While the United States have their problems that, according to their president will ‘scar them for years’, Africa gets the usual stuff (see below, did you notice the news by the way?). Sorry for this cynisism… KATRINA WILL SCAR US ‘FOR YEARS’ The US states stricken by Hurricane Katrina will take years to recover, President George W Bush has said, after an aerial tour of the disaster zone. He promised his cabinet will take over the aid operation for “one of the worst natural disasters” the US had seen. An

Early morning walking in a traffic jam of pedestrians. Since the prices of matatus doubled about one and a half year ago, more people had to walk to their work. We call it ‘The Walking Nation’ in Kenya. So early morning you find yourself in a crowd of walking people. Some of them walk four hours a day. Although this is a development country, Nairobi also has a traffic problem with cars. Some people spend an hour a day in a traffic jam. At least car owners found some “>good

The usual early morning coffee at the beginning of a promising day in Nairobi Westlands.Leaving the coffee venue, a big hotel in Westlands, we were passing a few rooms. Inside the overhead projectors were ready: blue screens with the next NO SIGNAL. Video players were installed in all rooms as were the bottles of water, coffee, tea and muffins. The hotel is ready for another day of Four Star work shopping on how to help the poor.

We all have dreams. Meeting a lot of people travelling the continent. This guy I met a few months ago in Laikipia, Kenya. He is a Turkana and his life is about… camels. He loves them. That day it was sunny, hot and we were walking through teh semi desert area with… camels. He sings and I tried to have a conversation with him. Listen here. One of my questions was about his dreams.

This is a fragment. I did some reporting on a massacre in the North of Kenya, recently. Listen to this fragment (by clicking here) of a teacher who tried to save four boys that were killed with machineguns. Full report will be online shortly.

Imagine: you are a girl; you work in a bar. The bar closes at around three at night. You live on a five minute walk from your home. You leave the place after work to go home. Police comes, asks for you ID. You have it. But then, they start making troubles. They say: “What are you doing here? Why at this time?” Yoy answer them, but they deny. “You are a prostitute!” You know it is not true. But you can’t show them your job ID. For many Kenyan

Hello! That is me! Full of dust, reporting in a rough area in Northern Kenya.

Months ago I travelled to Netherlands. In the plane, just after taking of from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, I looked around me. I could not believe my eyes! Was this… just behind me…? I checked the picture of his book, that was in my bag (not by coincidence). Yes! It was him! Ryszard Kapuscinski! One of my heroes. The famous writer/Africa journalist. I looked him in the eyes. But he didn’t see me. I wondered how i could get into contact with him, less than two meters behind me. It

Watched the movie Hotel Rwanda about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. It made me think of the interviews I did more than a year ago for a story about the New Rwanda, 10 years after the genocide. Anita, the girl on this photograph, is one of the girls I interviewed. She told me her story: the neighbours came in and killed everybody but her. She can’t forget. This picture was taken in the Genocide Museum in Kigali.

In the country where I was born we say (without any irony): The Police is your best friend. In Kenya, people could say police are worse then thieves. They misuse their power for robbing, arresting people, often with the only reason to get money. recently, i heard a story about a police man that refused to pay a matatu fee of 20 shillings. The whole bus started protesting and told him: ‘This is the fee, just pay.” Then the police officer in plain clothes decided to force the minibus to