The heroes’ day
Yesterday it was bank holiday. On TV they broadcasted songs sang in tea fields next to the railway and they praised the freedom fighters and ministers who had been working with Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first president after the independence. They also mentioned the Kenyan athletes.
They showed the army and paid tribute to the soldiers fighting against Somalia. It is the first time the country is at war. The Somalis kept hacking ships and kidnapping people, so Kenya sent its army to the borders. The seas are patrolled by the Kenyan Navy, but still they were the most dangerous seas in the world. For this reason, Somalia started making terrorist attacks on Kenya: here the Kenyans live with the threat of Al Shabab – the name of the Somali Militia.
I remember when I was young, France’s minister of Health – who is also my neighbour in Paris, had set a charity operation called “ Du riz pour la Somalie” ( Some rice for Somalia). All the school children were supposed to buy a Kg of rice that would be sent to Somalia were they were suffering terrible famines. When I was a child it was Ethiopia who was in this situation.
One of my students almost laughed at me when I told him I felt sorry about his having to go to war. He told me that nobody had died at war, in the eleven months he had spent there because they had good equipement. He said that two of them had died carried away by the water as they went for some drinks. My next question is how can they determine who has won the war.
One of the ships used to capture Kismayu was made in Spain.
Teaching French in Nairobi Kenya 