In response to last week’s warning that Kenya was at high risk of another terror attack, Greeley, an American, has told the school’s 630 pupils–30 percent of them from the United States–that they will start their summer break earlier than scheduled. The school has also installed new “Jersey” barriers–long heavy plastic slabs filled with water–in the front driveway, so, she says, “there’s no straight shot into the school.”
But these are all just new additions to a broader security plan for ISK. Coordinated terror attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed more than 200 people in 1998, and suicide bombers left 16 dead in an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in the Kenyan coastal resort of Mombasa last November. Other tourists had a narrow escape when an antiaircraft missile fired from near the Mombasa airport missed their Israeli charter jet. With that in mind, Greeley had already arranged for high school students and visitors to wear mandatory picture ID’s next year and to have an 8-foot wall erected around the campus.
Greeley is largely typical of the diverse expatriate community here. Thousands hail from Britain, Kenya’s former colonial power, and at least 5,000 Americans are also living in the country, doing businesses and working in the country’s massive aid agencies. Last week’s announcement by Kenyan Internal Security Minister Christopher Murungaru that Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a suspect in the embassy and Mombasa attacks, was recently seen in the country has left them harried–but far from surprised or unprepared.
The United States, Britain, Denmark, Germany and Australia have all issued warnings about travel to Kenya, with British Airways and Israel’s El Al airline suspending their flights to the country. Washington-which has suggested that Americans should consider leaving Kenya-has also told its embassy staff that they can go if they choose. Yet-so far, at least–few seem to be taking that route. On Tuesday, some 300 Americans attended a “town hall meeting” to discuss recent developments. The mood at the meeting, at which all information was off the record, was stolid and calm. “Since November, there’s just been a steady ratcheting up of pressure,” says U.S. Embassy spokesman Peter Clausen.
Al Qaeda or no Al Qaeda, expatriates in Nairobi have long since learned to live with threats and uncertainty. Kenya’s open landscapes may be the subject of lushly filmed movies like “Out Of Africa” and the more recent “Nowhere in Africa,” but life in its urban centers is far from romantic or remote. Greeley’s tenure as superintendent of the International School of Kenya began in August 1998 with a real trial by fire. “Seven minutes after my first meeting was over, the bombing [of the U.S. embassy] happened,” she recalls. Beyond terrorism, students have to deal with living in a city dubbed ‘Nairobbery’–ISK-sponsored security vehicles are necessary to dissuade carjackers along the road to school.
Most expats are used to being targets, though more for their disproportionate wealth in a nation with so many impoverished citizens-recent statistics put the unemployment rate as high as 40 percent–than because they are seen as symbols of the West. Most hire private guards to protect them against crime. Given these accommodations, it’s little surprise that Westerners living here are impatient with hand wringing and more eager to talk about the awful effect these terror warnings will have-both on the economy and on the fragile optimism that emerged just this year with the end of the much-maligned presidency of Daniel Arap Moi. “When is poor Kenya going to catch a break?” asks Polly, a 33-year old Brit who has lived in Nairobi for two years and asked that her last name not be used. She singled out British Airways for special venom. “If you’re going to fly to East Africa, fly to East Africa.” At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Miriam Frijnz, 35, of Holland, shrugged off the threat of a missile attack as little more than a nuisance of contemporary travel. “I happened to fly the day after [the attacks in] Mombasa. Unless the airline stops me, I’m ready to fly,” said Frijinz.
Native-born Kenyan Shailesh Patel is just as obstinate, if less upbeat. The 51-year old owner of the nightclub Pavement says attendance has been cut in half the past week–the Kenyan half came, the expatriate half largely stayed home. “Who can you blame? There have been no attacks, so you can’t even blame the terrorists,” says Patel. He’s ordered twice as much security and barred cars from stopping near the club’s entrance, but his nightly receipts are still anemic. “The terrorists might not physically explode a place, but they are exploding an economy.”
At a Thursday night press conference, Kenyan Tourism minister Raphael Tuju made the obvious point that though expats are the target, Kenyans suffer the most, losing lives and livelihoods. “Though we have lost money, I am glad to hear talking about money, and not talking about Kenyans who have lost their lives,” Tuju said. Local Kenyan opinion largely mirrors that of the expats: strongly pro-commerce–and against the travel warnings. “This insecurity, it is so bad for my business,” says 33-year old cab driver Odhiembo Fedon. “Americans must tell their friends there is no insecurity here.”
Westerners explain their emergency plans with a shrug. “I chose this seat because there’s a big concrete pillar between me and the cafe,” says American Tony Lupina, 28, an aid worker having lunch at The Java House, a popular expatriate breakfast venue. “But there’s nobody dropping bombs on us, so we’re good.” Lupina’s lunchmate, Travis Harris, 20, was just as blase. “My boss said ‘Don’t go to Java House. That’s where they’ll bomb.’” Harris says with a smile. “Whatever.”
By and large, the expatriate community works to cultivate the same thing ISK tries to provide for its students: normality. Greeley says the school will still hold all the end-of-the-year ceremonies. But the kids are still affected, and the abnormal creeps in. “One child went home from school after noticing changes at school and asked his mother, ‘When I fly to see grandma, is my airplane going to fly into a skyscraper?’” says Greeley. “What can we tell them?” That’s a question nobody can readily answer.
