In my own words...

... from mine own heart - about Kenya.

The talks failing is as important to me as about nothing. I'm more concerned with the choices the individual Kenyans are going to make. Each single Kenyan. Each individual. And why do I care about this? For the only part of me that is human and that has relatives in that country. beyond which, I've moved on. Kenya doesn't want my type, I've accepted that rejection. Given a choice, I've left. But not everyone who wants to respond to the rejection this way has this option. Some are still there. And they are in danger. They will be victims of further violence, should the actual Kenyans choose to engage in the acts we all saw them engage in recently.

Yes, I speak as a kikuyu. But as far as these recent events go, we've all had to face who we are in terms of tribe. With the entire distance of oceans between me and my home country, I have suffered rejection like I could never explain to anyone. What's happening to my emotions is exactly how I respond to rejection. I move, I leave, I let go. I don't force love/like on me. I'm sure there are going to be very many different reactions to Kenya from kikuyus but I bet you that each individual reaction is going to be related to how that person responds to rejection in their general everyday life. Life is hard enough without having to live in a country that detests or resents your very DNA.

I am shocked at what birth rights do to you. I am amazed at just how wounded being rejected by your own country can feel. Even for people like me who aren't in it as we get rejected by it. And I shudder to think about what people with actual property losses and family members killed are feeling. It's hard to get to the angry part. Just trying to get through the shock and the hurt is effort enough. And seeking safe havens, in our minds and in physical premises. That's absolutely consuming. It's the feeling of absolute rejection. I guess it can only be compared to being rejected by your own parents, has to do with rights accorded to you by birth.

I know how often I wondered how tutsis ever were supposed to get over what hutus had done to them in Rwanda. But I didn't know what it felt like. And I said they just had to move on, what choice did they have? And as much as I wasn't wrong, I just had no idea what magnitude of overcoming human emotion I was asking of them with the move on, comment. How is it you go on around people who CAN kill you for being what you were born into? Who resent you for faults of people who were born from the same tribe, true or perceived, and some way before you were ever born? And not give any thought that you see their resentment as misguided anger at other things and self trade to abuse by politicians? How do you trade with these people? Worship? eat, drink? Do you ever feel safe again? I'm not going to push it to trust, no. What do you do? Put a smile on your face and fake it? Do you ever travel outside of your safe havens again? Do you flee never to return? Because it's much easier to be an outcast in a foreign nation than in your own.

I feel almost guilty to be away from Kenya as it rejects my type. For as much as I haven't been maimed or killed, I haven't been spared for anything I did right or different. The only reason I haven't been killed is because I wasn't unfortunate enough to have my life circumstances lead me into the arms of an angry mob that was hacking my kind to death. So what those people have gone through, I have to. I am as safe as my distance from these so called angry mobs.

That's why my only concern is as to what the choices the individual Kenyan is going to make are.

Because if Koffi Anan, Kibaki and Odinga never agree, but no one ever takes a machete to another human being, I will be ok.

But if they agree and make friends and wine and dance together, and yet 10 idiots take machetes, petrol bombs and whatever and attack another innocent family, then nothing will have been achieved.

And for those who want to argue with me about how kikuyus have stolen every one's money that's why they need to go, die or whatever other term is inserted here; could they refrain from doing this while they or their non kikuyu parents own BMWs, several residential properties and other significant investments. Because if they want to make their point that kikuyus are obstructing wealth for other tribes, they need then to show me evidence that they once converted to kikuyus, got wealthy, then reconverted out. Otherwise, their points are moot. And if everyone who was being told they are poor for not being kikuyu could engage in this thought process, they might ask how comes their inciters were rich whilst not kikuyu. And perhaps that might entice them to seek the many micro finance loans available and loans for women and youth as choices against machetes in search of a better future.

As Kenyans get incited back to the streets, recall that the MPs are receiving a huge paycheck at the end of the month. Are you? Or did you potentially just burn your previous workplace? Look how the choices you make are affecting you. And consider that many inciting this violence are inciting it through media as they go on about their lives in other countries. Or in their all important jobs while you, the poor, I need every dime I can lay my hands on, person is converted to a robot and used as a means to an end by the wealthy with bigger agendas.

That's the overall simplicity of this extremely difficult situation, the way I see it.