Ah…Kenya…The land of coffee and long distance runners. Also an ex-english colony, extremely dry, yet vast and breathtaking savannahs. To be honest Kenya was full of surprises. First of all everyone (about 90%) is english speaking. Probably due to the colonization effect, all signs, posters, press and food packaging is in English. So getting around is pretty easy, hence the tourism explosion the past couple of years. Kenya just went through a peaceful referendum (contrasting the not so peaceful last elections) voting for a new British-free constitution.  Yes, after a long time of practically milking a country the british decided they had enough with the tropics and went back to their climatically challenged country. The constant rain showers and the crow surplus seemed somehow more appealing to the british conquerors, making them leave the lions and the coffee to their rightful owners. Behind them they left their bad bad habits though, things like driving on the left side of the road, mirror images of european faucets and screws and tea. It’s interesting how in kenya is rather hard if not impossible to find a decent cup of coffee. When I asked for a coffee in a plastic cup *to go* what i got was a coca cola. yes. a cold coke at 9 a.m. It’s as if people have no idea they even produce coffee, so tea it is for them. Something like 90%-95% of coffee production is exported to Europe (not the UK of course).What the british did not leave behind them though is tarmac. Kenya has serious road issues, as in they have no roads. At least nothing like the british roads.Don’t trust the locals regarding distances and things like “so how long will it take me to get to Y from X”, Kenyans have a weird sense of the space time continuum. You can tell by the way they drive.

So the Chinese decided to lend a helpful hand and actually make roads for them, yes, brand new roads all around the country, the Chinese are putting down hot new steamy tarmac for the people. In return they ask..hmm…well the obvious answer is ‘OIL’ but according to an ambassador here in Kenya, what the chinese asked for was “room for research”. And by that our eastern friends mean, everything. The chinese are contracting the whole country, building hotels, roads, bridges, buildings, houses and many many more. And in return they get, oil, gold, stones (not the rolling ones, the people of Mao prefer the precious kind), water, land and who knows what else. Our noodle loving, spring roll eating friends are also contracting works in Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda and well probably each and every country in the African continent. And in return they get, as we said, everything. But enough with the chinese and their plans for world domination. Kenya faces a very serious problem and that is water. Water is a major issue here. Is and has been for many years now, it’s been such an issue that companies from all around the world ran here to help the Kenyans drill holes deep into the ground to find water. Those holes are called boreholes and it’s a pretty old technique they have been using. What you do is dig a hole ranging from 20 to 600 meters hoping you’ll hit water (and usually you do) and then build a pump on top of it, either machine driven or the good ol’fashioned manual way. Then you have enough water to drink, irrigate and feed your animals. Oh there are ways and ways to do that. Ways and ways to go deep into the earth’s crust and make water come up and it’s not that hard. It used to be common knowledge but apparently somewhere between getting colonized and people dying of AIDS, knowledge got lost along the way. However for the friendly price of $25.000 you could hire someone to drill a hole for you. Yes, that’s right. $25.000 for a hole in the ground and i must say that water is priceless but it sounds a bit absurd to pay someone that cash for just a hole. And here’s a paradox : Those countries have been full of NGO’s  big and small for the past 20 years or so. Yet, no initiative to educate locals regarding techniques, methods or ways to drill and pump themselves.