Kenya Comments, Vol I

1) A comment Mr. Arensen made: "You know, a few years back I was praying a lot for Kenya and the one word that stuck out to me was this: greed." At first it struck me as completely obvious, but the significance is also very true: there is so much political corruption and violence, but it can all be traced back to greed. Twice now I've heard people make comments about how this is also shown in how Kenyans drive: they are crazy! But what it all comes back down to is, "Its my fare, my customers, my money that's most important. You and everything else comes second."
A prime example of this is when the lorreys had a minor collision. What had actually happened was that at a narrow place in the road neither had slowed down or moved over for the other, so they scraped sides and ended up interlocked, blocking both lanes of traffic. And this was on the main road connecting the Mombasa sea port and the Ugandan border. When they finally did become unconnected, there was several kilometers of vehicles piled up behind. But instead of orderly waiting their turn in line, a bus cut to the front and tried to squeeze through behind the lorrey going its direction even before the bus going our direction could get through. So traffic stopped again, and for no better reason than that the busdriver found his personal journey and money more important than the operation of one of Kenya's most used roads.

2) A comment Mr. Wagner made: "It's all about 'me' when driving in this country."
To which I said: "Its no different in the States, its just that there are enough rules that people obey to make it not seem as bad."
To which Mr. Bouchard said: "I think the 'me' desire is universal; its just that America is a culture governed by rules, and Kenya is a culture governed by survival."

3) A snipet of conversation:
"When I look at Kenya, I see such great potential that goes untapped!"
"You know, pretty soon --once some of these younger men and women come into power-- we'll see a lot more of that potential tapped, because they are all so sick of seeing this country suffocate from corruption."
"What Kibaki has done since he's been in power has been good: he's realized that Kenya has more problems than he can fix, so he's just focused on a few and made progress so the people can see results."
"Well, not everything Kibaki has done has been good..."
But Kenya has been improving so much in the last few years! Education and Roadways, especially, as those were the things Kibaki chose to focus on. Now all public schools are "free" (because they still charge for books and uniforms), and there is a million road projects going on at once! I have yet to travel a road in Kenya that is not getting redone --and that is a huge change over just a few years ago!
It is so encouraging to see Kenyans taking ownership and pride in their country and truly making it a wonderful place.