The Kenyan athletes still in Rio spent Wednesday night sleeping in a Favela.
Details here:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/kenyan-olympians-stuck-staying-in-rio-favela-as-country-awaits-cheap-flights-192800183.html
Wesley Korir's twitter here:
https://twitter.com/weskorir?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
from what I can tell it was the Wesley Korir, Stanley Biwott, Margaret Wambui, boxers, race walkers and a sprinter.
I get it if you're a Kenyan boxer you might not have any cash, but Wesley Korir is a Boston Marathon Champ and Stanley Biwott a NYC marathon champ, and have to have some cash. Why not just book a hotel on your own, get something where there aren't gunshots in the background?
Is it a cultural thing to sort of defer to authority? Are they used to their agents booking everything for them?
Serious question: Why didn't the kenyan athletes book a hotel or airbnb instead of staying in a slum in Rio on Wed?
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My guess is they don't really know what options are available to them and being in a favela is likely doesn't seem all that weird to them. Just because you have money doesn't mean you suddenly turn you into an aristocrat.
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If you read the other thread, the answer was: Kenyans are too cheap to upgrade when getting a free ride.
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?board=1&thread=7634330&id=7635642#7635642
El Keniano wrote:
This is a stereotype and other Kenyans may get mad at me for saying this, but if a Kenyan is getting something covered and paid for, referred to in Kenya as a "free lunch", there's no way in the world they'll spend their hard-earned shillings for just a little more comfort. The most hilarious part is Kenyans themselves are unaware that they have this trait. It is quite normal to see a man step out of the latest luxury Mercedes Benz or BMW and bargain for ages with a fruit stand owner over a pineapple. -
that's probably more accurate
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Just copying what he said wrote:
If you read the other thread, the answer was: Kenyans are too cheap to upgrade when getting a free ride.
Just like anything, they did some form of cost-benefit analysis and apparently determined that upgrading was not worth the extra cost for any number of reasons. Perhaps they didn't mind the accommodations. It's also possible that they are reluctant to buy something they already have, particularly when that money would go a lot further back home.
Most successful East African athletes aren't selfish a$$holes, despite what LRC likes to think, and a large portion of their winnings goes to friends and family. -
Just like anything, they did some form of cost-benefit analysis and apparently determined that upgrading was not worth the extra cost for any number of reasons. ... It's also possible that they are reluctant to buy something they already have, particularly when that money would go a lot further back home.
I agree it could just be marginal economics. Upgrading from zero-cost favela to cheap hotel is a lot different than from cheap hotel to avg hotel.
Perhaps they didn't mind the accommodations.
There video he posted on Twitter was hilarious. They were all saying (in Swahili)how terrified they were, afraid to even venture across the road because the neighbourhood looked so dangerous and was swarming with mosquitos. Yet, because it was being for, no one wanted to cough up a little extra cash for a better hotel in a nicer part of town. -
hiding drug use
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Too expensive, you idiot.
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Most likely a fear of reprisals from Kenyan officials for straying from the group. They may have held everyone's passports and plane tickets.
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I know!! Everybody should be staying in a mansion like the one rojo and wejo grew up in, with servants and all. I just can't believe all these liberals who haven't gone through their whole life living on the taxpayer funded gravy train like rojo and wejo. Don't people understand that the only way is the wdoobyah way?
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Wow, these are some IMPRESSIVE anthropological insights!
They probably came out ahead staying in the favelas instead of spending a bunch of money for a nice hotel and being treated with suspicion or having to justify why they're there -
Korir is referred to as "team captain" in the article. Most team captains don't abandon their teams. It would be awfully rude to go "sorry you guys are screwed, I'm outta here" when you are their unofficial leader. Korea is also a member of Parliament. This is him appealing to the populace.
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Because money spent on upgrading a bed could be put to much better use might be the answer, but it is there business I guess.
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dwash59 wrote:
Korir is referred to as "team captain" in the article. Most team captains don't abandon their teams. It would be awfully rude to go "sorry you guys are screwed, I'm outta here" when you are their unofficial leader. Korea is also a member of Parliament. This is him appealing to the populace.
I suspect that this is the real answer. Contrary to a lot of the posts on here since Wesley made the Olympic team, he is a stand up guy.
http://www.thefilmtranscend.com/ -
That Ultra Guy wrote:
I mean they ended up in an impoverished black area, they probably thought it was just like home.
They "ended up" in a favela?
Like De Andre Jordan, Demar DeRozan and Jimmy Butler "ended up" in a well known brothel called Termas de Montecarlo? Like Ryan Lochte and other US swimmers "ended up" drunk in Club France, and after than, in a gas station in Barra da Tijuca where they urinated in a wall and vandalized a bathroom?
In Rio, you go where you want.
Look, I was in Rio twice. Nobody seriously working in lodging ("imoveis", "aluguel"), offers accomodations in a favela when you're near Copacabana or Ipanema. There's only a couple of cheap "pousadas" offering lodging in favelas as part of tours described as "come and see for a night the favelas' life".
But nobody in their right mind would accept accommodate an Olympic Team in that kind of places. And it is rare even get to the point where someone offers you stay there.
Even more. After Olympics, there is an excess on acommodation in Rio de Janeiro. You have thousands of hotels, bed and breakfasts, "pousadas", etc. And the price is not the same. You have expensive 5-star hotels, but also cheap decent pousadas or B&B's (double bedrooms with breakfast included starting from 40 dollars-130 reais).
So, if Kenyans "ended up" in $10 hostels, triple bedrooms without private bathroom, I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of a plan to destabilize the AK leadership. -
They are being punished for not making the 5000m final. If the athletes were smart they would have gotten DL to flight them out.
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They can't afford nice hotels. People in shit nations like Poland, India, England, Kenya, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Russia, Iraq, etc. have incomes which are a small fraction of the US, Korea, Taiwan, Canada, etc.
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Not affiliated with the film wrote:
dwash59 wrote:
Korir is referred to as "team captain" in the article. Most team captains don't abandon their teams. It would be awfully rude to go "sorry you guys are screwed, I'm outta here" when you are their unofficial leader. Korea is also a member of Parliament. This is him appealing to the populace.
I suspect that this is the real answer. Contrary to a lot of the posts on here since Wesley made the Olympic team, he is a stand up guy.
http://www.thefilmtranscend.com/
Sorry but I CANNOT bear the man. Everything he does is to try to get himself into the Kenyan papers. Hopefully his constituents are wiser now and ready to get himself into the Kenyan newspapers. . -
It's not that they can't afford it, as at least some of them can afford it. It's more like if you live in cheap country, it's hard to justify spending, say, $200 on something "optional". This thought creeps in to your head: "$200?!?! I could buy 500 pounds of rice for that kind of money!!! (Or I could feed my family for 3 months, or whatever...)
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johnson fambly values wrote:
I know!! Everybody should be staying in a mansion like the one rojo and wejo grew up in, with servants and all. I just can't believe all these liberals who haven't gone through their whole life living on the taxpayer funded gravy train like rojo and wejo. Don't people understand that the only way is the wdoobyah way?
Shows what you know. I bet almost certainly these top guys have someone who cooks and cleans for them back home. When I lived with some runners in Iten Kenya for a couple of days is when I lived the life of "luxury" with a cook and a maid. They had a cook and a separate cleaning person even though it was 4 or 5 runners in this house. They were asking me what my cook back home liked to make. I just laughed. They couldn't believe that Americans didn't have cooks or maids. It's way more common in poor countries to have a cook and a maid.
I wasn't suggesting Wesley should abandon his teammates. I just was wondering more why they didn't say, "Screw this we're not staying here, let's get a place that is safe" instead of tweeting about it.
Jon and I had an AirBNB near the stadium (not the nicest neighborhood but not a favela) for $100 a night.
The real thread maybe should have been how can the Kenyan big wigs show up on the plane home and even look these guys in the face.
