Startup Kenya

My friend Roger clearly remembers those particular words from the telephone call. After many days anxiously spent waiting for it the bank had called him that sweltering December afternoon. The call effectively put a nail in the coffin for Rogers’ fledgling insurance agency. Twelve months earlier, Roger had started his business with unbridled and unstoppable optimism. He quit his well-paying but stressful job as a marketer in a large company, much to the distress of his pregnant wife.  But Roger quit because he had a dream. He dreamed of giving his unborn son everything he ever wanted. He dreamed of an end to the despondent dependancy on his pay cheque. He dreamed of hours of relaxed recreational family time. Driven by a lucid, Technicolor vision of his dream Roger took a one million shillings loan from the bank to start his agency, only to have the bank take it from him one short year later. The auctioneer came the next day, a greasy-faced, pot-bellied, squinty eyed man weari...

Going to primary school in the boondocks after living in the States for years I was ridiculed heavily for my American accent, pudgy frame, 'Boyz n the Hood' hairstyle, and feather-soft palms. Not wanting to fall into that stereotype I worked hard at fitting in with the crowd. I swam in the river, played football barefoot, shed the weight, and did most of what was expected of a 12 year old boy in rural Kenya (Ok, Egerton University is not that rural anymore, but it was still mashambani in the early 90s). With time my peers accepted me and I no longer stood out like a sore thumb. Sad thing is once I joined a rural high-school, the cycle began all over again. Now, I know most of us have war stories on just how tough high-school life was and what we had to go through; but I'm pretty sure there are few who can top my experience. I did not go to high-school, I went to work in a hard-labour concentration camp where in exchange for labour in the farms and buildings we were given ...