Non-Governmental Imagination

Kenya has been suffering through food shortages much to the detriment of their poorest citizens. A woman from New Zealand who owns a dog food company decided to donate 160 tons of dehydrated dog food to feed starving Kenyan children. Naturally, this came off as “culturally insulting” to Kenyan politicians, who do not like to think of their citizens as being equal to dogs in other countries. Lo and behold, hungry Kenyans do not share their government’s disgust:

“Parents of some of the children said leaders opposed to the offer were only after satisfying their personal egos at the expense of starving millions in the country.”

Only people with enough to eat complain about the quality of food. If faced with starvation I’d eat dog food or anything else to stay alive. I think that the woman could have been more sensitive by donating the proceeds from the sale of 42 tons of dog food and gotten much less negative attention. Regardless, I don’t think the Kenyan government can complain about the quality of aid foreigners are bringing in as long as they are frittering away $6 million on 57 Mercedes Benz cars ($105,263.17 each) for governement officials.