Ten Observations about Kenya

1. 1.     People drive with their brights on when it’s dark. Normal lights aren’t enough. Must have your brights on to attempt to see more of the shoddy roads.
2. 2.     On a related note, turning signals indicate much more than just the intention to turn. Drivers use them to signal lots of other things too – like “I would like to pass you – Is it clear ahead?” and the one-blink right side “Yes, it’s clear.” Or the multi-blink right side “No – don’t go.” Also at night drivers often keep the right turn signal on to help oncoming traffic identify the side of the vehicle and how likely it is to stay on its half of the road.
3. 3.     All roads head in a general direction, so people will often give you directions like “Take any road southwest out of town and you’ll pass….” It’s like everything just converges outside of town. When Sam and I drove to Nakuru, we were frustrated that people just kept saying that the hotel was “Just over there” and pointing in a general direction. We couldn’t get a road name or a ‘turn at the petrol station’ or ‘turn at the second street…’ to save our lives.
4. 4.     Mpesa is a fabulous system of keeping a pseudo-bank account on your mobile phone. Mpesa is the Safaricom version, and I believe Orange and Airtel have their own versions. If you set up an mpesa account, as I did, you can deposit cash at any mpesa kiosk, and then access that money any time you want. The most convenient function is the ability to send cash to anyone else’s mpesa account by just wiring it from your phone # to theirs. So, for example, I paid for 900 shillings for a hotel by going to mpesa on my phone menu, saying “send pesa”, typing in the hotel employee’s personal phone number and saying to transfer 900. We each immediately received confirmation of the transfer, and the guy could withdraw the money later. I used the same process to pay 40 ksh for a matatu ride once, too. You can use it everywhere. In a country that doesn’t widely accept credit cards, where bank lines can be hours long and ATMs are frequently out of cash, this system is absolutely genius.
5. 5.     I thought we ate a lot of French fries/chips in the United States, but good lord, they eat more chips and other fried junk in Kenya than I do in a year at home. That’s only a slight exaggeration.
6. 6.     People are obsessed with politics and the 2010 Constitution. Most people read/skim at least one newspaper daily. Despite not having many TVs and limited internet access, Kenyans are far more informed about current events than the average American.
7. 7.     People talk about you. In Kisumu, a hotel employee asked if he could arrange a boat ride for me. I said probably not because I was planning to go to hippo point with a friend (Noah) later that day. We chatted for a sec and I said I’d be wandering around town. Half an hour later, as I read the paper and wrote postcards next to Lake Victoria, a guy approached me and asked if I was Shannon from Victoria Hotel. He said the hotel had told him I was probably at the lake and that I was interested in Hippo Point. I should stress that Kisumu is not that tiny of a town, so I was pretty weirded out that he located me like that. Similarly, at a market once, a vendor offered to trade a pair of sandals I wanted for 500 shillings and my cracked sunglasses that he really wanted. We didn’t end up making that deal, but a few aisles over in the market, another guy approached me and said he’d trade my sunglasses for something he was selling. Another time, I stopped to look at earrings (of course) at the first vendor in a market. (Of course I did. It’s apparently impossible for me to go shopping without buying a pair of earrings.) Then, ever single vendor tried to call me over to their stand by enticing me with their earrings. This happened again and again – people always talking about you (me) to help each other make a sale.
8. 8.     And people remember. It’s not much of a secret that I stand out in Kenya, or at least in some cities. I stood out like crazy in Kisii, which I blame for some of my hassles. Anyway, people remember things about me. Like once when I got on a piki piki, and before I could even tell the driver where I lived, he just said it for me. “Chief’s camp Nyanchwa.” He knew exactly where I lived. And once when I stayed home from work to go to the doctor and Nakumatt grocery store, one of the employees asked me where my brother (Sam – one of the only other white kids in town) was and another employee asked me why I wasn’t at work in Keroka that day. He said he normally expected to see me in the store later in the afternoon. It’s a little weird to have people keep track of my schedule like that.
9. 9.     Some Kenyans are, or claim to be, unaware that there are poor people in the U.S. I spoke once to a lady in Kisii who was absolutely shocked for hear that there are homeless people and people who can’t afford food in the States.
10. 10.  Some of the larger companies, like Yala Swamp and the tea factory we visited with the EIA class, provide a lot of community services and facilities, like schools, health centers, running water and cafeterias. They’re like minisocieties for the factory’s employees and their families. They provide a lot of beneficial services in the communities, but I can’t help but think it’d be better for the government to provide these rather than relying on someplace like a sugar factory to run an educational system. I don’t understand how they’re possibly qualified to do so, although I admittedly don’t know any details about the arrangements.