On Friday I visited the Eniga women's initiative in the Reru community in a rural area outside the city of Kisumu. It is the home community of my host at the time, after conducting interviews with some of the members of the initiative they kindly gave me a tour of some parts of the community. Before showing me to these areas they introduced me to a woman who had moved to the community after being displaced from Naivasha. I think that they thought that she would be useful for my research owing to her experiences. This was a difficult discussion as I couldn't really use the questions I had been using for my research yet after being introduced I still had to think of some questions to ask her. I asked her whether or not she could imagine ever returning to Naivasha. I regretted asking it as soon as I had! There are obvious ethical issues in arousing painful memories and this is something I have tried to avoid in my research questions, but here I had to think of some relevant yet sensitive questions on the spot. She answered a definite no, understandably given that Naivasha was the scene for some of the worst violence of the period but did not seem too upset by the question, according to the people with me.
The majority of people in Kisumu and the surrounding villages (including Reru community and Kirindo) are from the Luo tribe. I was introduced to some of the traditions of the Luo culture. It is, more so in the past, but still today, a polygamous culture. There I was shown to a typical plot where the father had two wives, the first wives' house was positioned in front of the gates and the second to the side. Then after growing up each male child had built their own plot in a specific order, with the first and third building to the left of the first wives' house and the second and fourth to the right.
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