Kenyan Justice

PRECURSOR: if you are easily worried about me and are sensitive to some of the situations in Kenya then you honestly might not want to read this entry. I was in absolutely no personal danger in this situation, but I just thought I would give fair warning in case.




Last week Wednesday we got wind that there were riots going on in Kibera a little down the way from where my school is located. I was sick and wasn’t going to school until Thursday, so I was at the coffee shop all day using the internet and posting pictures. My housemate Zenek was actually in a matatu (public transport) going through Kibera when he noticed that a mob was forming and that people were running around with machetes and pushing each other in a sort of frenzy. We were all trying to postulate what they could have been rioting about, because there have been constant underlying tensions ever since the post-election violence that haven’t exactly been quelled or even addressed such as lack of access to water, drought, famine, ethnic tensions, dissatisfaction with government, and living conditions in general. We guessed that it might have been protesting the government or the extreme scarcity of any kind of water (clean or filthy) in Kibera, or the fact that some of the people living in the slums have been relocated to new apartment style housing while others are still left wanting, and were all very curious to find out what the politics behind it were and exactly what had been going on. A day or so later, we come to find out the truth: a man had stolen a cell phone from somewhere or someone, and the mob formed in fury. The end result: they chased this man down, doused him in gasoline, and lit him on fire.

Welcome to the Kenyan justice system.