Empire ... or independence ?

(The views expressed in this entry are entirely my own; I have no wish to suggest they are the views of the HATW charity.)

I first went to Kenya over 40 years ago. (Goodness ! Was it that far back ?!) We went out a few years after independence to be teachers, sponsored by the British government as part of their aid package for a newly independent country. We certainly didn't know what life had been like for the African population before independence, but read widely about the lives and work of District Officers, missionaries and settlers. Mzee Kenyatta was president, and his book 'Suffering Without Bitterness' together with that by Oginga Odinga, 'Not Yet Uhuru' were required reading about the struggle, armed and political, for independence from Britain, and I am certainly of the view that countries of the old British empire should definitely have been granted independence.

(There is a 'but' coming !)

But what did we plan for, hope for in the future of these countries before giving them their freedom from the British apron strings ? What did we do wrong, what could we have done better ? This is a question we often ask ourselves of the way we bring up our own children ... could we have been better parents ? Could we have been better planners, administrators, guardians of Kenya and all the other African countries that have gained freedom ? I have to say, I think we could ... but that is only being wise after the event, just as when our children act or behave in a way that shocks or dismays us.

So back to when we first went to Kenya. The African population (I'm talking about Nyanza Province here, for that was where we started out) ... the Jaluo were by and large peasant farmers, hard working, happy but poor. Children went around in cast off European clothes, often in rags and with bare feet. The adults too often wore shabby or torn clothing, and had no shoes ... but in a hot country, bare feet are more pleasant anyway ! People appeared to have enough to eat, growing maize, beans, green vegetables, bananas, paw-paw and so on. They had been influenced for half a century by missionaries, both Anglican and Catholic, and were god-fearing people, but with undertones of the old indigenous religions still there. Sending their children to school was the ambition of every family, and if money was tight, then the oldest boy was sent; the rest of the children stayed on the puodho, (the small farm). That child, if he was clever and the family had money, progressed to secondary school and then maybe even to college to train to be a book keeper, a nurse, a teacher ... and at that point, moved to the city. Given time and influence, he could even end up in a government job.

So the few became wealthy ... and the majority stayed poor. The divide had begun. Then came HIV/AIDS. The city dweller had a wife in the city, and when he returned to his ancestral home, had a second wife there. Perhaps there were other liaisons too. It is said AIDS came into the country firstly along the main east-west road, spread by the lorry drivers going up from Mombasa through Kenya, and into Uganda and Zaire on their nightly stop-overs ... and thus it got into the population.

Meanwhile, the majority of influential jobs had been filled by the first wave of educated Kenyans. Still more children were leaving school ... to what end ? They drifted to the towns and cities looking for non-existent work; shanty towns sprung up, like Kibera (as seen in the recent film 'The Constant Gardener') and Banana Hill in Nairobi, and Pandipieri in Kisumu. AIDS started to kill people. Parents died; uncles and aunts (who traditionally looked after orphaned children) also were ill or dying, and dozens of children were left in the care of grandmothers who just couldn't cope. Thus there became the dreadful phenomenon of street children ... and this is a problem all over Africa, all over the developing world.

So what could 'Empire' have done ? This is something I'm struggling to find an answer to; I fear the simple answer is going to be the same as when our children grow up and leave home ... we have to let them go to make their own mistakes, and they have to find ways of dealing with mistakes themselves ... but we need to be there to help when we can, and this is what the various charities and NGO's are trying to do ... but oh ! Its hard when you see the children you have loved ... and the country you also loved, getting into a mess.