What a difference a year makes
It matters to me
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Always pressed for time, I don’t pause for much. But the picture on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Friday stopped me in my tracks.
I didn’t see the paper until that evening, when I got home from work. I picked the paper up off the kitchen counter and found a Kenyan man with a machete staring back at me. But he wasn’t just holding the machete. He was squatting behind a burning vehicle and scraping his machete across the road. The look on his face was frightening.
I quickly scanned the cutline for details, and my jaw dropped when I read that the man was in Kisumu. I was in Kisumu about this time last year. In fact, during my three-month stay in western Kenya, I visited or passed through several of the cities that now are wracked with violence. That man with the machete has had me speculating all weekend about how different my experience would have been if I had waited a year to go to Kenya.
Of course, all this violence follows on the heels of a presidential election that went terribly wrong. After days of dragging their feet, members of Kenya’s election commission finally admitted that they don’t know who won the Dec. 27 election — incumbent President Mwai Kibaki or Raila Odinga. And so for about a month and a half now, supporters in each camp have been clashing. Schools and churches have been burned to the ground, hundreds of people have been killed, and thousands upon thousands have been displaced.
When people ask me what I think of all this, I just say, “It was bound to happen.”
I don’t mean to sound callous. But the country that has been touted as the most stable democracy in Africa has some pretty glaring flaws. Kibaki’s government has been compared to the mafia, as he “takes care of” his family and tribesmen while ignoring the needs of pretty much everyone else. When I was in Kenya last year, the people were calling for change — and they seemed intent on getting it. So what the world is seeing right now is a mix of desperation and frustration. Kenya’s democracy betrayed its people.
Are there opportunists, people who have chosen to seek personal revenge or gain at this time? Absolutely. But, frankly, I left Kenya thinking of everyone as an opportunist. Every person I met there was looking for an opportunity to make a better life for him- or herself. Some people do that by working hard; some do that by taking from others.
That brings me back to the nagging question of how my experience in Kenya would differ if I were there now. I imagine my 10-hour bus ride from the capital city Nairobi to the western city Kitale would be quite a bit bumpier, especially as we neared Eldoret. Using fiery debris and concrete slabs, machete-wielding “protesters” have set up roadblocks and are searching every vehicle that enters their territory. Who knows what they would think of me?
I am fairly sure the unpleasant encounter I had with a teenager at the bus park in Kisumu would have been even more uncomfortable. Despite my arguments, he grabbed my bag and carried it for me — for a fee, of course. When I refused to pay, he became angry and belligerent. Who knows what his reaction would be now?
I’m also fairly certain that the drunken soldiers who insisted that I pay them $300 to let me pass through a checkpoint would not be there now. Law enforcement has disappeared from many of the cities that are seeing violence.
So I guess it’s a good thing I went to Kenya when I did. The journalist in me would like to be there now, but I think I’ve put my husband through enough already. Honestly, with each passing day and each news article that I read, I lose hope that things will get better over there. Even if this dustup finally settles down, and Kenyans start living life as usual, I see no happy ending. That’s because “life as usual” for the majority of Kenyans is pretty darn bleak. And so the cycle of desperation and frustration starts all over again.
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