The cry of an innocent woman

I had a dream, one that was really sad. When I have such dreams my day seems to be longer than others. I am not sure why.

It was all about a woman, who has no home and lives in a makeshift paper made thing that looks like a hut.

In it, there are two big pieces of spread out cartons that I think she uses as bed for her and her two small children.

Their father is no where in the scene, but I don't remember asking where he was neither do I remember the woman mentioning her in our lengthy talk that left my cheeks wet with tears.

Oops!! I also remember my handkerchief(one that my friend I was with gave me when my eyes could not hold the tears anymore)getting too wet with tears.

It was a sad one.I haven't tasted my tears in such a long time.

She started like this "I had such a big home, a place you would be proud to call home but all that is history. This is what I call home, a place where my babies have no bed to sleep on, a place where we go to the bush to answer to the call of nature, our lives have changed and no one to turn to."

This woman was in deep pain as she took me through her story. Desperation is evident on her face. She tried so hard to fight back tears. But I would notice she is a strong and a brave woman. A hard skinned one.

Her two young ones seem to be comfortable with the sorry state of affairs - at least they are innocent they don't know if there is any other place better than this.

What happened? why did you end up here? These were my first questions?

I am a victim of the post poll chaos that erupted moments after the results of the 2007 presidential poll were announced.

My dream suddenly ended. I touched my face,there were no tears. My wet handkerchief was also no where. I realised it was a sad dream.

I somehow woke up to reality but it was as an awkward dream. I am not the Finance nor the Land minister... neither do I have a relative in these two. So as much as I am a concerned Kenyan and I honestly sympathize with the IDPs, should this feature in my dreams?

When the country went up in smoke after the controversial poll, Kenyans turned against each other. They killed, maimed, sent away and burnt other's properties. Neighbors turned against each other.

The occurrences that characterized the moment proved all of us wrong - that we are brothers and sisters since we are Kenyans, that we belong together. All these became useless within a day, we lost our dream of building a peaceful and a democratic country.

But why did we turn against each other?- I can here us responding - Politicians, these are the very people we call our leaders.

Kenya goes to the poll once again next year.. with thousands still in the camps of the displaced and piling promises they will soon be resettled. They will soon be home. They are suffering for one 'mistake' - they voted.

I am an innocent voter........ my innocence should not be turned into something else.