The road from Eldoret to Kericho used to be one of the prettiest drives in Kenya, a ribbon of asphalt threading through lush tea farms, bushy sugar cane and green humpbacked hills. Now it is a gantlet of machete-wielding teenagers, some chewing stalks of sugar cane, others stumbling drunk.
On Friday there were no fewer than 20 checkpoints in the span of 100 miles, and at each barricade – a downed telephone pole, a gnarled tree stump – mobs of rowdy young men jumped in front of cars, yanked at door handles and pulled out knives.
Their actions did not seem to be motivated by ethnic tension, like much of the violence that has killed more than 800 people in Kenya since a flawed election in December.
It was much simpler than that.
“Give us money,” demanded one young man who stood defiantly in the road with a bow in his hands and a quiver of poisoned arrows on his back.
May the Lord bring His peace to this land and may the root issues be address in charity not violence.