Kenya Airline (KQ) flies you from Islamabad to Nairobi via Dubai club class for the price of economy: Islamabad - Dubai PIA and Dubai - Nairobi Kenya Airlines. There was though the annoyance of losing our luggage which PIA could not transfer at Dubai; so we had to fetch it 24 hours later from Nairobi airport. This seemed no big deal considering the on going chaos at the new terminal just opened at Heathrow. An extra trip to the airport thus seemed nothing. Still, the experience of not finding your bags on the belt at the end of a flight is somewhat depressing when you see all other passengers walk off with theirs. As the day goes by, you realise it is neither cold nor hot: daytime temperature does not exceed 20C. The air in early April is a bit nippy, but it is pleasantly so. Technically, it is the beginning of Autumn, but you are not going to need anything more than a jumper at any stage of your trip, if at all. In June, which is winter here, the temperature might dip to 15 sometimes. The year round the temperatures range from 12C to 28C. Kenya is a country of forests, lakes and wild life. Tourism, a major industry, is very well organised. Kenyans have a lot of respect for wild life and the wild life parks are amazingly well managed. To see animals moving around in the wild inspires awe and humility as antelopes, wildebeest, gazelles, zebra and hyenas live together with the "big five": the African buffalo, the hippopotamus, the rhinoceros, the lion and the elephant. This morning I watched millions of pink flamingos on Lake Naivasha. The BBC and Discovery channel documentaries are excellent but no substitute for the real experience of seeing them in flight. This beautiful country is still recovering from the post election violence (1200 dead) exacerbated by tribal tensions and other economic issues, but by and large Nairobi has remained unaffected. Uhuru or Freedom Park in the town centre saw repeated protests led by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) who believed that they had won the general election (December 27, 2007). Prolonged negotiations between ODM leader Raila Odinga and President Kibaki heading Party of National Unity (PNU) under the National Accord and Reconciliation Act, facilitated by Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General, a Ghanaian, brought about a settlement on government formation between the two sides, ending violence. But the power sharing deal fell through last Saturday just as preparations were being made for a grand ceremony in Uhuru Park on Sunday to which foreign envoys were to be invited. The sticking point was the size of the cabinet; the Kibaki government wanting a bigger cabinet than the ODM was prepared to accept. When finally a 40-member cabinet, twenty from either side, was agreed upon, they got stuck on the portfolios. As domestic and international concern over delay in government formation mounted, more negotiations followed. But the news on Wednesday was that the talks have collapsed. The post-election riots earlier this year displaced nearly 350,000 people who have still not been able to return to their farms. Kenyans seem to believe that national interest is being "held hostage by political brinkmanship." Everyone knows that the deeper problem is corruption and the ministries are regarded as spoils, up for grabs by both sides. Otherwise, the agreement signed by both sides on February 28 was good and should have been implemented. In the meanwhile the issues like poverty remain unattended. A well-heeled lawyer told me in a dinner party that several staff members in his office were too poor to afford a day time meal As you talk to more people you discover the condition is really desperate. Tourism industry has been hit by the recent violence. A safari lodge manager told me that things were taking time to improve: their occupancy had slowly moved up to 30 percent. Late year this time it was over 70 percent. Similar is the case with Zimbabwe in the south where elections were held more than ten days ago, but the results have yet to be announced. President Robert Mugabe, in his late eighties, is hanging on to power through oppression and intrigue. His government is demanding recount of election results, something unheard of for an incumbent government to do. All this reminds me of Islamabad where, illegitimately, another president is trying to hang on to power. Loath to transfer power to elected representatives of the people, he is constantly wheeling and dealing to break the opposition who have successfully formed a government that is determined to clip his wings if not get rid of him. Kibaki in Kenya, Mugabe in Zimbabwe and Musharraf in Pakistan are all dragging their feet as the forces of democracy hound them. Their strategy has all along been to gain time. But given the new wave in these countries, they are only digging their grave deeper. My gut feeling, as I conclude this letter, is that all the three are gone.