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The Nairobian

Please stay, Meggie, just a little bit longer, please stay on and farm this great land

Peter Kimani

By Peter Kimani | Nov 22, 2024

**Outgoing US ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman.** [File, Standard]

I wanted to write about US ambassador Meg Whitman’s impending departure from our shores and beg her to stay because we love her so. This is in keeping with the ethos of one of our founding fathers, Jomo Kenyatta, who pleaded with our former colonial masters: “I want you to stay and farm this country…”

That was in 1961, and few of jungus who have traversed this land have ever departed. I concede this might sound like mysticism—the very element that has been applied by white people to dismiss our cultural sophistication—but it seems there is some truth in the expression: it’s easy to venture into our land than it is to depart from it.

I know there are many attractive features about our land: the fair weather, the beauty of the land, the warmth of the people.

And of course, the severely understated value of a white skin in a black land.

That means a backpacker on the verge of destitution can, in a couple months, transmogrify into a CEO of a start-up with several million dollars to its credit because, let’s face it, their skin colour fetches a small premium on this side of life. It’s called white privilege.

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The field of conservation, for instance, is a sure bet, to use a term currently in vogue, because “Africans” have been proven to be poor custodians of wildlife, besides providing meat and hides and skins.

Thankfully, Meggie is no backpacker but a well-heeled, well-educated, and well-connected diplomat. And she’s so fabulously wealthy, so need not work to earn a meal for the rest of her life.

But the reason I’d love her to stay is to deepen her knowledge of Kenya. In just under two years, she emerged as one of the foremost “experts” on Kenya, so she could tell which had been the freest of our elections.

And she took a personal interest in our Prezzo, we saw her shepherd him around the US, setting him up for pictures and generally being at his beck and call. Or was it vice versa? On that score, she should stay and farm this country.