Nairobi news

My hands are cold, and I'm wearing a fleece as it's early morning in Nairobi. Keith and I are here, slightly south of the equator, and more than a mile high at 1700 m.  Our new home is a house in a gated compound in Runda, a leafy green suburb north of Nairobi's city centre. 

The road in the compound in front of our gate, which is barely visible on the right, past the guardhouse.

After you enter our gate, you will see the house:

Home for the next couple of years.

We are camping out in the empty house with hardly any furniture, as our shipment won't arrive for 2-4 months, assuming Somali pirates don't get it...

Empty living room.

But the weather is beautiful every day and we are enjoying the garden.

View from dining room. 

July and August are winter months, the mornings and evenings are chilly (12-15oC) and light sweaters have come in handy. During the day, it's 20-24oC. Even during the summer months, it's temperate; the daytime high is usually in the mid-20s, and a record high temperature would be 31oC.

Bird of paradise in the back yard.

Bottlebrush tree by the driveway.

We haven't been on safari yet, but I've already spotted some wildlife lurking in our garden:

An endangered black rhino, Clayus pottus ssp.  planterius, 
whose horn has been stolen for nefarious (medicinal?) purposes.

The past week has been a non-stop round of banking, insurance and other move-related errands, but I did manage to take an afternoon off to go for a walk in the nearby Karura Forest with my friend MK. We heard lots of strange bird noises, saw a thick, writhing ant trail across our path, and visited some lovely waterfalls. Karura was recently revitalized as a safe place to go for nature walks. Apparently though, some people (personnel of a certain embassy) are not allowed to walk there for security reasons. I can sense my mother getting anxious already...don't worry, I'm careful! It seemed perfectly safe to me, although it was a bit disconcerting that the only other people we encountered was a group of nature lovers hiking around accompanied by two armed guards, menacing looking guys toting AK-47s and decked out in full camouflage gear. 

Only 4 days left

The apartment is a mess, and I haven't done an inventory yet or filled out the insurance forms. What have I been doing to prepare for the move from Paris (land of Berthillon, Martine Lambert, and Picard luscious ice creams) to Nairobi (parched desert almost devoid of frozen treats?) I've been making ice cream with my Cuisinart ice cream maker, the kind that has a built in freezer unit so you don't have to pre-freeze anything. It's important to make sure all is working properly before the move, yes? My good friend "Amazon" is right on with their recommendations. If you have room in your kitchen and want an easy to use ice cream maker with built in freezer unit, get the Cuisinart one, plus two books, Ben and Jerry's "The Homemade Ice Cream and Dessert Book" (for American style uncooked ice cream and traditional flavours) and David Lebowitz's "The Perfect Scoop" (for European style cooked custard based ice creams and exotic flavours like Basil Ice Cream). Perhaps it's just coincidence that American style ice cream is fast and easy, and European style tastes creamier and smoother but involves a lot more work and takes longer. So far, so good: raspberry-rosé sorbet and chocolate with chunks of chocolate-walnut praline. I think I can face the move now.

Only 4 days left until the movers come. The next few days will be a frenzy of sorting, organizing, and paperwork. Yesterday afternoon when I walked into our apartment building I could barely get to our mailbox as there were stacks of huge TeamAllied moving boxes piled up in the front hall. TeamAllied is our mover too and I wondered who else was moving out of our building. A big, burly mover stepped out of the elevator with another box.

"Who's moving out?" I asked.
"Someone on the 6th floor," he replied.
"We're moving with TeamAllied too, next week in fact," I explained.
"Where are you going?"
"To Africa, to Nairobi."
"That's Kenya, right?"
"Yes."
"This is also a move to Nairobi."
"Really? To Nairobi?"
"Yes, it's that man over there," and the mover gestured to the hallway where a man was talking to the gardien (caretaker) of our building. There are many neighbours that I say hello to regularly, but I had never seen this man before. I accosted him as soon as he was done talking to the gardien.

"I hear you're moving to Nairobi. We're moving there too. TeamAllied is coming to move our things next Tuesday morning."
"Interesting, why are you moving there?"
"It's for my husband's job, with UNEP."
"I work for UNEP too."
"Really? What's your name?"

So that's how I met Dr. DM. He gave me his card. We'll look him up after we get to Nairobi.

House staff: do we or don't we?

We haven't moved yet and I'm already wracked with guilt and anxiety about servants. We currently have cleaning help for four hours a week, and that is enough. I don't want more, both because we don't need it, and also because the kids can do more and if there's constant help they'll never learn how to do things on their own. The current tenants of our Nairobi house have a part-time gardener and one full-time maid/nanny. We were asked if we wanted to keep them on, and since I don't know them, had barely met them, don't need a nanny and don't like household help hovering while I'm trying to work at home, I initially said no. Since then though, I've been gently persuaded/guilted into keeping them on for a 3 month probationary period. It's good for them, they aren't left unemployed, and it will be good for us, to have experienced help right away who know the house and garden, and who come highly recommended.

Take a look at the Monday June 13 post and comments from http://africaexpatwivesclub.blogspot.com/ for a brief discussion of life with servants. Is it modern and independent and admirable to do everything yourself (with the help of electric appliances) or is it cold and callous to refuse to employ house staff? And here's an opinion from a Kenyan who grew up in Nairobi and now lives abroad (from comments, http://africaexpatwivesclub.blogspot.com/): I really feel sorry for women in the West who have such a huge burden. They feel sorry for women of the south but they are the most burdened women in the planet. They have such demanding domestic work as well as the pressure to go out and have careers they are the real 'beasts of burden'.

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.

Interview: Alison Pearce Stevens

       Time to catch up! I'm jet-lagged from a trip to Costa Rica, and headachy from switching back to black tea after a week of excellent Costa Rican coffee. Today's post is an interview with the writer Alison Pearce Stevens, a person I admire because she is a scientist and a writer who writes fiction as well as non-fiction, is a mom to two energetic boys, has made the leap to living abroad (Berlin) and knows what it's like to be a stranger in a strange land. Also, I like her work for the Nature Education Knowledge Project.


Q: How did you become interested in writing again after studying science for 18 years?

A.P. Stevens: By chance, really. We try to come up with personal, hand-made gifts for family  members, and my son and I decided to write a story for his grandparents. I got completely swept up in it. It was the first time in ages that I had let my creative side completely take over, and it was cathartic.

Q: Is it very different to write non-fiction vs fiction or do you think there is not that much difference?

A.P. Stevens: There are certainly differences, but I think that good, engaging non-fiction is narrative. It pulls the reader into the story, just as good fiction does. I also think it's important, even in fiction, to ensure that the story is factually accurate (unless, of course, it's fantasy). Readers retain information from engaging stories and they assume the information to be true, unless it was obviously fabricated.

Q: What brought you to Berlin?

A.P. Stevens: My husband was offered a job there. But we're about to move back to the U.S. (for the same reason). :)

Q: Has living abroad helped or hindered your writing?

A.P. Stevens: Definitely helped. It completely broadened my horizons and exposed me to new and different places and ideas. In addition, I stopped working full-time after we moved, so I had more time to spend on creative pursuits. It wasn't long before story lines and characters started appearing in my head, and I had to find a way to let them out.

Q: Do you have a writing routine?

A.P. Stevens: Nothing rigorous. I generally walk home after taking the kids to school. I find that walking helps stimulate ideas. By the time I'm home, I'm ready to sit down and work. But that means I might be writing a non-fiction article even though I'm in the middle of a chapter of a novel. I can't force myself to work on one particular story until it's done. The prominent idea from my morning walk gets my attention for the day, even if I'm in the middle of something else. By allowing myself to work on my top idea of the day, I find that my writing time is more productive, and the quality of my writing is much better.

Q: Do you have a favorite book or author?

A.P. Stevens: I can't possibly choose one! I adore Joseph Heller's work. More recently, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and Christopher Moore's books are great for a bit of levity.

Q: (If you are willing to say...) What is your current project?

A.P. Stevens: Which one? ;) I usually have at least three. I'm revising a middle-grade novel titled Thunderstruck, but I won't share the details (sorry!). I'm revising a couple of non-fiction picture books, one about how forests migrate with climate change and another about artificial reefs. My main focus in recent weeks has been non-fiction articles about scientists studying animals in the wild.

Thank you Alison!