I have struggled to name this post. It was previously called Two Africans.

Just to clear the air, I am not and have never been (can’t speak for the future) anti-Google. I admire their business model and them as a business. But with the Barcamp thing as it was happening, a lot of people have become uncomfortable with the idea, and with Google creeping up within Africa, a lot of people are seeing their chances in IT sinking. I personally feel like we are sinking quickly to whatever new platform that comes out of the west. A lot of people have not noted but we don’t use Mixi or Cyworld. This are other social networks. And these are viable businesses, but difference is that they are Eastern Technologies. But I am not talking about them. And this is not a pity post.

I’m talking about two Africans. I used to live in London and Poland, and I would talk about Africa’s problems from afar. How pissed I would be about slow internet, expensive call costs, and impossibility to get anything done there. And I would talk about all this mostly to Melat, and one day she said something that was so significant. She said we are two different Africans. My problems and her problems were not the same. I was talking about “BBC problems” and “CNN problems”, but not the problems of being here. I was talking about late trains and she was worried about war not breaking out, I would talk about petrol hitting £ 1.00 and she was talking about elections and terrorism. I was worried about missing my weekly flights to Scotland, or hating hotel food (which I do) and she was talking about getting anything to eat, and surviving disease. I was talking about Northern Rock and bankruns, and she was worried about the bank being opened tomorrow.

ViRN Instruments (my baby) was never intended to be launched in Kenya. It was a London Business, supposed to be based in London for solving African problems. But every time I asked people to join up, they said, glad to but we have many more issues to solve. So I left London came home, and it all made sense. There are a ton of people here, with brilliant ideas and there are a lot of people in the diaspora who have a lot of ideas. Difference is that the African here won’t make it because their problems are far greater than for the African there. To attend say BarcampAfrica in Seattle, they have to apply for visas (which the won’t get), buy plane tickets at I think US$ 1500 and then there is the issue of accomodation for a week or so, to come talk to people who will probably not change how they do business because in reality, it won’t be about making the trip, but surviving. For the other African, all he has to do at the least is get inside a taxi and drive up the road, at the most buy a US$ 200 ticket on Virgin or Jetblue and tread across the country. And the people to who this camp would have mattered the most, if very very few if any will attend. And it won’t matter if there is a livestream, or skype stream, people won’t be as much interested as they were in their own Barcamps. Because to them, it has very little or nothing to do with them. And hearing things from a far is not the same as coming and talking about  it. You sit here local ground with all this Africans who have to fight Google in the morning, and then try get money together in the afternoon, and you will know the difference. I am an African caught between both worlds. I actually was planning to attend Barcampafrica, but the say US$ 3,000 I would have spent has gone to a couple of microfinance ventures. I asked myself, why would I get on a plane, travel to the other side of the world to talk about my problems to people who don’t share the same problems as I do? And skunkworks people are thinking the same thing.

The African over there is thinking, Jetblue is late, crap, I’m gonna be late for this Camp thing, and the African here is thinking Google moved into this line of business, here, crap, there goes that idea. Which is why I believe Joe Mucheru made the wrong decision in going to work for Google. I believe he would have fullfilled a better role locally in developing local technologies. But we all have different agendas and goals in life. This is Barcamp, but not for the Africans who so deserve it here. And no matter what you believe you want to achieve, and as much as you want to try involve as many Africans as possible, put yourselves in their shoes and not yours.

For the Barcamp guys, I won’t bitch about this anymore. With all the Barcamp Spirit I can offer, I wish you all the best, looking forward to reading reviews and seeing pictures from Barcamp.

Best wishes.

Kahenya