Nairobbery

an attempt to process my thoughts....

When you become the victim of a violent crime, a lot of things happen in the days that follow. Most of the times they happen at night and by the time the thugs are done with you it’s like a whole new person emerges. I can only describe it as an out of body experience. You hear and see things happening all around you, but your brain and all your senses are trapped in a little corner of yourself screaming, and shaking in fear. Sleep becomes like an ex boyfriend-long gone. Prayers are muttered, in an attempt to understand why it all happened. A part of yourself telling you to get it altogether, quit whining, you are lucky to be alive.
The saddest thing is the more you talk about it the sooner you begin to realise that you aren’t the only one, three out of five people in Nairobi have been victims of these night crawlers. Welcome to the club, one told me im the Head treasurer. Is this the hand that we nairobians’ have been dealt? To be comfortable with the fact that we are no longer safe in our homes? That we are no longer free to travel at night? Are we expected to race home every time you see signs of the setting sun? In order to be safe must I never leave my house? There are no answers to the many questions running through my brain, it will take a while for the paranoia to die away and for the night mares to end, but in the meantime, I will continue to look for things about the whole experience that are funny like for example how one of the thugs was excited that my clutch bag was going to make his wife happy and we actually had a conversation about the lovely color of the bag. There, I’ve actually managed to laugh out loud.


January 19, 2010