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 Cindi Brown Reports from kenya
Cindi Brown, volunteer and author, reports from Kenya, as Kisumu recovers from the aftermath of the contested elections.
April 26, 2008 Trip to KenyaCindi arrives in Kenya on April 26th 2008, anxious to reconnect with old friends and see how the people are doing after the violence of past months. Her most recent journals will be posted at the top of this page. Read about Cindi's experiences as a volunteer in Kenya in her just released book "Poverty and Promise".
 April 27, 2008 Arrival in Kenya, via AmsterdamGetting to Kisumu from Phoenix, Arizona takes 40 hours, including a 12-hour layover in Amsterdam where Jennifer and I stole away from the Schiphol Airport to walk the canals and visit the Anne Frank House. The crowd was huge, waiting to enter the building which was Anne's father's business, a jelly making factory.
Walking the streets of Amsterdam was a bit disconcerting, and it prepared us for Kisumu. Now in Kisumu, I feared riding through town for the first time since 2005 and being overwhelmed by the burned buildings and other signs of recent post-election violence. We did see burned businesses in town, giant holes behind burned out walls. Some were already under repair. Others sat empty, with broken glass scattered inside and out onto the sidewalk. Locals used the post-election chaos as an opportunity to seek revenge on the Indian owners of these businesses who were perceived to mistreat Kenyans. Seeing the damage was not emotionally overwhelming, as I had feared.
 Boda bodas still ride carefully through town, or sit under trees waiting for passengers to pay them for a ride on their bike. But now they share the road with motorbikes for hire, good-looking, shiny motorbikes manned by young men who have obviously progressed from a boda boda to a bike with a motor. And there are now tuk-tuks in Kisumu.
The streets are hectic with traffic and hawkers and awful smells coming from everywhere; butcher shops, trash piles, burning mounds of rubbish and plastic bags, animals and sewage. It's the same Kisumu, just more intense. The long rains have arrived, but have not yet cooled the air. It is sticky hot in this town without air conditioning. And the equatorial sun enjoys licking us intently when we forget hats and long sleeves.
Rose, Communications Director for Tropical Institute of Community Health, tells me "Kisumu is still the Kisumu you knew, Cindi." She is reassuring me that the recent chaos is over. And it is over. Now the healing must begin. |
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