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Reviews of Kenya
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The best people to ask about a country you want to visit are people who have actually been there. The reviews below on various parts of Kenya reflect the views of such people and as such should be very helpful.
Contrasting images…
Marich Pass Field Centre
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Contrasting images…
"I’ve told you a lot about the interesting and nice touristy things to do – Nairobi and Mombassa are both equally interesting and beautiful places to visit and the Maasai Mara National Park is an experience you have to take – but I want to tell you something now of the experiences outside of these areas. Of the real Kenya without the gloss – warts and all – and maybe I’ll write some other time of the games drives in the Mara, but we’ll see…
**A BUSMAN’S HOLIDAY**
The whole purpose of my visit to Kenya was work related – my antics on holiday only came about because if I’m owed holiday I may as well take it while I’m there as who knows the next time I’ll be able to get there. Bite the bullet, as they say, and do everything in one fell swoop – by the end of three weeks work I was ready for a break…
I work for the church in the UK and went to see how the church works in a different country. I spent my first two weeks there with a Pastor called Julius – who lived in a very nice little apartment, but who hadn’t been paid for four months as there was no money to pay him. His family lived a five hour drive away as his wife worked in a hospital and he didn’t have enough money to make the journey up-country for Christmas.
One day, a woman neighbour came to visit him in an awful state. Her husband, after being caught spending money on too much alcohol and too many prostitutes, was sacked from his job for bringing the company into disrepute leaving the family with no income. Julius said to us after she had gone, “She came to me for help as I am a Pastor, yet what could I do for her? All I could do was give her the last of the money in my pocket and divide the food in my kitchen in two and let her take half. I should have done more.” What more could he have done?! There was me worrying about giving 50 pence to beggars on the street and here was Julius giving all that he had. That was a hard lesson I needed to learn.
**THE PROBLEM WITH SEX**
I don’t know if you know this or not – but I’m going to tell you anyway. A recent UN report stated that in the next few years nearly a whole generation in Kenya will have been wiped out thanks to the AIDS virus. You may think that’s because they have no morals, no sense – but you would be sorely mistaken. It is culturally acceptable in Kenya for a man to sleep with more than one woman, particularly if he is away from home, although – as I am sure you aware – this is not applicable to Pastors! So you can see the problem there. In Western Kenya, if a husband of a marriage dies, his brother will inherit the dead guy’s wife. BUT – in order for the inherited marriage to be accepted within the community – the marriage has to be consummated. Now it doesn’t take a genius to work out that if the husband had died of an AIDS related illness it is likely that he has infected his wife. The brother then consummates the marriage, contracts the virus and passes it onto his wife and I think you should be able to get a picture of the scale of the problem.
Condoms are available, but cost – and any Kenyan will be able to tell you the A,B,C’s of sexual relationships: A – Abstain. B – Be Faithful. C – use a Condom if you can’t do the other two. But when you need to buy food and pay the rent, contraception is not high on the shopping list.
I visited a Methodist based hospital in Maua, just North of Mount Kenya doing an amazing work amongst some of the poorest people. The church throughout the world is sponsoring the hospital and it’s facilities are pretty good, but there is such a social stigma surrounding the whole issue of AIDS that if it is not reversed the hospital may be declared bankrupt and forced to close. Why? Well, when you test positive for the AIDS virus your family will generally throw you out, allow you to contract some awful disease – most often Tuberculosis – and then wait until you are nearly dead before taking you to the hospital for treatment. The TB drugs are very expensive and if the patient dies the hospital has no way of re-cooping the money from the dead patient or from the family as they are long gone and falls further into debt.
Sadly, the church hasn’t really helped the issue by preaching judgement on those who are HIV+, but we can’t be too harsh on them. The church in America reacted exactly the same way in the 1980’s when AIDS exploded onto the scene. But now that is slowly changing and there are signs that things are improving. The hospital is working with local churches to educate people. In fact, 20 members of one church have volunteered to become community health workers to care for and treat AIDS patients in their locality therefore taking pressure of an already busy hospital. There are positive signs – sometimes you just have to really look for them.
**PEOPLE SHOULDN”T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS**
Just outside of Nairobi is an area called Kibera. Kibera is a slum – the largest in the world – home to over 2,000,000 people. The land of Kibera is owned by the government who will not allow permanent buildings to be erected there. Houses – if you can call them that – are made out of corrugated iron help together by bits of wood. They are, on average, 10 metres long by 8 meters wide and may hold up to ten people from the same family. The houses are so tightly packed together that feels claustrophobic and oppressive. The residents have to pay rent for their plot of land – high rent that led to riots the week before we arrived in which 12 people were killed, houses were burnt to the ground and nearly 600 made homeless. The rent is approx £20.00 a month. Doesn’t sound much does it? However, when you’re earning less than £1.00 a day for a 12 hour day and there is food to buy and children’s education to pay for – you can see the problem.
Actually, there isn’t anything you don’t have to pay for. If you are unfortunate enough to fall ill, a consultation at your local hospital will cost you about £5.00 and then you have to pay for medicines on top of that. And the papers have the gall to call our NHS a Third World Health Service. They haven’t got a clue.
There is no running water of any form of sanitation in Kibera. Toilets are plastic carrier bags that when used are tied up and thrown out of the door of the house. Most of the little alley ways are nothing more than open sewers. And this is the year 2002?
**GLIMMERS OF HOPE**
And yet, in the middle of all this suffering in Kibera there are glimpses of light. I visited a medical centre that offered cup price medication to those at the bottom of the pile. I’ve never really believed them on Comic Relief when they say, “Send us whatever you can – even 25p can save someone’s life.” Call me cynical but you need thousands of pounds to make a difference – surely? In that little medical centre I was shown a small plastic bag containing three anti-malarial tablets that could cure a victim from Malaria. The price? 25 pence. To save a life. The centre had a benevolence fund to support those who could not even afford 25 pence. A light in one of the darkest places I have ever visited.
I worked for a week with an AIDS orphan centre in the middle of Kibera, caring for children whose parent had died as a result of contracting AIDS. Meeting children, seeing them educated and fed and meeting children sponsored by people from around the world. £10.00 a month can change a child’s life and give them an education. Most of the wanted to be doctors or nurses when they grew up so that they could give something back to those who had helped them. What a lesson to learn and what a place to learn it in. I shall never forget that place nor the people I met and I hope to return there one day…
**FINAL THOUGHTS**
There are so many contrasting thoughts flying round my head at the moment. The excitement of an amazing holiday seeing animals on Safari and swimming with dolphins in Mombassa. But not far from my thoughts are the images of real suffering and hope amongst that suffering that I have seen and experienced as well. My life, my faith and my perspective have all been changed, shaped and strengthened as a result and I hope that my experiences and my thoughts are of some help to you.
Kenya is a country of real contrasts – at one time beautiful and at another, devestatingly real. If you do go to visit (and I strongly adivse you to do so) don’t just sit on the beach or go on safari, visit some of the other places in the country and see the real Kenya.
It’s easy when faced with all that I have described to feel helpless, so I want to leave you with a story that has helped me gather my thoughts. I think it is fairly self explanatory so I’ll let it speak for itself:
‘One night a violent storm blew thousands and thousands of starfish onto a beach. The next morning, a boy walking along the beach felt sorry for the starfish and, one by one, picked them up and threw them back into the sea. A little further up the beach there stood a man, watching this little boy at work, wondering what on earth was happening. After a while the man walked up to the boy and said, “What difference do you hope to make? There are thousands of starfish on this beach – what difference can you make to them?” The little boy bent down, picked up one starfish and threw it into the sea, “It’s made a difference to that one” was his reply.’
Together we can make a difference.
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