The expatriate hails from a country that is prepared for disasters. Whether he is from the UK or USA, the expatriate knows that his country is hated the world over for its arrogance, military interventions and terrible food. The expatriate’s country has (perceived) enemies the world over, and as a consequence, is always ready to cope with various forms of attack.
Indeed, silly ‘threat levels’ exist in the UK and the USA. In America, they have green, amber and red. The UK has more confusing ones, along the lines of ‘slightly threatening,’ ‘a little bit threatening,’ and ‘not really very threatening at all.’
But, when tragedy strikes, whether it’s from terrorism (rare) or floods, domestic fires, crime or medical emergencies, the UK, for instance, has fire engines, ambulances, police cars and staff on alert. And when flood warnings, for example, are issued by the authorities, Britain gets out the dredgers, people, set up sandbags and the country prepares.
Kenya, the expatriate will find, is slightly different. Here, we’ve been getting serious El Niño warnings for months now, and the only preparations I’ve seen are a woman I met last weekend at a local supermarket buying a King’s Collection umbrella.
I can’t remember when I last heard a police siren in Kenya and, although I’ve heard more ambulance sirens in the past two years or so. But there’s some suspicion that the ambulances are always empty and the drivers just want to avoid Nairobi traffic jams.
Most worrying is fire service provision, which I believe is now a devolved, county-level responsibility. The expatriate is used to the old-fashioned idea that fire engines possess water, reach fires swiftly, and have staff capable of putting those fires out. However, he should be prepared for stories of fire engines that turn up late to fires; of fire engines that have ladders and other equipment that the staff can’t operate; of fire engines that plough, unforgivably, into funerals, creating deaths of the sort they’re supposed to prevent. I’d be surprised if some of our counties’ fire engines weren’t used on their off-days as petrol lorries. One can never be entirely certain in Kenya that calling the fire brigade is the best response to a fire.
Floods are equally concerning. My advice to the expatriate is simply this: make sure that you know how to swim. You’ll need it. Or that your Land Rover can double-up, James Bond style, into an aquatic vehicle.
In short, Kenya’s greatest disaster is its disaster management, which consists of a mop, a bucket of sand and a person employed by the county government to say in the newspapers, after the event, that ‘Everything was done excellently.’
It wasn’t.
Still, the condescending expatriate shouldn’t get too snooty about his own country’s preparedness for disasters. After all, in the USA, there are mass school shootings every few days, and in the UK, there’s the regular failure of the national squads to reach football, cricket, rugby or other finals. There are different levels of ‘disaster,’ I suppose.
spartington@yahoo.co.uk
