Book Commentary about Africa

Bill Bryon’s African Diary

To step into Kenya is to be lost at once in a random, seemingly endless warren of rank, narrow passageways wandering between rows of frail, dirt-floored hovels made of tine and mud and twigs and holes. Each shanty, on average, is ten feet by ten and home five or six people. Down the centre of each lane runs a shallow trench filled with a trickle of water and things you don’t want to see or step-in.

Every time you flush a toilet you use more water than the average person in the developing world has for all purposes in a day – cooking, cleaning, drinking, everything. It’s very tough. Unless you are exceptionally lucky with employment, it’s very very difficult to get ahead. In Kenya we (people) always have hope.

Oh and by the way you have to take malaria tablets, too, and a lot of them (tourists) decide to go elsewhere. It’s a shame because Kenya’s go so much going for it- beautiful countryside, lovely people, extraordinary wildlife, wonder climate, great beaches.

Market places are an extraordinary place – crowed, noisy, extremely colorful – with large, open sided halls specializing in wet fish, dried fish, vegetables, nuts and other farm commodities. I had never seen such luscious produce more beautifully arrayed. Every stall was a picture of abundance and sumptuousness, every peanut and tomato and chili more neatly arranged and more richly color than any I had seen before anywhere. It seemed impossible that people so poor could enjoy such plenty.