Monday, February 23, 2009

An Open Letter

Dear Mombasa,

You’re hot. No I don’t mean that in a you’re attractive and good looking kinda way, I mean it in a temperature, its always 35 degrees, what the hell is with that? kinda way? I’ve been with you for almost 8 months now that’s a pretty long time. And after that much time you learn a few things about each other no? well, I don’t know if you’ve learned much about me, but I have definitely learned a thing or 2 about you.

First off, you suffer from some of the worst planning I’ve ever seen. Too much power is in the hands of too few people. This includes your archaic public transportation system which is in the hands of matatus that recklessly clog up your streets. Speaking of streets, Ok, and you’re island, I get it, but that’s not an excuse for everything. How is it, that in your entire “city boundary” you only have 4 stoplights, of which only 2 work, and none are actually adhered to. You only have 5 dual lane streets which means you have ridiculous traffic jams that shouldn’t happen in a city of around 1 million people. You’re not the only island city in the world.

Now before this turns into one long rant, because I’ve been prone to do that about you, let me just say –I like you. I think you can be great. But for the love of god, you’ve got work to do. Look at it this way, you can either complain that you’re not as attractive to the tourists as a place like Zanzibar, or as modern/developed as a place like your Nairobi, or you can use the fact that you’re halfway between both to your advantage. Your biggest asset is that big body of water called the Indian Ocean and the miles of sandy beach that make your border. Nairobi doesn’t have that. But you’re also a fairly big city in the middle, Zanzibar doesn’t have that. With a little work, you can be the best of both worlds. But its gonna take some work. You recently decided that you didn’t want street hawkers crowding the streets. Yet, you decided to forcibly remove which resulted in rioting on more than one occasion. Fine, they clog the sidewalks (or the dirt on the side of the road you call a sidewalk), but they have to make a living. Are you giving them any other option? No. you’re just telling them to pack up and leave (or be beaten by the inept and corrupt police that plague this place) and to hell with the fact that they have no other way to make a living.

Now, the problems you have are obviously not only yours. Some of them are obviously just a part of being in Kenya (see Kenya police). And they’re large problems. But there are little steps you can take along the way. For example, Nairobi seems to have a plethora of wastebins everywhere..why don’t you? Instead you see the odd wastebin here n there, none of which have a bottom so even if someone puts trash in there it ends up on the ground anyways! And remember that big body of water I mentioned, ya…that thing, make it more accessible and clean up the sand a bit. Look to Zanzibar for help on making the beach accessible. Spread the crowd that jams the few public beaches you have up and down the coast and who knows, you might have something. You might even go as far as to offer the beach on the island instead of forcing us to go off the island everytime, maybe some of the financial benefits of your tourism industry might rub off to the city instead of just staying on the north and south coasts.

Look these are just a few ideas, they’re not perfect, they’re not easy. But you gotta start somewhere. In the meantime, I’m leaving. I swear I gave it my best and hear me when I say I came to you with an open mind and the possibility that if it turned out well I might even stay here, but no not right now. At this point in my life, you’re not the right fit and I’m probably not the best one to help you. 17 days and I’m out! Toronto is calling and I can’t wait to answer. But I’ll say this, you’ve got potential, you don’t have to look far for help, and I think you can get it together. If you do, who knows…maybe I’ll come back some day.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Najib Balala, kenya's current tourism minister started his career as the mayor of mombasa and actually did quite a good job of cleaning the city up. It all went back to hell when he left.

The problem in mombasa is the totally inept city council. Nairobi itself only started looking better when they hired a competent town clear, John Gakuo, who has done a commendable job in trying to keep the city clean. Mombasa needs a Gakuo and if the minister of local government was serious, he'd appoint one, but Mudavadi is pretty useless.

Anyway, based on your visits to both India and Kenya, what country would you say is either cleaner or has better infrastruture?

**PS: make it easier for people to leave comments by providing an annonymous option.