It rained yesterday, the first time since I've been here. Nairobi rains are amazing; one minute it's unbelievably hot & humid and then in a second, the air is crisp and clear and you can smell the rain before it comes and it's so refreshing...and then it storms and you're in the middle of a highway with not a shelter in sight. Lol, pretty cool though. Also a relief for my socks. What possessed me to bring white socks to the land of red earth escapes me. Everything I own is covered in red dust, even the cuffs of my pyjamas and I haven't been outside in them!
Thank you Mike for your realization. Yeah, it's pretty depressing how sheltered I am and even more selfish of me to want to go back to that. I'm tired of seeing sadness all around me. I went to a hyper-market on Sunday, a place called Nakumatt which they actually call a mega store. It's actually more of a mini-mall or a Kroger's/Buehler's on steroids. Even Wal-Mart has nothing on this place. On one level, they actually have a Lowe's type display of bathroom fixtures, tubs, showers, tiles etc. Then you have your aisles of audio visual equipment, whole furniture displays, laundry and then an entire grocery section with just about all the amenities you would hope to find. In one corner of this warehouse you'll find a camera store, bookstore, carpet store, shoe store, even a curios/artifacts store. The latter you can usually find at the open air-markets all over the city center and you can bargain the hell out of them and they're a much better quality than what Nakumatt is offering. I went up to the food court, pizza lovers will not despair, fried chicken etc. And all this under one roof, one name. The reason I describe this in detail is because on Sunday's, instead of taking the kids to the park, or out to brunch, a lot of families bring their kids here and they walk around for ages, just staring at everything they can't afford. You should see their eyes, wondering who could possibly need all this stuff and then wanting it so much. I ran into so many kids around the gaming units checking out the newest PS2 games that if they were lucky enough would have a working display unit. These kids just walking around, ogling everything, not looking where they're going, tripping over things while trying to absorb everything. The other class meanwhile would be loading up 2 - 3 carts with groceries, their kids running around and picking their favorite candies, toys, whatever without so much an objection from their clearly wealthy parents. There appears to be an alarming chasm between classes and I think it's growing daily!
There was an article in Monday's papers that mentioned that 60% of Kenyans are living in abject poverty. 60%!!!!!! The goverment is going through some major issues right now. Remember the corruption scandal? Well, on top of that a couple of Ministers want to give themselves a raise during the next budget meeting. There was a photo story on how more ministers are capitalizing on real estate opportunities down at the coast and you should see the mansions these thieves have managed to erect in such a short time. Meanwhile, their constituents are living under tarps in mud huts with no water facilities, education etc.
Oh yeah, education.....when the new president Mwai Kibaki came into power, he made it free for all kids. Hooray, right? Wrong....not enough schools, teachers, supplies. Mind you the kids have to buy their own uniforms (all elementary & high school kids wear uniforms) yet most can't afford a pair of shoes. So the classrooms are crowded, personal attention is impossible so kids get left behind as teachers can't afford to attend to one student over the needs of 50+ others in the class. (yes, 50 kids in one classroom.) Another depressing factor to consider is what to do after high school. Much like SAT's for college, Kenya gives an exam called the Kenya Certificate for Secondary Education (KCSE) modelled after the British system. This test is given in October/November at the end of your fourth year. Unlike the SAT's, you can't take it earlier and it's a one shot exam. You flunk it and that's it. Never mind that you were an A student for four years and just had a bad week during exams. This is your only shot at being able to place well in one of the few universities in Kenya. The exam is a comprehensive test of your four years in high school. I think it's given over the course of a week. The mandatory tests, Math, English, Swahili, Physics/Biology/Chemistry 5 electives from Geography, History, Ethics, Religion, Arts, Languages (German & French) and I'll have to look up the rest. Oh, and the results come out in late February, as in last year's exam, they came out yesterday. School doesn't start until the Spring so kids are out of school for almost a year! Summer jobs you say? Lol, it's very depressing. That's why you get a lot of Kenyans coming to the U.S. (well, less and less thanks to INS super-restrictions) U.K., India and now Australia. By the way, the Aussies are taking a huge advantage of the horrible U.S. backlog of F-1 visa applicants and they're offering more and more options and incentives to international students to come and study down-under.
I'm distracted. I'm super anxious to start working and I hope it's with the marketing place that will require me to work evenings and nights so that I can come home (oh yeah, looking for my own place, rent's pretty reasonable so I'm optimistic about that....more than getting an effin ID card), sleep during the day, get right up and go back to work because I'm tired of seeing what's around me. On telly last night, 7p.m. news, I watched a man commit suicide after taking a nose dive off the 10th floor of a building in town. Apparently he'd come from his place up-country to town over the weekend to get some money from a relative. Said relative refused to give him any saying he didn't have much to give so at about 10 a.m. yesterday morning, he climbed out the window of relative's office and stood on the ledge while a crowd gathered, begging and pleading with him to come down and talk and he said, "I've had enough. The world isn't fair to me and I'm tired." and then he jumped.
On the death penalty. Kenya still has the death penalty and regularly sentences people to death row. Some of the sentences however do not match the crime. E.g., This 23 year old maid for an elderly Indian couple is on death row. One night, thieves raided the compound and they tied up the couple. She started screaming, trying to rouse the neighborhood and they caught her,tied her up, and blindfolded and taped, she was thrown into the trunk of their car. They drove for sometime and then pulled up to a house where they took her inside and gang raped her for most of the night. "They hurt my uterus and I'm still on medication to this day." They put her back in the car and dumped her out on the street. She went back to the house, bleeding and crying but the couple thought she had colluded with the robbers so they had her arrested, charged as an accomplice and now she's in jail. She said she had no legal representation at the time of sentencing and didn't know what was going on hence she couldn't defend herself properly.
Though the death penalty is there (by the way, no lethal injection, it's hanging and I think the firing squad still exists) don't be alarmed. Kenya hasn't executed a prisoner since 1987. Infact, every new year year, the president pardons a lot of people and for the more severe cases, commutes them to life. It's is widely agreed that the penalty is a barbaric practise and the overall sentiment is to do away with it "as it has not place in a modern society." says one of the fat cat ministers who does actually have a heart.
I may sound very alarmist and I think it's because I've been away for so long and I just never opened my eyes. My brother had to calm me down one evening as I blurted out how upset and terrified I was living here and he said, it's been like this, people adapt and they move on. He said the same things happen everywhere, it's just you'll see it more often here as the media will not censor itself and why should it? This is the stark reality of life in a lesser/developing (not sure what category) nation however, "Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die." (Bono)
So my challenge for this week on top of the bank account, ID card, job etc. is to find a charity/organization that I know will stop someone from thinking "the world is not fair". It isn't but a small act from a stranger has a ripple effect, more than you'll imagine.
This has been your after-school special message of the week. Lol, seriously though....
No comments:
Post a Comment