"So who did you vote for?" I asked Patrick, who picked me up at the airport. He had just been telling me how things had cooled down here in Nairobi now. Schools haven't opened yet but businesses have at least, and it's safe to drive through town. Last week was - noisy is the understating adjective so many people are leaving it at. It's kind of a misleading term, so I'm guessing it's chosen for that polite small-talk neutrality that enables people to talk about it without plunging the conversation into the controversy that left 500+ dead in only a couple of days. So perhaps it's bad form for me to be asking like this?
But Patrick just smiles wryly : "The one who won, of course."
I try to match his smile : " So who won?"
We're passing Uhuru Park, where Raila Odinga had planned his Million-Man Rally on Thursday as part of his challenge to Kibaki's claim that he'd won. As it turned out nobody made it through the Special Forces' teargas and harsher weapons. It's still a no-go area guarded by uniformed men with guns who look back at me sternly.
"Our President. Kibaki." (He doesn't have to add 'of course'. His tone says it. But is smile knows the humour in it.) I probe a little and he explains that Kibaki got economic growth up by 7% whilst he was in office. So he knows how to run a country.
An incredible sight comes towards us. A HUGE car. Quadruple-size. Flying. No, hovering. Like the angel of cars presiding over all the matatus and worn-down peugeots struggling through the Nairobi traffic, like a car deity come down to us from heaven.
It's a Hummer billboard. A huge, hovering Hummer. Like Odinga's infamous Hummer, that's come to epitomise his ostentatious displays of wealth.
"Who is richer, Odinga or Kibaki?"
"Of course Kibaki is richer! How can he not be rich? He has been in government for so long! He must be rich."
"So he became rich from working in government?"
"Of course! How can he not be rich?"
We pass by the Heavenly Hummer and there are a few tattered-looking old men gathered underneath the billboard. It seems to me that being in government is supposed to get you rich, and this is a good thing. But then we got to talking about other things.
I'm glad to finally be on my way back to work. And also it's nice to see that the 'noise' seems to have died down. It's kind of frightening how power-seekers can incite young men in poor areas to violence - only briefly in Kenya thank God, but so devastatingly elsewhere. Yesterday my sister read me some Langston Hughes (a poet she likes) and I was struck by the generality of the phenomenon:
Let us kill off youth
For the sake of truth.
We who are old know what truth is --
Truth is a bundle of vicious lies
Tied together and sterilized --
A war-makers' bait for unwise youth
To kill off each other
For the sake of
Truth.
But Patrick just smiles wryly : "The one who won, of course."
I try to match his smile : " So who won?"
We're passing Uhuru Park, where Raila Odinga had planned his Million-Man Rally on Thursday as part of his challenge to Kibaki's claim that he'd won. As it turned out nobody made it through the Special Forces' teargas and harsher weapons. It's still a no-go area guarded by uniformed men with guns who look back at me sternly.
"Our President. Kibaki." (He doesn't have to add 'of course'. His tone says it. But is smile knows the humour in it.) I probe a little and he explains that Kibaki got economic growth up by 7% whilst he was in office. So he knows how to run a country.
An incredible sight comes towards us. A HUGE car. Quadruple-size. Flying. No, hovering. Like the angel of cars presiding over all the matatus and worn-down peugeots struggling through the Nairobi traffic, like a car deity come down to us from heaven.
It's a Hummer billboard. A huge, hovering Hummer. Like Odinga's infamous Hummer, that's come to epitomise his ostentatious displays of wealth.
"Who is richer, Odinga or Kibaki?"
"Of course Kibaki is richer! How can he not be rich? He has been in government for so long! He must be rich."
"So he became rich from working in government?"
"Of course! How can he not be rich?"
We pass by the Heavenly Hummer and there are a few tattered-looking old men gathered underneath the billboard. It seems to me that being in government is supposed to get you rich, and this is a good thing. But then we got to talking about other things.
I'm glad to finally be on my way back to work. And also it's nice to see that the 'noise' seems to have died down. It's kind of frightening how power-seekers can incite young men in poor areas to violence - only briefly in Kenya thank God, but so devastatingly elsewhere. Yesterday my sister read me some Langston Hughes (a poet she likes) and I was struck by the generality of the phenomenon:
Let us kill off youth
For the sake of truth.
We who are old know what truth is --
Truth is a bundle of vicious lies
Tied together and sterilized --
A war-makers' bait for unwise youth
To kill off each other
For the sake of
Truth.
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