Hi all...Lori, Alex and I are in our fourth month in Kenya. As you have noted the "honeymoon" is over! I personally have days where I get very frustrated because you can not get anything done within any reasonable time. Why? I can only pontificate in relation to lack of infrastructure, lack of any semblance of government for the people, lack of services, ie police force will come, maybe, if they knew where you were (there are no addresses) and you had the money to pay for their gas and subsequent bribe to get your problem rectified...the police shooting in down town Eldoret a few weeks back. Hands off to them, they killed two out of three and managed to secure the AK47! There is too the language barrier, cultural barrier and many other barriers to a country at the bottom of the food chain.
Alex's school was, we thought, going forward for the last few weeks but we were wrong. As mentioned by Lori, the teachers do not show up often and Alex is displaying behaviors at school towards other children that are not so good. His eight year old reaction to a completely foreign culture and subsequent systems. So a couple of weeks ago I started home schooling for the first two hours every morning and then sending the boy to school for the rest of the day for the social learning end of things. However, the teachers are old school in so many ways and boarder on Christian fundamentalism. Lori and I have decided to pull him out of school altogether and I will do four hours of home school then fill up the rest of Alex's time with Tai-Kwan do and other activities. Not so bad!
I had initially had hopes of starting up a Carpentry School at the local Polytecnic Institute (Trade School) via funding from Canada. You know the old saying, Teach a Man to Fish... I have changed my mind for so many reasons. After several rounds of meetings with the Institute I could only see a result if I did almost everything from curriculum to purchasing and training. The people their are kind and enthusiastic, however it is apparent to me now they will more than likely graft most things of value once we exit.
I really do feel that after 60 years of AID being dumped into the country (and we are talking trillions of dollars) it is not working very well. One could easily compare the enabling of our desire to help/control the African outcome to that of our own Aboriginals in Canada. Keep throwing money at it, with no accountability and what do you think is going to happen. Poverty actually increases, the "leadership" gets richer and no governing systems take hold, lawlessness prevails, judiciary is non functional and hope is greatly diminished. At this time I feel the best thing to do would be to cut the AID off. I really can not see the corruption getting worse, the roads, infrastructure, industry, schools, civil services... In fact, stopping the enabling may actually help Africa to help itself. Excuse me for my cynical comments but it is almost laughable if it were not for so many women and children suffering. Then we have the academics who want to do "another study" to provide direction/suggestions to the IMF, World Bank, American Aid, Canadian Aid, British Aid, Australian Aid, French Aid, Brazilian Aid, Joe Blow Aid on how to co-ordinate the Aid Agencies to work better together! Ain't going to happen.
On the lighter side, we are in Mombasa right now on holiday. After four months in Eldoret, Rift Valley it is nice to be at the Coast. Alex is enjoying it very much, and we have our adopted daughter Mary with us for a few days. Lori is good and I too am good - really! Its just a bit difficult some times when you come from a nation that works. Don't forget it folks because social fabric is easily torn. This place has zero in the realm of the social contract and subsequent trust required to nation build.
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