Kenya Report #4 Dear All: Although Kenya and Cameroon are both third-world countries, I believe that Kenya is more developed. I have not been in Cameroon for four years, but it is unlikely that the differences I saw were simply due to the passage of time. Below I record various impressions that reinforce my notion that Kenya is third-world but more developed than Cameroon. Shorly after my arrival at Jomo Kenyatta airport, I was traveling through the outskirts of Nairobi as we headed for the Methodist Guest House, where we spent the night. Between the airport and downtown it is highly industrialized. Much of the industry is quite modern and well maintained, with some of the logos on the large well-lit signs quite familiar, e.g., the logo of Hewlett-Packard. If you did not look carefully you might think you were somewhere in the US. If you did look carefully you would then see that Kenya is still in the third world, but that Nairobi, like most large cities, has some features of modern, western cities. Nairobi betrayed both sides of its nature in its cars. There were enough of them so that Nairobi had substantial traffic problems during rush hour. But the vast majority of the cars were old clunkers, held together with string and bailing wire, and emitting voluminous pollutants. Kenya has more paved roads than Cameroon, and they are somewhat better maintained in general. On the other hand, many of the roads are "all-weather," which is a euphemism for dirt roads. Dirt roads commit the venial sin of emitting great clouds of dust and commit the mortal sin of eroding in the rains. This latter sin is a major problem in Meru's locale, because the land is quite hilly. Consequently, during the rainy season dirt roads become streams, and the resulting water often creates deep gullies in the roads, sometimes making a given road impassible. Meru had a few paved roads and many dirt roads. There were also some roads that used to be paved but have been neglected so that the pavement is in the process of disappearing. On the plus side, I did see some work being done on the repair of some of the roads. I don't know how much of Kenya is electrified, but I think it is more electrified than Cameroon. One need only go a few kilometers off the paved road in Buea to find villages that have no electricity. This seemed to be untrue of Meru. We went to schools that were many 10's of kilometers off the paved roads but had electricity "on the grid." On the other hand, a few of the schools got their electricity (sporadically) from their generators. The telephone system in Kenya is better than that of Cameroon. First, almost all the schools we visited had telephones. Second, many of the people we stayed with had telephones. Third, there were a reasonable number of pay phones, and they functioned. In Cameroon, the pay telephones were a joke. They must have functioned once, but no longer. Now that they no longer function, thieves have stripped off all the valuable parts. The first few days I was in Meru I was not really paying attention. Then one morning, while out for a run, I saw a pay phone, and I was incredulous. I stopped, walked over, picked up the receiver, and was thrilled to hear a dial tone. In Cameroon, whenever we traveled between towns by bus, and the bus came to a stop for some reason, swarms of vendors would surround the bus and try to sell the occupants food and an incredible array of goods. Need a calculator? Need a watch? Need a roasted yam? Buy it through the window. In Kenya I saw practically none of this. I speculate that there were few vendors because there are better ways to scratch out a living in Kenya. I am not sure whether this has anything directly to do with development, but Kenya has a thriving dairy industry, while Cameroon does not, aside from, strangely, a yogurt industry. During colonial times some Dutch had a thriving dairy herd in Buea, but after independence the herd slowly disappeared. Milk products would be of great benefit in Buea for the prevention of some nutritional diseases, but it apparently would not be economically viable. At least around Meru and and between Meru and Nairobi (a distance of about 240 Km) there was daily evidence of the dairy industry. Numerous individuals would take stainless steel milk containers to distribution points each morning. In Kenya the accommodations at hotels and restaurants catering to (western) toursist were absolutely first rate. Although they had an African ambience, the Lamu Hotel and Amboselli Lodge (in the Amboselli game park) were as well appointed as a fancy Pocono resort. This reflects Kenya's having the one of Africa's most advanced eco-tourist industry. In contrast, Cameroon, which has great potential for eco-tourism, has not made any serious attempts to exploit its touristic sites and provides decidedly second-rate accommodations. Buea, because it is the jumping-off point for climbs up Mt. Cameroon, a mountain as interesting and formidable as Mt. Kenya, should offer good, western-style lodging but does not. The Mountain Hotel, a few hundred meters from where Janice and I stayed, must have been first-rate 15 years ago, but is now shabby, if not downright seedy. It is the only hotel in town that pretends to cater to western visitors. In developing countries, where resources are quite scarce, the inhabitants have great skills in improvising. I saw this both in Cameroon and in Kenya. I give three examples, the first which I learned in Cameroon and brought to Kenya; the latter two I saw in Kenya. (As a thrify New Englander -- "Use it up, wear it out, make do, do without" -- I am especially appreciative of improvisational conservation of resources.) We brought to Meru a number of printers, some of them dot-matrix, others inkjet. But what do you do when you run out of ribbon or the ink cartridge is empty? Ink cartridges are available in Nairobi, but the price is hefty, roughly what you would pay here but in an economy where $2 got me an excellent meal. In the case of ink cartridges, you simply have to pay the price. In the case of ribbon, it may be difficult or impossible to find the right replacement in Nairobi. The solution is quite simple. Insert carbon paper (which is omnipresent in Kenya) between two sheets of paper and insert the sandwhich in the printer. The first page will be unmarked, but the second page will have a (carbon) copy of the information being printed. Muchai, my host, drives an 80's vintage BMW. At one point it was very difficult to start, which Muchai diagnosed as carburetor problems. One evening, on the way home, we stopped at a garage to have the carburetor repaired. The mechanic quickly dismantled the carburetor and pin-pointed the problem: worn gaskets on small spring-loaded shafts whose function is a mystery to me. Ordering replacement gaskets is probably impossible, but if it is possible it would take months. Instead, the mechanic fashioned replacements out of the cardboard from a matchbox. Four layers of matchbox cardboard was just about right. The carburetor's performance was markedly improved, although I assume the cardboard will deteriorate rather quickly and will soon have to be replaced again. In powering the computers we (and the Kenyans) confronted two incompatibilities. First, our computers and monitors run on 110V-60 cycle electricity, whereas Kenya has 240V-50 cycle electricity. Second, our computers have American-style electrical plugs, whereas Kenya's electrical plugs are British-style. The typical power strip in Kenya has a British plug and universal outlets which accommodate American-, French-, and British-style plugs. Many computers have a switch which allow the computer to be run either at 110V-60 cycly or 240V-50 cycle. Many monitors will run in either system without any changes at all. At one point we were dealing with a monitor and a computer each of which would only run at 110V-60 cycle. We had a transformer that went from 240V to 110V, and it had only a single American style outlet. Thus, we could only plug in one of our two 110V items. We could not use the power strips, because they all had British plugs. Or so I thought. Then one of the Kenyans produced a wire with an American plug at one end and a British plug at the other end. Now this looks weird. No, it looks useless. But is is quite useful. The Kenyan plugged the American plug into the transformer and the British plug into the power strip. This made the power strip live. At the cost of one outlet, the other five now could be used for 110V electricity. Of course, the power strip's plug was not plugged into anything and presented an electrical hazard....