Travel through Togo

The following morning, we had breakfast at 6am. We were meant to be on the road by 7am, but the minibus didn't arrive until nearer to 8! Our numbers had increased further to 14 as we were joined by people from Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon and Togo. The minibus wasn't exactly the most comfortable of vehicles, so the next 9 hours was a bit of an endurance in the heat. We stopped every 3 hours for a very welcome legstretch, and had a packed lunch in a nice spot under some trees. Most of the journey was fairly flat, passing by villages of thatched mud houses, teak forests, and cassava. The last leg brought us uphill quite a bit, along a windy road. We passed about 3 or 4 overturned lorries on a relatively short stretch of road, their goods covered by tarpaulin. One was a petrol tanker, which seemed to have been involved in an incident involving a number of vehicles, as we discovered when we were able to pass by and see the rest of the carnage. It was frightening to see a man collecting the spilt petrol that was running down the side of the road, so soon after the horrific event near Nakuru in Kenya, in which over 130 people were killed in a fire at a similar scene

Travel through Ghana

I’m currently at a Finance and Project Funding workshop in Kara, Togo. Travel across Africa can be a challenge, in more ways than one. The best way to get here from Nairobi in the end was to fly, not directly into Lome (which would have required a 3-day longer trip, plus nights in Addis Ababa going to and fro), but into Accra, Ghana, and then by road from there!
The flight was easy - then the ‘fun’ started! We were picked up at the airport by a vehicle from a sister organization in Ghana, and met up with 2 people from the US who'd flown in the day before. After a stop for lunch (where ox tail, pigs’ feet and cow’s foot were all on offer!), we set off on the journey to Lome. We'd probably gone only about 20 minutes when we had to stop as the engine was overheating (the driver thought the head gasket was blown). What then followed was 2 hours at the side of the road, waiting for the driver to get back to town and come back with another vehicle. Unfortunately, where we’d broken down was not exactly the most scenic of locations. We seemed to be in a fairly industrial area, and the area just off the road was used as a toilet by a number of passers-by. I bear souvenirs of that time on my feet, as I got bitten by seemingly invisible, but vicious ants! Finally, the driver returned, we loaded the suitcases onto the roof, and squeezed ourselves into this smaller vehicle, but we were off again. The road most of the way was amazing - not a pothole in sight. The last stretch to the border was a different matter! It was only here, when clouds of red dust filled the air, that the driver switched on the air con! The border crossing itself was 'interesting'. The vehicle dropped us there, and we walked with our luggage from the Ghanaian side to the Togolese, passing through the 2 Immigration offices, and filling in a number of forms en route. Despite having wheels, pulling my case proved a challenge through the sand. The whole process took about 1hour 30minutes, and was a textbook case of dealing with African officialdom. One of the Kenyans in our group hadn't been given a stamp on entering Ghana at the airport. This proved to be a real problem, as the Ghanaians then didn't see that they could stamp him out if he'd never been stamped in, and then the Togolese immigration officials didn't want him crossing a border from a country he was never documented as having been in!!!! Somehow, it sorted itself out in the end, and we were through to Togo.

Big Fellow in Park

Yesterday afternoon, I took the opportunity to go for a drive around Nairobi National Park. It was a while since I’d been in, and I was rewarded with seeing quite a number of plains game – zebra, hartebeest, wildebeest, eland, gazelles, as well as ostrich and giraffe. Also saw a Kori Bustard. I hadn’t seen a rhino in there for a couple of years, despite the park having a reasonable number of the endangerered Black Rhinos. Who would think that something so large could hide so effectively?! So, it was a real treat when in the last hour or so of my time there I came across this big fellow (or fellow-ess!). In the background, you can see the Nairobi city skyline (the towers over his / her head are within a mile of where I live!), which is what makes this park so special and amazing – African wildlife, in the wild, yet so close to this metropolis!

Obama Mania?

I was at a new coffee house in Nairobi on Saturday morning for breakfast, celebrating the birthdays of 2 colleagues. Our attention was caught by the Specials menu on the table – ‘Obama Specials’! He pops up everywhere! Not exactly sure what ‘Credit Crunch’ would be?! A BLT minus the B & T perhaps?! The previous day, a road salesman had been trying to persuade me to buy a pendant featuring Obama to hang from my rear view mirror. There’s certainly a glut of Obama paraphernalia at the moment. American flags, which you can put side by side with your Kenyan one; Obama badges and car stickers; a musical; a new ‘President’ lager – in place of the former ‘Senator’ one!. Obama Kangas also seem to be very popular. I’d heard about these from a former colleague, who’d been sent one by friends here, and then got to see them for sale myself in stalls on Saturday afternoon. As Paul states in his blog http://mypartofcolorado.blogspot.com, "A kanga is a piece of cloth that is often worn as a wrap-skirt or a dress. Or used as a baby backpack. Translated, it reads: "Congratulations Barack Obama. Love and peace have been given to us by God." "

Chaos in Town

Traffic in and around the city centre was in chaos this afternoon and evening, following a fire at a major supermarket downtown. We first got news of it just after it had happened at 3pm, as warnings came to avoid going into town. Looking out of the office window towards downtown Nairobi, the city skyline was enveloped in a thick dark cloud of smoke. As I drove home, I could hear sirens. A couple of small emergency vehicles passed by, driving off-road to get passed the line of traffic. A helicopter hovered overhead. Four hours later as I left orchestra rehearsal to return home, traffic jams still stretched for miles (thankfully for me, mostly in the opposite direction). The news gave reports of the supermarket having been completely gutted resulting in the loss of millions of shillings. Whilst there are reports of injured workers, it’s not yet known if there were any fatalities. What came across clearly was that whilst the fire fighters fought the fire valiantly, they were woefully unprepared and untrained, and chaos reigned. It apparently took half an hour to respond, despite the city council fire brigade being located just a street away from where the fire was! Only one fire hydrant produced any water, water hoses burst, and water simply ran out. Curious onlookers endangered themselves, gathering in large numbers dangerously close to the inferno. All in all, a reminder that whilst Nairobi may have some of the appearances of a modern city, many of its services fall way short of standards found elsewhere in the world.

Relaxing at the Beach

After what was an exceedingly busy second half of 2008 at work, I was delighted to be invited to the Kenyan Coast by friends from church for New Year. The Coast is one of the places in Kenya that you can really, really relax. And that’s just what I did! Five days of really not doing very much at all – reading, swimming, snorkelling, eating, a few walks along the beach or out on the reef, enjoying my friends’ company, and sleeping. It was just perfect! What a blessing to have the Coast here as my local beach (okay, not that ‘local’ – we were a full day on the road getting there and back). It was never too hot, with a very pleasant breeze blowing off the Indian Ocean most of the time (also serving to keep mosquitoes away), but plenty warm enough to still be sitting outside at 11pm in shorts and a strappy top. The food was great (freshly caught lobster, crab, prawns and fish), the pool was inviting, the sea was warm (in some patches resembling a warm bath!), the fish were plentiful and so colourful, the company was great. It was a wonderful way to end 2008 and see 2009 in. For New Year itself, we were on the beach under a star-studded sky with glasses of sparkling wine, enjoying fireworks, though the best one was the shooting star that we saw. What a blessing!

Christmas in the Tropics!

“It doesn’t seem like Christmas” was a refrain that one of my grandmas came out with every year, the upshot of which was that it did in fact seem just like Christmas to the rest of us! I have to say though that there are times here in Nairobi that I find myself echoing Grandma White’s sentiments. As we enter fully into the hot dry season, the clouds disappear leaving a strikingly blue sky, temperatures rise, windows are wide open, and it’s time to spend afternoons whenever possible at, by and in(!) swimming pools.

Christmas creeps up on me here every year, partly because my head is down in year-end accounts in the months approaching, but also because the mass commercialism that you get in the UK, doesn’t exist in the same way. There are signs of it creeping in though, with the Coca-Cola ads mentioned previously, purple-clad Santas in supermarkets promoting Cadbury’s chocolate, green-clad Santas on billboards advertising a bank, the logo for which is green,…. There’s nothing in the way of Christmas packs of toiletries, chocolates and novelty items such as you’d get an amazing array of in shops in the UK, though this year one of the supermarkets has started selling plastic baskets filled with staple groceries such as cooking fat, flour, sugar and tea, presumably designed as Christmas gifts. Shops stock tinsel and baubles all year round, although I did notice an influx of fresh stock about 2 weeks before Christmas. Shopping Centres are decorated, the lights generally going up very early to coincide with Divali. Some do have a Santa’s grotto, or at least a chair in the midst of Christmas trees (artificial of course), where children can sit on Santa’s lap and have their photos taken (and presumably tell him what they’d like for Christmas). You can buy small poinsettias, though I rather prefer the ones over 10 feet high in people’s gardens!

Our (Karen Vineyard Church’s) evening Carol Service was held in the gardens of the Karen Blixen Museum this year, rather than at Hillcrest School where we usually meet on Sundays. It was a beautiful setting. Everyone had candles, which were lit during ‘Silent Night’. From where I was standing on the ‘stage’, it looked amazing, as everywhere else was enveloped in the darkness of an African night. Afterwards, in very traditional British Christmas fashion, we had mince pies and mulled wine – not that the mulled wine was needed for warming purposes!

Christmas Morning, we had a small service in the garden of one of the leaders of the church. It was the nicest Christmas Day service I’ve ever been to. There were about 80 of us in warm dappled sunshine in a glade amongst eucalyptus trees and bamboo, and by a moat (yes, really!) with the occasional sounds of fish lazily plopping in the water. Carols were accompanied by flute and guitar; passages from the Gospel of Luke were read by various people in the congregation; we took communion together; and a short message was given. Very simple but very focussed on the One whose birth we were celebrating. Despite the very different setting, that really did seem like Christmas.The rest of the day followed suit with a lovely time spent with friends and colleagues, enjoying a roast turkey with the trimmings, a Christmas pud, and even a Dr Who Christmas Special (admittedly from 2 years ago!)! And to end a thoroughly enjoyable day, I got to spend some time seeing (and talking with) my family courtesy of the wonders of Skype!