Simon's Nairobi Diary - Archive 44

6 February 2008 10:39pm

I walked to Karinde today and sat with my friend Elly who spoke of the flyer that he got at his house in Dagoreti. It was addressed to "all Luhyas, Luos, and Kalenjins" and said they had a few days to pack and be gone before they would be "finished". Landlords were given separate flyers that said their business would be burned if they did not evict these specific tribes. People say that Mungiki have a presence there (2 minutes from NEGST) and after talking with Elly I believe it.

Politically, Kofi Annan has found some decent success, largely because the government has changed its tone from one of pride to one of listening. Pretty much the whole Western world has put pressure on the government to enter negotiation, so Annan has had success where Desmond Tutu and the AU have failed. Annan, who looks really tired on TV, should really get a peace prize if he succeeds here. I certainly have no idea how I would go about solving the Rift Valley chaos. To me, it looks out of the hands of the leaders. Tribal violence, through the catalyst of political election, has gone far outside the control of Odinga and Kibaki. But I do believe that things are far from hopeless. The Electoral Commission of Kenya, who runs the votes, will be forced to admit its flaws (which have existed for decades) and the voting process may improve and thus gain validity. This is only one example. On the other hand, the situation may begin a downward spiral of division and ethnic clashes. The Kenyan shilling continues to slide in value, so I think pretty much everybody is looking to Annan, Kibaki, and Odinga for a resolution that will not only unify the country under a way forward but will also create a gameplan of ending the unrest which is devastating the Rift Valley region's stability and the nation's economy.

31 January 2008 2:18pm

Another MP has just been killed, this time by a policeman of an opposing tribe. Not sure exactly how this is going to affect the stability in Nairobi, but Western Kenya is set to get really ugly. This the second MP to be killed this week. I can't even remember the last time I heard of a US congressmen being murdered. With two in less than a week in Kenya, there is such a danger of the country truly turning for the worse. We have many minority tribes living here at NEGST. How long before attention is turned on them by the majority tribe which is predominant in this area?

In the midst of the storm, within the clamor and noise of the world's chaos, I will strain to hear the whisper of God. There is, always, a lesson to be learned within the human experience. Is it a greater unveiling of his power? Of his vengeance towards evil and heart towards the helpless? Is it a greater actualization of human frailty? Of the ability to slow down and listen? If the prophets of old were mocked and killed by contradicting the conventional wisdom of their day, how does that relate to heaping judgment and calls for peace upon the raging mob? Am I going to learn this coming weekend the real challenge it is to listen to another person; that the identity of followers of Jesus are those who strain to use their ears when all the blood has rushed to the hands?

There is a Creator, a Maker, and his name whispered on the wind causes mountains to bumble a prostration. Within this tumultuous day, my God, I long to see what (in the world) you're doing through it all.

28 January 2008 9:59pm

A minister of parliament for ODM was killed today execution style in front of his house. The moment this news hit the wire the country was flooded with riots. The news wire has stopped making each report specific to region, and instead has a big report with paragraphs of each area's chaos. Ngong Hills has rioting and violence right now, as does Naivasha, Nakuru, Kisumu, Kibera, and Mathare. The stock exchange sunk like a stone and was even closed at one point to stem the loss. My school is helping how it can, but mostly we're just waiting this out. This is the most fear I've felt since arriving three weeks ago. We have been instructed to stay in the compound, and though Karen seems to be peaceful at the moment, the news has reports of mobs only 10 minutes away. Thankfully my neighborhood is next to the police station. Honestly, I have no doubt of my own safety and security. If things get bad enough we will simply go to Arusha and camp out under Kilimanjaro. But I am afraid of exorbitant coming prices for commodities, for fuel shortages, for cell phone time shortages, for insecurity to become the ordinary. I'm worried that things could get bad enough to have to evacuate the entire student body to various places in Uganda or Tanzania, or that enough students will have to rush home to their families that they would cancel the term. And I'm sad for the coming death, because it really is coming. For now, we're all mostly just trying to relax while watching the wire, praying, stocking up on a few things. Its not fully blown emergency efforts yet, but if another MP is killed, or if the chaos increases to further extremes, then it will be.

28 January 2008 9:59pm

There's a feeling in the air today that hasn't been felt since right after elections. Like electricity in the breeze. That heavy sensuous African sun is beating on and on like it does, but within each day are more and greater stories of bad bad things. The same story, just repeated differently. "They passed out a flier (or) came with a mob to say that the hospital/school/office/apartment complex had to be free of tribe X in three days." The fear is unbearable to listen to.

Some of my closest friends say the country feels the most unstable its been since the New Year, which is saying a lot. Today I spoke with a expat student like myself who had just been briefed on evacuation procedures by his organization.

Raila and Kibaki did this huge press conference recently that showed them smiling and shaking hands, and that same day 25 people were murdered by mobs in Nakuru. It was like nothing had happened. Its like its not even about the leadership anymore.

At a time when this political election has torn deep wounds in the ethnic unity of this nation, and at a time when political primaries are murderously tense in the US, I'm trying to sit and eat dinner with my roommate from Malawi, listening to him about his childhood, listening to how he copes with stress. I keep getting this vision in my mind's eye, I don't know why, of a child drinking water from a squirt gun. What bliss. God is trying to remind me that things are fine and he's up to something big, I think, and things will be normal again soon. But for now its tense, quiet, quiet, and heavy and sunny, and tense.

20 January 2008 1:43am

I am overwhelmed tonight by the beauty of living in this world. We have been given this gift of life as a human being to play a part in this beautiful worldly narrative that has gone on for thousands of years. We are given, as people born from God through the soil, the opportunity to join with others while building up structures of purpose. A variety of mediums have been used: fields, buildings, homes. We take these structures and use them to forward God's sincere desire and vision for the world's best. What a blessing it has been as a human to take up a field, to till the medium, to place the components of sustenance, and to watch our labor grow into product.

The home is no different, perhaps more true. We have an opportunity to give ourselves over to create others, literally create more people who we work on and sustain with nourishment, and then we watch. We have the beautiful chance then to sit back and watch this labor grow.

What a magnificent gift we have found ourselves given to be co-creators with God.

I have always wondered why my father worked so hard to plant field corn solely for whitetail deer, why he would spend days bringing in seed to plant and trapping pesky coons. But the labor was to provide life for the deer who in turn have topped our table for us kids' entire youth.

So often I have been asked to hypothesize what I would do if I knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow. But I think the question was always mutated to have some sort of different answer than the question of what I would do if I knew tomorrow I would die. But now I know they are the same question. And I know now that I would spend the sunshine sweating to bring heaven here, and I would spend the night eating and conversing until falling asleep.

15 January 2008 10:24pm

The first day of the term was yesterday. On a first glance its not so different. People are walking down the paths and asking questions in class. People are eating lunch at the cafeteria. But then weekly chapel showed what was truly going on underneath the surface. People are, well, deeply bruised. Over the entire body of students and staff is a cloud of mourning, and I feel so helpless, because I only 75% understand what is going on and only 10% have any idea how to help. All I see is that people are still walking down the paths, talking about school, doing homework, asking questions in class, eating at the cafeteria. And if this is at least a major part of the day of my brothers and sisters here, then it should be mine as well. I'm trying all I can to be someone people can talk to, trying to grab a cup of tea or a joke when I get the chance. I'm trying to do whatever I can, in my foreign distant way, to be supportive.

I think back to when Mike and I were in Mathare at the refugee camp, and he was photographing girls skipping over the drainage canal. These tattered girls in a sea of people sitting, waiting, and saddened, 1500 strong. But the girls had found this gap to jump. They took a quick step of prep and hit the air, and soared with big smiles and trailing dress ends. A child-plop on quick feet on the other side, and the ones left behind were urged by this fun success to try it as well. Nevermind what the canal was filled with. It was fun. And the laughter of their simple joy parted the cloud of frantic frustration, and I felt as if I was seeing the day twice: once at its source and once at its end.

I think I have found what I love in life. I reread The Man Who Was Thursday yesterday, and it was the same as the kids. I am filled with enthusiasm and passion for living when I experience things which are filled with love for existence as it stands right now. Does something know what things are right now? Does something wiggle through and find a way to love things as they are right now? Because if it is, then I am thrilled by it.

I don't love things sometimes the way they are. For instance, the daily experience of eating on my own. It is the pits. But Tom, again, knocked and shouted "Mzee!" and I went and ate ugali and sekuma with my bro-han. And I realized how I love who I eat with more than what I eat. Give me a year on a desert island and an option of endless Olive Garden or Tom. The answer in a split: I take Tom and whatever coconuts and fish we can spear.