I am curious if any of us have a finger in Kenya, these days. I know Dr. Wilson does, but he does not return e-mails. The IU Med. School has been running a pretty successful project..until a week or so ago...addressing HIV customers...sorry..clients and their families.
Really sad, but not a surprise. I spent about 14 years in Africa so I am always torn when I hear these things, and look into my kids eyes..will they ever walk proudly and freely as we can do, with hopefulness and opportunity in each step??? I don't know anymore.
My two sons will hopefully know Pulaar, English and French well enough to make a difference one day. I will encourage it as I will alsways be an outsider, but they have another opening.
I am also looking into starting an NGO with my wife and some associates in northern Senegal. We will aim to serve Pulaar (largely) communities and focus on young women and teenage or post primary young men.
I'll need a breadth of experience as we look into programs for "wellness" and "choice" initiatives for young ladies, small business development and networking, For the men, It organization and training and "civics development" that will be my code word for resting control of the core 15-30 population from the franco-managed slow suicide they are entwind in. I would like to start an English newspaper in Senegal, I am not sure there has EVER been one, aside froma Gambia based one in the OLD days. That will require very brave and stout souls indeed.
I am also curious why so few "lookers" bother to make a profile, or send a note to say hi, I see 38 folks have looked at my info, but I've not heard personaly from anyone except the BEEZ.
I have found that to be true of our age on INET users, we hide behind the net, unlike my daughter and her friends who brush their teeth and floss on it.
The NGO would not have to be centered on Senegal, I'd welcome interaction from anyone with someone, or someplace on their mind...we have a few years left to make a real difference. I've worked with enough of the LARGE ones to know there is not much to it aside from connections and line into DC, and I think we have some possibilities there.
regards,
john
3 comments:
One of my former students, Omar Bunu, now has a family in Ann Arbor, Mich., and he send me daily updates on what's going on. He says he doesn't know if the fiasco will ultimately turn out to be good or bad for the country, but like a lot of things, you've got to hit bottom before you can rebuild. Hopefully Kenya's government will the better for it (or at least less corrupt than usual) in the long run.
Do you really believe that...cmom..if so...maybe we need to start that system here...I am not sure what the bottom is, boy that sounds scary as we don't seem to anywhere near that, but is sure is bad enough.
The fact is in such "incidents" there is no government, it is not functioning at that time and just before and after..so what results is a shell of what "government" was for those who participated, watched, and for those who died, well just another death.
Very sad in deed.
Glad to see the years haven't dulled your edge, John. ;)
Yeah, my earlier comments were naive. Hopeful, yet naive. For a while there it seemed as if Kenya, post-Moi, had made some strides in the area of human rights, but this episode reveals that it still has a ways to go.
Kinda like the good ol' U. S. of A., which is not immune from political corruption either. If you're like me, you've become numb to the evil being perpetrated against the world by our current presidential administration. Of course we wouldn't think about taking to the streets, burning and looting in protest.
Instead, we cling to the idea that our system of government and a collective will to do the right thing are capable of correcting the problem, even if it seems glacially slow. Even when the Bushies have all dried up and blown away, we'll still have messes to clean up, at home and abroad, and we always will. To quote the late great philosopher Bob Marley, only time will tell.
I follow the news from Kenya from a distance and a detachment born of middle age and a sense that I'm having a hard enough time controlling my own and my family's destinies to fret too much about events on the other side of the planet. I try to stay in touch with the people I know there (and here) and hope it works itself out. It's the best I can do at the moment.
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