Other than a week at the end of February, there’s been no rain since Christmas. And Nairobi is hot! Not Ouagadougou, Juba, N’djamena ….. 40C, hot admittedly, but still consistently in the low 30s, with blazing sunshine. I love it! However, a downside of this relentless heat is the dust. Clouds of it puff up round my feet as I walk down the dirt road to work, and when cars pass by, it’s not just my legs that are coated in the red dust – I’m covered. A regular routine now is to head straight to the bathroom when I get home, sit on the counter, and give my feet and legs a good wash, before doing anything else in the flat. Clothes are being more regularly washed at the moment, trouser and skirt hems quickly taking on a reddish-brown hue. As I leave Kenya soon for 5 months in the UK, today was my last day for wearing one pair of formerly cream shoes for work - they are now being consigned to the bin!
The other factor that causes things to get dirty much faster here is the pollution. Unlike the UK, vehicle exhaust emissions don’t appear to be monitored. Chief culprits tend to be lorries, chuffing out great plumes of black smoke. Unfortunately, I don’t always have my camera to hand at such times (!), but did at least capture a couple of such polluters one day, ironically one of them a ‘clean water’ tanker!
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