Jump to the Monday before my planned Wednesday flight. Charles emails me in the afternoon asking if I could fly up a day early to help set some things up before the meeting. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, so I say sure and start to leisurely make some calls and send some emails to change the itinerary. Problem 1: the flight to Nairobi is full. Yikes. A slight panic ensues and I start asking friends how bearable/reliable the bus to Nairobi is. There’s also a question of whether I would get there in time for my second flight to Eldoret. My communication skills were really put to the test as I tried to connect with a friend of a friend (whom I hadn’t yet met) living in Nairobi to set up a backup plan, as well as the driver who may or may not be picking me up at 6am to take me to the airport. This was all put to rest at 10:30 that night, when the travel agent called back to tell me I had a full flight booked (albeit without any proof other than a few numbers scribbled down on a post-it). Needless to say, I stayed up way too late packing because I had overlooked the one thing that needed to be done either way. The flights were uneventful, aside from the fact that it was my first time in a propellor plane since my first flight. We didn’t want to risk getting stuck in traffic or running into trouble downtown, so Frank and I soaked in the sights and sounds of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport for the entire seven-hour duration of our layover. And by that, I mean we ate lunch and sat for a really long time…we didn’t exactly have access to the Government Lounge.
The first big surprise about Eldoret hit me as we landed. There appeared to be water falling from the sky in small droplets. It took a second before I remembered that it actually rains from time to time in some parts of the world. After a cab ride spent wondering how I would survive in this crazy climate, we arrived at the Hotel Sirikwa near downtown Eldoret. While it’s probably past its prime, I can’t complain too much about the place. There was a pool, a restaurant, fake animal heads on the balcony, and even wireless internet. The next four days were spent organizing, powerpoint editing, nametag creating, videotaping, website updating, and generally assisting Charles with anything that needed to be done for the 55+ people who showed for the meeting. It was an extremely busy and exhausting week, but in the down time I got to spend some quality time with folks from all over Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania (including a lawyer, a marine biologist, and a medical school Provost).
Life in my first real hotel room as part of a business trip was made even stranger by the presence of a TV. For those of you who haven't experienced Kenyan basic cable, here's a cross-section of the programming available at 9 on a Tuesday night:
CHANNEL 1: Filipino family soap opera, dubbed in American English and painstakingly enunciated
CHANNEL 2: American teen drama intended for an elderly audience (think Lifetime network)
CHANNEL 3: [dark snow]
CHANNEL 4: [light snow]
CHANNEL 5: Police drama in Kenyan English
CHANNEL 6: Aforementioned American teen drama
CHANNEL 7: Ibid.
CHANNEL 8: Aforementioned police drama
CHANNEL 9: Fear Factor
CHANNEL 10: Teen drama
Each of the two meeting days in Eldoret were capped with a tour of a local AMPATH facility. The first tour took us to the Imani Workshop, a program designed to provide steady work and access to services for HIV/AIDS patients and others in need. The women working here made everything by hand, including jewelry, paper products, ceramics, and tote bags. Our group pretty much raided the gift shop after the tour, and I may have taken care of a lot of Christmas shopping early. The second tour showed us the AMPATH offices/clinics/labs on the campus of Moi University. The contrast between this place and a hospital like KCMC really shows how extensive collaboration with Western funding sources can make a dramatic difference. At the same time, our tour guides were definitely aware that steps must be taken towards sustainability if these programs are to really have a long-term impact. If you take some time to read up on AMPATH though, many of the programs are very much community-based with innovative strategies to keep them running.
Moving along to Nairobi, Charles and I looked forward to a busy weekend without many real plans. The time we spent sitting around the apartment all day Saturday catching up on emails was a pretty poor representation of all that would happen to us around the city. In the following two and a half days we managed to find:
- An apartment with a full kitchen, nice TV, free fast internet, and no blackouts
- A “deep” club called Tacos
- The launch of a soccer tournament on a dirt field
- Raw sewage in the street
- Two ultra modern shopping malls
- Mercedes, Volkswagons, and Subarus
- A fender bender in the middle of downtown Nairobi
- The best pilau I’ve had so far
- A cookout for the promotion of Charles’s old friend
- A flatbed party truck blasting rap music
- Tusker Project Fame on a bigscreen TV (the African version of American Idol)
- Two cooked goat legs
- Fresh chicken at Charles’s mom’s place
- A rush hour standstill in East Nairobi, along with multiple somewhat successful detours (including one passing near Little Mogadishu)
- Dinner at an actual fancy restaurant, including real caesar salad and apple pie
- Cows claiming right-of-way on streets where pedestrians can only dream of it
- A grand total of six (6) full soccer matches on TV
I could go on for a while about most of these, but I’ll at least describe a few…
On Sunday morning I tagged along with Charles to the kick-off event of the Farova Cup tournament, which he and a few buddies worked to put together. The tournament will be taking place around Nairobi until December, bringing in well-known club teams from all over East Africa. In addition, the organizers have developed a set of community-oriented goals: “keeping the streets safe, engaging and encouraging the youth to positively volunteer in the community, tapping and developing soccer talents in the neighborhood, saying no to drugs as well as conveying the Kenyan national motto of ‘Peace Love and Unity.’” It was dubbed Farova after a specific area in Nairobi with a name that has been gradually Anglicized and Jamaicanized into "Far Over" and "Farova." Arriving at the primary school dirt field where the event was to take place, I realized just how much passion there is for the sport in Kenya. Several hundred kids and adults surrounded the chalk-lined (by hand) perimeter of the playing surface, where the footballers slide tackled, danced around empty water bottles, and shot on goals without nets. Where was I during all of this? With a video camera on the sidelines being mobbed by a group of 6-10 year olds. Even though a Nairobian about my age was wielding a similar video camera only a few feet away, apparently the fact that I was the only white person in sight was enough to make the day that much more exciting. While most of them just wanted to be seen dancing on camera, one slightly older boy appeared out of nowhere and decided he wanted to learn how to use the camera. Taking advantage of the fact that many technological terms are identical in English and Kiswahili, I gave him a crash course on zoom, battery, tape, tripod use, and breaking down. He was very professional about the whole thing (even demanded a digital camera lesson), and I left the field confident that he’ll be an all-star cameraman for KTV within five years.
For those of you who don’t know, pilau is one of the more popular of the traditional East African dishes. At the baseline, it includes dark rice and beef. When Charles’s friend Yusuf took us out to his favorite lunch spot in a back alley, it included much more. First of all, Charles suggested I cut up my complimentary banana and mix it in with the rest of the dish. Then the waitress came back with a tomato-bean soup to add on top. Just when I thought it was safe to dig in, Yusuf warned me that I should probably take out the cardamon and cloves. Basically, this turned into a process of sifting through my dish for things I shouldn’t bite into. Oh, and did I mention we were in a hurry to get to our next meal? We had downed three plates of pilau in about 15 minutes and paid (probably less than $10 total) before I realized the best meal of my time here was already in my stomach.
Soon after this meal, we dove into some nostalgia by looking through old photo albums at Charles’s mom’s house. Her minimal English and frequent mixing of Kikuyu with Kiswahili confused me several times, but she was extremely welcoming and didn’t hesitate to serve us chicken and mashed potatoes with crushed pumpkin leaves. On the way to our next meal (yes, #3 of the afternoon) we hit the legendary Nairobi traffic. I head heard stories of the 14-kilometer ride from the airport to the city lasting up to three hours, but this was just a typical inner-city logjam. This ride gave me a protracted tour of East Nairobi, a.k.a. the non-tourist part. It was a step above the legitimate slums I had seen in the distance from the highway the day before, but the struggles here were evident and tough to put into words. Pedestrian traffic ruled between merchant shacks covered with tarps, metal, scraps of wood, or anything else available. The trash and disorganization made me feel out of place and uncomfortable, but Charles spoke of memories from his childhood and gave me an appreciation of how many people call that area home. The contrasts I witnessed just in that one day in Nairobi added a very local, zoomed in example to my understanding of global inequality.
All in all, I left Kenya with some priceless experiences and an appreciation of the subtle ways it differs from both capitalist America and post-socialist Tanzania. I also left with eight business cards, four bottles of the Kenyan miracle beverage called Alvaro, and the crucial bit of knowledge that traffic lights exist in Nairobi, but only as polite suggestions.
Matatu (Kenyan dala dala) themes:
Fernando Torres. The Prince.
Punch
Blessed Assurance
Touch and Go
City Boy
Super Sony
Fartleg
Shifter
Biggy is Back
Diplomacy
Alicia Keys
Little Joy
G Phat
Dre Express
Not Guilty
Leather So Soft
In Real Terms
Additional team attire spotted:
Cincinnati Reds
New Orleans Hornets
Boston Celtics
Minnesota Timberwolves
St. Louis Rams
Seattle Mariners
Arizona Diamondbacks
New York Knicks
Chicago Blackhawks
Phoenix Suns
Phoenix Eagles
Baltimore Orioles
New York Giants
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Cleveland Cavaliers
(44/122)
This week's soundtrack:
A Flock of Seagulls – I Ran (So Far Away)
Modest Mouse – Here It Comes
Outkast – Rosa Parks
Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose – Treat Her Like a Lady
Jack Johnson – Tomorrow Morning
The Antlers – Bear
The Doors – When the Music’s Over
Ludacris – Get Back [blasting from a Matatu]
Celine Dion/Kenny G – My Heart Will Go On [heard at least five times in the past week, typically with the volume higher than normal]
Anthony B. featuring Turbulence – Real Warriors [The kids at the soccer tournament couldn’t get enough of this song.]
Lucky Dube – Different Colors/One People [covered on Project Fame]
In other news:
EAWoHNet, one of the larger projects going on here, finally has a website. After many frustrating hours wondering how it can be so hard to publish a simple site, Brandi and I finally have it up and running. Check it out at eawohnet.org.
Next time:
Rugby, housekeeping, and a trip to Uganda…
