Gambling Machines in Caprivi Strip

On my trip through Namibia’s Caprivi Strip, I stopped at a small coffee joint to satisfy my caffeine-needs. In the end, I am still a Dutch. It was not my first time that I visited this small place in one of the poorest areas of beautiful Namibia. The type of area where people die of malaria because they can’t find transport to the nearest hospital or can’t spend two dollar to safe their own baby’s life. On the outside, nothing had changed. Still the dark orange/brown red-earthy color. Inside still the slow service and the super friendly girl who looks like she doesn’t need anybody as a customer today. Yes: everything looked as usual: I was even happy with the absence of Take Away Coffees. The mugs are on the way, like two years ago, I was told. But I observed something new there in the far dark corner and it made me angry, actually: it made me mad. I saw two gambling machines. I asked who had put these things there, at first nobody could tell me. I noticed the Russian signs and buttons on these what must once have been flashy and bling-blinging Mokba-one-armed-bandits. I could almost smell the wodka. After asking around a bit, some guys told me that a white guy had put them there and someone from the Ministry of Finance was the owner. Now that is what I call development! I took my instant coffee. Outside I found these young guys begging, hiding their small glue bottles in their hands when you approached them and I imagined how the future for these guys would look like if the gambling machines would be connected soon. The locals seemed not very interested in the machines. Some of them told me that all in a lot of shebeens (local ‘drinking places’ ) these machines had been placed recently. I want to stop here and leave the cynical thinking up to the cynics. Hope to meet you on the road! Have a nice day! And keep exploring!

[inspic=143,left,,thumb](New York, October 15, 2008) – The Kenyan government and international partners should strongly support the call by the Waki commission investigating post-election violence to create a special tribunal to end Kenya’s cycle of impunity, Human Rights Watch said today.
“The Waki commission has done an admirable job describing the causes of the violence and assembling evidence,” said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Now the politicians need to set up the special tribunal it recommends. Justice is crucial for Kenya’s stability.”

The report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, headed by Justice Philip Waki, was published on October 15, 2008. The commission concluded that politicians on all sides had organized and funded attacks on supporters of their opponents. The inquiry also found that security forces responded inappropriately, using excessive force against civilians, intervening to have allies released from custody and failing to investigate individuals responsible for the violence. Human Rights Watch said that a complete overhaul of Kenya’s corrupt and abusive police force, as recommended by the Waki commission, is long overdue….

Have a pleasant evening!

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All pictures were taken this afternoon. Audio available shortly. Enjoy the day!

I woke up this morning realising how lucky I am. I went to bed with the story of a Kenyan who arrived in Nairobi confused. He spent his last money on the bus to flee for his life, because a group of soldiers and citizens came to his home at night. Screaming to him: Who did you vote for!! Who did you vote for!! I will keep it short. He and his family bled into a river bed and spent the night. From there he and his family saw how groups went through the area putting fire on houses in the region. This man’s life was saved, and the attackers did not set his house a blaze. But they took his cows. I had a paeceful sleep although the story of the man popped up from time to time.

Then this morning they I woke up with the news of two ministers of the Kenyan government saying: we don’t need any African mediators, because we have won the elections. One of them was referring to a team of African ‘wise men and women’, among them Gracia Machel (Nelson Mandela’s wife) and Kofi Annan (former UN secretary general) who are jetted in for mediation between Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki. For your information: the two ministers: Michuki and Saitoti have both been around and they are not the cleanest.

This morning
This morning in the Newspaper, they showed how big the distance is between Kenya’s filthy rich politicians who don’t even seem to suffer from what is happening to their people. They can just talk about their victory and seem to blind that what is going on in ‘their’ Kenya. But ‘their’ Kenya seems to be a different Kenya. It is the Kenya of the career politicians, who have their children study abroad and who got away with almost everything they did in the past because they are who they are. Their Kenya, they showed is another planet, to which they can choose to fly to whenever they want.

The real Kenya these days is the Kenya of a people that tries to survive, of the people who don’t have a choice. The real Kenya is the Kenya is the Kenya from people that thought they were in a stable country and got hope in the past five years that things would get better. The real Kenya is the Kenya is the Kenya of people who from one day day to another are refugees, don’t have the choice to take a flight like a lot of NGO-workers, diplomats, family of the small group of privileged and tourists with a travel insurance who left this country.

The leaders of this country, none of them did not show anything that shows concern. There is no joint statement in which they show who they really. This country will remember them as many other leaders in Kenyan history: the ones that put their own interests above the people’s. Or… like we Dutch say: the ones that were the drops that made water in the bucket go over the rim… to finally start the Big Change…

What is happening here has gone far beyond who has won elections or not. It among others about a deep felt frustration from the poor. It is about a deep felt frustration about the permanent felt injustice in this society and a hope that was taken away. It is about choices and where they can bring people. Like the man from my bed time story: he did not have the choice but to save his life. Compare to minister Michuki’s choice: looking at the picture in today’s newspaper I have the impression he choose to go for a Dead Sea Mineral-mask and on the way decided to choose a nice new Hugo Boss suit.

I am just outside the Kenyan parlement now waiting for the moment the parlement is going to be opened. It might be the start of a new wave of actions, the choice of an angry Kenyan people. I will keep you posted! At this moment: The streets are getting quiet, riot police is around with cannisters of teargas.