Harrison,
It's great to meet you at Rising Voices!
I encourage you to join Josephat Ndibalema's working group Haki Elimu
Rafiki in Kiswahili http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hakielimurafiki/ send
a blank message to hakielimurafiki-subscribe@yahoogroups.com His group
is about his deepest value "see many people getting education as their
basic right". In particular, he is very interested that we use
Kiswahili for education throughout East Africa. He leads Uyoga and they
are in Dar es Salaam and they are helping with translations and we could
use your help, too. I will try to coordinate more tomorrow what texts
we need help with but they include:
- Prayers of Peace:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/holistichelping/message/1704
- Text on nonviolence
- Information about the Pyramid of Peace and how people can join.
In particular, we've set up a kiswahili wiki, you can practice there and
help organize that http://www.worknets.org/sw/
and you will find many materials that Josephat has already written.
Also, we need to think how to distribute these writings.
So it is quite a challenge and thank you for helping!
Andrius Kulikauskas
ms@...

harrison benna wrote:
> Hello ~~~
> ANDRIUS
> For kiswahili translation I will take care !
> I am TANZANIAN I have good speek Swahili And English !!
> Please just give me plan what to do !
>
> Regards
> Rising voice
> med Tanzania
>
>
>
> On 1/12/08, *Andrius Kulikauskas* <ms@... <mailto:ms@...>> wrote:
>
>
> I spoke with Kennedy Owino and Dennis Kimambo with this idea which
> they
> both support.
>
> I see from afar that neither Mwai Kibaki nor Raila Odinga are
> effective
> as peacemakers.
>
> I ask our Pyramid of Peace participants to ask all the people you
> speak
> with to give their nominations for an independent commission to review
> the election results and determine the winner. We will collect only
> those nominations that are made by people who allow us to post
> their own
> name, telephone number and the one person they nominate. Then we will
> try to contact the people who they nominate and see who they
> nominate,
> and so on. At the least we will be able to get knowledge from
> hotspots
> like Kuresoi and Burnt Forest as to who are true authorities there and
> make sure they are represented. But perhaps we can even get good
> input
> from all of Kenya.
>
> Next week we will fund a newspaper advertisement in Kenya for listing
> the leaders of Pyramid of Peace with their phone numbers and we
> can also
> list their locations, nominations and deepest values.
>
> Our website is now up: http://www.pyramidofpeace.net and I will be
> working on it. Please point to this url if you can see our site with
> the PayPal button at the top.
>
> Let us be creative in how we use our resources and keep adapting.
> Wesley Chirchir of Eldoret said that refugees are traumatized and
> suggested that we send money for soccer balls. This is much more
> appropriate for the German embassy with which he was also able to
> speak. But actually children can make their own soccerballs using
> plastic bags and twine as the Tanzanians do, see the picture at:
> http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?TanzaniansHelpingFellowKenyans
> <http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?TanzaniansHelpingFellowKenyans> This
> also gives the children something to do and teaches them. And
> they can
> be made by Kenyans and Tanzanians to help the refugees. We can send
> cash to bring Dennis Kimambo or somebody else from REPACTED to
> evaluate
> the situation and do and teach community theater. We should be
> effective with our resources. Also, let's make sure that our aid
> leads
> to long term relationships wherever possible. And it's very
> important
> to report and to provide your contacts and invite more people into our
> groups. Yes, Kennedy please sign up for Nafsi Afrika Saana everybody
> who gives you permission.
>
> Also I invite our Tanzanians to translate into Kiswahili the prayers
> that Meadowlea sent from different faiths because they are very short
> and they are the kinds of peace messages that we need and they will
> inspire more.
>
> I will send Kennedy Owino a bit of cash for video work and otherwise
> will be sending out phone credits. More cash will help us buy the
> newspaper advertisements.
>
> Dennis and I checked and the amount of money sent and given by Western
> Union yesterday was correct, it was just some confusion because of
> the
> different currencies involved.
>
> Andrius Kulikauskas, Minciu Sodas, http://www.ms.lt, ms@...
> <mailto:ms@...>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Hi Andrius,
>
> I have just received the mail below from a friend addressed to the
> Electoral commision.
> This together with your idea has really activated my thinking.
> I support your idea, A solution is lurking , what is required is our
> constructive thinking.
> We can use the virtual online network to put our efforts towards a
> solution.
> Yes we can build on a pyramid of reccomendation, gather
> reccomendations
> from the myriad list of contacts that we have.
> Together with comments on wehther an independent commision is
> necessary,
> Presidential re-election, votes recounting/ retallying /auditing, or a
> system of power-sharing or a coalition government.
> We can make this available on the net.
> Let me brainstorm further.
>
> I wanted to sign more people on my working group, as the moderator of
> nafsiafrikasaana, what's your take?
> Thanks for your further contribution.
>
> God bless,
>
> Ken Owino
>
> Hambarr <hambarr@... <mailto:hambarr@...>> wrote:
>
> Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:59:36 +0300
> From: Hambarr <hambarr@... <mailto:hambarr@...>>
> Subject: open letter to kivuitu by shailja patel (I wish I'd
> written it)
>
>
>
> >
> > AN OPEN LETTER TO SAMUEL KIVUITU, CHAIR OF THE ELECTORAL
> COMMISSION OF KENYA
> >
> > Mr. Kivuitu,
> >
> > We've never met. It's unlikely we ever will. But, like every
> other
> Kenyan, I will remember you for the rest of my life. The nausea I feel
> at the mention of your name may recede. The bitterness and grief
> will not.
> >
> > You had a mandate, Mr. Kivuitu. To deliver a free, fair and
> transparent election to the people of Kenya. You and your
> commission had
> 5 years to prepare. You had a tremendous pool of resources, skills,
> technical support, to draw on, including the experience and advice of
> your peers in the field - leaders and experts in governance, human
> rights, electoral process and constitutional law. You had the trust of
> 37 million Kenyans.
> >
> > We believed it was going to happen. On December 27th, a
> record 65%
> of registered Kenyan voters rose as early as 4am to vote. Stood in
> lines
> for up to 10 hours, in the sun, without food, drink, toilet
> facilities.
> As the results came in, we cheered when minister after powerful
> minister
> lost their parliamentary seats. When the voters of Rift Valley
> categorically rejected the three sons of Daniel Arap Moi, the
> despot who
> looted Kenya for 24 years. The country spoke through the ballot, en
> masse, against the mind-blowing greed, corruption, human rights
> abuses,
> callous dismissal of Kenya's poor, that have characterised the Kibaki
> administration.
> >
> >
> > But Kibaki wasn't going to go. When it became clear that you were
> announcing vote tallies that differed from those counted and confirmed
> in the constituencies, there was a sudden power blackout at the
> Kenyatta
> International Conference Centre, where the returns were being
> announced.
> Hundreds of GSU (General Service Unit) paramilitaries suddenly marched
> in. Ejected all media except the government mouthpiece Kenya
> Broadcasting Corporation.
> >
> > Fifteen minutes later, we watched, dumbfounded, as you declared
> Kibaki the winner. 30 minutes later, we watched in sickened disbelief
> and outrage, as you handed the announcement to Kibaki on the lawns of
> State House. Where the Chief Justice, strangely enough, had already
> arrived. Was waiting, fully robed, to hurriedly swear him in.
> >
> > You betrayed us. Perhaps we'll never know when, or why, you made
> that decision. One rumour claims you were threatened with the
> execution
> of your entire family if you did not name Kibaki as presidential
> victor.
> When I heard it, I hoped it was true. Because at least then I could
> understand why you chose instead to plunge our country into civil war.
> >
> > I don't believe that rumor any more. Not since you appeared
> on TV,
> looking tormented, sounding confused, contradicting yourself. Saying,
> among other things, that you did not resign because you "did not want
> the country to call me a coward", but you "cannot state with certainty
> that Kibaki won the election". Following that with the baffling
> statement "there are those around him [Kibaki] who should never have
> been born." The camera operator had a sense of irony - the camera
> shifted several times to the scroll on your wall that read: "Help Me,
> Jesus."
> >
> > As the Kenya Chapter of the International Commission of Jurists
> rescinds the Jurist of the Year award they bestowed on you, as the Law
> Society of Kenya strikes you from their Roll of Honour and disbars
> you,
> I wonder what goes through your mind these days.
> >
> > Do you think of the 300,000 Kenyans displaced from their homes,
> their lives? Of the thousands still trapped in police stations,
> churches, any refuge they can find, across the country? Without food,
> water, toilets, blankets? Of fields ready for harvest, razed to the
> ground? Of granaries filled with rotting grain, because no one can get
> to them? Of the Nairobi slum residents of Kibera, Mathare, Huruma,
> Dandora, ringed by GSU and police, denied exit, or access to medical
> treatment and emergency relief, for the crime of being poor in Kenya?
> >
> > I bet you haven't made it to Jamhuri Park yet. But I'm sure you
> saw the news pictures of poor Americans, packed like battery chickens
> into their stadiums, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Imagine
> that
> here in Nairobi, Mr. Kivuitu. 75,000 Kenyans, crammed into a giant
> makeshift refugee camp. Our own Hurricane Kivuitu-Kibaki, driven by
> fire, rather than floods. By organized militia rather than crumbling
> levees. But the same root cause - the deep, colossal contempt of a
> tiny
> ruling class for the rest of humanity. Over 60% of our internal
> refugees
> are children. The human collateral damage of your decision.
> >
> > And now, imagine grief, Mr. Kivuitu. Grief so fierce, so deep, it
> shreds the muscle fibres of your heart. Violation so terrible, it
> grinds
> down the very organs of your body, forces the remnants through your
> kidneys, for you to piss out in red water. Multiply that feeling by
> every Kenyan who has watched a loved one slashed to death in the past
> week. Every parent whose child lies, killed by police bullets, in the
> mortuaries of Nairobi, Kisumu, Eldoret. Everyone who has run sobbing
> from a burning home or church, hearing the screams of those left
> behind.
> Every woman, girl, gang-raped.
> >
> > Do you sleep well these days, Mr. Kivuitu? I don't. I have
> nightmares. I wake with my heart pounding, slow tears trickling
> from the
> corners of my eyes, random phrases running through my head:
> >
> > Remember how we felt in 2002 ? It's all gone. (Muthoni
> Wanyeki,
> ED of Kenya Human Rights Commission, on the night of December 30th,
> 2007, after Kibaki was illegally sworn in as president).
> >
> > There is a crime here that goes beyond recrimination. There is a
> sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolise. (John Steinbeck, American
> writer, on the betrayal of internally displaced Americans, in The
> Grapes
> of Wrath)
> >
> > Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi....kila siku tuwe na shukrani
> ("Justice be
> our shield and defender....every day filled with thanksgiving" Lines
> from Kenya's national anthem)
> >
> > I soothe myself back to patchy sleep with my mantra in these
> terrible days, as our country burns and disintegrates around us:
> >
> > Courage. Courage comes. Courage comes from cultivating. Courage
> comes from cultivating the habit. Courage comes from cultivating the
> habit of refusing. Courage comes from cultivating the habit of
> refusing
> to let fear dictate one's actions. (Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese Nobel
> Peace Prize winner).
> >
> > I wake with a sense of unbearable sadness. Please let it not be
> true.....
> >
> > Meanwhile, the man you named President cowers in the State
> House,
> surrounded by a cabal of hardline power brokers, and a bevy of
> sycophantic unseated Ministers and MPs, who jostle for position and
> succession. Who fuel the fires by any means they can, to keep
> themselves
> important, powerful, necessary. The smoke continues to rise from the
> torched swathes of Rift Valley, the gutted city of Kisumu, the
> slums of
> Nairobi and Mombasa. The Red Cross warns of an imminent cholera
> epidemic
> in Nyanza and Western Kenya, deprived for days now of electricity and
> water. Containers pile up at the Port of Mombasa, as ships, unable to
> unload cargo, leave still loaded. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern
> Sudan, the DRC, all dependent on Kenyan transit for fuel and vital
> supplies, grind to a halt.
> >
> > A repressive regime rolls out its panoply of oppression against
> legitimate dissent. Who knew our police force had so many sleek,
> muscled, excellently-trained horses, to mow down protestors? Who
> guessed
> that in a city of perennial water shortages, we had high-powered water
> cannons to terrorize Kenyans off the streets?
> >
> > I am among the most fortunate of the fortunate. Not only am I
> still whole, alive, healthy, mobile; not only do I have food,
> shelter,
> transport, the safety of those I love; I have the gift of work. I have
> the privilege to be in the company of the most brilliant, principled,
> brave, resilient Kenyans of my generation. To contribute whatever
> I can
> as we organize, strategize, mobilize, draw on everything we know
> and can
> do, to save our country. I marvel at the sheer collective volume of
> trained intelligence, of skill, expertise, experience, in our
> meetings.
> At the ability to rise above personal tragedy - families still hostage
> in war zones, friends killed, homes overflowing with displaced
> relatives
> - to focus on the larger picture and envisage a solution. I listen to
> lawyers, economists, youth activists, humanitarians; experts on
> conflict, human rights, governance, disaster relief; to Kenyans across
> every sector and ethnicity, and I think:
> >
> >
> > Is this what we have trained all our lives for? To confront this
> epic catastrophe, caused by a group of old men who have already sucked
> everything they possibly can out of Kenya, yet will cling until
> they die
> to their absolute power?
> >
> > You know these people too, Mr. Kivuitu. The principled, brave,
> resilient, brilliant Kenyans. The idealists who took seriously the
> words
> we sang as schoolchildren, about building the nation. Some of them
> worked closely with you, right through the election. Some called you
> friend. You don't even have the excuse that Kibaki, or his henchmen,
> might offer - that of inhabiting a world so removed from ours that
> they
> cannot fathom the reality of ordinary Kenyans. You know of the
> decades
> of struggle, bloodshed, faith and suffering that went into
> creating this
> fragile beautiful thing we called the "democratic space in Kenya." So
> you can imagine the ways in which we engage with the unimaginable. We
> coin new similes:
> >
> > lie low like a 16A (the electoral tally form returned by each
> constituency, many of which were altered or missing in the final
> count)
> >
> > We joke about the Kivuitu effect - which turns
> internationalists,
> pan-Africanists, fervent advocates for the dissolution of borders,
> into
> nationalists who cry at the first verse of the national anthem .
> > Ee Mungu nguvu yetu
> > Ilete baraka kwetu
> > Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi
> > Natukae na undugu
> > Amani na uhuru
> > Raha tupate na ustawi.
> > O God of all creation
> > Bless this our land and nation
> > Justice be our shield and defender
> > May we dwell in unity
> > Peace and liberty
> > Plenty be found within our borders.
> > Rarely do we allow ourselves pauses, to absorb the enormity
> of our
> country shattered, in 7 days. We cry, I think, in private. At least I
> do. In public, we mourn through irony, persistent humour, and action.
> Through the exercise of patience, stamina, fortitude, generosity, that
> humble me to witness. Through the fierce relentless focus of our best
> energies towards challenges of stomach-churning magnitude. We tell the
> stories that aren't making it into the press: the retired general in
> Rift Valley sheltering 200 displaced families on his farm, the Muslim
> Medical Professionals offering free treatment to anyone injured in
> political protest. We challenge, over and over again, with increasing
> weariness, the international media coverage that presents this as
> "tribal warfare", "ethnic conflict", for an audience that visualises
> Africa through Hollywood: Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland,
> Blood
> Diamond.
> > I wish you'd thought of those people, when you made the choice to
> betray them. I wish you'd drawn on their courage, their integrity,
> their
> clarity, when your own failed you. I wish you'd had the imagination to
> enter into the lives, the dreams, of 37 million Kenyans.
> >
> > But, as you've probably guessed by now, Mr. Kivuitu, this isn't
> really a letter to you at all. This is an attempt to put words to what
> cannot be expressed in words. To mourn what is too immense to mourn. A
> clumsy groping for something beyond the word 'heartbreak'. A futile
> attempt to communicate what can only be lived, moment by moment.
> This is
> a howl of anguish and rage. This is a love letter to a nation.
> This is a
> long low keening for my country.
> >
> > Shailja Patel
> >
> > forwarded by Anselm Croze
> > Kitengela Hot Glass Ltd.
> > email anselm@... <mailto:anselm@...>,
> website www.kitengela.com <http://www.kitengela.com>
> > mobile + 254 (0)722 523284, P. O. Box 15530 - 00503,
> Mbagathi, Kenya.
> > Download a map from http://www.kitengela-glass.com/kiten_map.htm
> > Featuring the only masai glassblowers in the world.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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