K is for Kibera, Kiambu and 'K'arnivores

Saturday I went back to Kibera. This time for a fundraiser for the African Health Community Programme. One of the ADPers met Carolyn who volunteers at the Community Programme and asked us to join.

The theme was world food so I decided to bring an American cake - white cake with chocolate icing. For the first time ever I made icing from scratch and it came out really well if I don't say so myself. All I could find was a heart shaped cake tin, funny because my colleagues encountered the same issue so everything we brought was in a heart shaped dish. Who would have guessed it? I think the cake went down well because it was all finished by the time we got back from our walk around Kibera.

So AHCP works with kids and women in Kibera. The kids come for reading and homework assistance and the women come to learn about entrepreneurship and Carolyn and the other interns (many from Germany) assist with raising awareness of business and marketing techniques. There were about 10 ladies dressed in traditional clothing who sat in a room at the back of the AHCP making beads and jewelry. Carolyn is currently helping them market their jewelry to foreign tastes. I sat with one of the ladies and she showed me all the steps. I had a great time. Here's how they do it.

1. get a magazine paper preferably with images only on 1 side so you can draw on the other side

2. mark 1 cm from the end of the page and from there form isosceles triangles with a base of 2cm. Continue to mark the entire page.
3. Cut the triangles
4. roll the triangles starting at the wide base, roll tightly until you have the magazine triangle wound up around itself.
5. Glue the tip closed when you get to the end of the triangle
6. Glaze the beads
7. Let hang dry
8. Thread the beads and use other plastic beads in between to make a pretty pattern
9. Sell

I really enjoyed having the old lady teach me how to make the beads. I will never forget the moment where she used her teeth to try to loosen a piece of metal that was stuck to one of the beads. Ouch! She was so kind and so patient with teaching me and was so pleased when I was able to successfully wind the magazine paper - I loved it. I bought a few to help support the center.

ACHP needs to find a sustainable income source and they're hoping these beads will be it - I'm sure Carolyn will do a great job marketing them and I will definitely be going back to get gifts for friends back home. After the world food day and a peruse of the necklaces, we set off for a tour of Kibera. This one was different from the last - more open sewers, more trash, more disease. I'm glad though that more people got to see it. I think it's important to know how these people live. We need to be aware of the reality of it all, even if just by visiting for 1 afternoon.

Sunday I went to Kiambu which is just north of Nairobi. I got to ride in a UN car which made the whole experience of going over pot holes positively pleasant - crazy stuff! I learned that number plates with 28 are US and 29 are UK or something like that and that any car with the a diplomatic plate and a number 1 on the right hand side of the number plate is the ambassador. We went to see waterfalls, caves and picnic. The place is modelled off Paradise Lost - very pretty! I was also happy to spend some time with people who have other jobs here in Kenya working with refugees or doing medical research. It was a really good break from my ususal everyday and I learned a lot! Did you know the USA has 35,000 refugee spots / year or that Australia doesn't accept refugees with HIV aids. We had some really interesting debates about the ethics of this, about medicine in the US and about life in Kenya in general. I really enjoyed it. As we were picnicing Micah, one of our expat friends, was eating a sandwich and a hawk from mid air swoops down and takes the sandwich from her MOUTH! It's talon clipped her lip. Outrageous! I have never heard of such a thing happening!

Monday of this week - April 18th - was one of the best days so far. I spent the day at an NGO conference and talked about ICT for Development. It's was a regional conference comprised of the East and South Africa regions and we talked about how they can use IT to support their business strategy. They asked me to participate and contribute, they extended their invitation to join them for the morning to stay on for the entire day and then today - Wednesday - they invited me to join them at Carnivore's for dinner. I can't believe that from 1 day with these people I feel so happy and fulfilled that I contributed. It makes such a change from my everyday job where I'm working so frequently - especially lately - on my own and without any client input. But that's a whole other discussion. I gave one of the necklaces I bought at AHCP to someone I met tonight at dinner, one of the guys from this conference I went to, to give to his daughter in the UK who has a disability. He was really nice and I know how hard they've been working all week and knew he wouldn't get time to go out to a market and get her anything. I hope she will like it.

Today (April 20th) my intern and I talked about lots - the law of trusts, the Geneva convention, the revolution of Egypt, the Kenyan elections of 2007 and Obama. I love what she said to me. She said that when Kibaki was elected she woke up with a sense of Euphoria - excitement that anything could happen, that anything was possible. She said that must be a small part of how Egyptians feel and that although they must feel even more, she gets it. I really liked that. I suppose the closest thing I have to compare it with is Obama, and even then I am pleased Bush is out and Obama is in power, but I didn't feel euphoric when it happened. I don't think we in developed countries with established governments can really understand how people like my intern felt or how Egyptians feel, but I'm happy to meet people who can share how they felt and how they feel with me. An Egyptian man I met on Monday told me, before I never bothered to vote we always knew Mubarak would win. He had people bused from town to town voting in favour of Mubarak. It could never be fair, but now he will vote and that the streets of Cairo are different. There is a sense of change and happiness amongst the population. He said he's happiest most for his kids and that they won't have to live through what he has lived through. That's amazing to me.

Other random Nairobi memories:

- sushi on a sunday
- coat and hat stands sold in the streets
- business cards
- the frequency of shaking hands
- 'Lightings' a style of hand clapping the director gives or instructs the room to give during process workhops
- Karaoke at Black Diamond on Tuesdays with songs like: "get down", "jambo, habari gani, misuri sana, wageni ... ", "waka waka"
- traffic like i've never experienced before in my life - it would scare me to add up all the time spent waiting in traffic
- fruit and vegetable produce in Kibera looks 100x nicer than the stuff I buy in the foodstore
- worlds biggest avocados each one for 20 cents

Pirates!

Beautiful Watamu!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watamu

Shoreline in front of our Hotel

On Friday April 8th we were beach bound - we stayed at the Ocean Sports Hotel in Watamu. We went especially for Hillary and Mickey's 30th Birthdays but we were all really excited by the idea of a weekend away at the beach. We were at least 17, but I can't remember exactly. We practically dominated the airplane which made it extra fun, even when our flight took off late we didn't care. One of the guys had to go via Mombasa and then get a bus - he only made it there 1 hour or so later after us!

Sunset on Watamu Beach

We arrived on Friday and jumped straight into Dawa's. I took this quite seriously.

As you can see I took a distinct liking to Dawas. Dawa actually means medicine. Dawa is a drink made with vodka, limes and honey. It's okay to have a few. It's medicinal after all. I didn't think we were going out on Friday night so I was expecting a light one, but we went to the local bar where we played flipcup until about 1am. We turned flipcup into a full time sport and we all took turns. Accenture can't exist without competition... World Cup Flip Cup! Out obsession with flipcup started at one of the boy's house parties - think it was Aras's leaving do. We played US vs UK ( I was an honorary Brit!) - US won, then they played Kenya vs the Hague (hilarious) and the Hague one. So when we went off to Watamu it was only fitting that our Flipcup Mania continued. I've actually never played flip cup until I got to Kenya so it's been good to connect with my American roots. Eventually, the bar closed down and we ran out of beer so off to the club we went!

Our journey to the club was pretty comical - we walked for about 10 minutes down this pitch black dirt path. I felt a bit unsafe so I took up the company of Joe - a large rock and small boulder that fit quite nicely in my right hand. Should anyone attack us Joe would be ready! ;) anyway when we got to the club I put joe down, I left him outside, and we danced until 3 am to all kinds of tunes. The music at the club was better when we returned on Saturday night, but it was good all the same. The coast is soooo humid which took some adjusting to - we were pretty soaked after hours of dancing needless to say!

Saturday was pretty chilled, most of us recovered and prepared for round II - the Pirate themed birthday celebration for Mickey and Hillary.

Then we suited and booted in Pirate attire and jumped in the car ...

Julia - Carolijn - Mickey

"Argggghhhh" Julia - Liz - Mickey

Saturday night was spent in the bar, then off to the same club. I forgot my rock Joe on my way but made 'friends' with a new one. Again we danced until the wee hours but only the hard core partiers were left until sun up. Surprisingly I wasn't part of this group but I heard they played 'Navy Seals' and watched the sun rise. Hard core!

On sunday after some breakfast, Katya and I went off to the market at the end of the beach. We were an unstoppable bargaining team - even the Kenyans were impressed! We had some bags made from cloths/scarfs we selected and bought some other things. At 6pm on Sunday we picked up our stuff. Soo nice!

View from our hotel room in Watamu

You can see the strap of my new bag on my left shoulder :)

We set off for the airport, things were pretty uneventful. The airport was fabulous, so small! There were some women outside selling Mangoes - at least 20 in a tall basket - somehow someone convinced Emma she had to get them for our client. Post mango purchase we went to the bar next to the airport and when our plane landed and they were ready to board someone came to get us in the bar.

You Gotta Love Africa.

TIA: This is Afri KA KA KA KA

Karen Blixen Museum and House for Lunch and Advanced transport in Nairobi

Culinary Explorations – if you look at what I've eaten it's hard to tell I'm in Nairobi!

I've eaten a lot of types of food in the last couple of weeks. We tried the restaurant at the Karen Blixen House where I had some fish that tasted really fishy that I didn't like. I tried to overpower it with balsamic vinegar to hide the taste but I was unsuccessful, the rains were extreme that day and I was worried we were in for it from that point onwards. I had my first official Nyama Choma (basically, Kenyan BBQ) at Citrus Inn. It's another one of these places where the butchers are at the front and there's a common kitchen that cooks the meat you buy. It wasn't one of our typical nice style restaurants so being there was a bit of a shock – flies biting at your feet, cats roaming around, people selling you stuff, meat took forever. The best part of the night is when I ordered a cider and got High-C with bubbles and 8% alcohol – it was the grossest thing I've had – I abandoned it and got a beer instead. It was that bad. The next night we had Ethiopian at a place in Westlands and the food was outstanding! Was so nice to have injera again – I miss that stuff. Thursday night was Japanese – we waited what felt like a decade to get our raw fish. Really enjoyed being reunited with sushi. Yum. On the 31st of March we went to Le Rustique which is only open for dinner on Wednesday nights. It felt so good to be back in a proper restaurant. Don't get me wrong it's not Michelin starred but there are paintings on the walls, proper courses and fantastic dessert not to mention French wines – bliss! April 1st was Indian at Open House – the owner always orders for me to make sure my dish is dairy free and gets me some roti. It's so good there I love it.

Steve's Visit

Last weekend Steve visited from London. They days running up to his arrival felt looooooong and I couldn't wait until he was here! We stayed at the Palacina on Friday thanks to Lauren's recommendation. The hotel was great, staff was really friendly and they had excellent food (we had mixed Nyama Choma – delicious! A jazz band played whilst we ate which was nice entertainment. On Saturday we set off for Lake Bogoria to see Flamingos! We saw loads of The Greater and The Lesser Flamingos. Steve was taking lots of pictures and at one point, when I'd had enough of taking pictures, I decided to run along the edge of the lake to chase the Flamingos so we could see them in flight. The sight was spectacular – flamingos were everywhere. They're quite shy, I was surprised, and they don't let you get close to them at all. They fly off at first sight of you, this made the photography tricky but Steve's 400mm lens captured lots of good snaps. Lake Bogoria also has hot springs, when I say hot I don't mean bring your bathingsuit and jump in, the water was actually boiling hot! I put a few fingers in to test it and ouch!! no kidding. It's hot!!

Sunday we visitied Nairobi, my offices, a Masai Market, a walk around town followed by a tour of the hotels – buffet brunch and a Margarita at the Intercontinental. We continued the hotel theme in preparation for my parent's visit – we checked out the Serena and the Norfolk. We also walked through Uhuru park – the only park I've ever been to with barbed wire along the sides of the pavement. Despite the barbed wire people were still climbing under it to get onto the grass. Hilarious. On Monday it was time for Steve to leave and off to the airport he went! What a great 3 days though, we packed so much in!!

hot hot hot springs

ding ding - we crossed the border!

our transport mobile - the latest model mercedes benz - no expense spared!

flamingos in flight

post flamingo spooking

barbed wire in Uhuru Park (Freedom Park) - how ironic!

Masai Market

The reality of living in Nairobbery sets in

We had a few incidents all in the same week which has caused a lot of worry which lingers to date. One of the ADP guys got robbed in his apartment (not where I'm staying) by 4 guys with machetes. He was in the flat at the time, they demanded all his money and threatened to kill him. Thankfully he gave them everything he had (they even took clothing) but they didn't hurt him. He left on Sunday and will not be returning. His manager was left to deal with it all on her own and now that he's gone she is super freaked.

There's been protests going on in our area (which is like the Kensington of Nairobi but looks more like Aldgate East) over some Kenyan students who disappeared. Apparently this happens frequently when students don't agree or are vocal about sensitive subjects such as politics. The protesters burned a couple cars and it took over 1 hour to get home. The British and American foreign offices warn significantly against protests in Kenya as they always get violent. We have proof in our own neighbourhood!

We've all been pretty frustrated by the general lack of response from the ADP team in regards to incidents – something finally came out this week but I can't believe how long it took. A part of Accenture that is responsible for security of assets (yes I'm an asset!) is going to come to Nairobi to inspect the safety of our accommodation – this is good. Thank gosh for our SM Emma – she's been so helpful in making sure everyone feels safe and trying to do anything she can to improve how we feel about being here.

Working in Kenya

Posters up all over the city talking about what we're here to do

Last week we went on a really good training course in a nice hotel in Nairobi that taught us about the timeline of development – we placed world events on a timeline and overlaid development organisations on top (e.g. World War II ended in 1945 and at the Breton Woods Conference the World Bank and the IMF were created). It was great to show it all in one place and talk about it as it happened instead of fragmented pieces of history like we learned in school a long time ago. We also played a game which demonstrated the power plays of international trade. It was great for my team as we were the developed nation with access to capital, lots of tools to convert raw materials into finished goods and good relationships with the banks. It was the life. My favourite part was when I asked the banker (Andrew, our trainer for the 2 day course) if I could get interest on the money I was depositing in his bank. I cracked up when I found out that no one had ever negotiated an interest rate for their deposits before. We had a celebrity sighting - Clare Short, UK Foreign Secretary during Blair's 2^nd administration was at a conference at our hotel – it was cool to see her entourage.

Office #2

In week 4 I finally had a meeting with my client for the 1^st time on Thursday. It's definitely all about patience. The meeting was originally planned to take place last week, which was delayed to Monday, then to Wednesday, then to Thursday –not to mention the change from 10 am to then 11 am and now to 12. Anyway not to worry, here it's all about being flexible. I've learned a lot! The client loves to multi task and I had to hold off on talking when she was busy doing something else so I had her attention. I believe the meeting went well as we agreed on the approach – yay! Now it's time to start delivering! Funny though, I'm not sure our client knows the sacrifice we've made to be here as she isn't particularly nice to us.

Friday amply made up for any hardship – Liz and I spent the day at Sankara's rooftop pool catching up on work reading. Lunchbreak was my favourite – turkey club on sweet potato bread with a massive frozen margarita. I got such a good tan that day. Bliss.

Nairobi Nightlife

Friday night was epic – we started at Cactus partaking in a local pastime of chewing a type of cactus including the tops and the outside red bark.. it was interesting. At 1:30am we set off for Click – a night club which some of the guys know well and go to. It was awesome, we were the only Muzungos there. 1 night of dancing made up for 5 years of living in London without Hip Hop. There was a good mix of Kenyan music and international hip-hop and other tunes that we recognized. Really really good - we left at 5am. I woke up with a headache from hell and have spent the entire day in bed. Bliss.

TIA – This is Africa and how it is for me