Where is Kenya Headed?

Sometimes I have to wonder if the President, the Prime Minister, and all their underlings are aware of how absolutely disgruntled the general Kenyan public is. How long do they think they can keep looting, pillaging, scamming, lying, and not doing anything for the country before wanainchi start to take action?
Can the not read the warning signs? Do they ever read the newspapers and see all the articles criticizing them? Do they ever read the letters to the editor from wanainchi crying out for change and repentance?
Perhaps an unplanned visit to the heart of Mathare or Kibera would change them. Then again, I doubt it. It seems to me that their hearts have turned so cold and so hard, that no matter how much pain and suffering they witness, right before their very eyes, they'll never soften and feel remorse.
How can they possibly ask for more money, when they are pretty much the highest paid government ministers in the world? What service are they providing for all their high salaries? I haven't seen them actually accomplish something, pretty much since half way through Kibaki's first term. Since then, all they've concerned themselves with is who will run for and win the next elections. Why not actually work towards fixing the problems that the country faces?? Why not show the people that you actually care for the country you want to rule? Well, quite simply, because they don't care. That's why. They own real estate all over the world. They have their offshore bank accounts full. They have their brand new Hummer. What more could they want?
Just like a man cannot serve both God and money, he cannot serve both his country and money. All of them are slaves to money and power.
And when they come through town, all the traffic is swiftly moved to the side of the road, all the street kids miraculously disappear; all the problems with the city or the country just don't show their ugly little heads when the big boys are around. SIP's. Self Important Pigs.

There are many people in this country with money. There's no doubt about that. There's no doubt that there's a huge gap between the rich and the poor. But most of those people are not paid that money with the view that they are supposed to serve the country. Most of them earn or steal that money for themselves and their families.
THE GOVERNMENT IS THERE TO SERVE THE PEOPLE! Why then, are the people serving the government. How is it that government officials can just raise their already bloated salaries on a whim, without even having to pay tax? How is it that even with these massive pay increases, they are still unable to aleviate poverty and hunger? What makes them think they have the right to ask foreign governments for money to help them "aleviate hunger?"

One MP's monthly salary could feed pretty much everyone suffering without food in this country for a week. And he probably wouldnt even miss that money. Its pocket change to him. Besides, we all know it's not his sole source of income.

WHAT IF EVERY MP TOOK TURNS TO GO WITHOUT ONE MONTH'S PAY FOR A YEAR?
I think that would generate enough money to solve the current hunger problem. Judging by the figures I've seen concerning how much they are paid, how much allowance they receive for entertainment, vehicles, travel, etc, I don't think that's too far off the mark.

Which brings me to my next point. What the hell are we doing giving land away to Qatar for farming and food generation when we can't even provide enough food for ourselves!!?? What ever happened to sovereignty of land between set borders? We're whoring ourselves out for cash. Except its not us doing it. It's not the wanainchi. We're the cheap, powerless whores, and the politicians are our abusive, greedy pimps.

I don't know where Kenya is headed at the moment. I do know that no Kenyan that I know is happy or satisfied with anything the government is doing right now. I do know that after such long drought the country is under alot of strain. I do know that people can only take that strain for so long before they break.
Whether Kenyans will unite and fight against the corrupt, selfish, greedy leadership, or whether they will let themselves be bullied into tribal clashes again, I do not know. Let's hope its the former. Lets hope the bastards in power aren't able to divide and conquer again.

Off Topic

In other news, I stumbled across an amazing publication today called "Shootback." It's a coffee-table sized book composed entirely of full page photographs taken by children in Nairobi's Mathare slum.
Having worked in Mathare for a short time, and now considering I'm currently reading "Shantaram" (which I'll get to at another time*), this book struck a chord with me. It was funny, emotional, horrific, and beautiful all at the same time.
You, as the spectator, journey through the slum, experiencing floods, mountains of trash, drunk neighbours, beautiful smiles, the burning tyres of Kenyan mob justice, resilience, determination, despair, tragedy, and hope. I didn't get to finish looking at the book, but I instantly decided it was one of the greatest things I had seen in a long long time.

A quote from one of the photographers, Collins Omondi, a 17 year old boy, read: "But whatever you have, thank God. If you don't have shoes, thank God, because there are some people without legs."

That statement didn't come as a suprise to me. I think I know the attitude required for a life in the slums. It just hit me that it was so profound and so well put. The first part of it could have come straight out of the Bible.

*Shantaram is a most excellent book by Gregory David Roberts, an Australian man who escaped from jail in his home country, travelled to Mumbai, lived in a Maharashtrian village for several months, lived in a Mumbai slum for more than a year, set up a free health clinic and schools, worked for the mob, fought with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, and then wrote the book three times when prison guards destroyed it. It gives the reader vivid insights into life in a slum.
If you haven't already read it, you pretty much need to.

More on the Mau

These are just some after thoughts from myself and others concerning the current wrangling over the Mau forest complex:

The mau forest doesn't have a history of such massive destructive fires. These fires are being set by meddling politicians' henchmen and by disgruntled squatters. They're not naturally occurring. In the US, that would mean serious jail time for the offender.
In such dry time, with all the rivers drying up (also not part of the natural cycle of the area), the fires are doing more destruction than they usually would. Areas where fires were set more than a year ago have show little sign of rejuvenation. The Forest service did little (if anything at all) in the way of rehab after the fires, and that land has been lost to shrubbery that will now never turn into old growth forest, unless trees are planted.
Re-afforestation is something that needs to be urgently considered and acted upon across the country. In the last 20 years, the forest cover of the entire country has dropped at an alarming rate. All this is due to charcoal burning, timber, clearing for farms, etc.
1.7% forest cover is pretty sad.

Unfortunately, the lack of firefighting equipment and expertise is not the root problem. Yes Kenya needs improvement in that area. But the core problem is the wrangling of the politicians for land and power and money.
Sooner or later, the politicians will push their agendas too far and the Kenyan people will reach a breaking point.
Whether that means uniting as one to fight a common enemy or breaking off into tribal factions to create chaos, I do not know.

the squatters have no choice, they are forced off of their land by large farms that use all the fertile soil in kenya for cash crops. yes, those tea/coffee/flower farms employ a lot of people, but the percentage of the profits that trickles down to them is so small that it does not help the economy like it should. Instead, the majority of the profits likely end up in swiss bank accounts. this is why the wanainchi have supposedly become 'the bad guy' because they are forced to encroach on parks, reserves and forests, they have no where else to go. its sad that in a country so diverse and fertile as kenya, such a thing as famine even exists. it is simply because most of the land and resources are owned by so few people and the rest are left out in the cold to starve. i don't care what anyone tries to say, growing food to feed our own people would be much better than growing bloody flowers. anyway, all these huge farms have appalling human rights and labor records.

there was a story in the paper a few years ago where a community near the mau forest was tired of the illegal logging and all the corruption so they stopped all the logging trucks coming out of the forest and burned them to the ground. thats what needs to happen. people need to get pissed and take matters into their own hands.

The squatters may not have a choice in where they go, but their lighting of uncontrolled fires doesn't help the situation for other small time farmers downstream who depend on the rivers from the forest. When all that forest is gone, so too will the rivers.
Obviously I realize the social problems with the large scale farms like tea and flowers. A number of those flower farms are not even legal, as far as land rights/usages are concerned. And the flower farms, especially, are pretty much the biggest cause of Lake Naivasha's shrinking size (more so than the drying rivers from the Mau).
Sustenance farming in a country where wealth does not trickle down from large scale farming is definitely the way to go.
All farmers, large and small, need to be educated on the uses and importance of forest. I realize land must be cleared for farms. But if forest never reclaims land, the level of underground water and precipitation will just continue to drop at an exponential rate.

The mention of that story of community members burning logging trucks reminded me of a film I watched called "Hatchet: The Cascadia Free State Story." It was all about locals in Oregon protecting their local forest from big logging sales after forest fires. They would block the road and set up a permanent encampment to deter the logging trucks. They resisted the government and private companies for more than a year. After fighting legal battles back in town, they finally secured the area and protected it from mass logging, to let the forest rejuvenate naturally after the fire.
That was pretty inspiring stuff. And I had thought about that happening here. The only thing I would be worried about is that the Kenyan government (or just those dirty members involved) would not hesitate to bring out whatever armed forces they wanted to get rid of nuisance community members. If they wanted, they could call up their army general friend to come and forcefully move them or kill them.

Even in that Hatchet Cascadia film, the US government made mass arrests, but they never resorted to all out violence. In Kenya, I wouldn't put it past them.