Changes of Plans

We were planning on leaving early this morning for Narok, early enough to avoid the demonstrations that were planned for Narobi.  The road to Narok takes us out of the city, not into it, so we would be avoiding most of it anyway.

I got a WhatsApp message from Joy at 6am saying that we will not be traveling to Narok this morning as there are demonstrations planned along the road to Narok.  Since this is the only route to Narok, we can’t just take a different road.  It seems there is growing unrest over spiraling prices of food and energy.  The recently-elected government promised to do something about it during their campaigning, but nothing has happened.  Prices continue to rise.  Electricity and water will be going up 30% to 40% in the near future and the prices of some staple food items have more than doubled.  Wages have not budged.  When people are already barely scraping by on wages of $100/month or less, this is a big deal and there is growing anger about it.

In talking with our hosts, it seems there are additional elements to this.  One of those will sound quite familiar to us who call the United States home.  In the presidential elections this past summer, it was a very close race between Deputy President William Ruto, and Raila Odinga, who has contended for the seat five times.  The electoral commission declared Ruto the winner, with 50.49% of the vote, but during this process several of the commissioners could not support the vote, leading to accusations of stolen elections and challenges to the results. (Sound familiar?)

And there are significant historical and tribal elements to this.   Too many to adequately describe here. 

So demonstrations were planned for today on many of the main roads in the city of Nairobi.  We were advised to lay low and not travel for safety as there is usually a criminal element to these kind of demonstrations, people that want to use the demonstrations as an excuse to make trouble, to loot, and to cause general mayhem.

So far the news channels have displayed pictures of police roaming the streets, people running around, and even some tear gas being thrown around, but I have not heard of anything major going down.  The street in front of our compound, normally quite busy, is rather quiet as many people are staying home.  We ventured across the street to the gas station and convenience store to buy some additional water, but we have otherwise remained behind the gates of the compound.

This is somewhat disappointing as we came all this way to DO something.  We will lose an entire day because of these demonstrations. There are water towers to build, plumbing to connect, fresh water to bring to people who need it.

Sometimes God’s plans are different than our own.  We don’t know what His plan is right now, but will trust Him to reveal it at the right time.

Many are the plans in the mind of a man,
but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.
Proverbs 19:21