"On behalf of the Pastoral Nomadic Indigenous Samburu Community of Northern Kenya: the local leaders, the elders, the counselors, the mothers, the children and our Member of Parliament, The Hon Raphael Letimalo, please accept our heartfelt indigenous greetings: Supa! We convey our gratitude to you and your team of experts for your visit to our pastoral region of Samburu East. We salute you for your courageous decision to lead a team to come and be with us and share our pains and traumatic experiences which we encountered through hands of powerful aggressors. At a such time as this: time of agony, hopelessness and despair you came from a far country to meet us, sit with us, listen to our sad stories, witnessed the emptiness of our homes, and shared the tears and the sorrows of our pastoral community. Thank You!
Your courage and the risk of traveling by dirt and dusty roads is amazing to us! You came to be in solidarity with us. You had the courage to leave the comfort of your home in America. You and your team agreed to drink our dirty and contaminated waters from the Creeks. Thank You!
Your visit in the month of January 2010 has enriched our oral history and culture. As a result of brutal attack which happened to us in 2009 and 2010, we were literally left with nothing. Our only source of livelihood and identity, the cattle were taken away from us. Our houses which symbolize our cultural identity were burnt into ashes. Our women were tortured and abused. Our men were beaten, injured and others killed. Our young children disappeared mysteriously.
The brutal intrusion and the pollution of our land by the enemies of our culture and destiny have altered and dismantled our oral history. We shall never be the same again. The structural violence that has been done to us has constantly increased the level of our insecurity. We will never trust their administrative powers again.
We thank you for your documentation. We thank you for writing down the fatal impact and the confiscations of properties, the attack of our beloved ones, and the deliberate attack of our culture and identity. Through the power of this documentation, the Global world is now aware of our current limbo state.
We thank you for all the correspondences that have been submitted to those in authority. We hope they have eyes to see and ears to listen and the hearts of compassion and humane. We thank you for making all these appeals on our behalf.
At the moment, we have no gift of cattle to give you. But we have a treasured hidden gold that we can give you. This is our prayers and our cultural heritage. We pray that the Creator, EnKai will take care of you, your staff and your Board of Trustees. We welcome you again to our pastoral land. Given the space and time of our communal harmony, please know that you have a place in our culture. You are no longer a stranger but one of us. Welcome!"
Michael Lolwerikoi
On Behalf of Pastoral Indigenous Community Samburu East
