Poverty Makes History
Sunday morning we left the rain, the riot police, the now ominous Kibaki Tena billboards (Kibaki Once More), and headed southwest to see the flamingoes at Magadi.
Apart from the potholes, it’s still fairly easy to travel around Kenya and it’s good to see that the British Foreign Office have amended their travel advice: they advise that you avoid the Western and Nyanza provinces, as well as the slums in Nairobi -which the average tourist wouldn’t want to visit anyway.
Magadi was the perfect Kenyan day out… we never made it as far as the hot springs and instead got lost, got stuck, got help, got the help stuck, got lunch and then got a flat tyre on the way home.
Flickr slideshow of Magadi Adventure.
Incidents reported in the international media have mostly been localised, and life can appear normal only a couple of blocks away. However the latest story to appear is of the troubles in Narok, the ‘gateway to the Masai Mara’, which can not only have a damaging effect on perceptions of the Maasai, but turn tourists away from the Masai Mara and ultimately stop the revenue needed to conserve the local wildlife.
It’s easy for the foreign media to throw around a few tribe names known by the public and loosely label the fighting as tribal, but the true reasons when you look a bit deeper are normally always economic frustration. Or maybe not. Actually, I have no idea.
