you only live twice

So I heard about this story last week where some guy had lived in Naivasha for like 30 years. Apparently when at the end of Jan their place erupted, he was attacked, and by people who used to be his neighbors. I dint get exactly how, but at the time he wasn't at his place. He'd bought a ka-plot and built a house and used to live there with his family and a few relatives. So wherever he was, he lay down and pretended as though he was dead, and that was how he survived, but on waking up the entire area to his house was like cordoned off so he couldn't go there. So for a few days he was in limbo wondering what happened to his folks, coz no one around was spilling. He even started looking for them in the mortuary, and one day he did find them. Apparently they'd all been burned up inside his house. All of them, nine children BTW. No one survived, except now him. He just didn't know where to start. To cry over lost family, find a place to stay, or arrange how to transport them back home for burial. And as fate would have it, that was also the time roads were murder, so even if he'd had a car, not to say he did, he wouldn't have been able to go back. And for obvious reasons there was no way he was staying in Naivasha. So he just moved to the police station and prayed. I hear stories like that and all over again it becomes real. Sometimes I cannot understand people when they vilify a whole tribe just because two of its members did something bad, but when something like that happens to you Im guessing it's pretty hard to play who-did-what-and-who-didn't-do. I don't know what I'd think were that me. I was being told by a counsellor friend of mine about marriages that broke after the violence, simply because the spouse was from the other tribe. I'm thinking if the effects of the violence were deep enough to destroy as strong a bond as marriage, what chance do the others stand? The more flimsy ones like just neighbors, or even aquaintances, or people who just happen to go to the same church, or school. Or maybe the only thing binding two people together is the fact that they're both kenyans. I guess it's safe to assume that those relationships would be gone with the wind, just like that. Anyways, our guy's prayers got answered and the Red Cross provided him two vehicles to carry him and his departed home to Nyanza. And now he says he wouldn't go back to Naivasha for the world. 30 years of someone's life, erased just like that. In one day, and those who did it, without remorse. When you see his face as he says that... suffice it to say, if you have to gift of empathy you should probably stay off the News for a while.

Over the hols [just after Christmas] I rolled with our car [had I said that? It was like in a movie - everything just went slow-mo. But, God is good and I lived], and in the seconds just before we rolled I was thinking "It can't this easy. It shouldn't. We're supposed to have a choice, to be able to fight for our lives. Is this really how it all ends?" Well, turns out wishes aren't horses, and beggars don't ride, and we really don't have a say when the Grim Reaper comes a-knocking. I guess we then have nought but to live every day as though it were the last and hope for a better tomorrow. Or in the light of recent events maybe we should just settle for tomorrow, better or otherwise.

Life is supposed to be the greatest gift from God. Ian Fleming [he of the James Bond fame] says you only live twice: once when you're born and once when you stare death in the face.
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