Painful memories as Solai victims try to pick up pieces
What you need to know:
Families try to come to terms with a disaster that claimed their loved ones’ lives and left them without a place to call home.
Over a week later, the tormenting memories just won’t leave and they have become like a bad dream they wish they could wake up from.
A counsellor said most of the victims were still picking up the pieces to start lives afresh, but he said they need time to heal.
Forty-eight-year-old Elizabeth Mutai is yet to come to terms with the Solai dam tragedy, a week after she lost her home, livestock and property.
Her voice is hardly audible during the interview at Solai Boys High School where about 500 families displaced by the tragedy have been camping.
“It’s a tragedy I am trying to forget, but I can’t,” says Ms Mutai, helplessly.
She says friends and family remind her of her neighbours who perished in the disaster every time they say pole (sorry).
HORROR MOVIE
Mr Simon Maina, 40, is also still grappling with the death of his sister. “She was my friend and business partner. Besides taking care of the house,” he says, scanning the classroom where he has been camping.
A few metres away are Ms Charity Chemutai, 26, and Mr Kevin Mutai, 37. They vividly recall last Wednesday’s disaster.
Mr Mutai says it happened like a scene of a horror movie and caught everyone unawares.
“It will haunt me for a long time. I still recall how that water swallowed households, farms and everything in its neighbourhood. I survived by luck, because I saw it happen. I had just closed the shop and was heading home when I heard the explosion. I took off before the water submerged my premises,” says Mr Mutai, a businessman at Solai trading centre.
BLANK STARES
This is the situation at the camp where a majority of the victims are trying to restart their lives.
Clutching the portrait of his four children who perished in the tragedy, is forlorn-looking Isaac Kamau, 58. Deep in thought, he stares at us blankly from one corner of the camp the more than 500 families call home.
“I lost my four children aged between one month and eight years. They died without warning,” he says, his failing voice portraying the torment he has to endure.
“My life has become a nightmare. I loved them and they made me happy. Did they have to die?” he poses before walking away still holding onto to the four portraits.
His heartbroken moment describes the general mood in the affected villages including Energy and Nyakinyua.
BY A WHISKER
Mr Joseph Maina, who says he was saved from the deluge by his intuition, says he planned to go to the nearby trading centre to while away the night with a game of pool, but changed his mind minutes later.
“I decided not to go to the centre but instead chose to buy milk and a loaf of bread for my family instead of spending the money on pool,” he says. “I was saved by the grace of God.”
Mr Mbugua Kariuki, who was a watchman at Solai Nyakinyua Primary School, managed to escape death by a whisker.
On a normal day, the 36-year-old would be at his one-acre farm tending to peas, planning how to cope with the rainy season and how to get his produce to Nairobi and elsewhere after harvest, but today he is homeless.
The ugly scenes of the tragedy are still fresh on his mind. As he grants us an interview, he insists that he doesn’t want to be photographed, a condition we agree to.
He says life has changed for him and other villagers who were affected by the tragedy.
MUD AND DEBRIS
“Nyakinyua Primary School, that would be a hive of activity as learners go through their second term lessons, is now a pale shadow of its former self. Mud and debris fill the classes,” says Mr Kariuki as he reaches for his handkerchief to wipe tears flowing down his cheeks. He only hopes that the government and well-wishers will help them to rebuild their lives and get land to settle on.
Many of the victims at the camp are still undergoing counselling and receiving donations from well-wishers.
Mr Stanley Rugaita, a counsellor, told the Nation that most of the victims were still picking up the pieces to start lives afresh, but he said they need time to heal. News about the closing of the camp this weekend that started filtering in yesterday did not sink down well with a majority of the families, who now want the government to give them land elsewhere.
SH30,000
It emerged that the camp could be closed down by Sunday to allow students of the school that was partly affected to resume studies next week.
“A total of Sh30,000 compensation from the government is insufficient. We need another land. Soil from our land was completely eroded and can’t be farmed,” said Ms Veronicah Wangeci.
The families continue receiving donations.
Yesterday four of those who died, who were from one family, were buried at the Solai Energy village.
