Politics

I sometimes think that the Kenyan government has all but stopped caring for Kenyans. Politicians are far too focused on winning the elections in 2012 to pay attention to the destitute in their neighborhoods. The newspapers are filled every day with yet another story of politicians and civil servants stealing millions of shillings from the coffers to fuel their own greed. There’s always an investigation that goes nowhere and the cycle repeats itself day after day after day. Corruption is so accepted by all Kenyans that it still shocks them when they don’t have to pay a bribe to accomplish some small task. Paying bribes is a way of life that few Kenyans can ever see ending. The 2008 post election violence that devastated the Kenyan economy and community has resulted in a formal investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Politicians and wealthy private citizens who largely financed and fueled the violence are now going to be put on trial. Kenya had two choices – establish its own court system to deal with the trials or let the ICC do it for them. Most Kenyans do not trust the legal system as a bribe can buy you out of any legal jam and so the ICC is now coming in to set things right. And Kenyans will wait. The ICC is a slow-moving machine that takes years for its investigations to conclude before trials can begin. Kenyans don’t mind. They all tell me that they will wait—they are patient. This could well be the first time in Kenyan history where a senior government official is tried and convicted. No one really knows what’s going to happen but the USA and European governments who control a lot of the money coming into Kenya (and so forcefully dictate policy) have made it clear that arrests, trials and convictions are necessary if Kenya wants to continue to receive it’s AID.

And all of this makes for great gossip. “Who’s on the bad guy list to the ICC?” What will happen to the president? Prime Minster? Will so and so flee the country and seek asylum elsewhere? The gossip about all of this is fueling the newspapers and is palpable in the city. Everyone has an opinion about what will happen—including expats. The gossip machine is quite powerful in Nairobi and it reminds me every time I hear a story that I’m really living in a small town. It doesn’t take much to know someone who knows someone in Nairobi and so there are very few secrets that can really be kept. Arrests, affairs, finances, and health are all openly discussed whether you want them to be nor not. It can get very claustrophobic at times living in Nairobi because it feels a lot like living in Lake Arrowhead – where you see the same people no matter where you go. I’ve stopped sharing as much as I used to with most friends. I confide with very few. I’m trying to take some privacy back and leave a little room for mystery which isn’t so easy to do…