NAIROBI- His nickname is Skip. He wears a gold stud in his left ear.
His school uniform is usually a Nike T-shirt, nike sneakers and
loose-fitting Levi's. He Listens almost exclusively to hip-hop, watches
reruns of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" on television and says basketball is
his favorite
His real name is Mbugua Ngugi, and at 18 he is a child of urban Africa
who has never spent more than a few days in his family's rural hometown.
That fact does not matter to him.
Asked if he ever wishes he had spent more time in the countryside, he
shrugged. "I do not really think about it that much," he said.
Mbugua is part of the first generation of Kenyans - indeed of Africans,
as the phenomenon is visible accross the continent - who do not really thinkd
much about the countryside. Their working- class, middle-class and
upper-class experiences have anchored them in urban centers, pulling them
away from the rural links that shaped their parents and grandparents.
Their parents worry that a vital part of what it means to be African is
slipping away, that honored tradition will wither and that one of Africa's
most important institutions, the extended family will begin to drift apart.
Meanwhile, these young people try to understand and appreciate a life they
know mainly from photographs and stories.
The consolation for parents is that their urban children are less likely
to be trapped by the tribal thinking that has poisoned political discourse
and made national unity an elusive goal in this East African country and
throughout the continent.
About 75% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa still lives in the
countryside. But the continent is becoming urban so rapidly that within a
few decades there will be many people - young men and women at the heart of
Africa's economic and politiacal life- for whom village life will be little
more than a history lesson.
"My children would identify themselves as Kenyans first, and then as
Nairobians," said Casper Awando, a sociology professor at the University of
Nairebi. "That is concrete. Their rural home is abstract."
Kenyans began to pour into urban areas during the 1950s, drawn mainly by
jabs, and the surge toward indepedence from Britain, which occured in 1963.
Over the next four decades, urban hubs such as such as the capital, Nairobi,
in central Kenya, and Mombasa, on the coast, experienced explosive population
growth.
Nairobi became the flagship city of one of sub- Saharan Africa's stable
countries. It became the center Kenyan industry' as well as regional
headquarters for international bodies such as the United Nations. Roughly
830,000 people lived in Nairobi in 1979; today the population has soared to
2,000,000.
At the same time, population pressures grew in rural areas. Kenyans
found they had smaller slices of land to cultivate as the country's
population growth rose by a staggering annual rate of 3.6 percent.
The rapid population growth wore down infrastructure in rural areas,
overwhelmed public health facilities, left schools under-equipped and
teachers underpaid. Those facators, combined with the distance many urban
Kenyans must cover to reach their rural homes, have only deepened the
disconnection between city dwellers and the countryside.
Some urban dwellers stay away from the countryside because of their
children. They fear disease and worry that rural relatives will foist
superstitious teachings on their youngsters.
Sometimes the younsters themselves, spoiled by the relative ease of
urban living, cannot abide sleeping in huts, eating unfamiliar food,
listening to unfamiliar language, fetching water, using pit latrines or
trudging long distances on foot.
Some urban youths, Awuondo said, "do not know the difference between a
sheep and goat."
Kenyans who have grown up in Nairobi are often stunned by the triblism
in rural areas where sometimes one's whole life revolves around tribal
identity. In some places one's neighbors, colleagues at work, the business
owners and the government adminstrators are all members of the same tribe.
In Kenya, and throughout Africa, tribes tend to dominate specific regions
of the country. That means outsiders are spotted quickly and often viewed
suspiciously.
TO BE CONTINUED
Beraki