1.31.2008
The news in Kenya
The pictures and the news from Kenya are shocking. Nobody predicted things would go this wrong this quickly, and it is hard to reconcile the flaming cars and machete-wielding crowds with what I saw when I was there.
One of the largest flashpoints right now is Kisumu, the town where I spent my summer in 2006. Some of my friends who live there have fled to Nairobi to avoid the mobs that have looted even local schools as the students fled the approaching crowd. When I was there, I was charmed by the dreamy lakeside feeling, the carwash/fried fish places, the hordes of bicycle taxis that are the town’s primary mode of transportation. I can’t imagine it now—shops on the main street looted, the few local Kikuyu families killed or driven out with police escort, buses burned in the main stand where we started our weekend trips. I wasn’t there long enough to know the local politics in and out. A lot happened in the local language that I missed. But I never ever would have believed it would be a site for riots and ethnic cleansing.
For now, the impact in Arusha has been small. Prices are up, again, and there are an unusual number of tourists, as the overland trips shift from Nairobi to here and people reschedule their Kenya vacations. Tanzanians with relatives in Kenyan schools are nervously watching the situation, and one of our Kenyan staff was delayed coming back from Christmas break as her police-guarded convoy passed through road blocks set up by local thugs. The whole time, the road to Nairobi has been open. But mostly we, like the rest of the world, are just nervously watching the news.
One of the largest flashpoints right now is Kisumu, the town where I spent my summer in 2006. Some of my friends who live there have fled to Nairobi to avoid the mobs that have looted even local schools as the students fled the approaching crowd. When I was there, I was charmed by the dreamy lakeside feeling, the carwash/fried fish places, the hordes of bicycle taxis that are the town’s primary mode of transportation. I can’t imagine it now—shops on the main street looted, the few local Kikuyu families killed or driven out with police escort, buses burned in the main stand where we started our weekend trips. I wasn’t there long enough to know the local politics in and out. A lot happened in the local language that I missed. But I never ever would have believed it would be a site for riots and ethnic cleansing.
For now, the impact in Arusha has been small. Prices are up, again, and there are an unusual number of tourists, as the overland trips shift from Nairobi to here and people reschedule their Kenya vacations. Tanzanians with relatives in Kenyan schools are nervously watching the situation, and one of our Kenyan staff was delayed coming back from Christmas break as her police-guarded convoy passed through road blocks set up by local thugs. The whole time, the road to Nairobi has been open. But mostly we, like the rest of the world, are just nervously watching the news.
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I thought I recognized the name Kisimu when I read about the conflict in Kenya in the newspaper. How shocking it must be for you to have this happening in a place where you lived and knew people. (and what a false sense of security I had in the summer of 2006 when you were living in peaceful Kenya.)
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