One of the really fascinating things about many African countries is that they are wrestling with issues from Western Europe's past, in the modern world. For example, ‘tribalism’ of the kind that Western Europe hasn't known for 1000 years is a massive issue in sub-Saharan Africa. Botswana is lucky - as in so many things - in the fact that ( Read more... )

 Hannah was out in Paris this weekend, the first time we've seen each other since before I went to Kenya.  She refused to stay in my apartment with Shayne, so we got a hotel out in the 20th, a boutique place designed by Philip Starck which was incredible, and a real oasis of luxury for me.  She starts her job out here in a couple of weeks, and we ( Read more... )

(By the way -- I asked someone about Obama's name.  They told me "Obama" is an archaic dialect name which means "one who is not straight, a crook".  Huh.  I can see why he doesn't make much of that ( Read more... )

I organised things in Kenya so that the first story I did would be the most complicated, to get it out of the way.  So almost as soon as I arrived in Nairobi I was catching a flight out west to Kisumu, a tiny town made of dusty streets and painted wooden shop signs, unsurfaced roads, boys pushing carts, men selling passion-fruit at roundabouts, ( Read more... )