The forty-ninth year ....

Its almost three weeks since I returned from Kisumu; I've been having long 'thinks' about the current political situation in Kenya; about the past and future of this wonderful country; how the ever-increasing population will be fed; will the elephants and other wildlife survive the poaching epidemic and the year long drought .... and so on.   I've also been fighting some mysterious gut infection and having various tests done.   

In addition, I've got many more photos to put on here .... 

My favourite 'bad taste' home furnishing street stall !

Frangipani flowers with their pure white waxy flowers and a wonderful scent. 

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So, politics !   There is to be a general election this year on 8th August, to appoint  the President and his deputy, members of Parliament (Senate and National Assembly) and devolved government members (county governors and ward representatives).  Kenya is in theory a democracy .... but corruption is rife; the newspapers state that politicians off-shore bank accounts are full of Kenya shillings.   I understand from the Daily Nation that hundreds of thousands of people haven't bothered to register to vote; a young man I was talking to in a Kisumu supermarket said there was no point in registering or voting .... like most of the population he knew who would win, and it wouldn't be anyone from western Kenya.   

Previous elections, pre-election campaigning and protests have ended in violence, thefts of property and hundreds of deaths, imprisonments and torture.   I myself unwittingly got caught this last visit on the periphery of a peaceful demonstration by people from the slums who were complaining about several days lack of water supply.  A peaceful group at the Water Office .... yet they were tear-gassed and driven away by police or the army .... I don't know which, as I was trying to escape but I caught some of the tear gas.   Not nice.    So you can imagine what might happen if it was an enthusiastic political rally.  

To quote an al Jazeera article from 2013:-

"There is no one single answer. Blaming the violence merely on blind tribalism is too simple. True, the historic social and economic divides between ethnic groups in this country did contribute to the brutality, but long-running frustration and disenchantment with political leadership undeniably played its part as well.

Between independence in the 1960s and the 2007 election, Kenya's constitution was amended around 30 times, each time bolstering the power of the presidency at the expense of the judicial and legislative branches of government, and, ultimately, at the expense of the Kenyan people.

By the mid-2000s, the national police force was widely viewed as corrupt, committing abuses with apparent impunity, journalists were frequently harassed, as were rights activists. Opposition rallies were banned - and extrajudicial killings appeared to be official policy."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/03/201333123153703492.html

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Another photo, to restore my nerves to calm !

(P.S.   I'll explain the title of this posting another time !)