2600 BC to 2006 AD

When it is has become commonplace to vie for right of way with (emaciated) cattle in Nairobi, you know that there really is a drought and it is very serious.

I scan the papers for the latest news.

There’s a sidebar article in The Standard: the French Ambassador announced that the French government will donate the equivalent of about 13 million dollars to the relief efforts.

Merci beaucoup.

And, the US Ambassador to Kenya, William Bellamy, is reported to have called for ‘new methods to deal with chronic food shortages.’ He’s miffed that Kenya has asked for food assistance three years in a row.

That’s usually the third last place I’d go to for advice about Kenya, but, he makes a valid point.

Other than that, rien. Nothing.

The drought has taken a back seat (or been shoved into the boot). The more entertaining (although considerably more aggravating to the spirit), and not so conscience-piercing political shenanigans are in the driver's seat.

Despite this glaring lack of news, however, I have it on good authority, that the famine persists and people in North Eastern Kenya are still dying.

We urban folk have done our part and eased our consciences, of course. We’ve filled lorries with foodstuff and sent them off to North Eastern. We’ve drawn a neat pencil line across it on our ‘to do list’, and are relieved that we'll be able to sleep at night. Off to Java we go, for a Ranchero Burger and Fries, thank you very much.

I’m not disparaging what we’ve done, especially the young and the prisoners among us. I'm not. It was heartening to see Kenyans rally so gallantly to the cause in the last two months.

I’m just frustrated, I suppose, that going on five thousand years after the first dykes were built, we in this little corner of the world have not yet mastered how to subdue the earth.

Because as William Bellamy rightly points out:

‘People die year in year out due to crop failure and the only thing that changes is the magnitude of the problem.’

What excuse can we pull out of a shoe to justify our being caught unaware, the Nth time around?

Really?

Now back I go to read that article in the Daily Nation about how mobile phone text messaging is damaging thumbs.

*Blogger's note to self: north eastern Kenya is not the only place in Kenya where there is drought. But it is where it seems to have hit worst.