Scandinavian Sins

”Did you see any animals?”
”No, nothing exotic anyways. Only some monkeys.”
                              Something I never thought I would hear myself say for an answer

That outstretched piece of land somewhere up in the north that they call “Sweden” is appearing to be more and more distant to us for every day that passes. At this point we are unsure if such a place even exists? This strange, exotic place where they say that polar bears roam the streets and everybody is blond and has blue eyes… Well, all right, it is probably not really that far gone. Yet.

Travelling can usually be considered the most effective time machine yet known to the common man. Not in the sense that one actually travels to another time, but in the way that it alters our perception of time. Although, here in Kenya I sometimes believe that I have in fact stepped through a time portal and ended up in the 70ies. Which suits me pretty fine most of the time, apart from when having to make my way through a cloud of compact, pitch-black diesel exhaust from a 50 year old Indian lorry. Nevertheless, I normally get the feeling that time is passing a whole lot slower when out travelling than when being home in the normal, everyday-life. I think that most people who have had the privilege to travel can say the same. However, I myself have never been out on a trip longer than 7 weeks before. I have myself then felt as if I have been gone for a very long time, when my friends at home usually say “I thought you just left?”. When constantly on the move, I do believe that the feeling of time passing in slow-motion, of a week feeling like a month and a month feeling like at least half a year, can be maintained for a long time. But when settling down in one place and getting into a somewhat routine-based and normal life in that spot, time should surely start to speed up again. So when does this happen? I do not know. All I can say is that even though I would say that me and Nils are feeling rather at home here in the north-western parts of central Nairobi now, our perception of time is completely twisted. Has it been three months? Six? A year? If it was not for the almanac, we probably would not have much of a clue.

When travelling around in the wide world, I somehow always seem to have a good eye for spotting normal and odd exports, various references and other remnants of Sweden and Scandinavia. And no matter how distant and obscure Sweden may seem to me down here in Kenya, there are still small signs spread out over the country. Some stranger than others. The Volvo 240 greeting us the first day at the Chiromo Campus is probably something I will remember for a very long time. Some time ago I finally got to meet the owner. Turned out that it belonged to an old biology professor who did a project in Stockholm during the early eighties. Whilst there, he was fascinated by the box-like cars that were everywhere around him. So when he had returned to Kenya and some years later needed a new car, he arranged for the import of one 1989 year model Volvo 244. He has kept it ever since, not because he has an interest in classic cars, but because it just keeps on rolling and he just simply could not be bothered looking for a replacement. I would say that old Volvos are quite overrepresented in the Kenyan traffic, when compared to other European brands. Could be their reputation of being somewhat built like tanks that suits the sometimes very rough roads and aggressive traffic in this country. Also, in a place where finding spare parts and specialists can sometimes be troublesome, it is good to have a car that requires limited and low-tech maintenance.

Swedish decadence in the ditch

Classy Volvo 940 SE getting some attention

Laid back

Me with Dr Kaaya, the owner of the finest car in Chiromo!

Signs from home

Speaking of the inhabitants of the northern parts of Europe, we have for more or less obvious reasons mostly met Danes. That including Kenyans who has lived in Denmark and speak more or less fluent Danish, and Danes who have lived in Kenya for many years. It seems to be an unusually high proportion of Danish living here in Kenya. Could it be the heritage from Karen Blixen? Hard to say. Also, some of our fellow mates in the university laboratory are sporadically saying something including the word “Danish”. Unfortunately the rest of the sentence is usually composed of at least 80% Kiswahili. And even though I have asked them what they are talking about, I am yet to get a straight answer. When it comes to the Swedes, they have not been very present apart from our industrial heritage of Volvo 240s rolling around the streets and empty Absolut Vodka bottles thrown in the ditch. I would say normally, it is very often when moving around in a neon metropolis, misty jungle or a lonely mountain, that you come across at least one other Swede. It has happened to me all over the world, and it is an equally strange feeling every time. Because no matter how much some people give immigrants a hard time for only socializing with people of their own nationality, Swedish are sometimes not that different when abroad. It usually doesn’t take more than a few minutes for Swedish people in a party anywhere in the world to somehow locate each other, isolate themselves in a corner and start talking about “Dala-horses” and blood-pudding in Swedish. It gives a very strong feeling of home, even when being thousands of miles away.

Even if they (we) are a quite rare species here, the three months have been enough for at least some exposures of random Swedes. The first one was when just walking home from work, and crossing the road just before home. Suddenly we heard a loud “Hey!”, but we didn’t think much of it since it is quite common that people call out loudly to each other here. Then came another “Hey!”, which made us turn around and meet the eyes of a man driving a car. He then continued to address us in Swedish and asked “You are from Sweden right?”. He had seen Nils’ bag which bears the logo and text of Engineering Physics in Uppsala. We were so surprised that we only had the time to shout some automatic response before he was gone with his car. Another encounter was when we had our regular Saturday lunch at the “Yaya” shopping centre. When sitting in the restaurant we played the old game of “guess the nationality”, and we could not help but think that a couple of women sitting at a table close to ours could in fact be Scandinavian. We tried to hear what language they were speaking, but it was far too noisy in the room. But when on the way out from the shopping mall, we walked passed one of them by coincidence. And Nils was just then, not aware of her presence, saying something to me in Swedish. It was quite a lot of people around us talking in different languages. But Nils talking Swedish made her twitch and turn around. At least to me that is a pretty good proof that she was if not Swedish at least Scandinavian. Just yesterday I was stopped by an elderly couple when walking to work. It took me a while to realise that they had started speaking Swedish with me, something I really did not expect in that situation. Again, they had seen something. This time it was my t-shirt with the text “Riksgränsen” printed on it, the name of a ski resort far north in Sweden. After conversing with them for a couple of minutes I had to excuse myself to continue my walk, and got an invitation to the “Glögg-party” at the Swedish Society in Nairobi.

Turns out the Swedish presence in Nairobi might be a force to be reckoned with after all.

Swedish contraband. The strangest was that this was to be delivered to Nils' Indian relative here in Nairobi. Who would think that a Swede would smuggle spices from Sweden to an Indian living in Kenya?

That's one fridge magnet I would not have expected to see in Nairobi...

Newly built Kileleshwa Towers, complete with your own sauna?!

Sweden-Kenya-Taxi! What's the fair from Uppsala to Nairobi I wonder?

Swedish camping gear

There is Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan... AND NORWAY??

The White Man's Guilt

When we first walked the streets of Nairobi we were startled and feeling uneasy over that fact that almost everybody we met was staring at us. Some people would even turn around to get a second look at the two blond wazungu on their way to work. I have now realized that this was in many ways due to a cultural shock. In Scandinavia we are raised to never stare at people, it is considered very rude. Here in Kenya, it is different. Everybody stares at everybody. It is not strange to look a stranger in the eyes when meeting on a dusty pavement. Even still with this realisation, we sometimes get the feeling that some people are not staring at us for friendly reasons. And there are plenty of reasons for a Kenyan to be hostile towards the white man…

The white man’s collective guilt, or in Swedish; ”den vite mannens kollektiva skuld”, is an expression that almost anyone living in my home country will encounter sooner or later. It usually means that people of white skin colour are more or less to be held responsible for the actions done by their white ancestors. The imperialists, conquistadors and colonialists throughout the history. In other words; when white Europeans took to the seas and conquered, enslaved and destroyed almost every society that came in their way. When millions and again millions of native Africans were chained and taken across the Atlantic Ocean to be the slaves of the Americas. For a Swedish person this has always been more or less easy to diminish. The general notion if you were to ask a random Swede on the street would be something in the line of: “We are a nation of good humanitarians! Well, yes, we used to wage a heck of a lot of wars back in the 17th and 18th centuries, but that was against other Europeans! We never colonized anyone or traded with slaves!”. In recent days more and more people are becoming aware that even though Sweden was never a successful in intercontinental colonization, attempts were made and five different territories in North America, the West-indies, Africa and India were proclaimed Swedish territory. None of these were very long lived, and the fading Swedish empire saw itself defeated by the rising European superpowers of Holland and England. When speaking of the Swedish role in slave trade, it was very marginal as compared to the European imperial nations of the time, but nevertheless it still existed.

In any case, most people argue that even though these things were horrible, they are things of the past. It is said as a joke that one is to travel to Africa to “pay off the white man’s debt”. I have to admit that I myself have used that expression, and that it was one of my reasons for doing my Master’s Thesis here in Africa. Probably the strongest of all reasons. I felt that I wanted to do something good to the world, as opposed to just turn papers in an office of a big corporation. A chance to help, at least someone, and to once and for all “pay of the debt”. It would definitely be called good karma, and help to ease the conscience in hours of darkness. So, like many other young Swedes I decided to do voluntary work in what is referred to as the “third-world”. But why is it called the “third-world”? And why is it that we are constantly and almost exclusively fed the terrible news of war, poverty and starvation from this continent? There are no easy answers, and a lot of people would argue very differently. But here is what I’ve come to realize over these past weeks through conversations, research and a lot of pondering.

Let’s first look at Kenya, since it is the only place where I can actually say that I have real experience of the problems and issues with post-colonialism. Kenya is a sometimes almost brutally capitalist society. A meal at a fast-food restaurant will cost you somewhere around 7-800 shillings. When walking down to have lunch at our closest café, I started chatting with a young man who, to me as a Swede rather ironically, called himself “Lars”. He was a metal worker, now on his way home walking from his construction site at the Yaya Centre to downtown. A walk of at least two hours, one way. On a Saturday. When I asked why he had to work on a Saturday, he smiled and said that because the wage is so low he really does not have a choice. Every little money he can get is necessary. When I asked “how little” he earned, I was expecting a pretty low wage. But what he said almost made me fall backwards. 50 shillings per day. Meaning that ONE lunch in a still relatively cheap restaurant (there are a lot of considerably more expensive places) will cost him at least 14 DAYS of hard work. Like I have described before, here in Nairobi people work a lot. Long hours, sometimes up to 12 hours per day, and most also work on Saturdays. Some even on Sundays. The reality is beginning to dawn on me. At least for Nairobi, there are few people that could be called lazy. Something that goes against the notion of most westerners, who generally believe that “Africans are lazy”. Something which is also often promoted as one of the reasons for the “lack of progress in Africa”. Like so many times before, the reality is just not simply black and white.

As I am talking to Lars, big European luxury cars zooms pass us up on the nearby road. Cars that cost more than he could ever dream of earning in a lifetime, even if he were to work every minute of it, non-stop, without sleeping. All around the city one can see advertisements for new luxury apartments with their own private beaches at the Kenyan coast. So it is apparent that some people have money that would make some of the wealthy Europeans look like bums. Nairobi has big issues with personal safety, probably no-one could disagree on that. It is strongly recommended not to be outside after sundown. Something which for most regular people causes something which could almost be called a curfew during the hours of darkness. Instead of going to the root of it, the extreme poverty and huge inequality, the growing middle class barricade themselves behind walls with barbed wire and gates patrolled by guards. So why does Nairobi have all of these problems? Again, there is no easy answer. But most would argue that corruption and embezzlement could be the biggest problem. And now we are not talking about the petty traffic police who accepts a bribe of 500 shillings to feed his family. No, when the Kenyan national budget is crippled by the fact that money in the order of millions, if not billions of Shillings disappear, that is where the big problem lays. Money that were to be used for road construction, schools and healthcare, but instead ends up in somebodies private bank account. Who can blame the policeman, if not even the governors can play by the rules?

"The Wall"

This appartment-compound even has its own watchtower

Two Nairobi street-boy rockers

"Lars"

But then, what has this got to do with colonialism? Why is old European imperial ambitions to be blamed for the fact that the teacher’s go on strikes and the roads are full of pot holes in Southern Kenya?

There were differences in the way that the colonialists ruled their colonies, depending on the colonizing nation and the colony. But one thing is found almost anywhere in today’s ex-colonies. The tribal problems and the confrontations that they have, and continue to led to. Usually this is explained in our schools as “the imperialist nations sat down and divided Africa between themselves using a ruler”. This might be the case. But it is also implied that the reason why they used a ruler, as opposed to actually looking at the existing African tribes (or in other words nations), was that it was the simplest way to do it. As if it was done by purely by chance and the motive that everyone around the imperialist table should get their part. I believe there were more sinister and calculating motives as to why the borders were placed the way they were. Because it is a fact that in most of the African colonies, the way of conquering and controlling the continent was to “divide and rule”. By not only using existing conflicts between the tribes, but also by “adding petrol to the flame”, and sometimes even creating new ethnic conflicts, the imperialists could make sure that the indigenous people of their colonies would be occupied with fighting and killing each other. Instead of fighting the occupying colonialists. Despite this, the world of colonialism fell during a twenty year-period after the Second World War. Or did it completely? During the colonialist time, different tribes had different relations with their imperial “masters”. Some accepted their colonialist masters and in that way tried to gain more benefits and leverage as opposed to their rivalling tribes. Other tribes were no less than persecuted by the imperialists. All as part of the “divide and rule”-tactics. When the British were to withdraw from Kenya in the beginning of the sixties it was already decided who was to take their place and rule the country. The Kikuyu tribe had always been privileged by the British and thus when the time came they were simply the most educated and westernized of the Kenyan tribes. So with the help and blessing of the Crown of England, Jomo Kenyatta of the Kikuyu tribe was installed as the first president of Kenya. And since he was of European colonial upbringing, he did what he saw fitting to his new standing as the ruler of the country. He grabbed somewhere around 50% of the land in the new independent Kenya, and gave most of the rest to his fellow Kikuyu generals, officials and friends.

Other tribes were not as lucky as the Kikuyu. Still to this day, the tribe is one of the most important identifiers to a Kenyan citizen. It is changing, but still a lot of people do not primarily identify themselves as “Kenyans” but as their tribe. This is not strange, considering the fact that the tribes were here long before any European colonialists drew lines on a map, separated and squashed people of different nationalities together and proclaimed the existence of a new nation that was a subject to them. Our nations in Europe have often taken several hundred years to form, or have been joined or separated with some involvement of the consent of their peoples. And still there have been, and to some extent still are enormous problems within Europe. Together with the corruption, the tribal conflicts are one of the biggest challenges for the future of the Kenyan nation. They both together have led to a dog-eat-dog society where the most important thing is to grab money for yourself when you can, and you vote not primarily for the best suited presidential candidate, but for the tribe that he represents. This creates a society built on conflict, unevenly distributed resources, where brutality is required only to survive and where a lot of people have a deeply rooted feeling of being under-privileged and mistreated. And also are. It is common for some not to say their last name when meeting someone, because by the last name it is usually easy to figure out a person’s tribal belonging. People do not trust their government officials. People become suspicious to one-another, and want what they think that everybody else has. Government institutions have little or no effect at all on daily life. In such a society, the corruption thrives. The problem with tribal conflicts, more or less induced by European imperialists, is repeated over big parts of the African continent. In the former British colony of Uganda, the psychopath Idi Amin took control over the country after the independence with the blessing of the English Crown. And he then started one of the most brutal regimes the world has ever seen, murdering people by the hundreds of thousands, often because of their tribal affiliation. In Rwanda, tribal antagonisms escalated into what became one of the worst genocides in history. The Hutus were favoured by their Belgian masters and thus when independence came they took control of the country with the blessing of Belgium. The second biggest tribe in the country, the Tutsi, were then marginalized and discriminated by the Hutus. In the beginning of the 90ies, a rebel movement had begun among the Tutsis, demanding better conditions for their tribe. When the aircraft of Rwanda’s Hutu-president was shoot down by the rebels in 1994, that sparked the systematic murdering of Tutsi by Hutu that caused somewhere between 500.000 to 1.000.000 people to be killed over a period of a couple of months. That conflict also spilled over to the neighbouring country of the former Republic of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a brutal civil war has raged for almost 20 years.

Despite all of the despair and problems, there is great hope. There is a new generation now growing up in the former colonies. One which has not been raised as servants of imperialism. An afro-centric movement is slowly, but surely gaining momentum amongst the young in Nairobi. Here people discuss politics on an entirely different level than in the west. I am very happy to see the rise of what could become a new political era in Europe, with people again discussing real matters and politics around the coffee table, but here the stakes are very different. A lot more to be gained, and bigger obstacles. And ironically, one could argue that in one sense Africa is right now the least colonized continent in the world (apart from maybe Antarctica). Even though raw capitalism is very prominent here in Kenya, the big multinational imperial capitalism has not quite gotten its claws into this place. There is not a McDonald’s in every street corner, and a Starbucks across the road from that. Not everybody drives a brand new car just because they feel that they must. Not everybody is a walking poster for Prada, Nike and Adidas. Sure, there is a huge billboard for “Kentucky Fried Chicken” just on our way to work, and there is a growing hunger for expensive brands among the growing middle class who looks to the west for guidance on how to lead the “happy life”. But there is still hope that this might be the one place in the world where people actually keep their own culture and values, and not just buy the simple mantra of the capitalized western world that says “consumption is the road to happiness!”. The education levels are rising fast, and if one wants to be witty one can joke and say that “The national bird of Kenya is the crane!” due to all the construction going on in Nairobi. This place is evolving fast, the question is which road the young Kenyans, and for that matter all of the other nationalities of Africa will chose. I am just hoping they will not do the same mistakes that we have done where I come from.

The back-door

Pipeline

Forgotten corridor

"Some people walk with broken shoes"

With all this in mind, I think it is time for the Western World to acknowledge the full extent of the role that colonialism still plays in Africa. It is also important to ponder the fact that our high standard of living in Europe as opposed to the poverty in Africa is largely a direct causality of one another. And even though for example Sweden was not a “real” part of the colonization and slave trade, we have still largely benefited from it. All of Europe and the Western World has. By making some nations very wealthy through the use of a steady stream of “free” slave labour and “free” natural resources from Africa, it enabled them to engage in trade with other European nations that built the wealth that we are now living on and take for granted. And in some ways that extortion of resources is still going on, with the exploits of minerals and the use of low wage-workforce.

So what can be done by me and you, if you also feel that there is something wrong with all this. How can we help and try to set things straight? Apologizing for the colour of your skin and for the wrong deeds of your ancestors is not going to change anything for anyone. Burying oneself in all of the misery and problems will only make you depressed and invoke you in a feeling of hopelessness. But by seeking knowledge, being open-minded and focusing on the things you can do, instead of the ones that are impossible, we can make a change. Will I have paid off my part of the white man’s collective debt when I am done here in Africa? Certainly not. I will have to continue to question myself, seek the truth and spread the word of openness and tolerance. By shining the light of knowledge on the darkness of ignorance. No-one can do everything, and if you become overwhelmed by all of the conflicts and suffering and simply quit trying, it is not going to be good for anyone. Instead, it is better to just focus on just one thing that drives you, and if you have to, ignore the rest. No-one can do everything, but everybody can do something.


And that something might just change the world.

At the Foot of the Mountain

"When God was giving out looks I thought he said he was giving out books.
So I said: Please give me a funny one!"
                               Actor Keith Pearson on his appearance

If you set out from Nairobi going north and then follow the road until it has changed from a three-lane highway to a small country road, and you continue along that road until you reach the foot of the sacred and majestic Mount Kenya, you just might come across an aging English actor browsing around the vegetables at the local market. A man who long ago bade farewell to the stress and hustles of the big city. His name is Keith Pearson, and he is as much an actor of the old school of theatrics as an avant-gardist in his way of living of the land and nature in the shade of the big mountain. As much a clown as a philosopher. Once in a while you get an offer you simply cannot refuse. So when me and Nils got the offer from our landlady, and by this time very good friend Vibeke, to follow her upcountry to meet this somewhat eccentric man of many talents we simply could not say no. So with no idea of what we had to expect from this journey we packed our bags and locked the door behind us.

In order to escape the horrendous Nairobi traffic as gently as possible, an early departure is key. That was why we, still with sleep in our eyes and the sun not yet quite over the horizon, got into the minivan of one Charles “Sugar” Sukali. After a little under an hour we started to really leave the widespread city behind. I had not realized that Nairobi was in fact that big. When all you do is walk around the central parts of the city, you get the false impression that it is a rather centralized city. As opposed to the savannah that greeted us when we went south to the ostrich farm, the nature to the north was something completely different. Plenty of fertile farmlands and green forests passed by the windows as we continued up north. After a short stop for going to the toilet, being hustled by a shop-owner selling souvenirs, and for drinking a cup of chemically enhanced instant coffee in a small restaurant, ironically located in one of the world’s largest coffee growing districts, we continued our journey. A little now and then along the road there would be policemen standing by the side. Like vultures looking for a prey. We managed to pass most of them without any problems, but soon it was time for us to witness one of the biggest drawbacks and problems with the Kenyan society.

The policeman eagerly used his red notebook to wave us in to the side of the road. After a short introduction in English, and after the policeman had been handed our driver’s licence and the registration of the car, the conversation between him and Sugar continued in Kiswahili. So there was no way for me and Nils to understand what the problem was. Sugar then left the car and walked out of sight together with the policeman, was gone for a few minutes and then got back into the van and started the engine. Apparently the problem had been that there was a stain on the picture on Sugar’s licence, something which cost him a “fine” of 500 shillings, money that went straight into the policeman’s own pocket. In Kenya, the police can sometimes be a bigger danger than the criminals. Some would argue that their only priority is to get as much money as possible from bribes. So they can pull people over for no reason what so ever, and then simply make up a reason that either costs you a “fine”, or in the worst scenario you will have to come with them and spend hours or days in a cell. With that in mind most people just pay the bribe and walk free, rather than being behind bars for a crime that might not even exist. There are even rumours of people who have been asked to pay for the petrol when calling to get a police to come and for example report a burglary in their home. The possible roots for this problem are many. Some argue that the policemen are simply so underpaid by the government that the only way for them to be able to pay their bills and food is to hunt for bribes. Another point which is connected to the first one is that corruption is very widespread in almost all places in Kenyan society. Very high politicians are accused of embezzling huge sums of the nation’s money. Money that otherwise could have been used to pay better wages for policemen and teachers, the latter which regularly goes on long strikes and thus cripples the nation’s educational system. Even within our University there are stories about different departments and institutions who hustle others for big Shillings. No, everyone would probably agree that the corruption problem is one of Kenya’s toughest challenges these coming years, but one which when solved will fundamentally change the whole of the Kenyan nation.

Suddenly we saw a huge dark silhouette growing higher and higher at the horizon. Mount Kenya appeared to us for the first time and with its highest point being just under 5200 m.a.s.l. it is an impressive sight. We followed the road as it curved around the mountain before we took a sharp turn onto a small gravel/rock-road leading straight towards it. After bumping along this trail we soon arrived at a small piece of paradise, Karichota. The home of the man, the myth, the legend: Keith Pearson. Located in a very isolated place it consist of a few houses, a garden of plants, fruits and herbs that is Keith’s own pride and joy, and off course also a stage for performances of different kinds. The house which serves as a lodge for anyone who wants to visit is often frequented by artists of all kinds so it is a place where creativity blooms and art thrives. We got a warm greeting from the man himself and also had time to say hello to Vibeke just before the two of them went away to do some errands. Since the house is located inside the national park that surrounds and includes the big mountain, what better thing to do than to go for a hike? For this purpose we took the help of one of the best experts in that area, Keith’s right-hand-man Lorenz. Lorenz knows the area like his own pocket and we simply equipped ourselves with wandering sticks and set off out into the bush. Lorenz is a man of few words but a ton of wisdom regarding everything that nature has to offer. His vision is unrivalled as he can spot even the smallest bird sitting almost completely hidden by the leaves on a branch and make a perfect identification of the species. He reminds me of the usually very calm and harmonic people living way up north in Sweden, the ones that we usually call “the northlanders”. We followed his lead for a couple of hours through bushlands that then turned into an almost tropical forest until we reached our destination. Suddenly the sound of roaring water became more and more intense. The forest then opened up, and we were all standing on a cliff right next to a waterfall. Down below was a basin where the water swirled around, and around that a big cave. The cave was a very important part of the Kenyan fight for independence. It was used by the freedom fighters in the Mau Mau rebel group as a hospital and hide-out, before it was bombed by the British. So therefore it is still today regarded as an important place for a lot of people, even though the Mau Mau are still a controversial and sensitive subject.

Gradually escaping the city

Busted...

Open landscapes

Lorenz warming up his walking stick

Nils at the waterfall

The waterfall itself

The crossing of the Naru Moru river

Lorenz on the trail

The hike took a total of four hours. Enough for one to really find that special pace and peace of mind that occurs when walking longer distances. But even though we were tired when we got back home, we were not quite ready to call it a day just yet. So we decided to head out with Sugar and check out what the nearest town located a rough 20 minutes’ drive away had to offer. The town of Naru Moru is the home of just a few thousand people. It consists of not more than 10 streets in total, a dozen of small shops located along the main road and at least one bar. Even still it is bursting with activity. Everywhere one looks, something is going on. People are standing about, arguing, engaged in commerce or teaching an eager driving school-student how to drive a truck which looks like it came straight out of the 50ies. Stepping into that extremely charming town was like taking a trip back in time at least 40 years. I was almost in a state of chock, and total and utter amaze. So, what to do for two young wazungu dudes and one Sugar in such a place? Find the local bar, off course. So Sugar decided to ask a man for directions as soon as we entered the town. The man did not only describe the way to the bar, or lead us, he even joined us! Our guest of honour is named John, and when he does not show confused tourists from Sweden the nearest watering hole, he has a small roadside stand built up on the back of his pick-up selling different kind of bags. Naro Moru might be a photographers dream, and John made it my dream when he agreed to show me around town for me to take some pictures. I could have stayed for hours. Everywhere I looked was a great picture waiting to be taken. And there was a huge difference in the attitude from the locals when compared to Nairobi. Nairobi in that sense I guess is like most big cities, a little bit rough, aggressive and hostile. Here people were just so incredibly friendly. All of a sudden when walking in a back yard I would feel a tiny hand in mine. And when I would look down, a small toddler had grabbed my hand.

Kenyan dusk

John and Nils at the local bar in Naro Moru

The kids on the block

Donkeys

Old-school Fiat

The coolest truck in town!

Motorcycle men

Heavy duty

Downtown Naro Moru

John and his family at their pickup-trunk bag shop

Backstreet by dusk

The day after such an intense day we really did not think that anything could top the sights and sounds of yesterday. We were at least partially wrong. On the schedule for the day was a visit to a friend of Keith’s that we had been invited to come along and have lunch with. To get the most out of it all, me and Nils walked under the safe guidance of Lorenz half of the way. All of a sudden when walking through an area containing a climbing lodge for people who wants to climb Mount Kenya, we spotted something furry. And big. Sitting and staring at us at the end of our trail was a huge baboon! When looking around into a nearby garden, we spotted a whole bunch of them going about their business. Which in their case mostly meant sleeping. This was somewhat comforting to us. Because they do get rather hostile sometimes, and you do not want to get in a fight with a baboon. So when one started walking towards us, we decided that it was best to make like a tree and leave. Soon after reaching the main country road Keith and Vibeke came and picked up me and Nils whilst Lorenz decided to walk home. We squeezed into the back seat of Keith’s very tiny Japanese mini-car and went down a mud road which would be called rough even by Kenyan standards.

After feeling like four astronauts who are in a caught in a meteor storm we rolled up to a place hidden deep in the bush. In a small house we met the man of the day; Joseph a man of Indian decent, but raised in Kenya as a Kenyan. He is among a lot of other things a homosexual Muslim, something which to some is very controversial, particularly so in Africa. As a young man he, as so many young people before him, realised that he had to set out to search for his true identity and his origins. For him it was the quest of what it meant to be an “authentic Muslim”. One of his endeavours was therefore to dig deeper into Islam. So he travelled to Iran and lived there for two and a half years doing research for a PhD in Islamic Philosophy. A thesis which took a whole nine years to complete. What he found was more than he had ever imagined. The violent preachers and power mongers of today who claim to be Islamists have gotten it all wrong. Very wrong. Just as one very speaking example, the word “Muslim” in the Koran simply means “believer”. So Christians, Jews and Muslims alike are all referred to as “Muslims”. The early Islamic societies in the Middle East were highly evolved, tolerant and advanced societies, long ahead of their European counterparts. A thousand years ago in what was then Islamic Spain lived a Muslim scholar. At the age of 80 he realised that he had yet to answer one very important question; “in how many ways do people fall in love”? In another part of the world; in Central Asia, lived another Muslim searching for the truth. His quest led him to travel to India and study Sanskrit. The Indian society was at this time one of the most advanced in the world, but when he told them about Greek mathematics, they had never heard anything quite like it. So he ended up both studying and teaching in what became a very prosperous cultural exchange when the Europeans were busy fighting each other after the final collapse of the Roman Empire. He ended up writing a very complete and still to this day very famous ethnography of India, and measured the Earth circumference with stunning accuracy by climbing a hill and using Euclidean geometry. Truly amazing accomplishment. To Joseph it is a mystery and a shame that most fellow Muslims today never get to hear about the likes of these people and follow their examples in a quest for knowledge and acceptance. Instead people are doing horrible deeds in the name of his religion, and absurdly enough by claiming that it is to restore the origins of Islam.

Joseph truly is educated and intellectual through the roof, and used to be working as an anthropologist at one of the finest universities of America when he fell into a well of both physical and mental pain deeper than the Rift Valley. He tried for a long time, but he just could not endure. The pain was simply too much. So he decided that he would take his own life. Like a most of the things he had done in his life, his suicide would also be an act of grandeur and splendour. So in a very dark journey through is mind and soul he set out to plan in rigorous detail how it would be done. Because of his Indian decent, he would travel to India and go to the home of his ancestor’s, high up in the Himalayas. There flows many a violent, rumbling mountain river crossed by a high bridges. Throwing himself out from such a bridge into the cold, roaring water would surely mean that his goal would have been fulfilled in a matter of a few dramatic seconds. When he was done with the horrible planning, it was as if the light came through. He suddenly realised that he actually had a choice. A choice of death, or a choice of life. He chose life, and took the decision to do whatever it would take to confront the problems and the pain. So he decided to travel to a meditation retreat San Francisco, where he was to undergo a process of intense therapy and meditation. As he was approaching what would become his place for enlightenment, he had the strangest revelation. He realized that he had in fact seen it before. In a dream in vivid detail, many years ago. Needless to say, it came as a big shock. When in most of these installations, it is common practise is to give yourself love and kindness and others love and kindness. In doing so, the memory of four very nasty white racists came to his mind. They presented themselves in a spiritual way, each of them looking exactly like they did 40 years ago. During his young years these boys had been his worst tormentors. They had beaten, stoned, and insulted him time after time again. He forgave them one by one. Since then life was never the same again. It was as if a deep tranquillity came and lowered itself over Joseph. Slowly, but surely he managed to get back in control of his mind and body. Since then he has completely changed his way of life. He decided to quit his very high position in the academy and start searching for himself. When sitting and writing down his life story he recovered a lot of lost memories of things that had been so important before, something that made him come to insights he could never have dreamed of before. He is now a full-time philosopher and writer, and with all of his experiences he is not short on things to write about. Hearing him and Keith converse and discuss was better than most any radio or television program. Two truly inspiring characters engaged in a dance of words and gestures. It is a man and a meeting I will not easily forget.

Once again that night we all sat in the dim light of the hanging gardens that is Keith’s porch. Without warning the silence was broken by an unmistakable sound. The trumpet blow of an elephant. And judging from the loudness and clarity of the sound, it was not too far away… Just another night after just another day in Eastern Africa.

Keith cooking by mantle light

Nils in the Kenyan night

Mr Sugar with his van

Big baboon

Boating hotel...?

Keith Pearson - The Prophet at the foot of the Mountain