 A ll right, let’s get it out in the open right from the start – I’m biased. I love Kenya, and I love Kenyans. In fact, if I ever meet the member of the American Embassy security staff who wrote an entry for an information website for potential expatriates which started with the words: “Most Kenyans smell and they can’t speak English,” I’ll … well, he’s probably bigger and tougher than me, so let’s just leave it at that vague, uncommitted elision.
See news about Latest news
All right, let’s get it out in the open right from the start – I’m biased. I love Kenya, and I love Kenyans. In fact, if I ever meet the member of the American Embassy security staff who wrote an entry for an information website for potential expatriates which started with the words: “Most Kenyans smell and they can’t speak English,” I’ll … well, he’s probably bigger and tougher than me, so let’s just leave it at that vague, uncommitted elision. Said embassy drone and I obviously live in different countries. The Kenya I know is not really paradise on earth – except when it is. It is a place about which it is difficult to feel indifferent – I have known people who hated it from their first breath of its air when the aircraft doors opened. I was quite the opposite. Coming back into JKIA, and taking that first sniff of a scent that is not particularly identifiable, but very particularly Kenyan, is always a real delight. Having said that, I sometimes hate it for the same reasons that I love it. So this is going to be a relatively unfocussed ramble around my entirely personal feelings about the place. If you disagree, tough; go and get a job at the American Embassy. The introduction to the guide book my sister brought out with her the first time she came to visit me a few years ago, started with the words: “Kenya is a country of contrasts.” Although that particular book was wrong about many things, that opening statement is certainly true – it packs a lot of country into what is a relatively small piece of land. A tropical coast on the Indian Ocean, white sands fringed with palm trees; a stretch of harsh red desert that seems to go on forever; temperate green forests – and that’s just what you pass through driving from Mombasa to Nairobi. Beautiful high grasslands, snow-capped mountains, harsh volcanic desert, savanna, tropical rainforest (if only a small one), rich cultivated farmland, some of the most stunningly beautiful lakes in the world, and the Great Rift Valley – what more do you want? The villages, towns and cities range from the rudest of rude mud huts to the most modern of mirrored-glass skyscrapers. Some parts are as developed as anywhere in the western/northern world (it’s easier to find an internet café here than it was in Nottingham in the UK, where we spent last summer), and some are undeveloped to a startling degree. Like so many cities in the developing world there is only a short journey from a lavish, air-conditioned apartment (US$2,000 a month and security tighter than the UN compound in Gigiri), to a shack made from old packing crates, sitting on a patch of mud with an open sewer running past the door. It’s a developing country. It’s got a long way to go. It’s getting there. Only an idiot would try to deny that Kenya is a country with problems. The new government has not brought the fundamental change that many hoped it would – maybe it will take the next one to do that. However, despite the restrictions being placed on it by other countries (we all know who I mean) investment is up, and there is a sense that things can get better, even if they haven’t yet. The new Kenya Tourism Development Corporation is working hard to develop and promote tourism, a valuable source of revenue for Kenya, already regaining a lot of ground after several very lean years. It’s a country with a brief, but utterly fascinating history. And it is, despite the protests of many Kenyans, inevitably a history of colonial development. What can upset a lot of people is the fact that the British government didn’t even want the place. The history of the country is, in large measure, the history of the railway. This left Mombasa in 1896, stopped long enough to found Nairobi in 1899 (and even Nairobi was built in the wrong place; I have a really good story about that, but it’s totally meaningless to anyone who doesn’t know Kenya – and, like all really good stories, risks giving offence if told in the wrong company), and reached the lake at Kisumu in 1901. The railway itself was built to get to Uganda as quickly as possible – and the British government didn’t want Uganda either. What they did want was control of the source of the Nile, and they wanted it before the Germans could get too close. This is possibly the only time in history that the Germans didn’t get their towels down at the side of an expanse of water before the British. Continued On Next Page (Kenya, Page 2) ... AUTHOR: Gareth Evans  TAGS: Travel world war Love government attack Food men africa BOOKMARK: Digg it | Add to Del.ICIO | Add to FARK ACTIONS: Comment Save Print Register free acount 
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
