Part 3 of my of Q & A with Melinda, to be posted in a few days, covers her daily life and the trials and tribulations of living in Kenya during her 6 year residency.

Leading up to that …….

Could you tell us a little about the social system that prevails in Kenya today?

The social structure in Kenya is pretty simple, on the surface anyway. Three distinct classes exist: "The Europeans” a euphemism for Caucasian; "The Asians," people who came to Kenya, primarily from India, to help build the "Lunatic Express," a railway running from Mombassa to Uganda. After its completion in 1901, many stayed on to make Kenya their permanent home. And "The Africans," who are, of course, the indigenous peoples. Anyone, regardless of color or ethnic background, who has a Kenyan birth certificate, is a Kenyan.

The Africans look down on the Asians, and vice versa, and the Europeans consider themselves superior to everyone.

It's a very class conscious society and very little, if any, social intermingling takes place. I found that difficult to adjust to when I started living there. When I thought I was being friendly, or merely polite, my behavior was viewed as if not inappropriate, certainly too liberal. I was once taken for flirting when, I would have said, I was just being friendly. Doing as I had done in the USA, in terms of interacting with the people who worked for me or who I met in other capacities, caused many social gaffes. I finally learned the ropes and, more importantly, adapted a “When in Rome….” mentality.

Some, I gather, are quite literally, at war.

One book I have lists 39 distinct tribal groups in Kenya, but I think it probably can be boiled down to more like 15. It would be a treatise in itself to discuss all the tribal differences, facial features, customs and dialects. I am far from an authority on that, but I can suggest some books, if anyone wants to read more.

What matters, for our purposes here, is to understand the basics. The tribes do not, in general, intermix or intermarry. This has been going on as long as history has recorded it. It probably stems from long held beliefs and battles over the ownership of land. More recently this tribalism has brought about many other problems, in –breeding being one, but it also keeps things in Kenya, politically, very divisive.

The official government line is that “tribalism” is bad and should be abolished. But it is so deeply ingrained in the very fabric of life that I doubt it will ever disappear. When you live there, you just accept that the people of different tribes distrust each other and do not, in general, want to intermarry. They will always band together against members of other tribes. This fact is often exploited when hiring staff members. Each tribe’s natural wariness of the other leads them to keep a watchful eye on each other and report anyone else’s dishonesty. It’s a built in “checks and balances.”

No one disputes that there are physical differences between the tribes, but many people will also argue there are distinct personality traits as well. "You can never trust tribe W.” “You can never go wrong with tribe X.” “The bravest are tribe Y.” “Tribe Z members are lazy and dishonest." People do not always agree on which tribe possesses which trait, but most people believe those traits exist. When I was there, so did I.

The rivalry among the tribes often spins out of control and violent clashes occur. Again, although the government is officially against tribalism, the general feeling is that it uses these nascent animosities when it serves its purposes. Especially during elections. Kenya has not seen the kind of devastating tribal warfare that has occurred in Rwanda and Zaire (Congo), but there are tribes, particularly in the more remote areas, that are still battling with each other over cattle and land. These skirmishes are on a much smaller scale than was seen in Rwanda, and, therefore do not reach the international press. But people do get killed and the motivation is the same.

Why do some of “the Africans” live in the cities, wear western style clothing, and have English names while others, such as the Masaai and Samburu, have not abandoned their tribal lifestyles?

People migrate to the city, the largest being Nairobi, for work. Once there, they naturally adopt more western ways, including western clothing. This is true of all the tribes, but the ones whose native tribal lands are closer to the larger cities are obviously more apt to populate those areas. The Samburu and the Turkana are from a more remote area and less apt to be seen in the cities. They are there, just in smaller numbers.

If children, and again this would be true of all the tribes, have gone to a school with a religious bent, usually Catholic missionary schools, they have probably been given a Christian name. But the more acclimated to “city life” and western ways that a child’s family is, the more likely it is that he will get a Christian name. One couple that worked for me named their son Jake, after my son. Lambat, the star of The Quest for Fire video clip, named one of his daughters, Melinda!

Most children born in an even semi rural area of Kenya, are raised to look after the families cows and goats. Those animals are an African's wealth. The boys look after the animals and the girls help their mothers, learning the skills they will need as grown women. Like building mud huts! In many cases, especially in a remote area (and the majority of Kenya is remote) these jobs are far more important to the families survival than learning something as impractical as English!

People still living in their villages often still dress in what I would call 'native dress.' Remnants of these costumes, beaded jewelry, elongated ear lobes, men carrying rungus, can be seen almost anywhere, even Nairobi proper. But you have to travel fairly far afield to find everyone dressed in their full regalia. Plenty of after dinner entertainment takes place in the lodges featuring dancers in their "native costumes." But the performers are usually the hotel accountant and the desk clerk who do this for extra money. (Which isn’t a bad thing and it isn’t to say that the accountant is not a real member if that tribe, he just does not dress that way every day.)

It’s a shame, in some ways, that western clothing has become so prevalent, especially when it is an old, torn, dirty T -shirt with some American football team logo on the front. The native wear is always considerably more beautiful. The Samburu, often called the "butterfly people," are utterly resplendent in their native dress.

But on the other hand, education and all that entails, western dress, the English language, and jobs in cities, is absolutely vital to any progress, or even survival, for countries like Kenya.