Following idyllic Uganda would always be a tricky task, and Kenya's reputation for aggression and hassle preceded it. But I wasn’t ready for how quickly the country’s notoriety would justify itself; my first conversation was an argument with the conductor of the bus leaving from the border. I didn’t mind paying the inflated ‘mzungu’ price as much as I minded him lying about both the inflation and the price itself. I paid and he became friendly enough, though never happier then when our minibus passed a vicious street fight in one of the towns en route.
Buses in that part of Africa are very different to those I’m used to back home. They come in two distinct varieties: minibuses and coaches. Both intra-city ‘Public buses’ and inter-city ‘shuttles’ are minibuses zipping along without any regard for speed or safety. They’re always privately run, decorated, and named:
And mine with the aggressive conductor quickly got me to Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and largest city in the Luo area. Badly affected by the post-election violence that swept Kenya in early 2008, the project that I was there to visit was almost cancelled that year as a result. In 2009 there were few visible signs of the problems. Much more visible were the hoards of street children that the city is famous for. Or to be more precise, street boys. I learnt that street girls are far less common because (i) they are more likely to be welcomed back than their brothers, as boys are ‘more trouble than girls’, (ii) they are more likely to be trusted by strangers and employed as domestic help, and (iii) they are more likely to be taken in because they are at greater risk on the streets than their male peers. As a result nearly all the street children in Kisumu are boys.
And there are many boys. Ubiquitous clusters of shoeless, solvent-sniffing street boys staggering the streets, glue bottles permanently clamped between their rotting teeth. To the nervous traveller, as I was on my first visit to the city in 2007, they can be intimidating, a ragged mob of desperate feral youth with nothing to lose. (I was told in Nairobi that the street boys there are genuinely dangerous, and manage to occasionally avoid the street lynchings for which the area is notorious by covering themselves in human waste, which is then thrown at anyone that ventures within splattering range.)
But rather than be intimidated – or fear flying excrement – I went with the project’s leader to visit some of the shelters seeking to address Kisumu’s street child epidemic, and was greeted with timid curiosity distinctive of those that deserve better, but know they could be much worse off. These boys have found at least some respite from the streets, but for each of them there are dozens for whom there is no space.
After two days of frantically visiting as many street refuges and schools as possible to get a picture of the project, I left our superhero project coordinator and her motley crew to continue their work, while I continued on my journey, this time by coach.
In contract to the minibuses, the coaches of East Africa are the big hulking bruiser variety of bus: much slower, safer (on account of their size rather than having any seatbelts); but better for the long haul (shuttles rarely go further than 8 hours from base, while the coaches cross the region in stints of up to 72 hours at a time). They are also spacious enough to host occasional characteristic happenings, such as the suave and often evangelically fervent ‘Drs’ who stand centre aisle and bellow their polished public health speeches about how their anti-worming creams (complete with photos of writhing worms) will cure everyone’s parasite problems. I’ve never seen one swamped with business but it would only take a couple of sales to cover the fare.
The coaches also attract an innovative form of enterprise characteristic to the region, the shop in a box:
Buses in that part of Africa are very different to those I’m used to back home. They come in two distinct varieties: minibuses and coaches. Both intra-city ‘Public buses’ and inter-city ‘shuttles’ are minibuses zipping along without any regard for speed or safety. They’re always privately run, decorated, and named:
And mine with the aggressive conductor quickly got me to Kisumu, Kenya’s third largest city and largest city in the Luo area. Badly affected by the post-election violence that swept Kenya in early 2008, the project that I was there to visit was almost cancelled that year as a result. In 2009 there were few visible signs of the problems. Much more visible were the hoards of street children that the city is famous for. Or to be more precise, street boys. I learnt that street girls are far less common because (i) they are more likely to be welcomed back than their brothers, as boys are ‘more trouble than girls’, (ii) they are more likely to be trusted by strangers and employed as domestic help, and (iii) they are more likely to be taken in because they are at greater risk on the streets than their male peers. As a result nearly all the street children in Kisumu are boys.
And there are many boys. Ubiquitous clusters of shoeless, solvent-sniffing street boys staggering the streets, glue bottles permanently clamped between their rotting teeth. To the nervous traveller, as I was on my first visit to the city in 2007, they can be intimidating, a ragged mob of desperate feral youth with nothing to lose. (I was told in Nairobi that the street boys there are genuinely dangerous, and manage to occasionally avoid the street lynchings for which the area is notorious by covering themselves in human waste, which is then thrown at anyone that ventures within splattering range.)
But rather than be intimidated – or fear flying excrement – I went with the project’s leader to visit some of the shelters seeking to address Kisumu’s street child epidemic, and was greeted with timid curiosity distinctive of those that deserve better, but know they could be much worse off. These boys have found at least some respite from the streets, but for each of them there are dozens for whom there is no space.
After two days of frantically visiting as many street refuges and schools as possible to get a picture of the project, I left our superhero project coordinator and her motley crew to continue their work, while I continued on my journey, this time by coach.
In contract to the minibuses, the coaches of East Africa are the big hulking bruiser variety of bus: much slower, safer (on account of their size rather than having any seatbelts); but better for the long haul (shuttles rarely go further than 8 hours from base, while the coaches cross the region in stints of up to 72 hours at a time). They are also spacious enough to host occasional characteristic happenings, such as the suave and often evangelically fervent ‘Drs’ who stand centre aisle and bellow their polished public health speeches about how their anti-worming creams (complete with photos of writhing worms) will cure everyone’s parasite problems. I’ve never seen one swamped with business but it would only take a couple of sales to cover the fare.
The coaches also attract an innovative form of enterprise characteristic to the region, the shop in a box:
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