The Burnin' and the Lootin'

AFTERMATH

I packed and ate a quick lunch before The Love Doctor and I got back in the Cruiser and made our journey onwards to Nairobi. There were no soldiers onboard for this leg of the journey which worried me some as we had to pass through urban sprawls of greater populations and weaponry. Odd enough, everything was quiet. Burnt, but quiet. We drove by our favourite butcher shops, restaurants and gas stations which were missing glass, had charcoaled walls and bore empty interiors. Not every business was affected, for every grouping of retailers, there was isolated damage. Clear evidence of tribal war, certain business owners were pursued and punished because of their ancestry. Neighbours fighting neighbours. Poor fighting poor.

The same day I left the savanna, our Kukuyu employees were flown back to Nairobi via private plane from the makeshift landing strip outside camp. Someone at the organization finally came to terms with the regional realities and sent for the staff. The savanna was certainly not a safe place to be, but that was the current state of the nation. Our Nairobi estate had two 24 hour security guards, five dogs, 10 foot walls trimmed with barbed wire and I still felt uneasy sleeping there. Urban slums continued to explode while rural villagers continued to suffer internal displacement. Well over 1000 people were murdered and the war caused about 600,000 citizens to become refugees in their own country. The tourism industry collapsed costing the country 50 million dollars and causing an already depressed unemployment rate to spike.

A couple of months would pass, but eventually the Chiefs of State came to an agreement on a bullshit dual-leadership model that brought the country to a calm. The President maintained his title and the challenger was proclaimed Prime Minister, a new role to the country. Some of the higher ranking statesmen and their officials would end up being charged for war crimes, but as far as I know, no one was ever convicted. Greedy murderers.

As for our kind neighbours in the savanna, it took another couple of months before the United Nations found its way into the remote bush. They supplied some plastic sheets for shelter and a daily meal to feed the families. These people had returned to their stripped land with nothing in hand. I wonder where they lived all that time and I wonder what they ate... if they ate. It would take them years to rebuild their lives but it would take only moments to brave their neighbours.