I'm going to take a little time to comment on the situation in Kenya. I had the opportunity to spend a semester of college in Kenya back in 1995. I fell in love with the country, with the wildlife, and with the people. Most of all with the people of Kenya. After the program was over, I traveled both with friends and alone throughout the country and had very few negative experiences. Once I had someone reach into my pocket at a nightclub. I'm sure he was disappointed to discover this mzungu (white person) was traveling light.
Sadly, I have kept in touch with very few of my Kenyan friends. I knew Kikuyu, Luo, Masai, Samburu, and Swahili peoples (probably more whose tribes I did not learn). I had no idea an election could cause these people to turn on one another. I knew a little of the dispute--the dislike of Kikuyu and there were certainly hints of government corruption, but perhaps it was my youth and my naivety that allowed me to envision this country as a peaceful, tribal, melting pot.
Its hard for me to reconcile these two images. On one hand the image of our school "caravan" arriving into a town with a bunch of white people in land cruisers greeted by smiling children and adults shouting "wazungu!" On the other hand, in some of these same villages into which we traveled, neighbors are taking up crude weaponry and killing the "other."
Where is the breaking point? How much hunger, injustice, pain must one suffer before he is ready to kill? In this country, most of the educated are so disenchanted and disgusted by politicians it is hard to imagine organizing a manhunt on one's behalf.
As sick as it seems, sometimes I am envious of such people. Not the killing or the violence, but the passion that they must feel for something.
My memories of Kenya have been changed forever. It has been so long, I don't know if I'll be able to look back and see with newly found hindsight that this current situation has been a long time coming. I hope not. I hope very soon peace will be restored and I will be able to understand these terrible events.
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I was reading today, that the "experts" feel that even if the top politicians stop their disputes right now, the conflicts between the different tribes will likely continue for the foreseeable future. Just a terribly sad situation that didn't have to happen if those in power had the ability to let it go.
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