Why MPs continue to be scum and sorry for being away so long!

There’s something going on in Nairobi this week and I’m not sure when it will be over. Personally for me, this has probably been one of the worst weeks I’ve experienced since I’ve been here and my need for a vacation has reached crisis mode. On a more serious scale, I think the events starting from last week have started to get down on a lot of people’s nerves. It started with the massacre in the northern part of Kenya – fighting between tribes and it’s all over land and water. It was really weird reading the world headlines and following the stories about the suicide bombers and the fifty or so people who’d died and then reading the local papers – front pages splashed with bloody bodies, empty looks of the survivors among the 80+ who died. And then over the weekend, the idiot bastard MPs once again went on holiday to Mombasa to reach a consensus on a draft because they couldn’t do it in Nairobi. So this week, the city has seen some serious fighting. Monday wasn’t so bad but Tuesday and yesterday were particularly awful.

As a result of my having a incredibly bad day yesterday, I managed to leave the office early (4.30 – very early for me!) and got home just in time to turn on the telly and see people running down the very same streets I’d just been on to get to my matatu. I had wondered why there were so few matatus left at the stage and even waited for one to go without me getting on because it was dirty. Idiot child – had I known there was a full-scale fight between protestors and the police less than a mile away, I would have rushed home much faster. Basically, the demonstrations have been because the idiot MPs want to alter the original draft of the constitution, which will amount to treason if it ever passes anyway.

The people are tired it seems and I honestly see this continuing to escalate. Watching the news last night, seeing police fight with demonstrators – policemen beating people with their rungus batons, bleeding noggins everywhere, cops on horseback thundering down the road in front of parliament. And as is with demonstrations that start out peacefully and end up violent, the looting began. A thief was killed infront of the store he’d just ransacked. I heard horror stories from my office this morning of folks being forced to run to the point of ditching their bags, taxi drivers charging double and getting away with it, hiding in stores, behind counters.

I am safe, well as safe as can be. I’m consoled that this is not just a rampaging group running amok in the city center but instead a legitimate demonstration against ignorant imbecile representatives of the people whose immediate agenda is to fatten up their pockets at the expense of the wanainchi (ordinary folk). They have absolutely lost touch with the people who put them in power and in two years, they will be the same ones on their knees begging to be elected to seats once again and sad to say, most of them will pass. My only advise, avoid dealing with them. They are worse than scum – I say this everyday.

Case and point: www.eastandard.net/hm_news/news_s.php?articleid=25680

‘Nuff said. In case you forgot, “mzungu” is the term for white person and Gor Sunguh is the idiot MP who at one of the numerous holidays in Mombasa, left his gun in the loo after doing a number 2. Yes, shocker, they carry guns, we already knew they were full of crap.

Aside from that, I have a date tonight, that is if there’s no fighting in town. I’ll probably head out to one of the suburbs and have a nice relaxing evening away from reality. I can only stay holed up in my apartment for so long.

Oh J.E from Woo, prepare to come with a large suitcase of stock goodies for me, including – a six pack of bud. That’s what I’m craving. Sad, oui.

GASP! It’s been a month since I touched the blog! Quelle horreur! This is a testament to how busy I am. I’m usually in the office by 7 a.m. and out by 5.30 p.m. and I go in on most weekends for about 4 or 5 hours. The past two weeks, I’ve been leaving the office, 9 p.m. at the earliest…and there’s no such animal as overtime. I make pretty much what I made during my first job in college. LOL. It actually is kinda funny because if I felt sad about it, I’d be in a total slump.