Ukunda

View Ukunda in a larger map


Diani is one of the Southern-most points in Kenya; it’s only about 45 minutes from the Tanzanian border. Diani Beach is mostly a tourist town and consists of one major road that is about 20 km long. So, you cross the ferry from Mombasa and drive down the Mombasa-Tanzanian highway until you come to a junction in a little town called Ukunda, hang a left and you hit Diani. (So in the map above, Ukunda is the left map marker and our house is the one near the beach)

Ukunda is where all the hotel workers, teachers, service people, househelp, etc. live and they commute to work each day via matatu which is an 8-40 minute ride depending on where you are going on Diani Beach Rd. Most people living in Ukunda are employed either directly or by association with the tourist industry. This means that Ukunda is a ‘wealthy’ town by Kenyan standards.

For us, Ukunda was eye-opening. By our American standards, Ukuna is crowded, hot, and dirty. Kiosks are crammed together, people are everywhere (including the roads) and it is pretty loud.



What we didn’t know, at first, is that this is only the first row of Ukunda. Houses and other kiosks stretch on behind these. Mary lives in a one-room place in a row of concrete one-room places about a 10 minute walk back along the dirt roads. All the roads are dirt except the main road so it’s pretty gross when it rains. The people in her block of rooms all share a single bathroom/latrine and they have a tap with well water. According to Mary though, there are parts of Ukunda with plumbing and sewage issues.



Additionally, the town is bisected by the Mombasa-Tanzania highway so the lorries (Kenyan word for “Gigantic Truck”) and the huge 60-seater buses go roaring through at about 100 km/hour. People sit within feet of the road selling roasted corn and other snacks.



It’s dirty because there are few services like trash removal. Here is one of the trash collection sites. Gotta love the slogan!:



They apparently empty these every few weeks but typically it starts overflowing before that so the locals burn the trash.

It’s hot because it’s Kenya and it’s on the equator but also because of these trash fires and the pollution from the buses. It’s very strange to think about starting a fire when it’s 95 degrees out, but fires are a common way of disposing of trash in the developing world. It’s becoming more problematic though, as plastics are being introduced but it’s still much more rare than in the US. Cokes, and all drinks, are still sold in glass bottles that require a deposit so that cuts down on trash quite a bit.

One thing that always strikes me are the babies you see in Ukunda and Msambweni crawling through the mud and dirt. I know babies and kids get dirty but this isn’t America where you get dirty and then you go inside and wash up. This is “you crawl on the dirt because it’s your floor” and you aren’t going to learn to crawl or walk if you don’t crawl through the mud.

Ukunda is where it hits home that you’re not in America anymore. The only way in or out of Diani (unless you fly to the airstrip) is through Ukunda. Here you see that the majority of Kenyans have a significantly lower standard of living than Americans; I imagine that’s not intellectually a surprise to most people but I think the realities are a little more stark than most people realized.