Will I make it?

My travel stories usually involve delayed flights, missed flights, spending unexpected nights in hotels, that sort of thing. Last week’s installment of the ever-growing ‘Claire’s Travel Misadventures’ took place earlier in the process. After 2 days of meetings in Addis Ababa, I was due to fly back to Nairobi on the 10:40am flight. A civilized time I thought, not requiring an unearthly start to the day, unlike so many of my trans-Africa flights. I was rather surprised therefore when the taxi driver turned up at 6:30am at the house where I was staying. I was still in bed, actually sleep, when my host apologetically knocked on my door. We weren’t expecting him for another 90 minutes! Seeing no real need to hasten my departure too much, I was up, dressed, breakfasted and packed within the hour, only to find that the taxi driver had gone off to do a school run! So, I was then waiting for him. We left before 8am, and all seemed well. The sun was shining, and here we were leaving in good time. The taxi was a saloon car, and lacked a number of features, such as seatbelt for the front passenger, and door handle…… The area of windscreen that you could see through was diminished somewhat by a dark band of film across the top, and a rather high dashboard. Whilst my window handle was gone, ventilation wasn’t too much of an issue thanks to the gap between both of the front doors and the rest of the car. This created a little bit of a problem on my side, when the door swung open early on in our journey.
The streets were full of people going to work, and children going to school, having enjoyed a public holiday (The Downfall of the Derg) the day before. We soon discovered that it wasn’t just pedestrians who were out and about in numbers, as we ran into heavy traffic, and came to something of a halt. Not to be perturbed, my driver veered off the road down a back street. “How good to be with someone who knows these alternative routes”, I thought to myself. However, what he perhaps hadn’t reckoned on was that where this road rejoined the main road, there was now a pile of earth and stones, and a van stuck in this, with its wheels spinning. Inevitably, there was a group of willing volunteers gathered around to help, in the hope of some remuneration, and they eventually managed to push the van over to the other side. It was then the turn of a 4-wheel drive, which navigated the mound without too much difficulty, and then it was us, in our rather low-slung saloon. With the pedal pressed full down, we charged at it, faltering a bit along the way. However, it was in the descent that things went slightly awry. To get back down to the road required dropping down a curb. Drop was the operative word, as the bodywork of the car beneath the front  passenger door, descended on the curb with a sickening crunch. I was imagining mangled body work, though the driver didn’t seem overly put off, continuing to rev, and with the help of the gang, continued onto the road. Phew, what a relief.
Next stop was a petrol station, though they seemingly had empty tanks. As it turned out did we, as the car glided to a halt a further 100 metres along the road…..  The driver by this point was clearly very agitated, and was asking what to do. Having seen a petrol station on the other side of the road a short distance away, going to see if they had petrol seemed a logical next step to me! So, off he went, petrol container in hand (I suspect that this wasn’t a first!). And I was left in the car, on a 6-lane road in rush hour traffic in Addis, observing life going by. Lots of pedestrians; a lady sweeping the road; 3 men just sat on a curb; a herd of cows;……

Lady cleaning the street

Piling into public transport - or just sitting!



Cows walking along the pavement towards downtown Addis!

The end of the story is really pretty unexciting. He came back after about 15 minutes or so, filled the tank from the container, spent some minutes then trying to coax the engine back to life, and then we were off and arrived at the airport, just with enough time in hand. (The lady at Immigration was gesticulating a lot, saying that my visa had expired. It took some while to figure out that this was what she was saying, at which point I was able to point her in the direction of the visa I’d got just a couple of days before, rather than the one she was looking at, from my February trip! Oh, and I must make a mental note to wear a non-wired bra when going through Bole International Airport – their scanners are very sensitive!!)

Both ways, I flew in the new Dreamliner, Boeing 787. Very smart! Electronic darkening windows rather than shutters; lots of room. I thought it was ironic that I had such a nice plane for a 1.5 hour flight, when the previous week, flying from Dakar (a total of about 10 hours on the plane), I was really squished, not able to retrieve anything from my laptop bag which was under the seat in front of me! Oh well!

Logistics R Us!

I’ve discovered that one of the things about travelling is the inevitability of requests, often fairly last minute, to transport something from A to B, or to act as personal shopper, buying something on behalf of somebody. I’ve availed myself of this opportunity of hand carries every time I distribute a newsletter. “Could you post these for me please?” being a request 3 or more times a year to those I’ve found out are travelling to the UK and US. Always in stamped and addressed envelopes of course! Indeed, knowing that someone would be travelling has at times been the incentive to knuckle down and get something written.
It can be amazing how word gets around that you’ll be going from A to B, and then back to A again. There’s always been a certain amount, but ‘Hollis Logistics Services’ seems to have entered into a new scale of operation in recent trips!

Flying Nairobi to London in March – In addition to my own luggage, I had:-
§  A small case for a friend about to leave Kenya, and therefore moving some of her possessions to the UK;
§  A large bag of books, games and clothes for friends who left a year ago, and who still have some of their things in Nairobi;
§  A passport, complete with renewed Kenya work permit for a colleague currently on furlough in the UK;
§  A wedding present for a friend of friends;
§  A birthday present for a friend of those same friends.

Flying London to Nairobi in April –
§  A (large) doorbell for friends (!);
§  3 boxes of books for a work colleague, 2 of which I subsequently took to Yaounde, Cameroon;
§  Razor cartridges for a friend (who when I last him, still hadn’t used them!);
§  DVDs for friends in the DRC;
§  Assortment of birthday presents for members of one family.

And then you get the really roundabout ones. Some items for a family in Dar es Salam, Tanzania from our UK head office. Not that I was going to be going to Dar, but I was going to Yaounde, and at those same meetings in Yaounde was someone from Dar! So, they finally reached their destination having travelled from the UK to Nairobi to Yaounde to Dar!

It’s just as well that we get a 2 bag allowance between Nairobi and London! I’m reckoning that any of us working with SIL would do very well if we set up our own logistics business!

Bags 'couriered' to the UK!

(I’m writing this on a plane from Nairobi to Dakar, and am in the amazing position of having got off pretty much scot-free this time on the packhorse front!)

Election Day

It would be very hard in Nairobi not to know that we were having a major election. (And probably around the world too given what I’ve seen on BBC, Reuters and other websites.) Over the weekend, campaigning intensified with the two frontrunners holding large rallies in two of the major venues: Nyayo Stadium which is just down the hill from where I live and Uhuru Park, about a mile away. During the day, I’d encountered truck and bus loads of people wearing T-shirts and baseball caps in the colours of their respective parties, waving and throwing flags, blaring music, evidently headed to the rallies. And even a cavalcade of about 20-30 motorbikes, sounding their horns. It all had a very celebratory feel about it. Later on, I was able to watch the broadcast of the rallies, whilst getting a stereo effect from the one being held at Nyayo Stadium, the sounds drifting in through my open windows.


One television station showed the two rallies simultaneously, the
audio going from one to the other

By contrast, today everything was very quiet. Barely any traffic, other than police helicopters going overhead. The construction that has been going on for more than 5 months now, ceased completely. Quite a relief from the pounding! Supermarkets were closed. Nearly all the local TV stations were broadcasting one thing – the elections.
For Kenyan citizens registered to vote, it was a day of standing in long, long queues in the blazing sunshine awaiting their turn. Whilst there were a few flare-ups, the over-riding impression was of the resilience of Kenyans and their determination to exercise their right to vote. And many turned up. They’re reckoning over 70% turnout.
The process for voting itself seemed quite complicated. It’s a long time now since I voted in person in the UK (it’s been by proxy for 10 years now), but I just seem to remember having to put an X in one box. Here, they’ve been voting today for 6 different positions:-
1.       President. There are 8 candidates. The winning candidate must get more than 50% of the total votes cast, and at least 25% of the votes in half of the 47 counties. If there is no clear winner, a second round of voting will take place between the top two candidates on April 10^th.
2.       Member of the National Assembly (ie MPs).
3.       County Assembly Ward Representative.
4.       Senator.
5.       County Women Representative.
6.       Governor.
Each has its own ballot paper, with the list of candidates, including their photographs. Each ballot paper is colour-coded, and then gets dropped into a box, with a lid of that same colour. Clever!

The voting procedure laid out in Sunday's paper

To guard against rigging of votes, the process for getting in to vote has been quite rigorous, checking people’s registration cards, their ID, and even their fingerprints. It’s no small wonder that the queues were as long as they were, some people waiting up to 5 or 6 hours to cast their vote. As they waited today, so now, we all wait to hear the outcome.

There have been many appeals for peaceful elections. This one from
the Office of the President

A Prayer for Kenya

I find it interesting that at the heart of the Kenyan National Anthem is a prayer for peace and unity. That seems very poignant at this time, as the Kenyan people go to the polling stations on Monday to choose a president, members of parliament, senators, county governors and members of the newly formed county assembly. Not so remarkable in itself. Yet this is  against the backdrop of the inter-ethnic post-election violence of 5 years ago, when more than 1,200 people were killed, and up to 600,000 were displaced from their homes (some of whom are still in IDP camps today).

 

(In Swahili)

Ee Mungu nguvu yetu
Ilete baraka kwetu
Haki iwe ngao na mlinzi
Natukae na undugu
Amani na uhuru
Raha tupate na ustawi.

Amkeni ndugu zetu
Tufanye sote bidii
Nasi tujitoe kwa nguvu
Nchi yetu ya Kenya
Tunayoipenda
Tuwe tayari kuilinda

Natujenge taifa letu
Ee, ndio wajibu wetu
Kenya istahili heshima
Tuungane mikono
Pamoja kazini
Kila siku tuwe na shukrani

 

(In English) 

O God of all creation

Bless this our land and nation

Justice be our shield and defender

May we dwell in unity

Peace and liberty

Plenty be found within our borders

 

Let one and all arise

With hearts both strong and true

Service be our earnest endeavour

And our Homeland of Kenya

Heritage of splendour

Firm may we stand to defend

 

Let all with one accord

In common bond united

Build this our nation together

And the glory of Kenya

The fruit of our labour

Fill every heart with thanksgiving

Amen and Amen!

Contingency Planning

‘Contingency Planning’ is a phrase that is much in vogue around Nairobi at the moment. With the elections just 4 days away (March 4th), and the memories of what happened after the December 2007 elections rather too fresh in people’s minds, organisations and embassies have been issuing contingency plan recommendations. To give an idea of the sort of thing being talked about, here’s a sample of items to think about as listed by an advanced driving school in Nairobi, which sends out various security updates.

• Do you have enough non-perishable food supplies in your pantry in case movement is restricted during that time?
• Extra bottled water is essential. Have at least a 5-day supply per person in your pantry. Eleven litres per person per day will give you enough to drink, for limited cooking and personal hygiene.
• Will you be able to cook if electricity is shut off for an extended period? Consider alternatives. Having a full gas cylinder plus a spare, as well as charcoal and firewood should also be on hand. Extra matches are a must!
• What about lighting for your home if there are extended power cuts? Do you have candles? Batteries for torches? Solar lamps or other methods of lighting? If you have a generator, do you have sufficient fuel?
• Can you charge your mobile phone if the power is off for extended periods?
• If you or your staff, have pre-paid SIM cards, do you have spares available? What happens if phone service is cut off? Do you have alternative methods of communicating with loved ones?
• Do you have a bag packed with essential items in case you have to evacuate your home in a hurry? Remember to include each member of your family and consider any special need requirements.
• Do you have a list of emergency point-of-contact phone numbers both in your car and on your person?
• Is your vehicle ready in case of an emergency evacuation? When is the last time it was serviced? Is it full of fuel?
• Do you have enough cash? Is it enough to last a month? Divide your cash and put it in separate areas of your home, don't keep it all in one place.
• What about all of your important documents? They should be stored in safety deposit boxes or other secure locations. Consider making scanned copies and emailing them to yourself in case you lose the originals. Important documents include passports, insurance policies, family records (marriage and birth certificates), land title deeds, bank cards, etc.

We’ve also spent quite a bit of time discussing this at work, both related to personal contingency plans, and for the organization itself. With an emergency phone chain in place, everyone can be contacted quickly (assuming phone lines are operating). We’ve been busy ensuring that absolutely everything is backed up, and that important documents are scanned. The office will be closed for 3 days (election day itself is a national holiday anyway) so that people can stay home and not be moving around the city, other than to vote. Come Thursday, we’ll see how the land lies as to whether business resumes as usual or not.
It really is a lot to think about, and in some ways, even thinking about this sort of thing can engender anxiety and fear, though we all hope that none of it will be needed. But it would be pretty bad not to have planned in this way, and then a crisis erupt. It reminds me of the contingency planning that took place before Y2K. It turned out then that the computers didn’t all crash as the clock struck midnight on the night of December 31^st 1999. I’m hoping that this will prove to be as uneventful as that was, and that I’ll be just using up the additional food, water, batteries, candles, phone credit, toilet paper etc etc gradually over time, whilst still being able to shop for fresh produce.

Between a Buffalo and an Elephant

I love going into Kenya’s national parks. I enjoy being able to escape the city for the wide open spaces. And the variety of scenery: From the grassy plains of Nairobi National Park; to the barren beauty of Samburu with its mountain ranges, and the Ewaso Nyiro river, lined with doum palms, meandering its way through; the flat, bareness of Amboseli with its backdrop of the majestic Mt Kilimanjaro; the vastness of bushy Tsavo; and Nakuru Park, with the lake as its central point (though currently minus its pink fringe of flamingos, for which it’s famed)…..

Giant lobelia dot the moorland landscape of the Aberdares National Park

A couple of weekends ago, I was in the Aberdares National Park with some friends. This again is so different. Densely forested in the lower sections, then rising to bamboo forest, and above that moorland reminiscent of Scotland, with cascading waterfalls, and the peaks of the mountains themselves still rising above. As well as the scenery of course, there’s the wildlife. And the emphasis here is on ‘wild’. One of the things that I was aware of from early on living here, was the lack of instruction as to what to do when you come face to face with something big. I’m not talking zebra, or even giraffe (though they’re clearly very tall), but rather the sort of beast that carries with it the kind of weight that when combined with a bit of force, could do serious damage to a vehicle – elephants, rhinos, buffalo, hippo…. Thus far, I’ve not had any close encounters, though I did once have a rhino seemingly give chase. Respect of course is the name of the game. And applying wisdom. If there’s a herd of elephants, I wouldn’t  go driving through the middle of them, especially if there are young.

On our trip to the Aberdares, we found ourselves between a rock and a hard place, or more accurately in this instance, between 3 very mean-looking buffalo, and a herd of 10 elephants, including young. And it was getting dark. And my petrol gauge was rather closer to empty than I’m generally comfortable with. We’d just come through a very muddy section of the ‘road’, the car slipping and sliding, and at times going sideways! The buffalo were standing separately at the side of the road, clearly aware of our passing by. Something in their eyes said that they weren’t feeling particularly amiable towards us. A little bit further on, a group of ellies were having a fine old time in some mud, just at the side of the road. We waited a respectable distance back, and in time, they moved on, again clearly aware of our presence, and also clearly in no hurry. However, their moving on was in a forwards direction, rather than sideways. They kept to the road! About 30-40 minutes later, we’d advanced maybe 100 metres, if that. One of the buffalo eventually wandered by, keeping a distance from us, and a rather larger distance from the elephants, going through the bush. We unfortunately couldn’t follow his example!

That's not a happy looking buffalo!

What to do?

• Sit and wait? I was aware that once it was dark, we wouldn’t be able to see the elephants very well, and could find ourselves rather closer to them than we’d choose to be.
• Race by? Given that some were actually on the rather narrow track, this really wasn’t an option. Elephants have a fairly wide girth!
• Hoot at them? Probably not a good idea…..
• Skirt around them? There really was nowhere to skirt, without risking getting stuck in mud and / or undergrowth.

The herd of elephants enjoying the mud

In the end, we chose to turn around (which took something like an 11-point turn on this narrow track, with ditches on either side), make our way back through the mud patch (involving a manouevre where we were caught in a rut at the edge of the road, the side of the car in contact with the grass verge (thankfully, there were no rocks there)), and take a track to another gate which we’d seen. We had no clue where it would take us, nor the state of the road en route, but it seemed the better option. And we did eventually make it, after 3 crossings of an incredibly rickety wooden bridge, an encounter with a closed electric fence, a closed barrier, and another 11-point turn, (not necessarily in that order!)……

Postering the town red (and blue, and green, and…..)

With just 3 weeks to go to the Presidential elections here in Kenya, it would be hard for anyone to miss the fact that there’s major campaigning going on. This evening, the first Presidential debate took place at one of the private schools, just outside the city. This was no doubt followed by many on television and radio, and for those who weren’t yet home, the effects were felt with traffic gridlock across the city.
However, what has impacted me has been the visual effect of the campaign, namely the plastering on pretty much every and any surface, of a plethora of posters. (A friend remarked yesterday, ‘Stand still for long enough, and you’ll get a poster on you’!) I first noticed these about 4 weeks ago, in the run up to the preliminaries, on my walk to the office. A nearby wall was festooned with multiple posters, all for the same individual. Particularly noticeable were all the backings to these posters which were strewn on the ground. Not exactly a good advertisement for this particular individual (or perhaps more precisely, for the political machinery behind him).
It has struck me that campaigning here would seem to be more about how many posters can be put up than anything else. Trees, walls, road signs, bridges, even drains – they’re all plastered with various individuals’ faces. And most of the time, it’s not sufficient to put up just one poster. Maximum coverage evidently applies here as well as to the media! Why just limit yourself to one poster on a wall for your candidate, when you could put up thirty?! It would appear that opposition tactics are sometimes to tear down the opponents’ posters, the life or durability of some seeming to be rather short….
Big billboards on the roads broadcast the major contenders with promises of jobs, more sports stadia, and a transformed country, amongst other things.
Yesterday, I was slightly delayed in my journey home by a campaign lorry in an outlying town. Music blared out, people on the lorry jigged around, and a crowd was gathered. Something evidently happened within the crowd that caused the lorry to suddenly move on, and then got into a fix as it attempted to turn around, backing into another road, consequently completely blocking the one that we were on. Cars, spray-painted with the name of this candidate, lined the route. It’s a while since I was in the UK during the run-up to a general election, but from what I remember, it seems to be rather a different ball game here.

Behind this family group is a flank of posters

A wall covered in posters (I counted 5 different ones)

Pillars supporting a bridge provide a useful surface

As does this tree and notice (I guess they won't be getting any phone calls at the moment!)

A new wall as part of the flyover being constructed on Langata Road - all of 2 different posters providing decoration here!

One of the main contending partnerships

A less messy way to advertise, and in Nairobi traffic, likely to catch the attention of plenty of people

Putting someone in the drain would have negative connotations elsewhere!

(Some of these photographs are courtesy of Jill Brace who was in the passenger seat, while I was driving.)