Platitudes

Some parts of Kenya have become so balkanized by tribe that it's important to keep an eye out for potentially explosive encounters between members of rival groups.

Yesterday morning, a colleague and I were conducting interviews in a large fairgrounds in Eldoret that now serves as a camp for 15,000 displaced people. We started by interviewing one older Kikuyu gentleman who described how his home was burned down by a mob, but the crowd around us began to swell and the rhetoric grew angrier.

"It was the Luos who did this to us," I remember one Kikuyu saying, as the rest of the group nodded in agreement.

This couldn't have been comfortable for Joshua, our driver, who was a Luo and standing right there with us. We decided it was getting a little warm and moved to end the conversation.

"It's very terrible," I said, and everyone seemed to agree. My colleague Steve made some similar platitudes like, We hope there can be an end to this crisis . Emotions calmed, we shook everyone's hands and moved on.

Joshua decided to wait for us in the car.

The rest of the day, I found myself strategically trotting out empty phrases like these to end interviews that had dissolved into screeds.

When a Kalenjin pastor began spouting angrily about Kikuyus in a nearby village, I weaseled out of his vitriol with: "We are all praying for peace." To the Luhya mama complaining about those violent Kalenjin mobs, I said, "Maybe the big men meeting in Nairobi can achieve something."

In general, I found that any version of "It's terrible," repeated a few times, got people to calm down long enough for me to make an ungraceful exit.

Platitudes aren't going to bring an end to this crisis. But as it drags on and the political leaders on both sides continue to display a depressing lack of leadership, I'm finding I have nothing comforting to say to these people. And my empty words have to be less damaging than those coming from some people.