Nairobi: First Impressions

The garden at Gigiri Homestead B&B, Nairobi,
where we stayed while househunting,

"What were your impressions of Nairobi?" a friend asked me recently. We had just returned from a 3 day trip, to look for housing and to visit the school that, hopefully, the kids will attend. Sorry, no exciting photos of exotic landscapes and awesome animals. Nairobi itself, brief glimpses caught from the car on the way from and to the airport, seemed like a typical city in a developing country--a mix of mostly run-down, scruffy buildings with a few shining office towers, young men loitering on sidewalks or sitting on universally popular white PVC chairs, and lots and lots of road construction with deep ditches and big piles of red dirt everywhere. The soil is red from iron, just like in PEI (that's Prince Edward Island for you non-Canucks).

Most of our time was spent looking at houses, weighing the pros and cons of each one, and especially, thinking about security. Yes, I'm paranoid, yes, I'm spoiled, and no, I have never lived anywhere dangerous before, so that is why I was so obsessed with finding a house that was as secure as possible. I've learned a lot about medieval siege mentality this week. Within our castle, we will have a keep, a "safe haven." This is the safe haven's entrance: a thick metal gate at the top of the stairs that we will close and lock at night to separate the upstairs bedrooms from the rest of the house.

Gate at the top of the stairs, to close and lock at night.

The idea is to have layers of defences, making it harder for burglars. The house has an alarm system, of course, including "panic buttons." One press, anytime during the day or night, will summon armed guards to our door within minutes. There is a high electric fence around the property: and the property is in a fenced in, gated compound that is guarded 24/24. In addition, the neighbourhood itself has barriers and guards at the two main entrance roads. By the way, it is not just expats who live here, there are plenty of Kenyans who prefer to live in gated compounds.

View of the electric fence from upstairs.

Some other things I have learned: Try to avoid choosing a house next to an open field, a construction site, or a busy road, as all of these places allow strangers to come and go right next to your property. To maximize security, you want to minimize uncontrolled access by strangers. The more you isolate yourself from people in general, either by driving in a big, 4x4 car, or living in a fortress, the safer you will be.

The good news is that everyone says the bad guys are only after stuff, and not interested in harming people. Some things that people have said to reassure me: "It's much better here than in Johannesburg, where they'll beat you up for the fun of it," or "Nairobi is so much better than South Sudan." Ok. I'm feeling very safe now.

Goodbye Old Friend

1998 Mitsubishi Space Wagon

       I sold the car tonight. Our faithful and trouble-free companion for the past 11 years. K. put up the ad today for la voiture, and by evening I already had several heavy breathing, heavily accented phone calls from men who wanted to look at "her" and hand over the money. It made me feel like I was in a slightly sleazy Cold War spy novel. A Bulgarian chef desperate for a car came by to look her over tonight. He inspected carefully, verified that there was a spare tire (I didn't even know there was a spare tire, under the car--this is how ignorant I am), and ran his fingers over her in places I bet she had never been touched before (in the little holes in the hubcaps). A short test drive, he said Yes, paid a deposit, and we shook hands.

       It's a relief that it sold so quickly, one less thing to deal with, but I'm also a little sad. Even though I don't even really like cars to begin with, there's more than a decade of memories bundled up with that car, ski trips, weekend outings, frantically trying to entertain screaming babies strapped into car seats, then fast forward a decade to listening to Agatha Christie mysteries, all of us guessing whodunnit.

Naroibi skyline.

       Now, the reason why we're selling the car, and the real reason I have been such a blogging sloth recently, is that I've been dealing with our impending move to Nairobi, Kenya. July 9 is the deadline. This weekend we head to Nairobi for a few days of house and school hunting. I know practically nothing about Nairobi other than the following: lots of petty crime and gated compounds, great Indian food, wonderful temperate climate year round, stunning wildlife and landscapes nearby. By next Wednesday I'll know a lot more, I hope.

Slothful Excuses

       Coming back from Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica has turned me into a blogging sloth.

Baby sloth relaxing at the Jaguar Animal Rescue Center.

Maybe it was too much time hanging out at Jeffrey's Jamaican Kitchen, savoring grilled red snapper, black bean salad and manioc chips, all washed down with guava juice? Or maybe it was all the tasty samples we were given on the Chocoart tour? We learned about all the steps in an artisanal chocolate making process, from tree (sweet and tangy cacao pod pulp is one of the most delicious fruits I've ever had) to roasted nibs of chocolate, to chocolate sauce sweetened with cane sugar, served with slices of local red bananas...

A cacao pod: inside is the white pulp,
surrounding black seeds that can be made into chocolate.

Then again, there were the delicious homemade yucca pudding squares, coconutty, gingery, not too sweet, and slightly gelatinous (I'm a sucker for this texture, think glutinous rice balls with Carribean flavours). There's a woman at the Saturday morning market who sells them, and I think I bought her entire supply. And then ate it all by myself. Too bad nobody else wanted any.