Had my first trip to Kenya this week. I took only a couple of pictures I’m afraid. It was all business. We met so many people and now I’m staring at this pile of cards feeling a little daunted by all the emails I have to send, good thing I took notes! I suppose this is also why I’m doing a blog after a ridiculous lull, to avoid my real work. Ah well, at least I can update my family and friends. Kenya is a much larger city than Kampala and has some better infrastructure going and some that is just like Kampala. The most interesting bit was that they are preparing for elections in March. Which means a lot of discussions about politics, though I think most of that happened outside of the city. The elections to many of the business people we met seemed more like a nuisance than anything. Something to get through so you can resume normal business and in that sense it felt like the states. There has been some violence in some counties and rigging and fraud accusations were everywhere. While I think the two party system leaves a lot to be desired having many parties also leads to a lot of unhappy people. In the end the only majority that will be reached is the majority of people who didn’t get what they wanted. It was very interesting to witness groups of men (and they were all men) standing on corners listening and discussing politics. Apparently this is not something that just happens during elections but all the time. But it was the first I’d seen something like it and the first my colleague (who is from Uganda) had too.
