February 2, 2009 - Kenya's Cans of Worms

Well it has been an eventful few days over here. First of all, the good news is that I don't have a urinary tract infection and that my recent general feeling of yuckiness is just very normal end-of-pregnancy stuff. Simba is in good shape and, despite how I sometimes feel these days, so am I!

We received a new American visitor on Friday night, Jeanne, who ended up getting in one day late and without her baggage. But she was in very good spirits to start a 7-week tour of Africa and Saturday had a great day hanging out with us and our Danish guests too. Yesterday, Kristoffer, the guys, and Jeanne went to Hell's Gate National Park to climb around the gorges and, even though it is not difficult hiking or climbing and even though Jeanne has experience climbing, something went wrong and she dislocated her shoulder. OUCH to say the very least! It is an excruciatingly painful experience to dislocate one's shoulder (from what we could all tell), although luckily her shoulder seemed to pop back in on its own without any outside medical intervention. Kristoffer and the guys took her to a small, local hospital in Naivasha but unfortunately they couldn't really provide her proper care or treatment (no working xray and the doctor didn't even have a pair of scissors to cut medical tape with! He actually asked Kristoffer to assist with his Swiss Army knife!). She had to bear the bad roads all the way back to our very good hospital in Nairobi where she was rushed to the head of the emergency room line (most likely because she was white, in all honesty) and received xrays, saw doctors, and most importantly got drugs. Her cousin arrived late last night, as they are starting their safari in Tanzania tomorrow, and so we hope it is a comfort for her to have some family around to help take care of her as they begin their adventure. She is supposed to be climbing Kilimanjaro next week and hopes her pain is under control by then; at least she will have porters to carry everything for her. The world's highest bungee jump, which she has scheduled for the end of her trip in South Africa, may just have to be postponed for another trip. Such drama! Jeanne is keeping her own blog at http://solosafarisabbatical.blogspot.com if you care to check in on her adventures. In the meantime, our Danish guys left to climb Mt. Kenya this morning and will be back with us for Thursday night and Friday. Hotel Welsien has certainly been booked!

As Jeanne's shoulder was popping in and out, there was a second major fire yesterday afternoon - in the town of Molo in the Rift Valley. This time, an oil tanker had overturned on the highway and many, many Kenyans began coming from all over to collect oil in jerry cans as it leaked out of the truck. These looters became aggressive as the police were trying to keep them away; allegedly, one looter who was angry at being pushed away by the police struck a match and threw it into the gasoline, causing the truck to explode. The death toll is currently at about 113 people with an additional 200 people seriously injured or burned (and it is expected that the death toll will increase). There are complaints in the media today that in the case of this fire and the fire at the Nakumatt in Nairobi last week, the emergency response from local agencies was too slow. These two incidents have really exposed some serious flaws in the infrastructure of this country for sure.

As if that wasn't enough, an article in the NY Times on Saturday has opened up a post-election violence can of worms once again. I will summarize, but should you want more specifics and details (because it is a really juicy article) you should read it in full at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/world/africa/31kenya.html

Basically, the International Republican Institute (aka I.R.I., an American NGO that my sister Christine happened to work for for many years in the past) was a primary organization conducting exit polls for the US government after Kenya's presidential elections in December 2007 (just after we got here...remember that fun time?). The article implies that the results of IRI's exit polls favored Raila Odinga, the opposition leader and Kenya's current Prime Minister, but the institute has never released its results. The article also implies that the US Ambassador and the US State Department put pressure on IRI to not release the results fearing that it would cause more trauma given that Mwai Kibaki was announced to be the winner. The article is pretty critical of the US Ambassador and the State Department, insinuating that it was in their best interests to support the incumbent President and not to release the results in order to promote stability in the country (as opposed to promoting democracy globally). Of course IRI claimed at the time, and until recently, that they didn't release their results because they did not have confidence in their accuracy...but there was also a gag order on the guy in charge of the project and he couldn't talk about it for at least 6 months. Essentially, the article hints that had IRI and the US government released and supported the results of their poll (which was heavily monitored, evaluated, and may be the most legitimate polling conducted) the violence could have been lessened and a peace agreement could have been reached earlier with fewer lives lost. Seriously...this is a BIG deal and an insider told us that today at the US Embassy there was likely a lot of damage control going on. We wonder what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has to say about all of this and if there will be any fall-out.

The final political news here is that at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Prime Minister Raila Odinga indicated that despite missing the the end-January deadline to establish a local tribunal court for the alleged post-election violence organizers, the country has made significant progress to that end and would still be able to avoid having the ICC conduct the trial at the Hague. Maybe he will rethink or has rethought his position after reading the above mentioned article?

We continue to live here and learn here and to really like it here, despite the latest cans of worms that have been opened!

LMW