The Kenyan Newspapers

Every morning when I get picked up for work, I jump in the van and Elly hands me the newspaper. I love reading the newspaper, so this is pretty much the ideal way to pass the hour and a half long drive to the office. Over the past two weeks I've gotten quite caught up on Kenyan current events. I will share with you the most interesting, disheartening, and hilarious things I've come across so far.

1) There is both a President and a Prime minister in Kenya. It took me about a week and a half to clue into this. About a year ago, there was some big election scandal, where major rioting and violence insued, where 1800+ people were killed and over At this point there was only a President, Mwai Kibaki. Raila Odinga was the opposition leader, and somehow, as some attempt to limit the corruption in the government, Kofi Annan, (the former UN Secretary General) now the mediator of Kenya's post-election crisis, set up a coalition government where the two rivals (Odinga and Kibaki) share the power. So far as I can tell, this basically means that virutally nothing gets accomplished since these two are too busy bickering like children, while over 10 million Kenyans face starvation every day.

2) People in Kisumu are angry. Due to a national change shortage, the Nakumatt (main grocery store) has began handing out candies instead of change at the till. People have said that they will angry until Nakumatt begins accepting candy as a form of payment!

3) Today's headline was "Burning Question: Will Kenyans Ever Learn From Fires". Back in February, an oil tanker overturned, and 48 people who were looting the spilled oil died and countless more where injured when the whole thing exploded. This in itself is a tradgedy, but what is even sadder was that the other day, the exact same thing happened. Luckily, this time only one person died, but there are many more in hospitals, 9 in critical condition, so the death toll may still rise. In this incidence, while many were trying to get a share of the silled gasoline, a man went to steal the battery of the truck, letting out a spark that ignited the blaze. Apparently it is very common that oil and gas transport trucks are crashing on highways, leading to a debate over whether the drivers are siphoning gas themselves, and overturning the trucks as a cover up, or if driver inexperience is simply to blame.

4) This may be the most suprising and disgusting thing I've read yet: worldwide, obesity is more prevalent than starvation. When you see kids here who are literally scarfing down their lunch at school because it is the one meal they that day, it really makes you think twice about the way people live and eat at home, and about how much we waste. It's like the world could be divided right in half: the haves, and the have nots. That $5 you spend on a supersize hamburger meal at McDonalds could provide clean water for 5 people for a year across the globe. It just doesn't seem fair.

5) There was a story this morning about a couple, both police officers, who had been married less than a month. The man was, erm, unable to perform his marital obligations, and so he went to a special clinic to see if they could solve the problem. When it wasn't fixable, he told his wife. As it turns out, she had been married before, and her last husband had the same problem. When his family found this out, they called her a witch, and said it was her fault, and she drank a glass of poison, and when that didn't work, she threw her body into a river, prefering death to divorce.

The newspapers are indeed a huge part of life here in Nairobi. There are men selling them on every street corner and meridian during the morning commute, everyone at bus stops are reading away, and people spend half the morning reading them at their desks. Some of the stories are quite informative, but over-all, it reads more like a tabloid than informative news. The english is often slightly incorrect, and the stories can be very biased, but it provides a great glimpse into the Kenyan culture.