Voices from Kenya’s mountain communities

The first book ever to be published in the Sabaot language of Mount Elgon, western Kenya, was the Bible.

The second was a collection of local people’s personal experiences of development – entitled Kuurtooyeet kuchoonee tulweet – which were gathered by Panos London in partnership with the Kenya Oral Literature Association (KOLA) and Interlink Rural Information Services (IRIS).

The book’s launch in 2000 created a stir in the community – women selling vegetables in the marketplace paused to listen as the stories were read aloud. Others talked about creating an archive of the region’s history and culture, and the books were distributed to local schools to introduce pupils to their own language in print for the first time.

Mount Elgon is a dormant volcano that straddles the border between Kenya and Uganda. The district is a densely populated but neglected corner of the country, isolated from the centres of power not only geographically but also by its minority language and culture.

The oral testimony project aimed to give people in the area confidence that their own history, stories and views are worth paying attention to, and to encourage them to reflect on their experiences of (under)development and take action to resolve some of their problems.

After a week’s training, nine young people from the region – including some IRIS journalists – met with members of the community who were willing to talk about their life stories and views. Over the next few months some 55 interviews, each lasting two hours or so, were recorded, then transcribed and edited to produce books in both Sabaot and English.

The testimonies revealed concerns about poor access to markets, credit and development facilities, and political marginalisation. The tension between preserving a strong cultural identity yet being open to learning from others was also a common theme.

The narrators were given the opportunity to meet community leaders, politicians and development officials to discuss issues that had come up in their interviews. A retired primary school teacher pointed out that “these days we are farmers but we’ve no roads for taking our produce to markets”. The district officer promised to look into improvement of the roads.

Some tensions, however, could only be addressed by members of the community themselves, partly by discussing them more openly. One was the clash between traditional Sabaot attitudes to women and the aspirations of girls today. For older people, Sabaot identity includes keeping women subordinate through polygamy, dowry, and not being allowed to own property. But many younger people want to see Sabaot girls educated and treated equal to men.

The project improved dialogue between the community and its officials and political representatives. One of the women narrators has even become a member of the District Development Committee and an adviser on poverty eradication.

And KOLA was itself profoundly changed by the project. Previously an association of academics in the University of Nairobi’s literature department, KOLA realised it could contribute to empowering people in rural communities. It has since carried out a number of projects to educate people, especially women, in their civic and political rights.

The testimonies collected in Mount Elgon form part of a major international project, which gathered some 350 personal accounts from mountain communities in China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Mexico, Nepal, Pakistan, Peru and Poland. The resulting material gives a remarkably comprehensive picture of highland societies, their changing environments, and their concerns for the future.

The oral testimony methodology which we have pioneered continues to be a powerful tool in the Panos repertoire. It is still being successfully used to listen to and document the views and experiences of ordinary people from poor and marginalised communities around the world.

> Mountain Voices website: testimonies from Mount Elgon