No matter how well prepared you think you are nothing can
really prepare you for poverty on this kind of scale and
all of the ways it spreads its tentacles into every corner
of a society. The quality of facilities, goods and services
get dragged down. People get more aggressive. Theft goes up.
If you build up something nice, you have to guard it more
jealously making you even more of a target for theft,
intrusion or vandalism.
At the other end of the spectrum there's little point in
getting medical advice when you won't be able to afford
treatment so in many cases people don't bother.
All forms of abuse go up; spousal abuse, child abuse,
substance abuse as people take out their anger and despair
on whatever is available. Government officials focus only
on making sure they're set up for life once their term in
office ends making it difficult to push through any
improvements.
As for assigning blame, there's plenty to go around. Corruption,
at all levels of government is the most obvious target. Western
countries who have tied loans to lowering trade protections with
markets that can't possibly compete is another.
If fixing it were easy, someone would have done it by now.
And yet there is hope. Kenya has made some substantial improvements
over the last few years. Education has always been a high priority
and one can't help but get the feeling that the place isn't all that
far away from really getting it together. In terms of human capital,
Kenya is a wealthy place. If we could only translate it into capital
capital, then we'd really be getting places.
