The middle class seems to know that the current dependence on the export of raw materials offers no future for the country. Local entrepreneurs want to diversify their industrial base and offer their products in a wider market. Remove trade barriers, harmonise trade licensing procedures, reduce time taken at border checks and improve the judiciary, and Kenyan business could supply the wider African market. This is a strategy that could be replicated in other African countries, thus creating a larger African middle class. Of course, this is much easier said than done. But how else can the creation of a larger African middle class as well as an increase in international investments be encouraged?

An important role in expanding the middle classes via investment falls to the Kenyan diaspora, whose most famous member is Barack Obama. His father, a goatherd-turned-economist, serves as an early example of how well Kenyans do when they live abroad. In the US, no other group of immigrants is as well educated. Almost a quarter of them hold post-graduate degrees, in a larger proportion than the Chinese, Hispanic or Asian immigrant communities. No other group sends so much money home, according to the Kenyan writer and academic Binyavanga Wainaina, himself a fellow of Bard College in upstate New York. The diaspora owns property, is involved in improving the Kenyan infrastructure and helps pay for the education of the younger generation. Obama has encouraged these African-Americans to boost Africa's development, thereby helping further growth of its middle class as a backbone of society and of democracy.

Africa still only plays a modest role in global trade because of the harder facts of daily African life, such as the unreliable energy supply. "Nothing rains on your day like a power cut in the morning, when you are just about to send that important email," says Tom Njoroge, who works for a telecoms company. Electricity blackouts are a big problem in Kenya, but there might be a solution to it. Some experts say that the relatively thin volcanic crust of the Rift Valley, which stretches down from the Red Sea to Mozambique, is ideal for geothermal power, which runs whatever the weather and emits negligible carbon. The Olkaria station outside Naivasha is a pioneer project and Kenya already used up its whole capacity before reverting to diesel generators during one of the frequent power cuts.

Before the Kenyan middle classes think global, they prefer to think African. Kenya is in a unique position. It acts as an incubator for business people for the benefit of the whole continent. In other countries, too, there are signs of hope. Kenya's neighbour, Rwanda, and its president, Paul Kagame, are often cited as good examples for Africa's future. In Ghana, fair and peaceful elections were held in January 2009. In Botswana, President Ian Khama is implementing careful and sensible policies. In Mali, President Amadou Toumani Touré is regarded as an able peace negotiator, as is Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete.

The Kenyan middle class need not be an exception. Perhaps in time the whole of Africa will share dreams from their fathers - dreams of prosperity, democracy and peace.