I hadn't been to Kenya since the dizzy days of December 2002, when the opposition coalition stormed to electoral victory promising a break with President Daniel arap Moi's discredited Kanu regime. On my recent return, I found the newspapers full of fresh revelations of official corruption. The British high commissioner, in breathtakingly undiplomatic language, had just accused the new government of graft. Awkwardly for President Mwai Kibaki, Edward Clay's critique - which included a graphic image of gluttonous Kenyan officials vomiting on donors' shoes - coincided with a presidential appeal for more international aid to save millions of drought-hit Kenyans from starvation.
The street lights in downtown Nairobi were on the blink (no change there, then), the roads were potholed (ditto) and urine-scented Uhuru Park was littered with the ragged forms of the destitute (ditto, ditto). Every Kenyan I met seemed in a state of suppressed fury, dripping with contempt for the new leadership. "These people are wuss than the last," a man told me, his lip curling. "People say that in 18 months, they've managed to steal more than Kanu in 40 years."
So why did I leave feeling more hopeful and energised about Kenya than at any point in the past decade?
It is difficult to convey just how dreary life was in the closing years of the Moi administration, as grey as the muggy Nairobi weather. Having reluctantly ended the one-party system, Moi skilfully exploited tribal hostilities to win the democratic game. Let down by its squabbling opposition leaders, the nation was locked into sullen resignation and economic decline. For Nairobi-based journalists such as myself, who would fly home to Kenya from stints reporting on the chaos of Zaire, Burundi or Rwanda, Kenya's plight was particularly exasperating. It seemed unforgivable that a country which ostensibly had so much going for it - peace, stability, a halfway decent infrastructure - should aim so low.
Life for the average Kenyan has not got any easier, but the national mood has changed beyond all recognition. The internet has brought the world into offices and homes, while the trilling of mobile phones is to be heard on every Nairobi street. Mobiles have made it possible for graduates who once saw a civil service job as the summit of their aspirations to set up their own businesses. The dead hand of the state has been lifted from the media. Private radio stations are taking irreverence to new extremes, while the newspapers have exposed the money-making schemes of those in power, the latest of which involves a shadowy company with a Liverpudlian address.
On television, I watched agog as a tubby Asian businessman with a self-satisfied expression got grilled by prosecutors. During my time in Kenya, Moi's failure to pursue those responsible for the spectacularly greedy Goldenberg scam perpetrated in the early 1990s was the reason many aid donors walked away. Now the camera roamed over a rapt audience for the latest session of the Goldenberg hearings. It revealed a group of schoolgirls, sent by a civic-minded teacher to witness what is a turning point in their nation's history.
The buzz extends into the cultural field. Swahili rap, which talks about sex, Aids and bent policemen, has replaced the lilting Congolese music that was once ubiquitous. Kenyan writers feel particularly pleased with themselves, having recently won several international literature prizes. A lot of the new music and literature is in Sheng, a bastardised, streetwise version of Swahili that evolves so quickly that older Kenyans struggle to understand.
This generational divide lies at the root of the national feeling of exasperation. One of the things I used to find most depressing about living in Kenya was the way in which the T-word - which tribe a politician, company boss or police chief belonged to - dominated political debate. Ideology, responsible leadership, accountability: none of it seemed to matter when set against the question of whether or not your tribe had a chance to "eat" at the state trough.
Like Moi, Kibaki is juggling tribal components in his cabinet with great care. But younger Kenyans are weary of this way of doing politics. They believe they know how to return Kenya to prosperity, and talk wistfully of the day the dotcoms will take over - a reference to a generation of university-educated, technically sussed Kenyans waiting in the wings. "Increasingly, Kenyans see this as a class issue, not a tribal issue," a newspaper editor told me. "Middle-class Kenyans feel the upper class is looting the country, and it doesn't matter whether its members are Kikuyu or Kalenjin. They've outgrown their leadership, but the political class has only just noticed."
The moment at which a society wakes from the torpor that made dictatorship bearable and says "Enough!" is always an exhilarating, potentially dangerous time. It has been a long time coming in Kenya, and I'll be watching with bated breath.
