Oil and Isolation
Kenya’s government recently announced that oil had been discovered in the Lake Turkana basin, an isolated region whose people have long been the butt of other Kenyans' jokes. But the potential for conflict over oil exploration and extraction in the region is no laughing matter.
NAIROBI – In Kenya, there is a running gag that sums up how far away the Turkana people live from the rest of us. When a Turkana man leaves for the capital, Nairobi, the joke goes, he tells his family, “I’m going to Kenya.”