Mount Kenya was standing in the horizon as if it was the King of Kenya. Clouds were surrounding its top and hazy sunshine was making emphasizing its shape. The scene make me think of the film ‘Lion King’ and all the African songs from it filed my head. I had previously been to Northern African countries, which were likely to be pretty different from those in other parts of African, given that there was a lot of Arabic influence in the north. This made me curious about exploring the land of Kenya, which was well-known to us westerners though TV, films and books.
The Kenyan Airways place had started to descend a shot while earlier. We were approaching Nairobi. The flight had been very comfortable. I had particularly enjoyed the African music soundtracks on the entertainment system and the welcome song in beautiful four-part harmony that penetrated through the cabin as we walked into the plane.
There were quite a few westerners traveling to Kenya, most of them for holidays, some for business. The wildlife safaris were known to be exotic for those of us who hadn’t seen giraffes and elephants in the nature. I noticed that there were many families on board probably ‘the Lion King Effect’ - even the kids wanted to see Simba in real life.
Two years earlier Kenya had been through a rough time when riots erupted during an election time. Politicians did not have a good reputation; there was an unbelievable amount of corruption in the country and people felt powerless in dealing with it all. Politicians were said to rich, owning five houses and posh cars, while the percentage of the poor increased by the day in the country that they were supposed to be leading. In the riots in 2007, hundreds of people had died. As my Kenyan colleague had told me, riots and violence were the only ways in which citizens knew how to express their dissatisfaction. There was no culture of peaceful demonstration since those never had any effect on the politicians; they were simply spaces for people to gather and meet others who were also dissatisfied with the situation.
The day before I was due to travel to Kenya and to deliver some seminars at a university there, my Kenyan colleague had told me that the university was shut. Students were not happy with the university administration and so two buildings had been set to fire. Luckily the firemen managed to tame the flames before it was too late; yet half of a computer lab and a lecture hall were destroyed. Yet again, innocent students would suffer because of this. Now, the university had been called to recess in order to let the situation calm down before lectures could commence again. According to my colleague, this happened all the time in Kenya. Violence and disruption were the only ways for people to express themselves. Even the younger generation had learnt this. Now no one knew when the university would be opened again; everyone was waiting in suspense, not being able to leave the area in case they were needed at the university the following day, yet not being able to do much by staying at home.
I had no idea how my trip was going to turn out to be. If I could do not do anything at the university, perhaps I could do something at the orphanage that I had been in touch with when still in London. I would have to see what was possible. I was getting a feeling that this trip would be a very spontaneous one.
As we strolled out of the airplane, we were greeted with a heat wave. It was early hours of the day yet, but the temperature was already rising. We were very close to the equator. In addition to the native Africans, I could see a number of Asians here. When India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had been separated, a number of Asians had moved to East Africa. The British colonial link had helped in this regard.
After getting through the nightmarish passport control - we had to queue for nearly two hours because people who bribed the passport control personnel were let to skip the queue-, I was finally on Kenyan land.
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For more on the political system in Kenya, see:
http://www.123independenceday.com/kenya/political-system.html
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