Kenya

28th December 1992, Kisumu, Kenya -

One day to go until the election and we were headed to Nairobi to try to get out of a country which no longer the stablest in East Africa. We packed up our stuff and jumped in the truck with Mike, Tom and Jim who were also going to Nairobi to help Mick sort out the truck for his next trip - they were going to meet our group in Nairobi in a few days. We drove all the way through the beautiful Kenyan countryside, drinking beer and sitting inside our sleeping bags to keep warm. It was a really good day - we had a great time and the scenery was fantastic.

We passed Lake Nakuru and could see a pink ring around the edge of the lake where the flamingos were hanging out. We arrived at the Kumuka compound at about ten o'clock that night and ended up just watching the Kenyan news. They were reporting that the police force in Nairobi would be doubled on election day with air surveillance to watch out for any hot spots in the city. The Kumuka guys were telling us that there's been some riots in Nairobi a week before and that the opposition parties had already announced that they wouldn't accept the election results if Moi wins. On that note Rich and I weren't going to be hanging around Kenya to find out who wins the election - we were going to try to get a flight to Bombay the next day.

29th December 1992, Election Day, Nairobi, Kenya -

Moi declared today a public holiday so there aren't any Air India flights leaving today, let alone the fact that no one at the airport was answering the phone anyway. We ended up just hanging around the Kumuka compound watching the only Kenyan television station for any election information. We knew we weren't going to see a map of the country light up red and blue as the results came in, but we wanted any information. No dice. Election results would begin to be announced in the morning.

Let's take a moment to tell you about the Kenyan television station (singular). Kenyan Broadcasting Corp only goes on the air for a few hours in the evening, so for the rest of the twenty four hour period they pipe in CNN International to fill the gap. It was on there that the CNN reporter in Nairobi said, ". . . if President Moi were reelected there are the makings for a civil war." Wonderful - I went off and tried to call Air India again.

The Kumuka guys told us about an Acacia (another safari company) truck coming up to Nairobi from Mombassa a week before the election. It was cruising along when both the driver and courier noticed this large disk shaped thing in the middle of the highway. The driver swerved around it and after a few moments reassessing the situation he asked the courier, who'd been in the British army, if the thing they'd just avoided was a land mine. The courier affirmed the comment and they continued through a police check (where nothing was said) on to Nairobi. Chalk one up for Kenyan politics.

30th December 1992, Nairobi, Kenya -

Quote from today's The Nation "Nairobi - UK awaits election monitors' reports The Foreign Office said yesterday that it would not make a statement on the outcome of the General Election until it had reports from the British High Commissioner in Nairobi and the Commonwealth observer team. The British High Commission is said to have made plans to evacuate 47,000 UK expatriates in the event of post-election violence."

When I woke up this morning the KBC was giving us the results (very slowly I might add) that Moi was leading so far with some other guy not far behind him. I rang up Air India at 9:30 a.m. and got us placed on the Nairobi to Bombay flight leaving at 1:30 p.m. that afternoon. We would be in Bombay for New Year! Rich and I packed our bags and said goodbye to Jim, Tom and Mike before heading out to catch the matatu into town. I was sort of bummed we wouldn't get to have our New Year's party with the people form our safari truck - we had a great group, but there was no reason for us to stay in a country that was as unstable as it was, along with our own government advising us not to enter Kenya.

We said our good-byes and caught the minivan into Nairobi city center and with one swift motion we were in a cab headed to the airport no less that two minutes after getting off the matatu. We boarded our plane an hour or so later to find a total of 20 people on an aircraft that was almost as large as a 747! We flew six and a half hours and at 9:30 p.m. local time we'd landed on the next continent (or sub-continent) of our world tour. India. We'd clocked almost 7,200 kilometers on our trip with Kumuka in our big blue 1961 German M.A.N. truck named "Bush Pig"

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