After a post election violence or any kind of violence in my country Kenya or any so called 'third world' countries, there are travel bans in all developed world embassies. Tourist are scared and warned to stay away. Funny enough there are no bans imposed on the developed world countries after terror attacks. In fact tourists are encouraged to visit to see the after math.
When I was on my way from Belize to Kenya in Jan 2008, the officer at the Immigration (not Belize, in other country which I was in transit) was surprised and thought I was crazy to be going to Kenya because they have seen in the media there
was so much violence. It was the infamous post-election violence. I was not worried because I knew my country and I knew where I was going is always safe and never affected with such violence.
The problem with the media is they don't show you the map of country and what percentage of the country is actually involved in
the violence, mostly it's a very small area. Other areas are normally peaceful and life goes on as normal. The only disruption countrywide is the short supply of commodities coming from that area affected by the violence.
Violence can happen anywhere, anytime, no one can give any guarantees no matter how careful we are. But of course no one should put themselves in danger intentionally. Also most of the time tourists are not the target. As I have seen in the media there is so much violence in the US and attacks targeting the US citizens than most countries.
The first time I was in the US I was sited in an air train and there were three or four guys sitting opposite me looking piercely at me. They were trying to scare me with their looks and reading my mind. I tried to maintain my composure because they did not know it was my first time or so I thought. I also wondered for once how secured I was in the train. What would happen if these people decided to attack me? They only have cameras in the train which does not prevent anyone from attacking me, the only justice I would get is after they have already harm me. The cameras are just eyes watching, cannot prevent anything, only scare people. The downside of not having real people for security.
Luckily there were other few passengers and I was the first one to alight the train.
How to Bust Through the Dreaded Writer's Block
6 years ago
Thank you for your insights and thoughts on this. I agree - over here in North America, all of the nations get lumped under AFRICA even though there are 55 (?) countries on the continent. OUr media seem to project narrow images of Africa and then we buy them as general truths.