Lisa Miles
Just a week or so after young Philip left us, the lovely Miss Miles arrived. Knowing that Lise is not one to sit around idly we (or rather Lian) had arranged a weekend away in Malewa and we were to set off as soon as Miss Miles arrived from the airport.
Admittedly, this had been a little optimistic. Though Lise herself arrived after a night flight in fine fettle and ready for anything, James, Lian, Nils and I had been out rather late the previous night celebrating James’ birthday. After some coffee and birthday cake however we were ready for action.
We all piled into the super-posh hire car (Lian and Nils’ own 4x4 going through a somewhat temperamental phase) and hit the potholed road. We arrived some hours later in Malewa and congratulated Lian heartily for her internet skills in, once again, finding a beautiful little retreat.
Malewa is an eco-friendly game sanctuary far from civilisation. The traditionally-built mud cottages were basic but beautifully furnished with tall thatched roofs and views over the rest of the valley. Though there was no electricity we were amply supplied with lamps which made the whole thing rather romantic and allowed us to see thousands of stars as we sat out at night.
The rest of the weekend comprised a serious amount of sunbathing, walking, swimming in the freezing river (an option I passed on), much girly chatting, a little manly chatting, dinners cooked by lamplight and star gazing. All in all a very relaxed and secluded weekend perfect for catching up and chilling out.
Other highlights of Lise’s visit included a lovely afternoon spent in Karen. I had never been before and for those of you who haven’t seen or read Out of Africa, the area is named after Karen Blixen a Danish colonial settler and independent, pioneering woman who ‘owned’ (in the colonial sense of the word) and ran a sizeable cattle and coffee farm in Nairobi. The area is now extremely posh and mainly inhabited by white Kenyans (descendants of the colonialists) or Kenya cowboys (KCs) as they are locally known. So, for our bit of ‘culture’, Lise and I did a quick tour of the Karen Blixen museum, then headed to the coffee gardens for an afternoon of sun, delicious food and drink.
At the other end of the endurance scale, we also climbed Mount Longonot (named by the Masaai oloongon’ot meaning mountain of many steep ridges), a striking volcano that dominates the entrance of the Rift Valley. I must admit having just done a five day trek up Mount Kenya a couple of weeks previously I wasn’t really concerned about a one day hike up a small volcano, but boy was it hard work! The sun was extraordinarily hot, the terrain extremely dusty and the air surprisingly thin. Still, the views over Lake Naivasha and the surrounding area were wonderful and the sense of achievement afterwards very rewarding.
So before we knew it really, Lise was gone again! It was fantastic to see you though Lise and to hear all the news from home. Hope we can catch up in Uganda in February.
Oranges are not the only fruit
The major news here in Kenya which made some international news was that a referendum on a proposed new constitution was held on November 21st. The constitution that currently exists here is the same one that was drafted almost 50 years ago when Kenya won independence from Britain.
The proposed new constitution was based on recommendations from a country-wide public consultation last year, though the result was a hopelessly watered-down version of what had originally been proposed and, most controversially, enhanced the President’s absolute power rather than diminished it.
For obvious reasons therefore, President Kibaki was backing the ‘yes’ vote and the main opposition leader (and several prominent members of Kibaki’s cabinet) backed the ‘no’ vote.
Now for the interesting part, of course the vast majority of Kenya’s population is illiterate so the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ referendum votes were symbolised by bananas and oranges respectively. Seeing fruit become politicised is not something I have ever witnessed before but my god it was fascinating. In the weeks before the vote, campaign rallies visited the major towns and cities and crowds would be dressed in their chosen fruit colour waving fruit around. Suddenly bananas and oranges were everywhere you looked – lined up along the front of market stands, hung in bus windows and even threaded around people’s necks like necklaces. Seriously, in the week before the vote I wouldn’t buy either fruit for fear of recrimination. Everyone who you spoke to waiting for matatus would ask if you were banana or orange.
Sadly some of the campaign rallies were marked by riots and several deaths including three school children gunned down by police. One morning we were in a matatu heading down a road just outside Mombasa when we started seeing burning tyres on the road and burned out cars along the side of it. A quick glance at the morning’s paper confirmed that a banana rally had turned violent and three people had died the previous evening. Apparently the USA put a travel ban on Kenya for a month as a result.
So tensions were running pretty high with allegations of this and that hitting the papers everyday and donors threatening to pull Kenya’s funding because the President was using public funds to bribe voters. Because so little of the population could read a copy of the constitution or even get hold of one, rumours about its content were rife. (Even for the literate it was a tricky document to wade through…I tried the summarised version and gave up after just a few pages).
The other massive complication which fuelled bad feeling is that politics in Kenya is pretty much divided along ethnic lines. People will vote for an MP (or in this case President) purely because they belong to the same tribe. Inter-tribal racism is rife here anyway and tension between the two dominant tribes – Kikuyu and Luo – was exacerbated by the fact that by and large Kikuyu’s were banana (yes) and Luo’s were orange (no).
We think our politicians get personal when campaigning. There were actually slogans printed in the paper about how the uncircumcised could never run a country! (Luyha’s don’t practice circumcision whereas Kikuyu’s do). How a foreskin has anything to do with political capability I’ll never know…
Anyway, the day of the referendum was a national holiday and all us expats were warned off leaving the house because violence was expected, however the day passed almost entirely without incident. And even more surprisingly, the result was that the orange (no) team won. The President had failed. This really did astound everyone - it was fully expected that the president’s (yes) team would rig the poll.
Jubilation didn’t last long as Kibaki dissolved both the Cabinet and Parliament – still that’s a whole other (and ongoing) story and by now I’m sure you’ve heard quite enough about politics…