Nairobi to Mombasa
on Colm in Kenya (Kenya), 19/Aug/2009 08:01, 34 days ago
It’s just past 10am on Monday morning an I’m stuck in one of Nairobi’s ‘known for it’s awful’ traffic jams on the Mombasa road. Outside men and women are busy selling biscuits, newspapers, socks, t-shirts, coke, hairbrushes, you name it to motorists, feverishly moving from one to the next like flies around turtles. These poor hawkers, in ill-fitting, dirty old coats say a lot about Kenya’s capital city – it’s dirty, poor anddesperatelyill-suited to provide for the needs of it’s 3 million people, of which 1.2 million live in the biggest slum in the Africa –Kiberia.Fortunately for me, I creep away fromNairobberyon my Coast Air Coach on a ten hour trip back toKilifi.The countryside that slides past my window offers the paradoxical picture of a dreadfully harsh but beautifully simple environment like the redbarrensurface of Mars, painted with houses, trees and people by the innocent hands of an 8 year old child.Hurtling over a mix of newlytarmackedroads and old rut-riddled stretches, I spend some of the journey reading the dailyKenyannewspaper– The Daily Nation. A paper with more spelling and grammatical errors than any brochure/Newsletter I have ever been responsible for (maybe not). Since I arrived here, the news in these paper’s has never been good. Now it’sparticularlybad. Take your pick from desperate droughts, millions starving, energyrationing, water shortages andenvironmentalcatastrophes…plus a generous daily dose of corruption and political nonsense. It paints a depressing reality facing the country.But as bad as all this is, my daily scan of the grim truths of Kenya is sparred, thankfully, bythosethree words. Those heinous, apocalypse-inducing stinky words that grace Saturday’s Irish Times every week that my dear granny sends one to me.The McCarthy Report.(Lightning Bolt, Thunder, Banshee cries andghoulishlaughter sound effects please.)God I shudder if that evil, axe wielding enemy of pleasure comes to these shores. “ENOUGH!” we’d cry. “Please God, we’vehad enough.” And Kenya, on mass, would run and jump into the ocean sparring itself from An Bord Snip. (‘Snip’? Don’t let McCarthy ever perform you’recircumcision)All joking aside, I know that when I come home in September for a 2 week sojourn from the depression free-zone of Kenya I’ll hear a lot of doom and gloom. And of course, it would be fruitless to compare doom and gloom country to country – I know Ireland is facing some tough, tough times.BUT!Yes public sector jobs will be cut including Teachers and Nurses, yes Irish people will have to pay higher taxes, Yes we might have to cut Development Aid and Yes, it’s all very difficult to accept….but No, we will not pull 411 troops out of Chad to save €12m.That’s a step too far.What’s happening in Chad (Sudan, the Congo) to people is utterly unacceptable. Not to Irish taxpayers yes but to people, other people but people like you and me all the same. Providing protection or trying to provide protection for this is what?Imperative, an absolutefundamentalresponsibility, essential,rudimentary, critical…what word, take your pick?That’s why we should be proud of the Irish soldiers risking their lives for peace in Chad and we should refuse to let it go under the red pen.Ireland still believes that those crimes are unacceptable, in the good times AND the bad times?Okhope that’s not too heavy or political, it wont be a regular thing. It could be worse, I could of waxed lyrical about anyone of Arsenal’s six goals againstEvertonon Saturday. There’ll be plenty of time for that.Hope all is well at home and where ever else.p.s. For everyone affected by last Friday nightsyobish behavior in Tramore – I apologise for his behaviour. We’ll keep a tighter leech on him in future.