound to catch up with the late lunch.
At least 64 households have been staying here for the third week now.
Most scampered out immediately the heavy rains set in bringing along destruction.
Disaster volunteers say more other houses are still incurring cracks pushing more villagers each day into the camp.
It is either a boulder rolling onto the back of the house or water.
"Every other time disaster strikes the story here is the same. We come here sleep here on the hard floor and when it subsides we go back to pick on from what is left and life continues," laments Penina Moraa, a 70-year-old widow.
She lost her husband a week ago.
His burial, she says, was hastened with fears that more rains pounding the area could bring more trouble.
Image: MAGATI OBEBO
"By the time we were burying him, two more houses where relatives who had come to mourn with me slept had experienced cracks on the wall. One of them sunk on one wall yesterday night," she said.
It could have been another disaster had we not moved out on time, she added.
The affected families are housed in three classes. The women occupy two.
The third, with no door, accommodates men and boys who have to steal glimpses at night on their animals in the open field.
About 200 cows were grazing at the school when we arrived.
Nobody still feels safe here, Henry Nyangeso, the community disaster volunteer officer tells reporters.
" Every dark cloud on the horizon sends ominous shivers down our spines because it portends more Elnino rains which are already wreaking havoc," he says.
There had been no death yet but children are sneezing a lot and pneumonia and malaria are a possibility in situations like these, he says.
Still, water seeps from every spongy soggy part causing cracks to even churches.
The Seventh Day Adventist church building stands a rickety shadow of its former glory.
Worshippers hold services under sheds, meters away from the premise which spot huge cracks on the pillars
Among villagers, the story is the same.
Lucy Obara, 60, says fear got the better of her after her house developed cracks on one side of the wall.
"The wall has since sunk and I had nowhere to feel safe," she told the Star.
Part of her farm also sunk giving flash floods an easy time to erode whatever had been left.
Joyce Ariri Ochoe, 80, gave a similar tale.
Image: MAGATI OBEBO
Image: MAGATI OBEBO
She nearly broke her limb as she fled the cracking sounds of her newly built house.
" Let the government move out or at least find a long-lasting solution to our problems. They had become so persistent yet help never comes," she said further posing to know if they are part of Kenya.
Many more in the camp are pressing the County and the area leaders to visit them.
" We have not seen our MP Sylvanus Osoro, where did you go or you will come to see us again when you need votes, "posed Agnes Kemunto who moved out of her ramshackle house after water seeped out of the rear sinking the wall.
Elmerida Otieno moved here with her four children.
She has been here for a week now.
She wants President William Ruto to intervene.
Desperation appeared to have set in fast with no food or water to shower at the camp.
Magero Kimonge, village representative, on his part, claimed no disaster official from the county, has bothered to visit them in the face of their plight, he told journalists.
Up the hill yonder, water still gushes out from a huge rock hanging precariously staring menacingly at the rickety houses underneath.
Peril still awaits those in the school as the water systems had since been contaminated by the faecal matter from the latrines.
"People are not safe because they are still using these same water from contaminated springs to prepare food," Nyangeso says.
Still inside Nyasasa Primary, the walls in the streams in which the women sleep are dumped.
Water seeps out of the corner increasing the health risks of children who sleep on the chilly floor.
A huge fissure runs through one stream meaning it can also cave in in the not-too-distant future.
No windows but steel grills were allowing all the night breeze into the sleeping women and children
Nyangweso says the mosquitoes readily feed on the young and the old in the camp.
"There is no net and the floors are very cold, it takes courage to survive here," he says.
The villagers said only the assistant chief had visited them.
The local chief had not toured the temporary holding camp for the three weeks his people had been here.
She, however, turned up with Etago Deputy County Commissioner late Wednesday.
Denis Sonko who vied for Parliament seat urged for a multi-agency approach to deal with the problem.
"The County and National government should put heads together and come up with a long-lasting solution to this. If being moved out to safer regions works so be it," he said.
Area MP Sylvanus Osoro said disaster emergencies are a preserve of the County and asked that Governor Simba Arati address the residents' plight