Nairobi, or Nai-robbery, as it's affectionately called, has a reputation for its crime. Nothing bad happened to any of us, but it was truly sad seeing a city dominated by crime, where most would rush home before sunset and it seemed that everyone had a story of being carjacked or robbed at gunpoint. The police aren't much better with corruption being a major problem as is killings during gun battles (of which there were about 50 over January). We were closeted in our beautiful rural campground with permanent security guards patrolling, so it was great to get a chance to travel to the countryside with the Green Belt Movement and plant some native trees at the Karura forest (which they had saved from being developed) to offset our flights to Kenya.

The meetings went well though we did spend a lot of time discussing procedural matters, meanings of words and trying to get over the language barrier. I ended up hating my fast-paced kiwi accent. There were also some serious cultural barriers and unfortunately we couldn't agree on homosexual rights. We had a day of workshops and I gave a slideshow on direct action and media activities. People were especially interested about the youth rates campaign. It was great talking to the other green parties on what they've been up to and both Marcel and I came away wanting to work more closely with the Australian and Asia-Pacific Young Greens.

The World Social Forum was awesome, with 50 000 people attending and over 200 workshops to choose from. It was hard to only pick 12, but even harder getting the workshop you wanted because the program was incorrect and there was no signage. The talks were mind-blowing; on stoning of adulterers in Iran, Wikileaks (a new on-line government leak site), HIV, the War on Terror and the future of the WSF. I was particularly interested in climate change and was surprised how few workshops there were. However, with more people becoming aware of the extreme threats and social costs to the developing world, I am sure there will be more attention paid to climate change and achieving climate justice in the future.

On the way to Kenya I stopped off in China and spent a week in Beijing. Walking around I was been struck by the contradictions: vast sky scrappers and huge Western-style malls selling expensive international products amongst true poverty, beggars and crumbling old apartment blocks. It's a communist country yet billboards pronounced 'shopping makes you happy' The city is obviously in the midst of fantastic change and is undertaking a massive building craze before the 2008 Olympics with cranes dotting the skyline building new towers, new ring roads unfortunately some of the 550 new coal fired power stations planned to be built. Incredibly 7 of the world's 10 most polluted cities are in China yet with such a powerful central government if China decides to go sustainable, could do so, in a big way.

I had an awesome trip and am grateful for the opportunity and would like to thank all those who helped me get to Kenya: The Green Party and Wellington Province for their financial support and all those who helped me in lots of different ways, especially Michael Pringle, Craig Palmer, Danna Glendening and Nigel Taptikilis. Thanks.

# posted by gareth @ 11:29 AM 0 comments