Out and about in the Rift Valley

Monday was a holiday here - Madaraka Day. Having not been able to go away as planned to minister in Kimilili in western Kenya, due to a heavy cold, and feeling somewhat better by Monday, I really wanted to get out of the city at least for part of the day. In the end, a colleague and I went for a drive around the Ngong Hills, which are about 20 miles from Nairobi. I’d walked the length of them before, and had driven over them to go to Lake Magadi (a soda lake near the border with Tanzania), but had never done the circuit. It was great to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, and be out on the open road. Some of it was tarmac, but all of the road at the back of the hills (which is effectively in the Rift Valley) was murram. Quite a contrast going from one side to the other. On the Nairobi side, it’s all pretty green and cultivated. On the far side, it’s dry, the landscape dotted with flat-topped acacia trees, and with the occasional Masai manyatta (dwelling), with their thorn fences. The hills themselves are quite beautiful, with their folds, and undulating peaks. We had lunch under an acacia, with the backdrop of the Ngongs. No traffic noises, just the sounds of different birds, and of cowbells as cattle were being herded. Most of the traffic we met was on the way back, when we passed a large number of pickup trucks packed with Masai! They’d evidently been out for the day too! An extra detour took us on the tarmac road going down (literally!) on the way to Magadi. Amazing views, several potholes and some interesting encounters with cows in the road!

Birdlife

People who don't live in Kenya know about the animals living here, Big Cat Diary and the Elephant Orphanage featuring various such species. However, there's also a very diverse birdlife here with birds of all colours, shapes and sizes. A number of people living here, who perhaps would never have done so in their home countries, get interested in bird watching (and I include myself in that). And sometimes, you don't have to go very far at all! This Silvery-cheeked hornbill seems to turn up in my area of Nairobi around this time of year. Here, he's seen perching in the tree just outside my flat. I wouldn't want to mess with that head of his!

Entebbe Trip

I’m in Entebbe, Uganda at the end of a week’s stay here. I’m here principally to give 2 days of finance training to Project Leaders and Administrative staff. These took place on Tuesday and Wednesday. It was a new undertaking for me, so I was a little apprehensive as to how it would go. The 25 of us were rather crammed into the office’s living room (the office is a converted house), perhaps not the most conducive of learning environments. However, they were great participants and we had good times of discussion and interaction. The course seemed to be appreciated by all there, and I enjoyed my part in it too!
Being in Entebbe has also been a good opportunity for me to visit with some friends / colleagues here who will be leaving Uganda within the next couple of months. I fly back to Nairobi tomorrow. Hoping that it’ll be less stormy (and bumpy) over Lake Victoria than on the way over. However, the views of Mount Kenya, the Aberdares and the Great Rift Valley on the Kenya end of the journey were quite something.

Custom Made

I spent 5 hours driving around on Saturday, getting groceries but also ordering a frame to be custom made for a piece of Congolese cloth that I bought the previous weekend, and going furniture shopping. The framers was downtown, and I spent over an hour trying to get there (it’s only a few miles away), and then get parking. Interesting being downtown as I so rarely go there. Certainly a hive of activity. It always strikes me that it's very odd to be in a city, where you hardly ever go into the centre. And that of course is the part that has more history (or at least as much as a 100 year old city can have!), as it's where things started. Going by the number of people there that day, there must be quite a lot there! I keep meaning to go down on a Sunday afternoon when it's quieter and just have a wander around. Reasons for not going downtown are that I generally don’t need to, with various shopping malls in other parts of town, and it’s also fairly notorious for its security, or rather, lack thereof! As I walked along the broken up pavement amidst the mass of humanity, with vehicles passing by, I wondered how it would have been in the days of the early settlers when the city was just developing.
I then went up Ngong Road to look at some of the furniture being sold (and made) at the side of the road. I needed to replace some bedroom furniture due to some rearrangements in my 2nd bedroom after the arrival of a keyboard (on loan from some friends who’re away now for 18months). The furniture ‘showrooms’ aren’t exactly salubrious, being out in the open (they’re called ‘jua kali’, literally meaning ‘hot sun’ as that’s where they’re made). You rather wonder sometimes what state it’s all in having been exposed to the elements, plus the dust and pollution (it’s the 3-piece upholstered suites that would be decidedly the worse for wear, I’d think). Along that stretch of Ngong, there are umpteen places making and selling essentially the same thing. I wound up ordering a chest of drawers and a bedside table from one place, and will go back at the weekend to pick them up. So, something else custom made (albeit following a very common pattern)!

New Wheels!

I came back to Kenya with the intention of replacing my RAV4. Having served me well over the past 5 years over many miles of potholes, murram roads, mud tracks, and very occasionally, decent tarmac (!), it was time for a change. One of my requirements was a 5-door rather than a 3-door vehicle, this being more for the benefit of passengers than the driver! More space for luggage was also up there, allowing easier travel when visitors come over. Well, there aren’t car showrooms as such here, but there are a large number of car lots at the side of the road, generally selling recently imported second-hand vehicles from Japan. The number of ‘new’ cars on the roads of Nairobi each month is staggering. Seeing the way that the registration numbers have zipped through the KBA xxxA to KBA xxxZ sequence shows this. We’re already on KBBs which means that in the past few months, there are an additional 26,000 vehicles on the roads, and most of them in Nairobi. And the roads aren’t any wider, nor are new ones being built. Anyhow, I had my eye on a particular model – Pajero io. With no sales warranties available, prices fairly high, and most of the vehicles being sold at least 8 years old, it’s a bit daunting to start the process. Thankfully, I have an excellent mechanic, and he took it upon himself to help me in finding a vehicle that would serve me well. So, on Wednesday, having parted with both my RAV and a sum of money, I drove away with a white automatic Pajero io! Not a car I’d ever think of driving in the UK where fuel consumption is uppermost in consideration (mind you, it is here too given that the price of petrol has gone up nearly 30% in the last year). Here, clearance to deal with uneven surfaces, potholes etc; 4 wheel drive for off road situations; and being high enough off the road not to be dwarfed by matatus, are factors well worth considering! Now I just need to visitors to justify all the extra space!

Kenya’s Tourism

After the drive on Easter Sunday, I continued another 7.5 hours down Mombasa Road to the coast, and had 6 days of relaxing, reading, walking, kayaking, swimming, snorkelling, …… It was wonderful! It’s quite a bit warmer than Nairobi (which sits at a lofty 5,200ft elevation), and the perfect place for some R ‘n’ R. Whilst it was great for us that we had been able to book at fairly short notice, this was not good news for many of the locals. The lack of tourists was very noticeable at a time that should have been pretty busy with the Easter holidays. A number of hotels have had to close, and there’s a huge impact on all the small businesses, such as people selling kikoys on the beach, that rely on tourism. The effects of the violence at the beginning of the year are still very evident, though here it’s not in burnt-out buildings and cars as it is in western Kenya, but in the decimation of one of Kenya’s main industries. In both cases, those who suffer most are those completely uninvolved in the violence, and the issues that led to it.

For anyone thinking of a holiday in Kenya, it really is a beautiful country and well worth a visit!

Rally Drivers R Us!

You’d think I was a rally driver given the state of my vehicle on Easter Sunday. In actual fact, I’d just driven about an hour on one of the main roads from Nairobi to see friends. Mombasa Road is the road that links the capital (and indeed western Kenya and Uganda) with the sea port of Mombasa. Work is currently going on to repair what had become an incredibly broken up stretch of road. However, the diversions (or ‘deviations’ as they’re called here) are less than desirable. It’s either very dusty or very muddy depending on the weather, but always very, very bumpy. I was glad that my windows were shut the number of times that a passing lorry caused a tidal wave of mud to completely engulf my windscreen! The current conditions will hopefully be worth it once the new road is opened. It’s just a question of how long that’ll be – and how many shock absorbers are wrecked in the meantime!!!