There has been quite a bit of attention on Kenya lately. Following the election there has been disputes over fairness and possible corruption during the process. This ‘unrest’ has resulted in some 500+ deaths. This is of course tragic, and cause for some concern when Africas most stable country suffers from these kind of things.
Because I’m going to Kenya soon there has been quite a few questions of concern directed my way. It’s nice to know that people care about me. But this also makes me want to explore things and put things in perspective a little bit as far as the danger element goes.
Of course there is always some level of danger. No matter what you happen to be doing. Mission work can be more dangerous, but not always considering the auto crash fatalities in the US. And car accidents are just one of many areas of premature death. Kenya has bad crime, this has always been known. Some 10,000 are murdered in Kenya each year. This is cause for conern. And Sudan is tragically still experiencing a long, and bloody civil war which is also cause for concern.  My point is this… Neither of these countries are ’safe-havens’. And they never have been. So there is always some assumed risk when traveling there. In perspective, it is not necessarly much more dangerous in Kenya with the current ‘unrest’. 500 people have tragically died. Mostly as a result of protesting, or some degree thereof. But I question how much more dangerous it is for a westerner to enter the country in the current situation as opposed to how things ‘normally’ are.
At this point I am not saying, that I or anyone should feel completely safe about traveling there right now. But more or less I just want to make known that as with any ‘mission’ trip to Africa (of anywhere for that matter), thee is an element of risk be taken by the person traveling. There is more risk now in Kenya. But what is the acceptable risk for someone trying to help others? This is debatable, and is luckily not something I will be doing on my own.