Kenya in the News

Explosion in Nairobi  Yesterday there was an explosion at mall in downtown Nairobi.  In the last few months there have been several small grenade attacks in Kenya, mostly on the coast and in Garissa-a region bordering Somalia.  For the most part these attacks have been blamed by Somali militants associated with Al Shabaab, although this explosion currently has no identified cause.

Although there has been an uptick in the number of attacks recently, in my part of the country it's completely noticeable.  That attacks may as well be occurring in Russia or on the moon. With the exception of these few incidents in these few areas, the vast majority of the country is very calm and unaffected.  The risk of automotive accident or eating bad omena is much higher.

Going to the Hague Back in 2007, Kenya experienced a wave of violence following contested elections between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki.  In the aftermath, four Kenyans, MP William Ruto, MP Uhuru Kenyatta, Joshua Sang, and Francis Muthaura were all indicted by the International Criminal Court for various crimes during the violence.  They've had various appeals since, although now legal avenues have been closed.  The two MPs are an especially interesting case, as they have intentions of vying for the Presidency of Kenya in the upcoming elections.  Several of their appeals have been to postpone the trials until after the elections so as to allow them to run.  This has not been done.

Most of my colleagues are Luo, and as such were supporters of Odinga and his party, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).  Odinga came in second behind Kibaki in the election, and many of his supporters claimed election fraud.  Generally, they-my colleagues-are in favor of the ICC process.  Many Kenyans have little faith in the government's ability to prosecute major public figures successfully, and the ICC is seen as a step towards ending 'impunity.'  Not everyone agrees, of course.

And some shorts:
: The Coca Cola company in Kenya has some pretty awesome energy and resource saving technologies on its Nairobi building.  :  Kenyan roads are a little scary.  I travel this way all the time. : Cell phone use in the developing world is crazy-and it offers some amazing business opportunities. :

Vacation Excerpt: Nairobi to the Makindu

After I had finished with Nairobi, I was headed for Mombassa.  Early that morning I caught a shutte to downtown Nairobi where I planned to catch a bus eastwards to the coast.  Traffic getting into the city was pretty bad, and I arrived later than I would like.  The 'bus stop' to is  a long street with large brightly painted tour busses lining each side.  Touts harass pedestrians as they walk by with calls of "Mombassa?  Mombassa? You, my friend, are you going to Mombassa?"  All the rates were the same, and all the busses seemed similar on the inside.  I don't think there is much difference from one to the other. I was still waiting on some friends, so I ducked into a side cafe for some chai and mandaazi while I waited.  They arrived some time later-the traffic getting into downtown had worsened considerably in the few hours since I had arrived.  We selected the first bus we came to, paid, boarded and were soon on our way.

Rather than travel all the way to Mombassa in one day, we instead decided to stop over at the Sikh temple in Makindu.   The temple is simply a delight.  It's as if someone took a park and set it right in the middle of a busy Kenyan service town.  Outside the walls is Makindu-dusty and noisy.  Inside the temple compound is serene and quiet, with soft green lawns and peacocks roaming the grounds.  The temple has become a 'must see' for Peace Corps volunteers; it's a refuge from the stresses of Kenya, and it's free.  Donations are accepted, but the guest houses and meals are free of charge.

When we arrived we were met by a middle aged Sikh man, Amar, who welcomed us to the temple and helped us find a room.  On the lawn were several younger Sikh men playing a game of cricket.  They invited me to join, but I was tired and don't know how to play cricket, so I politely declined.

After dropping off our things and cleaning off a little, we went to the dining hall for tea.  At the dining hall we were required to cover our heads, and several bandanas and headscarves were provided for those who hadn't brought headwear, which was all of us.  The meals were vegetarian Indian fair.  Simple and delicious.  Lentils, potatoes, and wheat chapatis were accompanied by sour pickled mangos.  We took a plate of chapatis and lentils, a few cups of chai, and took a seat at a table.  The dining hall looked very much like any community hall back in the States.  The walls were decorated with numerous signs asking diners to eat all the food that they take, but since the food was quite delicious this was not a difficult request.

Afterwards we dropped our borrowed hats in the basket outside the hall, and spoke with Amar about the temple.  The temple itself has been in Makindu for some time.  The guest houses, however, are a more recent addition.  Besides the temple and guest houses, the Sikhs also run a hospital across the road.  He told us that we had arrived at a good time.  On the weekends the compound is often very full.  Indian families from Nairobi come and most of the guest houses are occupied and the dining hall becomes very full.  Amar himself had come to Kenya from India fifteen years ago.  Despite that, he speaks little swahili.  Actually, he very rarely travels outside the walls of the temple compound.

The next morning we caught a passing bus on the way to Mombasa.  It was another six hours before we arrived.

The Rains

It's nice to be back at site after two weeks away.  When I left, the rains had just begun.  The grass was brown and dead.  The cows were bony. No crops had been planted.  After two weeks of rains, though, it was like returning to a completely different place.  Everywhere is green and growing.  I have a water tank full of clean rain water.  It's wonderful.

Theres a spot maybe 15 kilometers away from my village that I always pass on my way to Migori.  It's flat.  Very flat.  During the dry season it's just like any other part of Karungu-it's brown and dead. When the rains come, though, the transformation is complete.  This little spot, maybe a kilometer along the road, becomes a sort of seasonal wetlands.  The flatlands become a small marsh, with people's homes now sitting on islands in the water.  Where once there was no wildlife, now crowned cranes come to visit.  It's a wonderful sight; I wish I could take a picture, but the car always drives by to fast.

Of course, it's not all lovely.  About ten kilometers north of Gunga, in Gwasi, the rains were so heavy that they washed away several homes.  Nine children and their mother were killed.  And last year the rains started off strong.  They even came a little earlier than they did this year.  After two or three weeks, though, they stopped.  Crops that had been growing well dried up and died.  An entire harvest was lost.
These problems have been more and more frequent in the last few decades.  Due to deforestation and climate change, many areas of Africa, such as Nyanza and especially Karungu, have seen the formerly predictable rains become unpredictable.  The older generations still tell me that 'The rains will come by February 20th. They will go in May.'  They don't.  Not anymore.  Whatever the cause, the rains don't do what they used to; they've changed.

Now, in the developed world, this might not be as big a problem.  Irrigation, while not freeing us from the whims of the rains, has at least given us some degree of independence from them.  That's not the case.  While it might sound strange that farmers mere kilometers from Lake Victoria, one of the largest sources of fresh water in the world, can't irrigate their crops, it's the reality.

True, the farmers down by the shore can.  The fields that run along the lake are always bountiful with kales and tomatoes and bananas and maize.  But start running inland you run into problems.  Many of the shambas-small subsistence farms-are on hills.  It's difficult to carry the amount of water needed to water several acres of water even a few hundred meters by hand or by donkey, let alone three or four kilometers uphill.  Few people here have the finances to afford pumps, either.  Nyanza is the poorest region in Kenya; in Karungu whole families must often get by on less than a dollar a day.

I hadn't meant for this to get quite so heavy, especially for this post being my first after a long time away.  I started talking about the rains and this was the natural progression.  Now that I have access to a laptop and internet at site, I should be able to update more regularly.  The next few posts will be a brief catch-up on my life in Kenya (in Alphabetical form!), and some stuff on the current term as I'm closing up my service.
Besides, for now the rains are here!  Everything is green and wonderful, even if the mud is a pain, and every time I walk down the paths I see families weeding and gardening, hoping that the rains will see them through.