Rain is an important part of everyday life here in Kenya as a majority of Kenyans farm for subsistence and as a way of making money. So rain is something that we have prayed for as a country for quite some time. However, On Monday the 29th of April at 3 am in the morning, tragedy struck. Maai Mahiu falls directly in the Rift Valley so you can consider it a lowland. The town above Maai Mahiu called Kijabe had the same amount of crazy rains, however, due to poor infrastructure a lot of the rain was collected in various places.
As a result, there was a river where the outlet had been blocked by a rock and subsequently mud from a subsequent mudslide. Finally after filling up with no outlet, the bank broke and brought all the water rushing down the Hill straight at Maai Mahiu. This means that people had no warning. People’s homes were completely washed away with some residents finding couches and other furniture miles away from their plots. In the 2 weeks of heavy rain, 181 people lost their lives with countless more missing and property worth millions destroyed. This has been devastating to our community because this is a community that already has gone through so much. Daily struggles is the reality here in Maai Mahiu as we find that a majority of people live well below the poverty line and now must restart from scratch. From the data we’ve collected, 50 households had been hosted at an IDP camp, 51 school-going children are staying at the camp. Another 56 households currently reside in rented houses with another 57 individuals integrated with family members. Ubuntu was tasked to collect information and data of the affected families, which involved verification of genuine cases, visiting households and offering psychosocial support to all those affected by the floods. We found that the immediate needs included: Getting the affected children back to school, rebuilding bridges and roads, facilitating resettlement, providing assistance to families and offering counseling services.
For those families who lost loved ones, we as the Ubuntu family would like to extend our deepest condolences. This situation is never easy and we are all trying our best to handle the situation and provide as much assistance as possible. We hope to bring you stories of families and how they are faring next month as we know God will be faithful.
