Intern Retreat

The last few days I was on a retreat with all the interns. We went to a place called Diguna about 20km outside of Nairobi - right by or even in the Nairobi National Park. The surroundings were beautiful and we got to see two zebras passing in the distance while we were eating dinner. A lioness had been seen the week before on the compound, but they put up an electric fence towards the park to keep the lioness out before we came.

We had a great time bonding as a team of interns despite the fact that we spent the second day in silence - we had all the more fun in the evening when we were talking again! From Tuesday on we will be working in different departments, but it is good to know that there are other interns to encourage one another when we start getting stressed.

Coming back to the city was rather depressing. It had been so peaceful that it was hard to imagine what was going on during our absence. I had been hoping for less violence in the rallies that had been announced and was sad to hear that their had been lots of violence and destruction in the Rift Valley and also in Nairobi, especially in Kibera (people stopped a train going through Kibera, pulled it off the tracks and removed 10km of train tracks! Check out the movie "The Constant Gardner" to see the Kibera slums and the train tracks).

Today, Raila Odinga actually spoke out against the violence that was happening in the name of ODM. It seems that what they started (by paying unemployed youths to riot) has gotten out of hand. He is now in a difficult position because his supporters will not accept anything else but the presidency for him - or else he need not show his face in Kisumu (unless he wants to endanger his life). The mediation talks with Kofi Annan are set for Tuesday, but ODM is still setting conditions and does not want to speak to the people Kibaki has delegated. The situation is depressing right now - maybe that is just because I am tired. Please pray for the negotiations on Tuesday.