Thursday was the day of the IDP camp visit. They had told me that we were going to a refugee
camp while we were there, but I didn’t really know what that meant until we got
there. The IDP camp is where a group of
5,000 people are forced to live on government land until they are given their
own land. 12 years ago there was a
tribal clash and the government seized the land. They were nomads for awhile but would always
get kicked out of the land they were on because they were ‘ruining’ it. The government let them use the current land
temporarily, but they cannot even build a garden on it. They have been in the land for 12 years, and
they don’t know when they will get the new land. The government brings food about every 3
months, but it only lasts for about 2-3 weeks because they don’t bring enough
for 5,000 people. They rely on people
like Jane and Tarin to bring them food when they visit and they get their
drinking water from the side of a mountain.
We left around 9;45 for the IDP camp and stopped in the town
of Muzumo to get maize and beans to feed the people at the camp. We got to the camp and were able to see it
from the road because all the trees around it were being torn down for
development. A hotel is being built on
the land right above the camp because the area is full of wild elephants.
The road was closed due to construction and rain so we had
to hike down to the camp. On the way we
saw a woman getting water out of the mountain, putting it in a barrel, and
carrying it on her head. It seemed like
the women do all the work in the camp (that is my observation, but it might not
be true).
We met with the leader of the camp, Gaid. He had an ‘office’ set up with an old
umbrella and a makeshift wooden table that he sat at all the time. He reminded me of the old teddy bear from Toy
Story 3 that led them through the daycare (before the bear turned mean. Gaid was nice the entire time).
Gaid gave an interview for the documentary and everyone in
the camp sat around and listened. The
children loved coming up to us and shaking our hand, but some of the younger
children were scared of us because they had never seen white people (muzungu’s). IAA also supports a woman at the camp that
developed epilepsy as an adult. She was
married but when she developed epilepsy her husband left her and the children. One day, as she was cooking, she had a
seizure and fell into the fire burning her body very badly. IAA has paid for her surgeries and sends her
money monthly for support. She was a very sweet woman and loves God. :)
There are about 5,000 people living in the camp consisting
of 502 families and 700 school age children.
They live in 13x13 huts made from sticks and tarps. They are very organized in the camp because the
huts are made sectioned off A, B, C, D, E, and F. ABCD have an average of 120 huts and E,F have
an average of 80 huts. There are not
indoor bathrooms in the huts, but there are several places throughout the camp
where Chos are. Chos are basically a
hole in the ground that you use the restroom with. When the holes are full, they just put dirt
on it and move the chos to another location.
The tops of some of the buildings have tarps on them that
were donated by people at Jane’s church.
Last summer there was a flood that killed several people and had the streets
flooded as well. Jane’s church donated
500 tarps so the rain wouldn’t leak into their homes and ruin everything. She came back to notice that a lot of them
weren’t being used because they were waiting for them to get their new homes,
then they would use them. I would think
that if you were stuck somewhere for 12 years, I wouldn’t rely on the
government too much waiting for a new place to stay.
We walked down the camp to see how they lived. They showed us the inside of their
houses. One side was a cooking area and
the other side was a living area. There were
no windows in the house and it smelled really smoky in there because the fire
is burning inside the house.
We were almost done with our tour when we found a pool hall
within the camp. We walked in and they
asked us to play. Jane and Josh both
played some pool with them while we were there.
So funny!
We walked back to the van to hand out the food and hats to
the villagers. Each family was allowed
6kg of maize (corn) and 2kg of beans.
The village secretary had a register that listed each family in it so
there wouldn’t be mass chaos when they were getting the food.
While there we also had 700 hats to hand out to the
kids. A girl from the US had raised
enough money for IAA to have 700 hats made to donate to the children. While the families were getting food the kids
were lined up and were given hats. We
had enough for all of the children, but the kids are so deprived that they were
sneaking their way back over to get multiple hats. They tried to control the kids and move them
to another area, but even the parents were helping the kids get more than one
hat. It was a madhouse! After we thought each child go one, we
finally had to put the rest of the hats in the van. When we left the people were giving us dirty
looks because we didn’t leave the rest of the hats with them.
I was really upset that the kids were trying to take more than
one and sneaking around us, but then someone mentioned survival of the fittest. The kids are desperate for anything much less
food and hats. Of course they would want
as much stuff as they can get. Tarin
told me a story about when she was there the last time putting a Women’s
Conference on and handing out free Bibles that some of the women would get in
line just to get a free Bible so that they could sell it later. Tarin was upset about that but then she
thought that God knew who would pick up that Bible after it had been sold several
times over. He had a plan for those
Bibles and he has a plan for the extra hats that the kids took. God knows what He is doing, we shouldn’t get
caught up in the small details when He has them covered.
