Worries

I’m feeling afraid for Kenya. On the surface life is quite calm, but (as every Kenyan I’ve talked to would agree) underneath are dangerous currents. Perhaps most troubling is the discrepancy between how ordinary Kenyans feel about their country and the way their leaders respond. You can’t miss the fact that most people want change. They are frustrated. They see so many simple things that need doing—things like better roads in Nairobi, an orderly planning process to import food during the current drought, a reform of the highly corrupt police—and none of their politicians seem to see the same things. On the contrary, the Members of Parliament pay themselves some of the highest salaries any legislators get in the world, tax free, and there isn’t even a movement among some of them to change it. Huge corruption scandals get pawned off on investigative committees, and their reports—years in the making—never get publicly released. The political order is thoroughly corrupt, everybody knows it and is sick of it, and yet, there’s no channel to change things.

Right now we are waiting for the long rains. The last few years rain has been erratic, which directly affects everybody because nearly everybody has relatives who live off their crops. There’s already considerable hunger in Kenya, due to poor harvests, and if the rains don’t come there will be a lot of hunger. The rains are late. The sky continues with day after day of beautiful blue, it’s warm and dry and there’s no hint of moisture. What particularly worries me is that the government is so disorganized right now it’s very questionable whether it’s capable of organizing the importation and distribution of emergency food. It’s one thing when remote desert areas experience famine, as they often do, but if hunger bites closer to city dwellers, it’s conceivable that frustration could reach dangerous levels. I hope and pray that doesn’t happen, but it seems conceivable to me.

Kenya’s political history has never made very elevating reading—it’s mostly a story of greed and oppression—but somehow God has been kind to Kenya. People have been patient and long suffering, unwilling to take violent steps. That’s why last year’s post-election violence was so utterly shocking to people here—they had never experienced anything remotely like it, and didn’t know that Kenyans were capable of such horrors. Nobody wants to see that again, and most likely whatever happens to the political order this year, Kenyans will continue to complain but go on with their lives. I hope and pray so. But I would certainly be happy to see some signs of political progress—a new constitution (which is supposed to be in process), a new Electoral Commission (ditto), and maybe even the dismissal of some of the most obviously corrupt government officials.

On the lighter side, here’s a picture I snapped of a sign on a police station declaring rather boldly the commitment to avoid bribery. I got in trouble seconds after taking the photo, because it turns out to be illegal to take pictures of police stations. So I was ushered into the station by an officer toting an automatic weapon, and told I had done something really wrong and some reparations must be made. The message was clear: I was being asked for a bribe.