Life as a Bantu

The Bantu are a people of widespread culture who initially originated from the central and southern parts of Africa. Life has not been easy for these tribal agriculturalists in hundreds of years. Due to the ever-changing political powers in Africa, the Bantu have been stepped on and pushed around since the fifteenth century. This trend continues today, mostly in refugee camps, where they have been forced to reside for the protection of their lives and society. Although the camps offer the Bantu some amount of security and protection, there are still bandits that lurk around the fringes of the camps that wait for helpless victims and constant fighting within the camps. Thanks to the Church World Service and a few other major programs, the Bantu are slowly trickling out of the refugee camps and are being relocated in the United States and other countries around the world. In addition to moving the Bantu from Africa, there are also plans in action to make the camps a safer and healthier place to live. The Bantu are finally starting to have hope for the future, but it has been a long and painful road for these resourceful people.

Due to the ever-revolving political powers in Africa the Bantu have a stable government that was on their side. During the fifteenth century the Portuguese arrived in Africa and began their colonial rule. This disrupted the previous local economic networks on the east coast and broke down the traditional trading economy. The Portuguese were removed from Africa around 1730 by the Omani Arab dominion. This proved to be even more destructive to the inland African tribes as the slave trade became the major economy for the Arabs. During the eighteenth century, industrialization required a large increase in cheap labor around the world. These slave trades steadily increased until the nineteenth century, due to growing demands from the industry and the plantations. The current ruler at the time, Sayyid Said, actually moved his seat of power to the east African island of Zanzibar to have a greater influence on the slave trade (Cultural Orientation, 4). His sovereignty stretched from northern Mozambique to southern Somalia, but a mainly targeted area was Tanzania, which is where most of the Bantu originated from. The majority of the slave trade eventually diminished, and the Bantu became the main supplier of the agriculture production. Civil war broke out in Africa and "clan competition for power had disastrous results for the civilian population in general and the Bantu people in particular" (Cultural Orientation, 4) which split the nations and created an intense hostility and distrust. The food networks broke down in Africa, and because of the Bantu's large stores of food they became prime targets for bandits and militia armies. The attacks eventually got so bad that the Bantu fled to refugee camps in Kenya including the Dadaab and the Kakuma camps.

Today, thousands of Bantus still live in these rugged camps. Although these camps are much safer than the areas that they previously inhabited, they are far from having an ideal standard of living. Multiple clans living together cause daily internal fighting and bickering. Additionally, bandits and nomads using the camps as resting and resupply destinations cause enough gunfire and quarreling to force aid workers to live in secure compounds. The citizens of the camps in response have built themselves fortified structures, live in very tight-knit communities, and station armed sentries at night. Besides the threat of physical violence, women in these camps also have a high risk of being sexually assaulted. Bantu women are especially at risk because the Bantu have been systematically excluded from all peace treaties, and therefore make their women prime suspects for this heinous crime. Besides fear and abuse from outsiders, the refugees also struggle with constant food shortages because