The Pluses and Minuses of Nairobi

I’m often asked whether I like living in Nairobi. Like anywhere, it has its pluses and its minuses. As African cities go (and I’ve seen quite a number now), it is a good place to be. Ready availability of imported good as well as local produce, a plentiful choice of nice eating-out places, a very pleasant climate (varying between a good English summer and a bad English summer!), and various forms of entertainment, help to make life here not so very dissimilar to that experienced at home. (Someone said to me recently, “Nairobi is very close to Africa!”)
Two things however stand out as the not so pleasant features of life here:-
1. Security. Everyone in Nairobi it seems, knows someone who’s been carjacked, mugged, burgled, …. The crime rate is way higher than I’ve known elsewhere. Then again, the disparity of wealth is higher too. And whilst one doesn’t justify the other, it does perhaps explain it. Such concerns of security can be factors in stopping some from venturing out of their walled, razor-wired, guarded compounds, in the evenings.
2. Traffic. An increasing problem, and one that has caused me to cancel plans for an evening out with friends a few times now. As Nairobi’s middle class increases, so does the number of vehicles on the roads. The road infrastructure however doesn’t seem to develop at the same rate, the plans for a ringroad around the city seemingly remaining just that – plans. In order to go out pretty much anywhere, at least an hour has to be factored in. (A recent grocery shopping trip after work, which should have been a 5 minute drive, took over 1½ hours! The worst of it was that I couldn’t abandon the plan, turn around and go home, as impatient (a.k.a. selfish / thoughtless) drivers, trying to get ahead, had succeeded in completely blocking the road.)
My new strategy of beating the traffic on a weekday when I go out to Karen for flute lessons and home group, is to leave the office early, and continue working once I’m there. Except for a couple of occasions, I’ve saved myself about 45 minutes of sitting in traffic, by doing so. Such strategies may well become a regular part of life before too long.

Two lanes of traffic?!