Giraffes and mangoes (not a bizarre Kenyan recipe)

Today we had our first encounter with the famed Kenyan wildlife by visiting the Giraffe centre just outside Nairobi. The centre was created by do-gooder Americans to protect the dwindling number of Rothschild giraffes in the wild and now serves as a way of raising funds to keep introducing these giraffes back into the wild. Gareth was up at 7.30 this morning very excited but had to wait about three hours for our friends from across the city to join us (Nairobi traffic doesn’t let up much at weekends). We then took a matatu out to one of the posher parts of the city, where people live in gated communities within gated communities and all drive very big cars. Consequently we only had a cheese sandwich for lunch.Once in the centre the highlight is the feeding tower where you can go up to a giraffe’s head height and offer them some small brown pellets serving as food, which they greedily gobble up from your hand. They are beautiful, graceful animals and being able to get that close, the closest we will ever get to such wildlife, was fantastic. They have very long tongues and slobber quite a lot. Apparently you can feed them from mouth to mouth which Gareth says he might go back and do next time (it is very cheap for Kenyan residents which we handily qualify as). The giraffe safari walk that followed was a bit disappointing as the most exciting thing we saw was some giraffe footprints and some unidentifiable poo.

We ended our day scoffing down some gorgeous mangoes bought from a local market stall, the fruit and veg out here is so much more tasty than back home. I have asked Gareth if he will prepare some for me every morning for my breakfast as I am not a morning person. I think he is thinking about it……

Back into the work commute tomorrow and so looking forward to seeing what surprises the week will bring.

Riding Mariah Carey to work

Ah the matatu; Isuzu's gift to Kenya. Before coming here this was one of my major concerns as I knew that they were the primary mode of transport around the city. After one week's commuting however both Gareth and I are finding ourselves amongst the impatient passengers thinking 'why don't you mount the pavement and get out of this queue?'. Traveling on one is not for the claustrophobic, those faint of heart or anyone with a desire to maintain dignity. 14 passenger seats (and sometimes more passengers than seats) are squeezed in along with one for the driver and the conductor, who sits by the sliding door via which passengers board or alight the vehicle, which doesn't always come to complete halt at the stops. Boarding and alighting can be an intimate experience. It is such a tight squeeze that arses are in faces, shopping, luggage, tvs and much more can be passed around. Everyone has a say in how they are driven and will tell the driver so, plus they will stop wherever you want them to, communal taxis if you will.

The matatu has evolved out of Nairobi's dire traffic situation, jams here make the Headingley run look mild. Regular buses are not so common and most people can't afford a car. So matatus are in fact the most convenient form of moving around the city. In the mornings we get one just outside of our flat and in the evening we get dropped off about 10 mins walk away next to a small shopping centre for our groceries. Routes seem to vary slightly every day so you just have to state where you want to alight else you'll get lost.

Matatus don't really stop at roundabouts, create extra lanes and often just go down the pavement or grass verges down the middle of dual carriageways if its too busy on the actual lanes, beeping at pedestrians who dare to be in their way. Apparently mirror, signal, manoeuvre is replaced by manoeuvre, beep horn, manouvre some more, laugh. There is a great camaraderie amongst the crews, who have their own uniform and a union. You will find that their impatience on the roads occasionally gives way to letting another matatu through and having a good chat at 40mph on the way by.

The matatu is where our pigeon swahili learning really benefits us as we try not to pay mazungo prices and ask confidently 'pesa ngapi?' (how much?). Rain makes the fares go up however and it is hard to predict what you will pay then, or how long it will take you to get to work. Journeys can take three times as long.

The owners and crews originally competed for business by 'pimping' their vehicles, fitting loud stereo systems, themed colour schemes and all manner of livery and signage. Apparently they would follow fashions very quickly in the earlier days, so if madonna was number one there would be her name and pictures plastered all over it, only to be exchanged two weeks later when Beyonce or whoever replaced her. Music is still a common feature, with some sticking to the radio but others playing music of certain themes. Reggae is very popular, as is hip-hop, 80s and early 90s pop and house feature strongly, and there's always some surprises. We were 'treated' to country and western on our way out yesterday.

Yesterday I experienced the notorious 'vehicles on cables' variety, whilst traveling to town with a Kenyan colleague. Identifiable by their numberplates these matatus will cost you more but guarantee that they will do anything possible to get you there as fast as they can. This often includes driving on grass verges, taking different roads at a breakneck speed and, occasionally, getting stuck in ditches, taking about 6 men to push one out.

By far the most entertaining aspect of the matatu fleet are the names, which range from predictable ('Theatre of Dreams' 'In God we trust' 'Yes we Can') the street ('Daddi's, 'Get Clunkd', 'We Out Against Da Grain', 'I Love This Game') which Gareth often cruises into the Kibera in, the ones to avoid ('Slaughter Hauz', 'Spills', 'Ganja Head') to the outright bizarre- ('Mariah Carey', 'Only on the Facebook', 'Working Class').

Alas times are hard for the matatu as the government cracks down on these private enterprises. Already there are rules which ban music, insist on seatbelts and sticking to the correct number of passengers. If you find yourself on one of the many not obeying these rules you may find you get turfed off inexplicably before a roundabout, where the police hang out, and then have to walk. We have been told that matatus are going to be phased out of use completely come January next year. At that point we may find ourselves out in protest with the matatu unions!

JMH

New digs, and introducing 'shorter, fatter' Gareth

We moved into our new home on Saturday. It is a lot better than I was expecting; a three-bedroomed flat, one of which is en suite, on the top floor of a desirable new government housing scheme, Langata Court . We’re on the top floor of one of the green-roofed buildings you can see in the pictures on the Langata Court website. It’s about five floors up, and despite this being just a couple of years old this government scheme has no obvious disabled access.

Another volunteering couple, Allys and Eddie, are living with us as they wait for VSO to sort them a flat on the right side of town for Allys’ placement. After that, we imagine someone else will move in because it’s a big space. That means there’s at least one spare double room in a secure flat about two miles away from safari at Nairobi National Park. Beyond the busy dual carriageway at the end of our road lie giraffes, leopards and many other beasts currently participating in the world’s second largest mass migration. Visitors are welcome and encouraged, but perhaps not until after Christmas when we’ll know the place a bit better and can do it justice as tour guides.

Moving in was an incredibly stressful day, unexpectedly providing the biggest challenge of the week. VSO has so many people to move that they simply picked us up on Saturday, took us and our things to the flat, then gave us a soft furnishings allowance, a shopping list and about three hours to buy everything we need so they could transport it back to the flat. This means making decisions on everything from big purchases like mattresses, gas cookers and bedding through to cutlery and your first week’s food shop. We were not aided by some unfamiliar purchasing systems. Everything electronic has to be tested in front of you in the shop, so at one point I was actually forced to watch a man boil a kettle. Still, slightly more entertaining than the premier league.

We were at that point losing the will to live, never mind shop, which means we inadvertently spent a substantial amount of money on a bed spread and have a mattress which is as hard as oak.

And ass the huge shop we were in covers four floors, anything bulky you choose is stored while you get the rest of your shopping in. The shopper is supplied with a handwritten number on a scrap of paper which denotes each purchase, to be given first to the till staff then to the customer care people who hold your gear. We bought so much stuff that, probably inevitably, confusion ensued. It took around seven members of staff at T–Mall’s Tuskys to scrutinise our receipt and scraps of paper before we were free to leave with the goods we had paid for.

It seemed a shame to be spending this amount of money in one big shop. Tuskys is clearly a very important employer but I will be asking VSO to consider how they/we might spend some of this money on products from the many projects they are in partnership with, which I am sure produce curtains, blankets and the like.

Despite the frustrations the whole day was made worthwhile when I received a call from the other Gareth, who you may remember as my ‘twin’ from the Indian Gareth blog. VSO took Gareth to the same shop about three hours after we’d left. Many of the staff asked why he had come back to buy all the same things he’d just bought. The VSO guide tired of this and decided to preempt the same query from the next assistant by explaining that this was a different person to the one he brought earlier in the afternoon. The assistant replied: ‘I know. This one is shorter and fatter than the other one’.

Kwaheri,

Indian Gareth