The Real Post-Election Kenya

Images of Kenyans charging at police in riot gear have blistered the eyeballs of everyone watching, but despite the inundations of violence in Kenya, the vast majority of the country is trying to focus on peace. Despite the heavy police presence, locals are doing the best they can to resume normal life.

“I just want to sell my mangos,” said a street vendor, “I want to feed my family.”

The streets of Nairobi are tentative, more shops are opening every day. There is still a large absence of road and pedestrian traffic, but some women have returned to the streets carrying goods on their heads and men with suits and cell phones walk around the Central Business District in Nairobi.

“We are all brothers and sisters here in Kenya, there is no need for fighting,” said John Gitonga, a businessman in Nairobi.

In Meru, farmers continue to work their land. Despite a lack of petrol, the only abnormality in that area, it is difficult to tell there has been any change since the election.

The Westlands area in Northern Nairobi remains quiet as people try to get on with their lives. Lines twist around, spilling out of grocery stores. The only remnants of turmoil in many areas are burnt tires, smashed glass and wilted branches, signs of peace, laying on the sidewalks. Drive around most of Nairobi and policeman in their riot gear can be seen picnicking in Uhuru Park, the very place that the opposition’s rally was supposed to take place today. Policemen snooze in the shade at roundabouts.

In the areas that have been affected, particularly Kibera, the largest slum in Africa in a part of Nairobi, people just want peace.

“It doesn’t matter who the president is. I just want it to be calm. I pray that god will take care of us,” Said a teenage boy who was fleeing Kibera carrying a blue trunk full of his possessions.

Many have been displaced since the violence and are leaving the area but have no idea where they are going.

“Please, do you have somewhere I can keep my belongings,” a woman holds out a wobbly cardboard box, “I can sleep outside, but I have no home to put my belongings in and this is all I have left.”

Her family home in Kibera was burnt down at 3pm on Thursday.

A steady line led out of Kibera with people carrying suitcases, boxes, trunks and plastic bags of whatever belongings they still had wanting to escape the violence and try to piece their lives back together. No one knew where they were going, but all agreed that they wanted nothing more to do with the fighting. Political and tribal violence has lost its impact and now they simply look weary.

A woman walking away from Kibera had no boxes or trunks like others. “Before the elections I had a home, now I have nothing.”