Blood and bullets. Bread and butter.

It’s sad to think that we live in a world where there are men whose only problem is dealing with a morning erection and a bladder full of fermenting piss and women whose only problem is the cold throne of a morning toilet seat.

On Sunday night we had an attempted break in at my house. At 1am, I hear scrambling on the roof of the house and, with an old Maasai knife in hand, I cautiously explored a little bit. The sounds wouldn’t stop like they usually do when there are rats running around in the ceiling and the thuds were pretty heavy. So I straight away called my neighbour to check out the house from the vantage point of his second floor bedroom which overlooks our roof. Ten minutes later I get a call back saying that he couldn’t see anyone on the roof but not to go outside because another neighbour had seen two people at the gate and he said they were fooling around with the lock and trying to get in.

It’s about then that my Maasai knife starts to look pretty obsolete in my hand. I mean, it’s not like I’m a ninja. Neither can I dodge bullets Matrix-style if the situation came to shots being fired. And despite popular belief, I’m not actually capable of bouncing bullets off my chest. I know, I’m sorry to break your preconceptions of my immortality and ruin the image of my perfection in your minds. The best I could probably do is run away wailing and screaming and find a nice, sturdy table to hide under. Forever. Anyway, the point is, if they had guns then God and the Devil would probably be fiercely arguing right about now on who gets to keep my soul and torture it for all eternity. Because I’m popular like that.

So my friend calls the cops and he’s pretty influential with the cops who foot patrol our area which means they were surprisingly quick in their arrival. Quick is a relative term. The African “quick” means “painfully, snail-fully, anger inducingly slow” anywhere else in the world. Upon their arrival, they assume control of the situation. Not that there was a situation to control anymore seeing as the thieves had run away by now, probably because they sensed the latent superhuman in me slowly surfacing. And when I say assume control, I mean that they say “let’s sit in the car and patrol the area”. So we did. They came without a car, inevitably, so we took my neighbours car around the area. It’s about 3am now and every time the cops see some people walking on the street they say it’s the thieves. Which is ridiculous. Anyway, we didn’t find anyone so we went back home to sleep the sleep of the uneasy. Every sound after that was accentuated by paranoia.

I started thinking about things after that. I was angry. My mind was boiling with brain bubbles of red rage telling me how dare these thieves try break into our house? Who do they think they are to walk in here and try taking the things that don’t belong to them and put our lives in danger? Then as the rage cooled and whats-as-close-to-my-level-headedness prevailed, I started seeing things in a different light. Perhaps these thugs were left with no choice in life but to rob people to put food on the table for their hungry kids. Maybe they once used to be honest, hardworking and honourable men who were put in the worst of situations. Maybe their world was torn apart in 2008. Maybe they’d lost everything. Maybe they’d tried to find employment but were thwarted at every effort because of their ethnicity, political alliances, lack of education or other factors such as these. Maybe they’d run small businesses which were targeted by corrupt government officials for bribes. Maybe they’d had enough of always being the victim. You must realize, I don’t condone their actions but what would you do if you had starving kids at home and had tried every honest way to feed them?

The state of things in this country is something we must look at under the magnifying glass of liberalism. A layer of understanding must be added to our minds so that we can filter the things we see and experience through it otherwise we become this writhing bacterial infection of callous humanity that spreads hate and intolerance.

The state of things in this country, as I’ve said before, all break down to how ineffectively it’s being led. We have politicians who are in the lucrative business of making thieves of us all. We rob each other to pay the government the bribes, high taxes and all the other excess that comes with living in Kenya. If our very leaders are thieves then that philosophy is definitely going to soak into the people they lead. And if our leaders will not help the people that need help in favour of stuffing their pockets then what hope do we have?

African governments deal their people blood and bullets instead of bread and butter. It remains that politics is the scar on the beautiful face of Africa.

To the thieves out there, yes you tried to rob me and we’ll clash, probably violently, if you try again. You tried to rob me but I understand why. And I’m working for you. I’m trying to change shit for you. I know that doesn’t help you in your current predicament but what else can I say but that I’m trying.