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Daring dash saves life of Garissa student
Fear, terror and the sound of gunshots lingered at Garissa University on 2 April. Some students managed to escape the horrific attack while 147 others lost their lives.
Garissa University students on 2 April. Photo: Twitter (@DennisOkari)
A daring run after he heard piercing gunshots are what saved Erick Okuon’s life when gunmen attacked Garissa University in Kenya at dawn last week.
Many of his friends were not so lucky when masked al-Shabaab fighters stormed the university and called on students in two dormitories to come out of their bedrooms and lie on the ground, face-down, before being executed. At least 147 university students and staff were killed on the day.
Okuon and other students managed to escape the attack by jumping out of nearby windows and hiding quietly in the bush as the sound of gunshots and crying flew over their heads.
His cousin Francis Otieno, a Wits postgraduate, recounted Okuon’s story of survival and spoke of the emotional turbulence that took place on the day of the attack.
“I got the news early at 6am that morning. The first thing I thought was to call home and try to get hold of my cousin. I couldn’t get hold of him so we tried calling other people to reach out to him,” Otieno said.
“From morning to evening we had to wait and his phone was off, it was a very painful wait.”
He and other relatives had to wait along with the rest of the world to find out whether or not Okuon and other students had survived in the remote region of Kenya.
“The attack took part in the north eastern region and it’s a struggle to get someone out there so we had to wait on information from the Red Cross and the government,” Otieno said.
Otieno said most of the students at Garissa are poor. The students come from all over Kenya but attend the remote university because it is less expensive than schools in major cities.
“Most students are government sponsored and are from humble backgrounds,” explained Otieno.
Six days later, the pain of the attack still lingers in Garissa with students still fearful and going through trauma counselling.
“There is quite a lot of fear over there at the moment. This attack was on the poor, the people in the region of Garissa has large numbers of poor people. This attack just proves that nobody is spared,” Otieno said.
According to Otieno, his cousin is among those still going for trauma counselling. “He couldn’t celebrate having survived the attack. There’s no celebration, just a lot of anger.”
The April 2 attack on the university took place about 200km from the Somali border. At least 147 people were killed and 79 injured. The day was a chilling reminder of the 2013 attack in Kenya when al-Shabaab raided Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall, killing 67 people during a four-hour siege.
Wits declares solidarity for Garissa
A number of campaigns are underway at Wits in solidarity for Garissa University. Witsies will me marching and petitioning in remembrance of the lives lost on 2 April in Kenya.
Witsies are coming together in solidarity for Garissa through a series of campaign due in the next week.
The Wits Justice Project and Journalism Department have launched a petition to be signed by Wits staff and students.
Nooshin Erfani-Ghadimi of the Wits Justice Project told Wits Vuvuzela that the initiative began from a belief that Wits should express its support of the Garissa students.
“This campaign started from a conversation about how we as Witsies are making a statement or acknowledging this tragedy.”
The petition is available online for students and staff to sign on ipetitions.com
“As academics, we understand the vital need for universities and institutions of learning to provide protected space for intellectual pursuits,” Erfani-Ghadimi said.
Wits staff and students have also shown support for the victims of the Garissa attack in social media and statements.
“As a student organisation, we cannot stand by and idly watch as our peers are being murdered on the very campuses on which they are on to receive education and on which their safety should be guaranteed,” said the Wits Muslim Students Association in a statement.
“As an African organisation, we cannot let it go unnoticed that our innocent African brothers and sisters have had their lives taken from them.”
The university is planning on marching in solidarity of the Garissa students, in collaboration with the Wits SRC’s silent candle light vigil at 12:30pm on Monday.
The march will begin at the FNB building on West Campus and end at the Great Hall. Everyone is encouraged to dress in black.
Enjoying food that has roots
SO DELISH: Students at the Postgraduate Office joined in for a feast of traditional Kenyan food. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
Kenyan-born PhD candidate Linet Imbosa finds it sad that so much food in South Africa is over-processed. “When you make your own food, you build a fellowship with that food and it nourishes you.”
Rather than celebrating Kenyan culture by visiting a restaurant, the developmental psychology specialist invited Wits Vuvuzela for a “cultural picnic” to celebrate Heritage Month.
September’s associations with heritage, culminating in the public holiday on the 24th, posed a dilemma for Vuvuzela reporters: would we look at South African heritages and cultures and risk adding to the truism that South Africans are self-involved?
Or should we look at non-South African cultures and risk the accusation of treating heritages outside our own as inherently foreign?
The dilemma resolved itself when we sat down to a lunch of traditional Kenyan foods or kienjeli, with Imbosa and some for her colleagues from various parts of Africa.
She had prepared it the night before between her punishing academic schedule.
What a feast
The meal consisted of a number of dishes that were made of slow-cooked vegetables and natural food stuffs prepared with little or no oil.
“Every homestead in Kenya has a kitchen garden,” Imbosa said as she pointed us to sukumawiki, which translates to “stretch the week” in English – a mixed vegetable dish of shredded carrots, onions, tomatoes and lentils.
She explained that the name referred to the fact that meat was a luxury, so this cheaper vegetable dish could be enjoyed throughout the week.
[pullquote align=”right”]“When I first came to Johannesburg and my sister, who was hosting me, lived in a flat, she would grow herbs in buckets on her window sills.”[/pullquote] Throughout the meal and the conversation she referred again and again to the close relationship she felt to growing, preparing and slowly enjoying her food.
MY PLEASURE: Linet Imbosa enjoys the art of food. Photo: Pheladi Sethusa
“I grew up cooking, I was always with my mother and my grandmother and you learn the art of growing and harvesting food.” She explained this feeling of being “in fellowship” with your food as “almost metaphysical”.
Imbosa said the traditional food she shared with us reminded her of home, which is why she continued to go to places like Yeoville to source ingredients such as cassava and doga (fish fingerlings) and chapatti.
Perhaps finding the common ground was the point of the cultural experiment.
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- BONUS: What do Witsies have to say about the ongoing #WitsShutdown?Today we’re taking a look at the #WitsShutdown protests which are over historical debt and unaffordable accommodation, which have seen several students suspended, physical clashes between protestors and security and disruptions to the academic programme for many. In this bonus episode of We Should Be Writing, we let students unpack their views on what has […]