I wake up at 5am, shower and wash my hands, legs and face in a purification process called udhu, then I’ll put on a blouse, skirt and bui bui [long black veil]. My husband goes to the mosque for prayer, but, like all Muslim women, I’ll pray at home. For breakfast we’ll have tea, bread and butter, or mahamri, a dumpling made from wheat, flour and coconut. As Muslims, my husband and I aren’t meant to talk as we eat, but sometimes we’ll discuss who will do the shopping for dinner.

Work begins at 8am, so shortly after 7 I walk quickly to the bus, worrying I may be late. At the office I prepare the day’s schedule, look at the lists of people we’re trying to find. We’ve reunited 423 children with their families to date. But there are still over 100,000 displaced children, about half the total number of displaced people. I’ll drive to the camps where the Red Cross provides shelter, food and basic provisions for people who have lost their homes — and maybe their families — in the violence. For us Kenyans, all this is still very shocking, because Kenya has always been the African country where people from other war-torn countries have sought refuge.

At the camps, we know it’s easy for children who have become separated from their parents to get lost in the crowds, so our priority is to find those children. We talk to the camp leaders and ask them if they’ve noticed any children on their own. One child was Beatrice. I spotted her in Mshomoroni camp in Mombasa, just standing, looking lost and alone, wearing a pink dress without shoes. When I approached her, she said: “I want my mum. I’m frightened. Please help me.” Your heart always goes out to children like Beatrice. I learnt that she’d been at home when the violence began. Her mum had been at the market and her father was at work, but she couldn’t say where. She was only seven and she said she had a five-month-old sister.

Immediately, we sent out a tracing request to all the Red Cross offices in Kenya, with as much information as we could gather about Beatrice and her parents. She couldn’t give us an exact address and we couldn’t take her back to her former home, because it was in one of the most dangerous areas. Later we learnt that her father was Kikuyu and her mother was Luo — two of the main tribes opposed to each other. But the reasons her house was attacked weren’t tribal. Amid the chaos of the postelection violence, hooligans took advantage of the situation, looting and burning houses.

We’ve set up a hotline for people tracing relatives that is diverted to my cellphone, so I put Beatrice’s details on the hotline. After registering her with the government office, we took her to a hostel run by the Anglican church, where the Red Cross was providing basic provisions, and a volunteer was assigned to her. Four days later, a man saying he was Beatrice’s father appeared, desperately worried about what had happened to his family. He said his name was Daniel Mbugua and he worked as a security guard, but even though he was distraught, we had to be very careful that he was actually Beatrice’s father. He could be trying to abduct her for child labour. We questioned him for about half an hour: the family’s names, the number of siblings, Beatrice’s school and so on. His answers were correct; the man was genuine. When we brought Beatrice to him they were both in tears. I’ve since heard that after she escaped the violence, John’s wife had returned to her parents’ home and today they are in contact. That was very satisfying.

Some of the children we find are too traumatised or too young to tell us their stories — or even speak at all. In that situation we take photos for the newspaper. If people come forward but the children are unable to say “This is my mother or father,” we may have to resort to DNA. Sometimes the missing person may be in hospital or a police cell, or may even be dead. A few weeks ago, a family came to me because they hadn’t seen their son for several days. Where they lived, most of the houses had been burnt down and many people had been killed. I made inquiries at the local hospital.

I discovered the young man was in the intensive-care unit in a terrible state. His burns were so severe that most of his black skin had been ripped off so he looked white. By the following morning he had died. I went back to where he had once lived and learnt that his house had been torched while he was asleep. It was as if death was calling him. I felt terrible, but I had to tell the family. It was very sad. I cancelled everything and spent the rest of the day with them.

Though I drink lots of water during the day, there isn’t really time to eat. By the end of the day, I’m very hungry and very tired. Sometimes I’m not home until 8pm. My husband and I will talk about our day, but I don’t tell him about a missing person until it’s a success. Until then I feel as though I’ve done nothing.

Once I’m home I have to cook. If it’s late I cook light food — ugali [maize] and greens. If I have time, I cook rice and beef stew. We watch the 9 o’clock news on KBC, then go to bed at 10pm. I often dream about the people I’ve met. Sometimes I see the children reuniting with their parents — what I’m hoping for in my final prayers.

www.redcross.org.uk/kenyacrisisappeal

Interview by Ann McFerran. Portrait: Georgina Cranston

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