For about six hour this afternoon my normally peaceful Kenyan home became a chaos zone. As you can see from the footage things in my town were not well today. Allow me to recount my story for you;

This afternoon I was walking home from Faraja for my lunch break. All of the wazungu that I live with had decided to stay in for the morning hours so I was headed to the fruit shop to grab some fruit and then meet them in our home. As I was walking to the shop a man who normally hassles me every time I walk past him decided to walk with me. I would normally find this annoying but he seemed to be in good spirits today, when we were just outside of the juice shop I heard several loud popping noises and turned to my escort and asked what the noises were, "gun shots, from the demonstration" he said. I looked puzzled and asked if I should go home, however when I saw cars racing down the road and people running away from the noise I knew I had my answer. I started walking towards home (okay, awkwardly running in front of cars at some point) the man took it upon himself to walk me home. When we got to my gate he tried sweet talking me and asked for my number as another round of shots went off and I quickly apologized and scurried inside.

Once safely inside my home I found all of my roommates laying on our living room floor, which I am starting to think may have been a bit dramatic, but since the gunshots seemed to be directly behind us I figure it was better safe than sorry. For the next two hours we sat in our room listening to the gunshots and the sounds of the rioting in our town. The media-sphere did it's job as I got regular updates via text message, facebook, and twitter as to what was happening in the streets below. 

After about 2 hours of silence and the reassurance that the military police had come to re-enforce the peace I decided to brave the streets under the supervision of my friend Tash to go buy snacks and some airtime for my phone. As soon as I walked outside I could tell that things had recently been amiss, but at the time they were seeming quiet safe. There was plenty of police patrolling the area and people seemed to be returning to normal. We walked to the supermarket down the road, but they were still not allowing customers into the building. Once we found a place for me to buy airtime I topped up my phone and hung out with Tash for a while. All of a sudden while relaxing, we heard several more gunshots and people started getting a little agitated. I immediately begged to be escorted home and started to fear. However, the walk home was surprisingly normal and people bothered me much less than is typical. After making it back home safely I have decided that I am not up to leaving the house again this evening and I will simply put my faith into the fact that Ngong will be calm again tomorrow morning.

I find it so unfortunate that such a thing had to happen in Ngong Town. This place has always been so safe and peaceful and I feel like with the development of this story people will doubt the things I say when I tell them how lovely Ngong is. I can't tell you how many people are sitting at home tonight thinking, "Riots in Ngong? I just don't believe it." People who have lived here for many years and have never seen Ngong experience anything like this, and with any luck hopefully they will not have to anytime in the near future. I am confident that when we wake tomorrow the smoke will have settled, the transportation will be running smoothly again, and it will be safe for this Ngong resident to walk the street once more.