They say that no news is better than bad news, but having no news at all amidst this chaotic and violent time in Kenya touches on my most primordial fears. There is a total live-media blackout, something unimaginable to me previously. The silence is more ominous than the snippets of killings we continue to hear about.
I have been trying to leave Meru, Kenya for Nairobi for four days now. I have never felt so trapped and helpless in my life. After elections on the 27th, there was a period of waiting. Streets were empty as everyone remained glued to their television sets watching a very close presidential race. At first it looked like the opposition, Raila Odinga won, but slowly the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki gained for votes.
Like any election coverage the TV ran constantly but not divulging anything new. Still, it never faded into background noise. As the day after elections turned to night, no decisions had been announced. This pattern continued for the next few days. Votes were missing from certain areas that were Kibaki strong-holds. Meru was one of them. Accusations of vote rigging and fraud flew through the air like mosquitoes around a stagnant lake.
I could not get to Nairobi because matatu drivers were hiding their cars in anticipation for violence the first day. The next day I almost got on one but was told that they were not being allowed into the city center of Nairobi so at the last minute I changed my mind. Later, I found out that matatus from Meru were being attacked when they reached Nairobi because of the delayed vote from our area Odinga supporters were accusing Meru people of fraud.
The country retained vice-like attention to the news, everyone hoping for the best but fearing violence. There was massive looting in Kisumu, where Odinga is from. People were carrying away stoves, trying on shoes and running with TVs, it was a complete free-for-all. People burned houses just because they could.
The Nairobi streets were empty albeit a strong military presence. There were sporadic riots and road closures. Even if I had made it to Nairobi the third day, the road to Uganda was closed so I would have been stuck amidst the riots.
The Electoral Commission of Kenya, which was monitoring and running the elections held press briefings that turned so chaotic that they would pause to pray in the middle before resuming their bickering and skirmishes.
The people I live with continued to get text messages from people all over the country starting prayer chains; a request to all pray together at a certain time.
Then last night, the night of the 30th, Kibaki was sworn in as the president, following the closest race in Kenyan history. From our trusty TV sets, we saw him being sworn in the it cut to Odinga saying that the vote was rigged and he was president, then all of the sudden a broadcaster came on and told us that the government is suspending all live media broadcasts. On came a comedy show followed by ER as Kenya tried to piece together what just happened.
The streets of Meru erupted in jubilation. Horns were being honked under the starlight as people filled the dusty streets with cheers and bonfires. This continued far into the night mingled with the barking of our guard dogs. I wondered what was happening in Nairobi and was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the government had just shut off the media.
Text messages flooded in from friends and family in Nairobi. People could not buy credit for their phones, the grocery stores were running out of food as everyone stalked up, people were afraid to leave their homes, there were riots in the streets and buildings were burning, soldiers were being deployed throughout the city.
“I think the government turned off the news because they are sending out soldiers who will have to beat the rioters and they don’t want that shown on TV,” Karumbu speculated.
Then there was nothing. Phone networks were congested or down and we stopped receiving any news. We remained frozen in front of the TV, hoping for some information, not having access to the internet. Around midnight, CNN came on recapping stories from 2007. Across the TV on their news banner we saw the following: “Kenyans re-elect Mwai Kibaki for president.” “Riots break out throughout the country.” “Police kill 5 in Nairobi.”
It seemed like Karumbu’s guess was pretty accurate. I sat there with the only bit of news we could find, learning about the country I am living in with reports from a foreign news outlet. As phones began to work little by little and messages slipped through the cracks in the network congestion, it seemed clear that people were bracing for the possibility of civil war.
This morning, determined to get to Nairobi for New Years, ready to walk if I had to, I found that transportation to Nairobi was still suspended and people were still rioting and expecting things to get worse. So much for walking, that could be suicidal.
Odinga had announced that he is the true president of Kenya and will hold his own swearing-in ceremony today. Police were gathering around central Nairobi to prevent this from happening.
I remain frustrated because all our information is gleaned from text messages, but it appears things could just be getting fired up.
Even if Odinga behaves himself and stops inciting violence, the parliament is overwhelmingly ODM (his political party). They will likely do their best to make the country ungovernable for Kibaki, and submit a vote of no confidence to get him out of office. I fear for the future of Kenya.
Politics is just the battleground for a deep-seeded rivalry between two major ethnic groups in Kenya. Kibaki is part of the majority Kikuyu group who is accused of holding too much of the country’s wealth and influence. Odinga is part of the Luo group which is accused of being violent as well as lazy workers. The country does seem like it could be on the brink of a very serious situation, no matter what the outcome of the next few days are. Tribalism and violence are surfacing prevalently in Kenya right now. We are all praying that the riots and killings are not the beginning of something bigger.
The majority of Kenyans just want peace. I pray for this beside them, while at the same time praying that maybe tomorrow I will not be so trapped. Hopefully Kenya will not continue to greet the New Year with violence.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Trapped!
They say that no news is better than bad news, but having no news at all amidst this chaotic and violent time in Kenya touches on my most primordial fears. There is a total live-media blackout, something unimaginable to me previously. The silence is more ominous than the snippets of killings we continue to hear about.
I have been trying to leave Meru, Kenya for Nairobi for four days now. I have never felt so trapped and helpless in my life. After elections on the 27th, there was a period of waiting. Streets were empty as everyone remained glued to their television sets watching a very close presidential race. At first it looked like the opposition, Raila Odinga won, but slowly the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki gained for votes.
Like any election coverage the TV ran constantly but not divulging anything new. Still, it never faded into background noise. As the day after elections turned to night, no decisions had been announced. This pattern continued for the next few days. Votes were missing from certain areas that were Kibaki strong-holds. Meru was one of them. Accusations of vote rigging and fraud flew through the air like mosquitoes around a stagnant lake.
I could not get to Nairobi because matatu drivers were hiding their cars in anticipation for violence the first day. The next day I almost got on one but was told that they were not being allowed into the city center of Nairobi so at the last minute I changed my mind. Later, I found out that matatus from Meru were being attacked when they reached Nairobi because of the delayed vote from our area Odinga supporters were accusing Meru people of fraud.
The country retained vice-like attention to the news, everyone hoping for the best but fearing violence. There was massive looting in Kisumu, where Odinga is from. People were carrying away stoves, trying on shoes and running with TVs, it was a complete free-for-all. People burned houses just because they could.
The Nairobi streets were empty albeit a strong military presence. There were sporadic riots and road closures. Even if I had made it to Nairobi the third day, the road to Uganda was closed so I would have been stuck amidst the riots.
The Electoral Commission of Kenya, which was monitoring and running the elections held press briefings that turned so chaotic that they would pause to pray in the middle before resuming their bickering and skirmishes.
The people I live with continued to get text messages from people all over the country starting prayer chains; a request to all pray together at a certain time.
Then last night, the night of the 30th, Kibaki was sworn in as the president, following the closest race in Kenyan history. From our trusty TV sets, we saw him being sworn in the it cut to Odinga saying that the vote was rigged and he was president, then all of the sudden a broadcaster came on and told us that the government is suspending all live media broadcasts. On came a comedy show followed by ER as Kenya tried to piece together what just happened.
The streets of Meru erupted in jubilation. Horns were being honked under the starlight as people filled the dusty streets with cheers and bonfires. This continued far into the night mingled with the barking of our guard dogs. I wondered what was happening in Nairobi and was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the government had just shut off the media.
Text messages flooded in from friends and family in Nairobi. People could not buy credit for their phones, the grocery stores were running out of food as everyone stalked up, people were afraid to leave their homes, there were riots in the streets and buildings were burning, soldiers were being deployed throughout the city.
“I think the government turned off the news because they are sending out soldiers who will have to beat the rioters and they don’t want that shown on TV,” Karumbu speculated.
Then there was nothing. Phone networks were congested or down and we stopped receiving any news. We remained frozen in front of the TV, hoping for some information, not having access to the internet. Around midnight, CNN came on recapping stories from 2007. Across the TV on their news banner we saw the following: “Kenyans re-elect Mwai Kibaki for president.” “Riots break out throughout the country.” “Police kill 5 in Nairobi.”
It seemed like Karumbu’s guess was pretty accurate. I sat there with the only bit of news we could find, learning about the country I am living in with reports from a foreign news outlet. As phones began to work little by little and messages slipped through the cracks in the network congestion, it seemed clear that people were bracing for the possibility of civil war.
This morning, determined to get to Nairobi for New Years, ready to walk if I had to, I found that transportation to Nairobi was still suspended and people were still rioting and expecting things to get worse. So much for walking, that could be suicidal.
Odinga had announced that he is the true president of Kenya and will hold his own swearing-in ceremony today. Police were gathering around central Nairobi to prevent this from happening.
I remain frustrated because all our information is gleaned from text messages, but it appears things could just be getting fired up.
Even if Odinga behaves himself and stops inciting violence, the parliament is overwhelmingly ODM (his political party). They will likely do their best to make the country ungovernable for Kibaki, and submit a vote of no confidence to get him out of office. I fear for the future of Kenya.
Politics is just the battleground for a deep-seeded rivalry between two major ethnic groups in Kenya. Kibaki is part of the majority Kikuyu group who is accused of holding too much of the country’s wealth and influence. Odinga is part of the Luo group which is accused of being violent as well as lazy workers. The country does seem like it could be on the brink of a very serious situation, no matter what the outcome of the next few days are. Tribalism and violence are surfacing prevalently in Kenya right now. We are all praying that the riots and killings are not the beginning of something bigger.
The majority of Kenyans just want peace. I pray for this beside them, while at the same time praying that maybe tomorrow I will not be so trapped. Hopefully Kenya will not continue to greet the New Year with violence.
I have been trying to leave Meru, Kenya for Nairobi for four days now. I have never felt so trapped and helpless in my life. After elections on the 27th, there was a period of waiting. Streets were empty as everyone remained glued to their television sets watching a very close presidential race. At first it looked like the opposition, Raila Odinga won, but slowly the incumbent, Mwai Kibaki gained for votes.
Like any election coverage the TV ran constantly but not divulging anything new. Still, it never faded into background noise. As the day after elections turned to night, no decisions had been announced. This pattern continued for the next few days. Votes were missing from certain areas that were Kibaki strong-holds. Meru was one of them. Accusations of vote rigging and fraud flew through the air like mosquitoes around a stagnant lake.
I could not get to Nairobi because matatu drivers were hiding their cars in anticipation for violence the first day. The next day I almost got on one but was told that they were not being allowed into the city center of Nairobi so at the last minute I changed my mind. Later, I found out that matatus from Meru were being attacked when they reached Nairobi because of the delayed vote from our area Odinga supporters were accusing Meru people of fraud.
The country retained vice-like attention to the news, everyone hoping for the best but fearing violence. There was massive looting in Kisumu, where Odinga is from. People were carrying away stoves, trying on shoes and running with TVs, it was a complete free-for-all. People burned houses just because they could.
The Nairobi streets were empty albeit a strong military presence. There were sporadic riots and road closures. Even if I had made it to Nairobi the third day, the road to Uganda was closed so I would have been stuck amidst the riots.
The Electoral Commission of Kenya, which was monitoring and running the elections held press briefings that turned so chaotic that they would pause to pray in the middle before resuming their bickering and skirmishes.
The people I live with continued to get text messages from people all over the country starting prayer chains; a request to all pray together at a certain time.
Then last night, the night of the 30th, Kibaki was sworn in as the president, following the closest race in Kenyan history. From our trusty TV sets, we saw him being sworn in the it cut to Odinga saying that the vote was rigged and he was president, then all of the sudden a broadcaster came on and told us that the government is suspending all live media broadcasts. On came a comedy show followed by ER as Kenya tried to piece together what just happened.
The streets of Meru erupted in jubilation. Horns were being honked under the starlight as people filled the dusty streets with cheers and bonfires. This continued far into the night mingled with the barking of our guard dogs. I wondered what was happening in Nairobi and was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the government had just shut off the media.
Text messages flooded in from friends and family in Nairobi. People could not buy credit for their phones, the grocery stores were running out of food as everyone stalked up, people were afraid to leave their homes, there were riots in the streets and buildings were burning, soldiers were being deployed throughout the city.
“I think the government turned off the news because they are sending out soldiers who will have to beat the rioters and they don’t want that shown on TV,” Karumbu speculated.
Then there was nothing. Phone networks were congested or down and we stopped receiving any news. We remained frozen in front of the TV, hoping for some information, not having access to the internet. Around midnight, CNN came on recapping stories from 2007. Across the TV on their news banner we saw the following: “Kenyans re-elect Mwai Kibaki for president.” “Riots break out throughout the country.” “Police kill 5 in Nairobi.”
It seemed like Karumbu’s guess was pretty accurate. I sat there with the only bit of news we could find, learning about the country I am living in with reports from a foreign news outlet. As phones began to work little by little and messages slipped through the cracks in the network congestion, it seemed clear that people were bracing for the possibility of civil war.
This morning, determined to get to Nairobi for New Years, ready to walk if I had to, I found that transportation to Nairobi was still suspended and people were still rioting and expecting things to get worse. So much for walking, that could be suicidal.
Odinga had announced that he is the true president of Kenya and will hold his own swearing-in ceremony today. Police were gathering around central Nairobi to prevent this from happening.
I remain frustrated because all our information is gleaned from text messages, but it appears things could just be getting fired up.
Even if Odinga behaves himself and stops inciting violence, the parliament is overwhelmingly ODM (his political party). They will likely do their best to make the country ungovernable for Kibaki, and submit a vote of no confidence to get him out of office. I fear for the future of Kenya.
Politics is just the battleground for a deep-seeded rivalry between two major ethnic groups in Kenya. Kibaki is part of the majority Kikuyu group who is accused of holding too much of the country’s wealth and influence. Odinga is part of the Luo group which is accused of being violent as well as lazy workers. The country does seem like it could be on the brink of a very serious situation, no matter what the outcome of the next few days are. Tribalism and violence are surfacing prevalently in Kenya right now. We are all praying that the riots and killings are not the beginning of something bigger.
The majority of Kenyans just want peace. I pray for this beside them, while at the same time praying that maybe tomorrow I will not be so trapped. Hopefully Kenya will not continue to greet the New Year with violence.
E-Day
Christmas never has excitement it did when I was younger. I remember the magic of it all when I was little, putting out carrots for my favorite reindeer, Christmas carols, the Nutcracker, parties and listening for sleigh bells. This year there was no Christmas, it was simply two days before elections.
But, on the night before elections, some of that Christmas anticipation did return. Instead of listening for sleigh bells it was listening to news bulletins of the 7 Administrative Police that had been killed and the few and isolated riots that were taking place across the country in anticipation of rigging. Instead of putting out carrots there was the organizing of papers for agents who would observe the elections. Instead of Christmas carols there was Karumbu’s rap song. I was loving it.
We woke up with about 3 hours of sleep and left the house at 4am. It was a rainy day and there was a strange redness behind the clouds as I got up in the soft obscurity. I felt safe in the car with the headlights shining through the rain, our bubble cutting through the darkness.
Each candidate has two agents at each of the poles. There were 158 poles, and 16 parliamentary candidates alone, not to mention people running for lower offices. That made for a lot of people needing to be mobilized. The agents are responsible for watching the voting take place and preventing any sort of fraud.
We drove from station to station making sure everything was ready and observing the whole voting process. As we bounced over the dirt roads to more polling stations through the rain the sky turned a science fiction purple.
At most of the polling stations I was mistaken for one of the UN or EU monitors. A few times I even was chastised for not being inside the building. Maybe someday. . . It was incredibly interesting to see how elections are conducted in Kenya, and to be trusted to watch for corruption. It was an extremely slow process with only one person voting at a time, lines were long but people remained patient.
Throughout the day we changed cars 5 times for security reasons, but all seemed quiet. We handled problems as they arose. The main complaint was that the incumbent was buying people’s votes. In one instance the voters themselves chased off the guys who were doing it. The police dealt with them in other places.
At another location they were using a different form to mislead people by misrepresenting the candidate’s symbols. We had some minor problems with documents as well.
The big ordeal of the day was our campaign coordinator in one area getting arrested. They would not tell us why he was arrested for hours. Luckily Karumbu’s brother is a police officer so he was finally able to force them to say something and they said he didn’t have the right paperwork. They continued to push back the time that they said they would charge him so we could bail him out, then changed the charges and said he was buying votes. This was a blatant lie and we laughed for a minute and asked, “With what money?”
There was no money left to buy votes with. We drove all around town trying to lodge a formal complaint but weren’t being called back, went to the ECK (Electoral Commission of Kenya) main office and they weren’t there, went to the police station and still could not get any help. Eventually we talked to the presiding officer of the elections who told us that if this man was arrested, the arresting officer was supposed to call him and inform him of the situation but he didn’t. It was all very sketchy.
We realized it was some sort of campaign sabotage. The arresting officer must have been paid off and it was either to disrupt our campaign or to make it look like it was not just the incumbent who had been buying votes.
After a long day, we were in for an even longer night. We went to the elementary school where all the polling centers were supposed to bring their vote tallies. I was able to stay for a few hours but was kicked out around midnight for not having the right paperwork.
When Raila came to Meru, after the riot/rally, he was quoted in the newspaper as saying, “When I win Meru will be crying.”
I woke up to the pounding of rain beyond my blue mosquito net and past the cave-like walls of my room and took it to be a bad sign. I walked over to the main house where a few early-risers already had the news blaring. As of now, Raila has the lead and the rain in Meru really is like the whole area is weeping. It is too early to tell for sure, but it looks like Karumbu came in third, the incumbent came in second. Raila has a decent lead but there are many more votes left to count.
It has been interesting to see how campaigns are conducted in Kenya. It is also a staunch reminder that it is difficult for democracy to function when people are illiterate and poverty stricken, worried about feeding themselves. These circumstances make it much more difficult for people to discuss issues and relegate the dialogue that is necessary for an informed democracy to the elite, the ones that are not working in the fields all day. It makes the elections in Kenya and how smoothly they have gone seem even more impressive.
Fortunately, the violence that was feared for this election was mostly absent. It will be interesting to see what happens to a country where there has been such a radical change in government, especially towards one that has been feared to have a tendency towards violence. I also hope that the elected MP for North Imenti does as good of a job as I know Karumbu would have done.
It’s been a long ride on this campaign. It is something that I never could have predicted I would have done in my life, which is comforting, the possibilities that are out there even though we are not even aware that they exist
But, on the night before elections, some of that Christmas anticipation did return. Instead of listening for sleigh bells it was listening to news bulletins of the 7 Administrative Police that had been killed and the few and isolated riots that were taking place across the country in anticipation of rigging. Instead of putting out carrots there was the organizing of papers for agents who would observe the elections. Instead of Christmas carols there was Karumbu’s rap song. I was loving it.
We woke up with about 3 hours of sleep and left the house at 4am. It was a rainy day and there was a strange redness behind the clouds as I got up in the soft obscurity. I felt safe in the car with the headlights shining through the rain, our bubble cutting through the darkness.
Each candidate has two agents at each of the poles. There were 158 poles, and 16 parliamentary candidates alone, not to mention people running for lower offices. That made for a lot of people needing to be mobilized. The agents are responsible for watching the voting take place and preventing any sort of fraud.
We drove from station to station making sure everything was ready and observing the whole voting process. As we bounced over the dirt roads to more polling stations through the rain the sky turned a science fiction purple.
At most of the polling stations I was mistaken for one of the UN or EU monitors. A few times I even was chastised for not being inside the building. Maybe someday. . . It was incredibly interesting to see how elections are conducted in Kenya, and to be trusted to watch for corruption. It was an extremely slow process with only one person voting at a time, lines were long but people remained patient.
Throughout the day we changed cars 5 times for security reasons, but all seemed quiet. We handled problems as they arose. The main complaint was that the incumbent was buying people’s votes. In one instance the voters themselves chased off the guys who were doing it. The police dealt with them in other places.
At another location they were using a different form to mislead people by misrepresenting the candidate’s symbols. We had some minor problems with documents as well.
The big ordeal of the day was our campaign coordinator in one area getting arrested. They would not tell us why he was arrested for hours. Luckily Karumbu’s brother is a police officer so he was finally able to force them to say something and they said he didn’t have the right paperwork. They continued to push back the time that they said they would charge him so we could bail him out, then changed the charges and said he was buying votes. This was a blatant lie and we laughed for a minute and asked, “With what money?”
There was no money left to buy votes with. We drove all around town trying to lodge a formal complaint but weren’t being called back, went to the ECK (Electoral Commission of Kenya) main office and they weren’t there, went to the police station and still could not get any help. Eventually we talked to the presiding officer of the elections who told us that if this man was arrested, the arresting officer was supposed to call him and inform him of the situation but he didn’t. It was all very sketchy.
We realized it was some sort of campaign sabotage. The arresting officer must have been paid off and it was either to disrupt our campaign or to make it look like it was not just the incumbent who had been buying votes.
After a long day, we were in for an even longer night. We went to the elementary school where all the polling centers were supposed to bring their vote tallies. I was able to stay for a few hours but was kicked out around midnight for not having the right paperwork.
When Raila came to Meru, after the riot/rally, he was quoted in the newspaper as saying, “When I win Meru will be crying.”
I woke up to the pounding of rain beyond my blue mosquito net and past the cave-like walls of my room and took it to be a bad sign. I walked over to the main house where a few early-risers already had the news blaring. As of now, Raila has the lead and the rain in Meru really is like the whole area is weeping. It is too early to tell for sure, but it looks like Karumbu came in third, the incumbent came in second. Raila has a decent lead but there are many more votes left to count.
It has been interesting to see how campaigns are conducted in Kenya. It is also a staunch reminder that it is difficult for democracy to function when people are illiterate and poverty stricken, worried about feeding themselves. These circumstances make it much more difficult for people to discuss issues and relegate the dialogue that is necessary for an informed democracy to the elite, the ones that are not working in the fields all day. It makes the elections in Kenya and how smoothly they have gone seem even more impressive.
Fortunately, the violence that was feared for this election was mostly absent. It will be interesting to see what happens to a country where there has been such a radical change in government, especially towards one that has been feared to have a tendency towards violence. I also hope that the elected MP for North Imenti does as good of a job as I know Karumbu would have done.
It’s been a long ride on this campaign. It is something that I never could have predicted I would have done in my life, which is comforting, the possibilities that are out there even though we are not even aware that they exist
Thursday, December 20, 2007
A Typical Kenyan Campaign Day
Today we had more of a typical campaign for someone running for parliament in Kenya. The first meeting consisted of a group of committee leaders who had wrangled together some friends to come with us on our campaign. The extra truck loads of people add to the excitement of our stops and makes it look like we have more support. In exchange we pay them at the end of the day.
After a brief meeting with a women’s group in a surreal cornfield jungle, green light cutting in between cracks in the cornstalks, we headed out for the day. Traveling down roads that some die-hard four-wheeling junkies would hesitate before driving on, we were a parade for the locals. There were three trucks with people spilling out of the beds and a lead truck with a loud-speaker blaring Karumub’s hip hop song. “Kula for Karumbu. Karumbu. Karumbu. Ah North Imenti, kula for Karumbu,” is now being sung by children in the farthest regions of difficult roads. Whether there were people around or not the gaggle of men in the car hollered into the microphone nonstop, the feedback and scratchiness filtering their voices as they were carried off through the jungle.
It is strange how the African-ness of Africa is so easily assimilated into the scope of my world. No longer do I crane my neck to look at the women carrying impossible loads on their heads. Goats and chickens wandering through our campaign stage are unnoticed. Shepherds with their cattle and oxen as well as donkey carts on the road are more common than any vehicle. Mud huts and stick homes, grass roofs and tin shacks are etched into the landscapes of my most available cognitions. I think a real house with electricity and running water would jolt me more. If the majority of people didn’t stare at me and the children didn’t constantly wave and yell, “muzungu,” something would seem amiss.
The constant crowds of people filling the streets at any hour, the little kiosks that sell everything and nothing making 8-9 stops for a typical grocery trip necessary, piles of garbage with baboons picking through it, bicycles piled with milk jugs and tin, women bent at the waist from carrying impossibly heavy loads of firewood and men sauntering with their machetes have replaced the cars, buildings and stores I see at home. The thought of cement, pavement, brick and streetlamps are a distant memory, cold and imposing, nagging that I will return to them someday. But for now, constant cowbells and car horns are the sounds of North Imenti. Children walking barefoot in their school uniforms, women wearing more colors than are in a box of Crayolas with scarves on their heads carrying tin jugs of milk and men in suits with dust woven between every fiber holding sticks are what I see when I look out the window.
Our parade drew applause, dancing and singing from the people we passed as we wound our way up the volcano. The more the jungle closed in on the dirt road, the less likely I thought there would be a crowd at this meeting spot. But, as usual, people seem to come from nowhere in Kenya, when I feel we are at the most remote regions of the earth, there is a huge group of people waiting to hear Karumbu speak.
The valley between the volcanoes was no exception. It could have been a green valley in Switzerland, but it was just one of the many landscapes of Kenya. A group of people were waiting for us, all the men in their suits on one side, the women with their knitting and colorful skirts and head-scarves on the other, as usual. The singing began when we pulled up. All the people I have met in Kenya, no matter what their age, seem to have the gift of rhythm and music. They have a musical culture and will sing while driving, sing while waiting, sing when people arrive. It is beautiful, what you hear at the end or beginning of an African movie as the camera pans out over the sweeping grass landscapes. This has become the soundtrack to my life. Well, the beautiful music as well as Karumbu’s hip hop song and the feedback of the microphone.
The meeting seemed to go well, though I never really know not being able to understand anything. We do have an addition to our campaign crew, a girl who is sponsored for her university fees by Karumbu. She only speaks Kiswahili instead of Kemeru and my Kiswahili is at the point now where I can understand what she is speaking about in general which is nice.
After the speakers, myself included and I still get nervous every single time I speak in front of a crowd, some of the locals got up to talk. I watched a tiny old woman, who I later found out was 103, eek her way up to the microphone. She looked twiggy and birdlike, surrounded by skin with a glorious taunt brownness, an elegance and kindness of old age that only people with dark skin seem to be able to pull off, looking 30 years younger than they actually are. As she began to speak, her dependency on her cane lifted. She began to bob the cane in the air, at the crowd, jabbing as she became more animated. The first row of people dodged the cane or scooted back out of her reach.
After speeches we all piled back into the trucks and continued on to the next meeting place, picking people up as they grabbed onto the trucks along the way. In Africa there is always room for one more. We stopped at the meeting point and jumped out again. Our volunteers also act as sensors, feeling out the crowd for us, mingling with the others. They quickly gave us the sign that we should go and go fast. This group of people had been paid off by a competitor to cause trouble. With the threat of violence we sped off to the next group. This is a common game in politics here.
The next stop was uneventful, they asked for money as usual. As usual, Karumbu asked them, “Would you rather have 20 shillings now each or have the road fixed?” The psychology of campaigns here makes it difficult for her. People have the mentality that they take money from the politicians. Then when the politicians are in office, they paid the constituents for their vote so they don’t owe them anything. Government money somehow disappears and nothing improves for the people. 5 years later the constituency still has horrendous roads, no drinking water and kids cannot afford an education. Karumbu is trying to partner with people in their projects, give them advice and help them when they take initiative. She wants them to hold their leaders accountable for the money they have, they should be spending it to improve the lives of their constituents. If Karumbu does not win, it is because people do not understand this mentality. They simply want the money now and cannot understand why Karumbu does not dish it out like other politicians. In a constituency with such a low literacy rate and education this might be a difficult shift for some people to grasp. We will see soon enough.
Driving further towards Isiolo to the next place, once again it was like being in a movie. This is the Africa that you see in Hollywood. The silhouettes of the classic African trees set against the green grass and globe ocean blue of the mountains in the distance makes the imagination fill in the missing lions and zebras that are now in game parks. Kenya is unparalleled for beauty and variety of landscape, as well as for the nicest weather I have ever experienced.
Our meeting was under a roof of these trees. Volcanic rocks tossed out over the red dirt made a seat for me when I was not filming. Shepherds brought their animals with them to listen to the speech and behind Karumbu while she spoke two bulls locked horns and pushed each other back and forth in a battle of strength.
The daylight was disappearing and my energy was waning as we drove to the last meeting point. The guys in the truck ahead of us were still singing and dancing as much as their squished bodies would allow. A group of people ahead of us tried to make us pull over. They were professional constituents- people who wait all day by the roadside to listen to any aspirant that passes because they will then give them money. They were drunk and angry when we refused to stop, waving machetes in the air, banging sticks and their fists against the trucks as they yelled. There was no way we were stopping there.
At the last meeting spot, Karumbu spoke in a field of grass up to my waist as the sun set in the mountains behind us. The stars slowly emerged from behind the black blanket of the sky like a gas lantern slowly being turned up and a softness blanketed the surrounding cornfield and open grasses.
As placid as the meeting began, it ended with roughness. People almost always demand money so we have learned to sprint for the trucks as quickly as possible when the meeting ends so we can get out of there in case people become violent. This time, one of the trucks wouldn’t start. People pressed against the glass yelling and some began throwing rocks at the car. Luckily it spurted to life and they were able to drive away.
We returned to our first meeting place and paid the people who came with us. We bumped back home 12 hours after we began. I realized this was much shorter than a typical Kenyan campaign day but I felt finished for sure. When I told Karumbu this she said, “It makes sense because you are not Kenyan.”
After a brief meeting with a women’s group in a surreal cornfield jungle, green light cutting in between cracks in the cornstalks, we headed out for the day. Traveling down roads that some die-hard four-wheeling junkies would hesitate before driving on, we were a parade for the locals. There were three trucks with people spilling out of the beds and a lead truck with a loud-speaker blaring Karumub’s hip hop song. “Kula for Karumbu. Karumbu. Karumbu. Ah North Imenti, kula for Karumbu,” is now being sung by children in the farthest regions of difficult roads. Whether there were people around or not the gaggle of men in the car hollered into the microphone nonstop, the feedback and scratchiness filtering their voices as they were carried off through the jungle.
It is strange how the African-ness of Africa is so easily assimilated into the scope of my world. No longer do I crane my neck to look at the women carrying impossible loads on their heads. Goats and chickens wandering through our campaign stage are unnoticed. Shepherds with their cattle and oxen as well as donkey carts on the road are more common than any vehicle. Mud huts and stick homes, grass roofs and tin shacks are etched into the landscapes of my most available cognitions. I think a real house with electricity and running water would jolt me more. If the majority of people didn’t stare at me and the children didn’t constantly wave and yell, “muzungu,” something would seem amiss.
The constant crowds of people filling the streets at any hour, the little kiosks that sell everything and nothing making 8-9 stops for a typical grocery trip necessary, piles of garbage with baboons picking through it, bicycles piled with milk jugs and tin, women bent at the waist from carrying impossibly heavy loads of firewood and men sauntering with their machetes have replaced the cars, buildings and stores I see at home. The thought of cement, pavement, brick and streetlamps are a distant memory, cold and imposing, nagging that I will return to them someday. But for now, constant cowbells and car horns are the sounds of North Imenti. Children walking barefoot in their school uniforms, women wearing more colors than are in a box of Crayolas with scarves on their heads carrying tin jugs of milk and men in suits with dust woven between every fiber holding sticks are what I see when I look out the window.
Our parade drew applause, dancing and singing from the people we passed as we wound our way up the volcano. The more the jungle closed in on the dirt road, the less likely I thought there would be a crowd at this meeting spot. But, as usual, people seem to come from nowhere in Kenya, when I feel we are at the most remote regions of the earth, there is a huge group of people waiting to hear Karumbu speak.
The valley between the volcanoes was no exception. It could have been a green valley in Switzerland, but it was just one of the many landscapes of Kenya. A group of people were waiting for us, all the men in their suits on one side, the women with their knitting and colorful skirts and head-scarves on the other, as usual. The singing began when we pulled up. All the people I have met in Kenya, no matter what their age, seem to have the gift of rhythm and music. They have a musical culture and will sing while driving, sing while waiting, sing when people arrive. It is beautiful, what you hear at the end or beginning of an African movie as the camera pans out over the sweeping grass landscapes. This has become the soundtrack to my life. Well, the beautiful music as well as Karumbu’s hip hop song and the feedback of the microphone.
The meeting seemed to go well, though I never really know not being able to understand anything. We do have an addition to our campaign crew, a girl who is sponsored for her university fees by Karumbu. She only speaks Kiswahili instead of Kemeru and my Kiswahili is at the point now where I can understand what she is speaking about in general which is nice.
After the speakers, myself included and I still get nervous every single time I speak in front of a crowd, some of the locals got up to talk. I watched a tiny old woman, who I later found out was 103, eek her way up to the microphone. She looked twiggy and birdlike, surrounded by skin with a glorious taunt brownness, an elegance and kindness of old age that only people with dark skin seem to be able to pull off, looking 30 years younger than they actually are. As she began to speak, her dependency on her cane lifted. She began to bob the cane in the air, at the crowd, jabbing as she became more animated. The first row of people dodged the cane or scooted back out of her reach.
After speeches we all piled back into the trucks and continued on to the next meeting place, picking people up as they grabbed onto the trucks along the way. In Africa there is always room for one more. We stopped at the meeting point and jumped out again. Our volunteers also act as sensors, feeling out the crowd for us, mingling with the others. They quickly gave us the sign that we should go and go fast. This group of people had been paid off by a competitor to cause trouble. With the threat of violence we sped off to the next group. This is a common game in politics here.
The next stop was uneventful, they asked for money as usual. As usual, Karumbu asked them, “Would you rather have 20 shillings now each or have the road fixed?” The psychology of campaigns here makes it difficult for her. People have the mentality that they take money from the politicians. Then when the politicians are in office, they paid the constituents for their vote so they don’t owe them anything. Government money somehow disappears and nothing improves for the people. 5 years later the constituency still has horrendous roads, no drinking water and kids cannot afford an education. Karumbu is trying to partner with people in their projects, give them advice and help them when they take initiative. She wants them to hold their leaders accountable for the money they have, they should be spending it to improve the lives of their constituents. If Karumbu does not win, it is because people do not understand this mentality. They simply want the money now and cannot understand why Karumbu does not dish it out like other politicians. In a constituency with such a low literacy rate and education this might be a difficult shift for some people to grasp. We will see soon enough.
Driving further towards Isiolo to the next place, once again it was like being in a movie. This is the Africa that you see in Hollywood. The silhouettes of the classic African trees set against the green grass and globe ocean blue of the mountains in the distance makes the imagination fill in the missing lions and zebras that are now in game parks. Kenya is unparalleled for beauty and variety of landscape, as well as for the nicest weather I have ever experienced.
Our meeting was under a roof of these trees. Volcanic rocks tossed out over the red dirt made a seat for me when I was not filming. Shepherds brought their animals with them to listen to the speech and behind Karumbu while she spoke two bulls locked horns and pushed each other back and forth in a battle of strength.
The daylight was disappearing and my energy was waning as we drove to the last meeting point. The guys in the truck ahead of us were still singing and dancing as much as their squished bodies would allow. A group of people ahead of us tried to make us pull over. They were professional constituents- people who wait all day by the roadside to listen to any aspirant that passes because they will then give them money. They were drunk and angry when we refused to stop, waving machetes in the air, banging sticks and their fists against the trucks as they yelled. There was no way we were stopping there.
At the last meeting spot, Karumbu spoke in a field of grass up to my waist as the sun set in the mountains behind us. The stars slowly emerged from behind the black blanket of the sky like a gas lantern slowly being turned up and a softness blanketed the surrounding cornfield and open grasses.
As placid as the meeting began, it ended with roughness. People almost always demand money so we have learned to sprint for the trucks as quickly as possible when the meeting ends so we can get out of there in case people become violent. This time, one of the trucks wouldn’t start. People pressed against the glass yelling and some began throwing rocks at the car. Luckily it spurted to life and they were able to drive away.
We returned to our first meeting place and paid the people who came with us. We bumped back home 12 hours after we began. I realized this was much shorter than a typical Kenyan campaign day but I felt finished for sure. When I told Karumbu this she said, “It makes sense because you are not Kenyan.”
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Breeding Superlatives (Egypt)
I had the most guttural of "holy crap" moments in Egypt. Now, "holy crap" moments do occur fairly frequently when I travel with my eyes open, but the one in Egypt stands out in particular.
I was walking through a forest of pillars in Karnak Temple, Luxor. There was colossal pillar after colossal pillar and I was dwarfed by them- an ant in a Walmart. I realized that this was one of the very places that I had studied since elementary school. To me, Egypt held such mystery that it became some sort of mecca in my 7 year-old mind. After moving to Colorado, I'd go to the Denver Museum of Natural History and lose myself in the mummy room. I was fascinated.
Being here today, amongst these unmistakable landmarks, the pyramids in Cairo and the seated stony faces of Abu Simbel before held a special type of accomplishment and significance for me. But at the same time, actually being here and really feeling it in the fragility of the moment has a complete entity in my life held a sense of bittersweet tenderness.
It is funny to glance back across the landscapes of my life to that 7 year-old girl with her mummy book and try to convince her that yes, she would get go Egypt and me traveling the world at 24 and doing it alone. I don't think she would have believed me!
Life pulls us down strange paths and I've learned, for better or worse, nothing feels as it's supposed to so expectations are just a confining waste of time.
Egypt is truly the land of superlatives. Oldest, edgiest, bluntest, prettiest, dustiest, finest, biggest, craziest, harshest, noblest, muckiest, zippiest, busiest, brashest, most, amplest, fullest, grandest, the list goes on. Egypt breeds superlatives in every corner of the country.
Most people told me I was insane to go to Egypt as a woman alone; that I would be hassled and grabbed and hate it. Most people told me they would never go back to Egypt.
I loved it the moment I breathed in the salty sand dune desert air. I loved the humidity that engulfed me when I stepped on the tarmac. I was excited from the first glimpse of the green snake of the Nile interrupting the leather of the desert from the airplane.
I thrived on the chaos of Cairo (which says a lot for someone like me who doesn't like big cities)- trying to negotiate the most erratic torrents of traffic. The urgency and craziness of traffic in Cairo can not be overstated. I was bounced off a bus and a car in my first hour there, but luckily not hurt!
Something strange happened to me in Cairo. The busyness people hate became a dust devil of amusement to me. The harassment of men became easy for me to ignore, I think people who complain of harassment in Egypt haven't been to the rest of Africa because I had no problem just ignoring and being rude back to the blatantly inappropriate and lewd comments of men here while the "hello"s and "how are you"s because I stand out as a white person in other parts of Africa warrant a polite response and become exhaustive and wearing. The rude people in the streets became helpful and pointed me in the right direction. The people out to cheat were friends and kind and offered me free drinks. I left Cairo on the night train to Aswan feeling like I had been to a different city than the one everyone had told me about.
Getting to smaller and less touristed towns only reinforced the appeal of Egypt for me. Here is a place out of an epic novel that matches a cheap postcard at the same time. It is scenically the most beautiful place I've ever been. The countryside is ribboned with fields of startling green tended by men in tunics and turbans with their camels and donkeys. The greenery is spliced with an imaginative desert that ranges from soft sand to hardened rock dunes.
Antiquity is a the forefront of the present- ruins splatter along the Nile. Villages still are made in the traditional square mud walls where words like quaint, historic, functional, sparse, mysterious, simple and beautiful collide. The curvature of mosques breaks the angular continuity of villages like this.
Larger cities like Luxor and Aswan have narrow allies that wind through the yellow adobe buildings to spotlight the Nile which is the vein of life in this desert. There are endless stone allies that twist through cities lined by markets with a sky of strings of colorful flags leftover from Ramdan flapping and glittering in the humid air.
Men bump into me down these cobblestone streets as they carry huge trays stacked with round Egyptian bread. Counters with fruits, sweets and baklava compete with endless shops marching down the way with all the same pseudo-authentic kitschy tourist treasures.
Tunics float past with turbaned head in them. Incense spirals so thick that it looks like smoke and adds to the mystical quality reinforced by bottles of perfume and baskets brimming with spices I never knew existed.
On busier streets donkey carts battle for road space with cars and huge tour buses. Tourists jump out of the Egypt-world bubble of their tour bus and snap as many photos as possible, dressed in appalling clothes for a Muslim country and lumber back into their plastic Egypt with hundreds of photos before they have seen anything.
For the first time I viscerally feel the adage, "Visit a country before it is ruined by tourism." In the touristy Egypt I find what was promised to me. There is the constant hassle and a culture that thrives on cheating everyone as much as possible.
I prefer to escape to the countryside where the greetings are genuine and smiles aren't leering. Here men sit and drink tea and smoke shisha, the 2 national pastimes, on every corner. Wherever I go, I see men riding donkeys and that always has a slapstick humor to it. No matter how dignified one can look in a well-wrapped turban, this is lost by the cartoonish quality of riding a donkey. They are just too short for riding and everyone bounces along with their legs frogged spastically out and comically close to the ground.
The attention of the men is wearing. It is constant and unrelenting and the one thing that made me hate the country at times. Even girls who are plain like me are bombarded with every step. Covering all my skin did nothing to help. I had to escape. I went for a 2 night felucca trip down the Nile.
Floating the Nile is the definition of chilling. Everything moves in slow motion as you pass by the lackadaisical churning of life on the banks of the Nile. One morning I found myself sitting in a small rowboat with the felucca captain, a local fisherman and his son. Typical Egyptian hospitality, the fisherman was making us food and tea that somehow continued to appear out of the sparseness of the splintered rowboat. Even the ever present shisha manifested itself. With the felucca captain translating, the fisherman offered me 1,000 camels and 1,000 horses for me to be his wife. I am told this is quite the dazzling offer. He even said that he would promote me to the status of his first wife. It was tempting, but I am sure his other wives would not be happy with the arrangement.
Touristy sites are impossible to avoid. That is where I began to get tired of Egypt. Cheating is a way of life. All the men, every single one that I met no matter the circumstances, without exception, are sleazy. the historical sites that I would love to spend all day enchanted by quickly lost their appeal as I bounced off huge groups of tourists. It is rare to see Muslim women out of the house and when you do they are shrouded in black, turning a woman into a dark ghost. This is fitting for her place in Egyptian society; even in restaurants women sit in their own section with smaller tables.
Police with machine guns follow tourists everywhere after recent attacks on foreigners. They are hyper-vigalent yet seemingly incompetent. We have to travel in police convoys and I swear they would turn on the sirens just for fun. Endless passport checks prevent any type of sleep on long drives. As for any sort of public transport I have taken, every single driver I have had has been certifiably crazy. Evidence includes the constant and thorough making of sound effects (by more than one driver) and swerving to hit a biker whom he did not feel should be on the road.
Despite warnings of terrorists and bandits, I made my way to a small city on the Sinai, Dahab. I am finding it impossible to leave this place. It has the sparkle of the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia taunts me from across the water, playing on my inability to see a place and not be allowed to go with the harsh reality that I cannot get a visa.
The pouring-honey pace of Egypt slows even further here and I feel I am in a black hole where nothing gets done but chilling. This place is known for travelers that come with the intention of staying a few days and they end up here for over a year. If I didn't have a commitment in Kenya I could guarantee I would be one of them. I even have a few jobs lined up as if I needed more of an excuse to stay.
Despite the difficulty with the men and tourist areas, Egypt is the closest to that perfect place I keep searching for. But those scars make it far less than perfect, often bordering on intolerable. Still there is the intrigue- the camels, incense, perfume, spices, turbans, tombs and temples I have read about since I could read, the ocean that folds into the sky with out a dividing line and the deserts that pull me towards their variety and brutal peace. All of it is deliciously compelling. Egypt- I think that says it all.
I was walking through a forest of pillars in Karnak Temple, Luxor. There was colossal pillar after colossal pillar and I was dwarfed by them- an ant in a Walmart. I realized that this was one of the very places that I had studied since elementary school. To me, Egypt held such mystery that it became some sort of mecca in my 7 year-old mind. After moving to Colorado, I'd go to the Denver Museum of Natural History and lose myself in the mummy room. I was fascinated.
Being here today, amongst these unmistakable landmarks, the pyramids in Cairo and the seated stony faces of Abu Simbel before held a special type of accomplishment and significance for me. But at the same time, actually being here and really feeling it in the fragility of the moment has a complete entity in my life held a sense of bittersweet tenderness.
It is funny to glance back across the landscapes of my life to that 7 year-old girl with her mummy book and try to convince her that yes, she would get go Egypt and me traveling the world at 24 and doing it alone. I don't think she would have believed me!
Life pulls us down strange paths and I've learned, for better or worse, nothing feels as it's supposed to so expectations are just a confining waste of time.
Egypt is truly the land of superlatives. Oldest, edgiest, bluntest, prettiest, dustiest, finest, biggest, craziest, harshest, noblest, muckiest, zippiest, busiest, brashest, most, amplest, fullest, grandest, the list goes on. Egypt breeds superlatives in every corner of the country.
Most people told me I was insane to go to Egypt as a woman alone; that I would be hassled and grabbed and hate it. Most people told me they would never go back to Egypt.
I loved it the moment I breathed in the salty sand dune desert air. I loved the humidity that engulfed me when I stepped on the tarmac. I was excited from the first glimpse of the green snake of the Nile interrupting the leather of the desert from the airplane.
I thrived on the chaos of Cairo (which says a lot for someone like me who doesn't like big cities)- trying to negotiate the most erratic torrents of traffic. The urgency and craziness of traffic in Cairo can not be overstated. I was bounced off a bus and a car in my first hour there, but luckily not hurt!
Something strange happened to me in Cairo. The busyness people hate became a dust devil of amusement to me. The harassment of men became easy for me to ignore, I think people who complain of harassment in Egypt haven't been to the rest of Africa because I had no problem just ignoring and being rude back to the blatantly inappropriate and lewd comments of men here while the "hello"s and "how are you"s because I stand out as a white person in other parts of Africa warrant a polite response and become exhaustive and wearing. The rude people in the streets became helpful and pointed me in the right direction. The people out to cheat were friends and kind and offered me free drinks. I left Cairo on the night train to Aswan feeling like I had been to a different city than the one everyone had told me about.
Getting to smaller and less touristed towns only reinforced the appeal of Egypt for me. Here is a place out of an epic novel that matches a cheap postcard at the same time. It is scenically the most beautiful place I've ever been. The countryside is ribboned with fields of startling green tended by men in tunics and turbans with their camels and donkeys. The greenery is spliced with an imaginative desert that ranges from soft sand to hardened rock dunes.
Antiquity is a the forefront of the present- ruins splatter along the Nile. Villages still are made in the traditional square mud walls where words like quaint, historic, functional, sparse, mysterious, simple and beautiful collide. The curvature of mosques breaks the angular continuity of villages like this.
Larger cities like Luxor and Aswan have narrow allies that wind through the yellow adobe buildings to spotlight the Nile which is the vein of life in this desert. There are endless stone allies that twist through cities lined by markets with a sky of strings of colorful flags leftover from Ramdan flapping and glittering in the humid air.
Men bump into me down these cobblestone streets as they carry huge trays stacked with round Egyptian bread. Counters with fruits, sweets and baklava compete with endless shops marching down the way with all the same pseudo-authentic kitschy tourist treasures.
Tunics float past with turbaned head in them. Incense spirals so thick that it looks like smoke and adds to the mystical quality reinforced by bottles of perfume and baskets brimming with spices I never knew existed.
On busier streets donkey carts battle for road space with cars and huge tour buses. Tourists jump out of the Egypt-world bubble of their tour bus and snap as many photos as possible, dressed in appalling clothes for a Muslim country and lumber back into their plastic Egypt with hundreds of photos before they have seen anything.
For the first time I viscerally feel the adage, "Visit a country before it is ruined by tourism." In the touristy Egypt I find what was promised to me. There is the constant hassle and a culture that thrives on cheating everyone as much as possible.
I prefer to escape to the countryside where the greetings are genuine and smiles aren't leering. Here men sit and drink tea and smoke shisha, the 2 national pastimes, on every corner. Wherever I go, I see men riding donkeys and that always has a slapstick humor to it. No matter how dignified one can look in a well-wrapped turban, this is lost by the cartoonish quality of riding a donkey. They are just too short for riding and everyone bounces along with their legs frogged spastically out and comically close to the ground.
The attention of the men is wearing. It is constant and unrelenting and the one thing that made me hate the country at times. Even girls who are plain like me are bombarded with every step. Covering all my skin did nothing to help. I had to escape. I went for a 2 night felucca trip down the Nile.
Floating the Nile is the definition of chilling. Everything moves in slow motion as you pass by the lackadaisical churning of life on the banks of the Nile. One morning I found myself sitting in a small rowboat with the felucca captain, a local fisherman and his son. Typical Egyptian hospitality, the fisherman was making us food and tea that somehow continued to appear out of the sparseness of the splintered rowboat. Even the ever present shisha manifested itself. With the felucca captain translating, the fisherman offered me 1,000 camels and 1,000 horses for me to be his wife. I am told this is quite the dazzling offer. He even said that he would promote me to the status of his first wife. It was tempting, but I am sure his other wives would not be happy with the arrangement.
Touristy sites are impossible to avoid. That is where I began to get tired of Egypt. Cheating is a way of life. All the men, every single one that I met no matter the circumstances, without exception, are sleazy. the historical sites that I would love to spend all day enchanted by quickly lost their appeal as I bounced off huge groups of tourists. It is rare to see Muslim women out of the house and when you do they are shrouded in black, turning a woman into a dark ghost. This is fitting for her place in Egyptian society; even in restaurants women sit in their own section with smaller tables.
Police with machine guns follow tourists everywhere after recent attacks on foreigners. They are hyper-vigalent yet seemingly incompetent. We have to travel in police convoys and I swear they would turn on the sirens just for fun. Endless passport checks prevent any type of sleep on long drives. As for any sort of public transport I have taken, every single driver I have had has been certifiably crazy. Evidence includes the constant and thorough making of sound effects (by more than one driver) and swerving to hit a biker whom he did not feel should be on the road.
Despite warnings of terrorists and bandits, I made my way to a small city on the Sinai, Dahab. I am finding it impossible to leave this place. It has the sparkle of the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia taunts me from across the water, playing on my inability to see a place and not be allowed to go with the harsh reality that I cannot get a visa.
The pouring-honey pace of Egypt slows even further here and I feel I am in a black hole where nothing gets done but chilling. This place is known for travelers that come with the intention of staying a few days and they end up here for over a year. If I didn't have a commitment in Kenya I could guarantee I would be one of them. I even have a few jobs lined up as if I needed more of an excuse to stay.
Despite the difficulty with the men and tourist areas, Egypt is the closest to that perfect place I keep searching for. But those scars make it far less than perfect, often bordering on intolerable. Still there is the intrigue- the camels, incense, perfume, spices, turbans, tombs and temples I have read about since I could read, the ocean that folds into the sky with out a dividing line and the deserts that pull me towards their variety and brutal peace. All of it is deliciously compelling. Egypt- I think that says it all.
My Time in Sudan
I was severely disappointed that I was denied a visa into Sudan where I was planning on taking a bike trip from Khartoum to Egypt. I had come back to Addis Ababa early to apply for my visa as well as by a random chance (I missed a hitch hike ride which landed me on the couch of an amazing couple from Belgium which led to me helping with a conference for journalists in Ethiopia on children's rights in the media in Addis) –yes, I know my life might be the most random ever I was thinking as I was bullshitting my way through a speech in front of all these journalists.
But anyways, visa to Sudan denied, I was sitting on the plane on the way to Egypt with a layover in Khartoum disappointed to be so close but so far, questioning if I should have left Ethiopia to begin with, with this impending war with Eritrea, it could be newsworthy, but I lacked the contacts I needed for a story so after 2 near-misses, I decided to try to get off in Sudan anyways. This failed, but I did meet some interesting people along the way.
I got to talk to diplomats from all over and was envious of their fascinating lives. It is frustrating to see people in jobs I want so much and have no idea how to get there, to be in places full of stories and have no idea how to get them. I spoke for a few hours with a man who used to be in the French Special Services (comparable to the CIA in the U.S.). Now he is in Sudan to act as sort of an auditor about the money going into Sudan. It is interesting, there is public outcry about why we aren't doing anything to stop the atrocities in Darfur. The reality is, we are doing things, they just aren't working. According to this man, Al Bashir refuses to let people that aren't African into the country to help up until now. The runway of the airport is lined with shiny new helicopters donated by Canada and the U.S. that can't be used because of this reason. Millions of dollars are wasted. Also, there is the issue of the money we donate mysteriously disappearing. Lots of money and food comes into the country but it is never give to the people who need it. The auditor explained that we donate a lot, but we expect results in our European ways. But this is Africa. Much of the money goes to bakshish. Much of it disappears. It might not be that we aren't helping, but that we are not allowed to help. To set the record straight, I do want to state that this is not me advocating that we stop helping in every way that we possibly can, not at all, just that we should maybe look for additional ways to help and with a less European/U.S. view for a completely different continent like Africa.
The way things are done in Africa is completely different. I have encountered this with the NGOs I have helped with and the journalists I have met. From my cultural bias it frustrates me because it appears to be incompetence, poor time-management and lack of initiative. But I must remind myself that I am the outsider and have no right to judge or want to change things. I must constantly remember that this is Africa.
This is Africa where there is this wildness, where there is so much culture and family and beauty, but also so much darkness and violence. It takes days to accomplish what would take hours or less in the U.S. Money disappears, bakshish is always necessary. A small group of people have huge houses while other starve and live in the streets because for the powerful there is a big business in perpetuating conflict. There are people here who have never known what it is like not to live in fear.
I feel Africa is explosive. Things may move at a snail's pace, but they can also change drastically from one day to the next. One diplomat I met was in Sierra Leone a few years ago. They met with a faction of the government and shared a lobster lunch with them, relations were good. Overnight, things changed, they came back and shot the diplomat's friend.
The auditor was telling me of missions diving through rivers to evacuate French citizens on the Ivory Coast when things turned sour unexpectedly. He told me that in 1991, I believe, he was in charge of guarding the French ambassador to the CAF. Rebels came in suddenly and were shaking the walls of the embassy to get in. He fired about 200 bullets each warding them off that night keeping only enough bullets, at the request of the French ambassador to use to kill him, his wife and their 2 daughters in case the rebels got in because he didn't want to spend the last hours of their lives at the hands of these rebels. The auditor kept a bullet for himself as well. After a long night they succeeded in keeping the rebels out.
But things like that happen in Africa. It is so unpredictable. I am learning to try and keep my wits about me. There is a great sense of adventure about it. There is a very different Africa as well, a well-touristed Africa where many people do go. But as for me, where is the fun in that?
A bit about Khartoum- the runway is full of military equipment including rocket launchers that look ready to be fired up at the plane as it lands, not the most welcoming sight! When we landed the pilot received cheers and applause from people in the cabin. One passenger yelled, "Welcome to Khartoum, the greatest city on earth!"
The city is more modern than I expected. It's huge with large buildings and orderly paved streets. One strange thing is that all the neighborhoods are walled in as blocks.
In the rural areas whole towns are walled in. There are nice roads, but the yare almost completely empty. It's dry and brown without much green. I got to see the northern desert where camels cross into Egypt and lakes of blue water float on the brown sand. The desert fades from white rocks to reddish dunes. Sand dunes harden into rock. It is beautiful and barren with the lonely feeling conjured only by deserts.
That's all I can say sadly for now. Hopefully I will be able to return and see more later as a journalist with backing for a story or as a diplomat of sorts. I can dream. Starting a career is proving difficult and if anyone has any suggestions as to how to get there, please do let me know!
But anyways, visa to Sudan denied, I was sitting on the plane on the way to Egypt with a layover in Khartoum disappointed to be so close but so far, questioning if I should have left Ethiopia to begin with, with this impending war with Eritrea, it could be newsworthy, but I lacked the contacts I needed for a story so after 2 near-misses, I decided to try to get off in Sudan anyways. This failed, but I did meet some interesting people along the way.
I got to talk to diplomats from all over and was envious of their fascinating lives. It is frustrating to see people in jobs I want so much and have no idea how to get there, to be in places full of stories and have no idea how to get them. I spoke for a few hours with a man who used to be in the French Special Services (comparable to the CIA in the U.S.). Now he is in Sudan to act as sort of an auditor about the money going into Sudan. It is interesting, there is public outcry about why we aren't doing anything to stop the atrocities in Darfur. The reality is, we are doing things, they just aren't working. According to this man, Al Bashir refuses to let people that aren't African into the country to help up until now. The runway of the airport is lined with shiny new helicopters donated by Canada and the U.S. that can't be used because of this reason. Millions of dollars are wasted. Also, there is the issue of the money we donate mysteriously disappearing. Lots of money and food comes into the country but it is never give to the people who need it. The auditor explained that we donate a lot, but we expect results in our European ways. But this is Africa. Much of the money goes to bakshish. Much of it disappears. It might not be that we aren't helping, but that we are not allowed to help. To set the record straight, I do want to state that this is not me advocating that we stop helping in every way that we possibly can, not at all, just that we should maybe look for additional ways to help and with a less European/U.S. view for a completely different continent like Africa.
The way things are done in Africa is completely different. I have encountered this with the NGOs I have helped with and the journalists I have met. From my cultural bias it frustrates me because it appears to be incompetence, poor time-management and lack of initiative. But I must remind myself that I am the outsider and have no right to judge or want to change things. I must constantly remember that this is Africa.
This is Africa where there is this wildness, where there is so much culture and family and beauty, but also so much darkness and violence. It takes days to accomplish what would take hours or less in the U.S. Money disappears, bakshish is always necessary. A small group of people have huge houses while other starve and live in the streets because for the powerful there is a big business in perpetuating conflict. There are people here who have never known what it is like not to live in fear.
I feel Africa is explosive. Things may move at a snail's pace, but they can also change drastically from one day to the next. One diplomat I met was in Sierra Leone a few years ago. They met with a faction of the government and shared a lobster lunch with them, relations were good. Overnight, things changed, they came back and shot the diplomat's friend.
The auditor was telling me of missions diving through rivers to evacuate French citizens on the Ivory Coast when things turned sour unexpectedly. He told me that in 1991, I believe, he was in charge of guarding the French ambassador to the CAF. Rebels came in suddenly and were shaking the walls of the embassy to get in. He fired about 200 bullets each warding them off that night keeping only enough bullets, at the request of the French ambassador to use to kill him, his wife and their 2 daughters in case the rebels got in because he didn't want to spend the last hours of their lives at the hands of these rebels. The auditor kept a bullet for himself as well. After a long night they succeeded in keeping the rebels out.
But things like that happen in Africa. It is so unpredictable. I am learning to try and keep my wits about me. There is a great sense of adventure about it. There is a very different Africa as well, a well-touristed Africa where many people do go. But as for me, where is the fun in that?
A bit about Khartoum- the runway is full of military equipment including rocket launchers that look ready to be fired up at the plane as it lands, not the most welcoming sight! When we landed the pilot received cheers and applause from people in the cabin. One passenger yelled, "Welcome to Khartoum, the greatest city on earth!"
The city is more modern than I expected. It's huge with large buildings and orderly paved streets. One strange thing is that all the neighborhoods are walled in as blocks.
In the rural areas whole towns are walled in. There are nice roads, but the yare almost completely empty. It's dry and brown without much green. I got to see the northern desert where camels cross into Egypt and lakes of blue water float on the brown sand. The desert fades from white rocks to reddish dunes. Sand dunes harden into rock. It is beautiful and barren with the lonely feeling conjured only by deserts.
That's all I can say sadly for now. Hopefully I will be able to return and see more later as a journalist with backing for a story or as a diplomat of sorts. I can dream. Starting a career is proving difficult and if anyone has any suggestions as to how to get there, please do let me know!
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