Week 14 - Kenya (plus musings on being rich and the impact of aid).

I sit here writing this over a coffee and a sandwich at a lodge off the side of the main Nairobi- Mombasa highway. It is the clichéd "oasis of calm" after the tumult of a few hundred kilometres of road riding. For what is on offer it is very cheap by Australian/European standards,  but of course beyond the means of most locals,  so it  seems a propitious time to make some notes on being rich.

Coffee, sandwich and a luxury environment. 

By first world standards I'm not rich, I am comfortably off; I own my house, I can afford my food and all the essentials of life and I have enough left over to get involved in my hobbies of travel, motorcycles and sailing. But by standards of most African I'm incredibly rich and I think sometimes it's important to acknowledge that and to recognise that the riches are to a large extent built on the deprivation of other people.  Is it going to make me change my lifestyle, give away my money? - no of course not, I'm too entrenched in my western consumer culture,  but it does gives me a new perspective and renewed appreciation of how lucky, more by accident of birth than anything else, I've been, (and hopefully it will make me more understanding when people demand a more equal share).

All the above is also tied in with an argument I've been thinking about since  I first heard it raised before I left and that is, whether economic and emergency aid does Africa (or any developing region) good or harm. The basic argument of the "aid does more harm than good camp" is that its provision distorts things and often creates unintended negative consequences.  A simple example of this argument on a large scale is that the provision of food aid and modern health care solutions has,  because of its short term focus,  led to the very high, and arguably unsustainable,  levels of population growth that most nations in Africa struggle with thus preventing the majority of the population significantly improving their lot. Similarly on a smaller scale it is argued that the provision of second hand clothes by us westerners via charity shops has removed many tailors incomes and stopped the development of indigenous business. Before coming here I was firmly in the "aid is good"  camp and felt that we should give more, now whilst I still believe it has an important role to play I see it is more complex than I realised and the situation is very nuanced (and as in most of life, simple solutions do not often exist for complex problems). Hopefully I'll have the time and inclination to read about this more when I get back.

On the travel front the week has seen me traverse the width of Kenya, from the Ugandan border in the west over to the coast in the east.  Here's the story in pictures.

First night in Kenya. Not the finest hotel room I've ever stayed in, but it was cheap, clean(ish) and most importantly. ..

...gave me somewhere to fix the bikes fan (a car park fall led to the blade assembly coming adrift - fixed with epoxy and some crossed fingers).

Further east, near Nairobi, was "Elsamere" the one time home of Joy Adamson who wrote "Born Free" and is now a museum and a place where you can have a very English colonial afternoon tea on the lawns (it was a bit of fun)

Lake Naivasha on whose shore Elsamere sits and where I camped (to the slightly worrying sound of hippo's grazing just outside the tent in the middle of the night, any thought of a middle of the night leak being quickly abandoned)

Alongside the lake is Hells Gate NP which had a few animals and a spectacular gorge and where apparently Tomb Raiders 2 was filmed (ok didn't actually mean much to me but the locals were very proud of this)

Using local logic it is too dangerous to ride a motorcycle around the park but a push bike was fine - so one was hired for the day (along with mandatory guide on his bike). 

After this I drove to the coast to catch up with friends and on the way followed the new Nairobi - Mombasa railway being built by the Chinese, one of the many bits of major infrastructure they are pouring into Africa (and impressively when I again passed this bridge 5 days later all the deck sections had been put in place)

Daphne and John,  fellow motorcyclists who I first met in South Africa and with whom I met up again for a few days at a resort in the coastal town of Kilifi (just north of Mombasa)

And our three bikes. 

And the lovely beachside where I spent 3 days sailing every afternoon (this overland travel is tough)