The Difference Between Living in Kenya and the USA!

All,
I have been thinking of Kenya with great nostalgia even though I do make frequent trips to that place (Kenya). Previously I was even thinking, seriously, of relocating to Kenya within the next 12 months (for good) as I have investments that would "ordinarily" allow me to live there without ever working for anybody...

Investments aside, I have done some serious thinking and since I live in the United States of America I have concluded that, and in comparison to Kenya:

a) There may be "wealthy" people in Kenya but they still cannot compare to the middle-class in the USA. Being wealthy in Kenya means driving a Range Rover, living in Runda, taking your kids to good (expensive schools), et cetera. It does not mean that you are not a target for carjacking and your kids being targets of kidnapping...

Being middle-class in the United States means that you own your home and you live in a neighborhood with security and peace. It means that your children have a realistic chance at either becoming "middle class" or achieving the "highest level of excellence" they can given equal opportunities (in most cases).

b) Being "upper middle class" in Kenya means that "you can fly from Nairobi to Kisumu regularly" while in the US flying from point A to point B is the cheapest and most convenient way of traveling within the United States.

c) Being wealthy in Kenya means that occasionally, you can go on vacation abroad (mostly Dubai or sometimes Europe) while most of Americans going to Kenya as tourists are not even considered middle-class in the US. The wealthy Americans buy homes in their desired exotic destinations (using legally generated money.. not stolen money).

d) Living in Kenya as an ordinary Kenyan means that you are doomed for life as there is no realistic chance of upward mobility (save for the lucky 0.1% who manage to move upwards due to their professions e.g doctors, lawyers, etc). Living in America, whether you are starting from the ghetto, means that there is still hope for a better life. You just have to dream big, work hard, and "go get yours". MAJORITY of Kenyans doing well in the United States would probably be tarmacking in Kenya even with their university degrees...

e) Living in Kenya means that mediocre but well-connected people e.g sons and daughters of political class will be your "bosses for life" while in the United States most of the time, corporate titans and political bigwigs are ordinary people with ordinary family backgrounds. Also, in the US, your boss (employer) could easily be your college friend who started his/her company e.g google, facebook, twitter, etc. If you get a job in Kenya you will most likely be working for either a dinosaur boss (over 60 yrs of age) who knows nothing about social-networking technologies.. ***They still have secretaries type their emails..*

f) Tribalism vs Racism: Kenya is becoming a MORE tribalist society where your tribe MATTERS in almost all aspects of productive life while the United States is becoming "less and less" racist-- meaning that the trend towards equal opportunity for all is becoming practical in the United States...

g) The Average Life Expectancy in Kenya is about 55-yrs while in the United States is about 79 yrs.

h) The US Passport is the mother of all Passports you can go anywhere without problems. In fact, you can rent and drive a car in most countries in the world with just your US Passport. The Kenyan passport can get you killed in some places e.g Migingo Island.. smile Kidding here.. but you get the point, ama?

i) When Kenyan parents force their kids to study sciences/medicine/engineering because those are the only fields that offer "a promising future", Americans generally have a lot of options in life-- everything pays in the US provided that one is good at what they are doing.... even writing "self-help books" can net you millions of dollars. Art (artists) and athletes are very appreciated in the US so if you have those talents, you will be ok.

j) Entrepreneurship: America is the best place in the entire world to start a business and succeed.. this is because of a combination of large qualified consumer market, business networks & incubators, and fabulous business schools and engineering schools.. Americans CAN DO attitude is also awesome.

In other words my dear friends, in this interconnected world of internet, VoIP phone service, Video-conferencing, etc communications, I do think that America offers the best of both worlds... whenever you miss home/Kenya, you can easily connect via video technology and communicate with the people you miss in real time....airfare to Kenya from the US is also very affordable (compared to back in the day when people had to budget and save for years before they can fly)...

Kind regards,

Respectfully,

Last edited by Doctor Masinde (Yesterday 20:47:00)
Dr. Fred Shamalla Masinde, MB; ChB, DDS
Brooklyn, NY

THEY ARE STILL OUR SLAVES!!!!

Dee Lee, CFP
Harvard Financial Educators

For those of you who heard it, this is the article Dee Lee was reading this morning on a New York radio station. For those of you who didn't hear it, this is very deep. This is a heavy piece and a Caucasian wrote it.

Dee Lee

THEY ARE STILL OUR SLAVES
We can continue to reap profits from the Blacks without the effort of physical slavery. Look at the current methods of containment that they use on themselves: IGNORANCE, GREED, and SELFISHNESS..

Their IGNORANCE is the primary weapon of containment. A great man once said, 'The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in a book.' We now live in the Information Age. They have gained the opportunity to read any book on any subject through the efforts of their fight for freedom, yet they refuse to read. There are numerous books readily available at Borders, Barnes &Noble, and Amazon.com, not to mention their own Black Bookstores that prov ide solid blueprints to reach economic equality (which should have been their fight all along), but few read consistently, if at all..

GREED is another powerful weapon of containment. Blacks, since the abolition of slavery, have had large amounts of money at their disposal. Last year they spent 10 billion dollars during Christmas, out of their 450 billion dollars in total yearly income (2.22%).

Any of us can use them as our target market, for any business venture we care to dream up, no matter how outlandish, they will buy into it.. Being primarily a consumer people, they function totally by greed. They continually want more, with little thought for saving or investing.

They would rather buy some new sneaker than invest in starting a business. Some even neglect their children to have the latest Tommy or FUBU, And they still think that having a Mercedes, and a big house gives them 'Status' or that they have achieved their Dream.

They are fools! The vast majority of their people are still in poverty because their greed holds them back from collectively making better communities.

With the help of BET, and the rest of their black media that often broadcasts destructive images into their own homes, we will continue to see huge profits like those of Tommy and Nike. (Tommy Hilfiger has even jeered them, saying he doesn't want their money, and look at how the fools spend more with him than ever before!). They'll continue to show off to each other while we build solid communities with the profits from our businesses that we market to them.

SELFISHNESS, ingrained in their minds through slavery, is one of the major ways we can continue to contain them. One of their own, Dubois said that there was an innate division in their culture. A 'Talented Tenth' he called it. He was correct in his deduction that there are segments of their culture that has achieved some 'form' of success.

However, that segment missed the fullness of his work. They didn't read that the 'Talented Tenth' was then responsible to aid The Non-Talented Ninety Percent in achieving a better life.. Instead, that segment has created another class, a Buppie class that looks down on their people or aids them in a condescending manner. They will never achieve what we have.. Their selfishness does not allow them to be able to work together on any project or endeavor of substance. When they do get together, their selfishness lets their egos get in the way of their goal Their so-called help organizations seem to only want to promote their name without making any real change in their community.

They are content to sit in conferences and conventions in our hotels, and talk about what they will do, while they award plaques to the best speakers, not to the best doers. Is there no end to their selfishness? They steadfastly refuse to see that Together Each Achieves More (TEAM)..

They do not understand that they are no better than each other because of what they own, as a matter of fact, most of those Buppies are but one or two pay checks away from poverty. All of which is under the control of our pens in our offices and our rooms.


Yes, we will continue to contain them as long as they refuse to read, continue to buy anything they want, and keep thinking they are 'helping' their communities by paying dues to organizations which do little other than hold lavish conventions in our hotels. By the way, don't worry about any of them reading this letter, remember, 'THEY DON'T READ!!!!