Kenya, and Nairobi in particular, is no stranger to expats. Of course the most prominent among them are the Brits, but the Dutch are not much less prominent. Kenyans, however, are having a hard time telling them apart from the Germans, who are called Wadachi(from Deutsch obviously) in Kiswahili.

However prominent the loud blue-eyed wazungu might be, the average Kenyan does not know all that much about Holland. Yet, in the past month, the nation's attention is fixed upon our small realm at the bottom of the sea. The reason? Well er... a Spaniard called Ocampo.

This gentleman is in fact the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. 5 key Kenyan politicians and a radio host are currently engaged in two separate pre-trial hearings concerning their role in the post election violence (abbreviated as PEV in the local media) after the 2007 presidential elections. Needless to say it is hard for anybody here to get around the whole judicial circus that has been going on for the past month at The Hague. Poor quality live streamingimages are being broadcast almost every evening, with the slightly mischievous heading: images as received from the Hague. Not that I mistrust Kenyan media, but considering the lavish budgets the UN usually arranges for itself, I find it a bit hard to believe that the images in the courtroom produce streaming video that makes youtube clips seem professional.

Undaunted by all this rather boring (honestly, historic as these trials might be, they are not a thrill ride) TV, I make it my habit to consume the news on paper only. Every morning after Peter drops me off (since they removed the police from the round-abouts and left them to the miraculous appliances called traffic lights the journey is speeded up by 20-30 minutes every day) , I have my morning coffee at Kapital Coffee and read the Daily Nation.

The Daily Nation is actually a very interesting paper to read. I has editorials that would blow the NRC (Dutch quality newspaper reknowned for a certain arrogance) right out of the water. perhaps that is not so difficult, but still, it cheers up the morning. I actually had a laughing fit last Thursday, when I read the collumn of the reporter who follows the Hague trials. He wrote, and I quote: 'The Hague is the ideal city for the ICC. The city is rather dull, it's nightlife non-existant and it is therefore exactly the place where one should want legally complex trials such as these to be held. The legal experts can rattle their judicial sabres at hearts content, while the suspects linger in the city that has none of the joys of nearby Amsterdam'.

I firmly believe that Holland will have a great deal to patch up on if it ever wants to have Kenyan tourists.

Kwa heri,

D