Fears of diseases set in here at Nyasasa Primary School in South Mugirango, in Kisii it is every soul to itself.
Those who had moved out of their collapsing houses scramble for what has been brought in by the well-wisher of the day.
It is a dog’s race to survive amid low food donations.
Today luck settled on a rude meal consisting of boiled maize – no beans.
“… just to fill the stomach as we wait for any other relief food, it hardly come by, though ” Stella Kemunto, 50, tells the Star as she drags one of her seven children to sit down by the blue gum shed in the school compound to catch up with the late lunch.
At least 64 households had been staying here for the third week now.
Most scampered out immediately the heavy rains set in bringing along destruction.
Disaster volunteers say more other houses are still incurring cracks pushing more villagers each day into the camp.
It is either a boulder rolling onto the back of the house or water.
“Every other time disaster strikes the story here is the same. We come here sleep here on the hard floor and when it subsides we go back to pick on from what is left and life continues ,” laments Penina Moraa , 70,a widow.
She lost her husband a week ago.
His burial, she says, was hastened with fears that more rains pounding the area could bring more trouble.
” By the time we were burying him, two more houses where relatives who had come to mourn with me slept had experienced cracks on the wall. One of them sunk on one wall yesterday night,” she stated
It could had been an other disaster had we not moved out on time, she added.
The affected families are housed in three classes.
The women occupy two.
The third, with no door, accommodates men and the boys who have to steal glimpses at night on their animals in the open field.
About 200 cows were grazing at the school when we arrived.
Nobody still feels safe here , Henry Nyangeso, the community disaster volunteer officer tells reporters.
” Every dark clouds on the horizon sends ominous shivers down our spines because it portends more Elnino rains which is already wrecking havoc,” he says.
There had been no death yet but children are sneezing a lot and pneumonia and malaria are a possibility in situations like these, he says .
Still water seeps from every spongy soggy parts causing cracks to even churches.
The Seventh Day Adventist church in church building stands a rickety shadow of its former glory.
Worshippers hold services under sheds, meters away from the premise which spot huge cracks on the pillars
Among villagers, the story is the same.
Lucy Obara, 60,says fear got the better of her after her house developed cracks on one side of the wall.
“The wall has since sunk and i had no where to feel safe,” she told the Star.
Part of her farm also sunk giving flash floods easy time to erode whatever had been left.
Joyce Ariri Ochoe, 80, gave a similar tale.
She nearly broke her limb as she fled the cracking sounds of her newly built house.
” Let the government move out or at least find a long lasting solution to our problems. They had become so persistent yet help never comes,” she said further posing to know if they are part of Kenya.
Many more in the camp are pressing the County and the area leaders to visit them.
” We have not seen our MP Sylvanus Osoro, where did you go or you will come to see us again when you need votes, “posed Agnes Kemunto who moved out of her ramshackle house after water seeped out of rear sinking the wall.
Elmerida Otieno moved here with her four children.
She has been here for a week now.
She wants President William Ruto to intervene.
Desperation appear to had set in fast with no food or water to shower at the camp.
Magero Kimonge, village representative, on his part accused Governor Simba Arati of sleeping on the job as they perish.
“Last time the former governor James Ongwae donated food and tents but where are you Arati? Did we not vote for you also?,” he queried.
No disaster official from the county has bothered to visit them in the face of their plight,he told journalists.
Up the hill yonder, water still gushes out from a huge rock hanging precariously staring menacingly on the rickety houses underneath.
Peril still awaits those in the school as the water systems hadsince been contaminated by the fecal matter from the latrines.
” People are not safe because they are still using these same water from contaminated springs to prepare food,” Nyangeso says.
Still inside Nyasasa Primary, the walls in the streams in which the women sleep are dump.
Water seeps out of the corner increasing the health risks of children who sleep on the chilly floor.
A huge fissure runs through one stream meaning it can also cave in in the not too distant future .
There were no windows but steel grills allowing all the night breeze into the sleeping women and children
Nyangweso says the mosquitoes readily feed on the young and the old in the camp.
“There is no net and the floors are very cold, it takes courage to survive here,” he says.
The villagers said only the assistant chief has visited them.
The local chief had not toured the temporary holding camp for the three weeks his people had been here.
She, however, turned up with Etago Deputy County Commissioner late Wednesday.
Not without drama though as security aides to the DCC roughed up one journalist and confiscated his phone accusing him of taking them pictures without authorization.
Denis Sonko who vied for Parliament seat urged for a multi agency approach to deal with the problem.
“The County and National government should put heads together and come up with a long lasting solution to this. If being moved out to safer regions works so be it,” he said.
Area MP Sylvanus Osoro said disaster emergencies are a preserve of the County and asked that Governor Simba Arati to address the residents’ plight