Africa: Impressions after 3 weeks

I've now had a chance to see a fair amount of East Africa: bustling cities like Nairobi and Arusha, fast growing small cities like Moshe and Nakura, dozens of towns and villages, and all the space in between from near desert at Baringo, dry grasslands in Kenya and Tanzania, scrub and scrub forests, highly developed tea, coffee, and pineapple mega farms, small farmer plots in the Kenyan highlands, Masai herders in the Sarengeti, and wood gathers in the forests.
What I see is a region where most people are poor, but no evidence of anyone going hungry. Everywhere there are small private and government schools apparently competeing to educate kids, and nearly all kids I saw were in school or going to or from school, since tbey were in school uniforms (every school had different color combinations). But I also saw quite a few orphanages. Of all these kids I only saw 2 in torn clothes. One of the great challenges facing East Africa is not educating its population, but creating enough jobs for them. Our guide indicated unemployment is above 40%, so in every town you see people in front of small 4 by 4 foot stick/wood stands or just sitting by a blanket selling things: fresh vegetables, clothes, shoes, plasticware, tarps, roasted corn, bananas, sugar cane stalks, drinks (Coke seems to have provided Coke Kiosks by the 10's of thousands). In some areas there were 100's of the single person selling plots lining the road up to 8 deep.
Another affect of high unemployment is a differential impact on men and women. At every village and town groups of young men seem to be sitting around talking. But never did I see women in these idle groups. Women were in the woods getting wood, around homes tending gardens, and presumably taking car of kids and preparing meals.
Everywhere people walk, the paths near roads cities and villages (sidewalks are rare outside of citty centers), are jammed with people going in all directions, they cross trafic with little regard for traffic and even cross 4-lane major highways all over.
The poverty level of folks seeems highly correlated withrainfall. In the dry grasslands, houses are small cow dung and stick shelters. In scrub forest the houses are bigger, many have mud brick or even cement block walls with stick or reed roofs. In the moist highland areas, every one can grow crops and the houses now are mostly cement block with metal roofs. But it seems within any given area most people are very nearly equal in wealth. Only in the a city or large village will you see large homes inevitably behind a sturty wall or fence while others live in small shacks.
Africa is no longer disconnected from the modern world (if it ever was), cell phones are wide spread, even cattle herders in traditional blankets were seen on cell phones. Numerous charging stations were seen in towns so folks without electricity can charge their phone batteries and load prepaid minutes (no monthly billing). As an area's wealth increases first the number of bicycles goes up, then motorcycles, and especially near and in cities, cars are causing massive traffic jams. And its very common to see both bikes and mortor cycles used as trucks: I've seen bikes with wood, corn, or reds 12 feet high behind the rider, and motorcycles often carry 3 or 4 people. But the most prevelant form of transportation (after walking) are 14 passenger vans called matutus, that drive up and down roads picking up and discharing folks. A massive private bus system, where drivers dart in and out of traffic to get customers.
Kids, like kids everywhere, seem playful and quick to smile. In many places we were the only non-Africans around: kids smiled and waved at us, many followed us to see what we were up to. Older folks tended to look as skeptically, though when we passed folks on foot birding, most were quick to say 'Jambo' or hello.