4
Country of the Month: Kenya
This time we will make a beautiful stop in Africa to study a country full of charm due to
its cultural variety, and also for being linguistically the most diverse that we can find east of the
African Continent, Kenya. The Republic of Kenya borders Somalia and the Arabic sea to the
east, to the north with Ethiopia, to the south with Tanzania, to the west with Uganda and to the
north-east with Sudan.
Because of Kenya´s geographical location, we find a very strong contrast that goes from
the frozen peak of Mount Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya and a volcano that is over 5
million years old and currently not active. The second highest in Africa after Kilimanjaro, found
in Tanzania, is divided by the line of the
equator so it has a tropical climate; basically
we can divide Kenya geographically into two
zones: one that rests over the coastal belt and
the other, more elevated zone where you can
find the peaks of Mount Nairobi. This area is
of volcanic origin; we can find many
volcanoes such as Longonot, Suswa and
others.
Kenya has a great contrast between a very natural world and a very civilized world; if we
try to reconstruct its origins, we can get an idea of who were the first settlers, based on
archaeology and traditions, plus the linguistic history, but without concrete results.
In Kenya we can find a very diverse population, the largest one in Africa, formed by 42
different ethnic groups, with different dialects. We find minorities of Arab, Indian and European
descent. The Group classification is done by the culture and its language.
In Kenya there is a very positive and ambitious vision for their future, where they want to
compete with their Asian neighbors. In 2007, the Kenyan government presented its vision for