Violence in Kenya

Fortunately, I left Kenya in early November before any of the post-election violence. I lifted this picture from the CNN website. It's of that horrific event in Eldoret in northern Kenya where fifty people were burned alive as they were seeking refuge in a church. Most of the violence in Eldoret was directed against members of the Kikuyu tribe, which makes up a little over a fifth of the population. The Kikuyu had backed Mwai Kibaki in the contested presidental election. The Luo, who make up around thirteen percent of the population, had backed Raila Odinga. Eldoret was my last stop on my Middle East and Africa trip and I had gone there to visit Moi University. Looking back, one of the things that I find most jarring about the entire experience was my Kenyan friends absolute certainty that there would be violence. At the time I was supposed to push on to Uganda and I had asked my Kenyan contacts their opinion on travel to their neighbor to the west. They said that it was would fine because Uganda had had their election last year so the violence was over, and it was also OK in Kenya because they had not their election yet so it was too early for their violence. It was as if there was never a doubt that violence would follow the election - so you just planned around it. To be fair, they were all shocked by the severity of the violence, but they were also planning around some unrest.