Arjen Westra’s African Weblog

Good luck to the village of Haaksbergen in the Netherlands. They had a lot of power faillures last weekend due to bad weather conditions. The mayor was complaining that these things should not be possible in these times. Seen in a wider perspective, Haaksbergen in Netherlands is not that bad, I guess. Power faillures are still NEWS in Haaksbergen. Here in Nairobi people get used to power faillures, sometimes we have five a day. What might be news here is lack of water: the coming weeks Nairobians are advised to stock up water because of expected substantial water shortage, I read in todays newspaper.

Yesterday, I got a request from a friend. She wanted me to assist her with some money. Quite a normal question to seemingly rich people in Kenya. My friend’s son was to go into the forest for a month, together with more young boys and old men they walk, talk and sleep in the forest. During this ‘test’ the boys will be circumcised. After a month the nine year old comes out as a ‘man’. “Then I am not allowed anymore to send me to the kitchen for helping me”, she said laughing.

Rain is drizzling in small drops. Making my face feel cold and wet, moon looks down on a cold and sleeping Holland. Seen from space, earth is very tiny planet, i imagine. Sometimes I am surprised that we don’t have more wars on this planet with so many different people and so many different interests. Wish you all a good night or/and a good morning!

… but we don’t forget. Find a audio report here (Windows Media). Sorry you have to mis the introduction, but the man you will hear first is Peter Smerdon from World Food Program. Meanwhile I’ve arrived in Holland where terrorism and cultural integration same to be the most important news. Funny thing: whern I arrived at Schiphol Airport a few days ago, the first thing I saw was an advertising board in a Juice Bar with the text Mix Orange and Banana. Nothing special for most of the international clientele: a mixed fruit drink. But for Kenyans nowadays it means something else. After 15 years Kenyans are to vote for their new constitution in a referendum. If you vote ‘Yes’ , you are a banana and if you vote ‘No’, you are an orange. So the meaning of these fruits meant something different for me. I realised that we see our world through symbols with a ‘learned’ meaning. In Kenya these days, being Orange or Banana can mean the difference between wounded or not (check the Kenyan News for that). I asked myself: what does moslim mean in this world, in my countries headlines nowadays for a lot of people? And what do people think if you say you are American? Check out the Orange Website and of course The Banana Site