He is French and seems to have received a warm welcome from Kenyans, while he was briefly on their soil. Which is very interesting because if an “e” had preceded the “i” in his surname, he’d probably have been laughed out of the country! But that’s neither here nor there. “Neither here nor there” because he need not consume your attention. His surname may sound Kenyan and he seems to be a popular YouTuber, going by his followers, but you most likely haven’t heard of him. Still, his hobby would catch the attention of the biggest cynic. His visit areas are certainly scenic: in Europe, the Balkans, the Middle East, Africa. Call him a queer, if you will. Yves Kino is a young man who cast away all the creature comforts that he’d acquired, to ‘ride the world’ on the bare minimum. With that “bare minimum” wrapped in a bundle at the back of his tricycle. He quit his engineering job, sold all property, bought a modified bicycle that came out as a cross between a wheelchair and a scooter. It’s actually a tricycle and it is electric, much as that does not ease his pedalling effort mightily. Anyway, “ease” or no “ease”, he set sail. And when you observe his adventures, you realise he is as level-headed as you and I. The ventures are educational and engaging to him, as to you. All the above goes to show you a man who is ‘down to the road’, with the pedestrians. ‘Down to the road’ in the sense that he is down to earth, among pedestrians who use the roads, with everybody. Curious motorists. Amused fellow cyclists. Excited schoolchildren on the roads. Inquisitive citizens in farms by the roadsides. Happy street food vendors as well as owners of kiosks, restaurants and hotels eager to offer their services. In fact, following Kino is like getting a practical lesson on citizens’ living standards in their countries. Amusingly, the lesson shatters all the theoretical statistics you’ve been harbouring about these countries. A mere visit to a country and long stay, for instance, do not give you a lesson anywhere as rich as following his feelings of the roads and his chats with the people. His lesson shows that, for instance, a country like France with a giant real GDP per capita of US$2.779 trillion should have Switzerland, tiny real GDP per capita US$88.4 billion in comparison, looking like a third-world country. Well, by the looks of the cleanliness and order of Swiss roads and by the appearance of its people, France looks relatively like a dwarf in apparent living standards. These surprising revelations keep hitting you with every country Yves rides through. France, his country of origin, Switzerland and Italy, the three European countries he visits, don’t reveal much about their people. Few pay attention to his tricycle and fewer still engage him in conversation. What you glean about the countries’ inhabitants living standards comes out when he visits restaurants and hotels. It’s a little more adventurous and the living conditions more visible with the Balkan states of Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Their real GDP per capita incomes of $28,439.33, $24.47bn, $63.56, $9.41bn, $9.49bn, $13,56 and $90.35bn, consecutively, are more realistically reflected in the living standards of the citizens. It’s almost the same with the Middle Eastern countries of Turkey (the richest among these), Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan. But, perhaps for their Islamic religion, the people in the Middle East are open and show rare warmth and generosity to visitors. Well, you will be wondering, and Africa? Sure, Yves Kino is in Africa as we speak; in Burundi, to be exact. He has been to Ethiopia (GDP US$1,027.59), Kenya (GDP US$2,099.30), Uganda (GDP US$964.40), Rwanda (GDP US$966.23), Tanzania (GDP US$1,192.0) and now, for almost two weeks, he has gone silent in Burundi (GDP US$259.03). Let’s hope all is well. Back to Rwanda, though. The moment he hits Rwanda, Yves starts speaking in tongues! “No visa needed..., bicycle-friendly country...., is this the real Rwanda? Such affluence, yet its GDP is among the lowest in the world....., the best place in Rwanda...., there is something cold about the place....,” this latter, no doubt, from the baggage in his head extracted from the internet. He recounts the history of Rwanda from the period before colonialism quite correctly. But what he cannot understand is how the country has such top-notch infrastructure, when her GDP is that low. The buildings in Kigali, the clean, orderly streets, the organised Kimironko Market, the fact that nobody disturbs him on anything at all and so many others, he just can’t digest immediately. He doesn’t exactly articulate it the way I do. But what I can surmise from his body language and his words is that, to him, Rwanda beats all the countries he has visited hands down. Be they European, Balkan, Middle Eastern, be they the rest of the African countries.
