Enrico Dagnino

We both felt somewhat helpless as we celebrated the New Year, moving into 2008, sitting in front of the fireplace with a view of the Mediterranean but watching the computer screen for dispatches on the crisis in Kenya. Then a call came in from Paris-Match: “Will you go?” The next day we were there in front of the incongruous glass-walled skyscrapers in Nairobi without its crowds of tourists. For reasons I only partly understand, Enrico decided we should stay in the presbytery of the Italian priests of the Comboni order; they were old friends of his, served perfect al dente pasta, had plenty of grappa and were close to some of the largest slums in eastern Africa, on the outskirts of the city. There were no tarred roads, no sign of the 6% growth rate reported by the Kenyan government in 2006, nothing positive to be seen anywhere near the decaying walls and muddy streets that are home to millions of people who have to get by on less than a dollar a day. The shells of burnt-out cars were evidence of the violent clashes between supporters of Raila Odinga, the unlucky presidential candidate from the Luo ethnic group, and supporters of the re-elected president, Mwai Kibaki, who had been accused of rigging the election and taking land for members of his own Kikuyu tribe. The allegedly “orange” revolution had not been a matter of waving flowers and scarves, as in Ukraine, but of wielding machetes and clubs. We crossed the Rift valley, between Lake Naivasha and Lake Victoria, and saw smoke rising into the air from thousands of farms which had been burnt down and were still smoldering, showing the scale of the drama. The people were red-eyed, either from fatigue after keeping watch all night, or from “bangi” (marijuana) or “Changa’a”, home-brewed liquor which, while it leaves the drinker blind, provides the courage for activists to face up to anti-riot police. There was a general sense of weariness, as families went by, carrying bundles on their heads, moving in both directions yet all fleeing from districts and villages where their communities were too small to keep up any resistance. They would then end up in camps for displaced persons where food relief was incentive enough for them to stay.

Amos Angolo, with tag number 4953 tied to his toe, was in a drawer at the municipal morgue and no doubt ended up being buried. According to his cousin, the police shot him in the back during a riot. Calm had been restored in Kenya, at least on the surface. Politicians had played on age-old ethnic tensions in a bid to gain votes and apparently found a way of dividing up what was at stake. Tourists were back to enjoy the spectacle of a lion hunting gazelles. The tour operators had no problem getting onto the roads that bypass the shanty towns. When Enrico returned to Paris, he lit up a large cigar, and started grumbling: yet again, all these photos, all these stories would have no effect whatsoever on the poverty and suffering in the world.

Caroline Mangez, feature reporter, Paris-Match