Two weekends ago Lauren and I decided to fly up to Nairobi for a weekend away and to visit our other friend from GW, also named Lauren. Because of this I will now refer to the Lauren in Kisumu as Wingo, as this is her last name and obviously more fun. So Wingo and I took a very easy and short plane ride – about 45 minutes max – to Nairobi where other Lauren’s taxi driver picked us up to bring us back to her apartment. On the way we got stuck in horrible traffic since it was around 6 o’clock on a Friday. The only difference between what could have been DC traffic and here was that the highway apparently turns into an open marketplace when there are this many cars. There are people walking along the small spaces between lanes selling anything and everything. There were burnt cds, hats, belts, fruits, vegetables, and for all those people who need to do something to occupy their time while stuck in this horrendous traffic, rubix cubes – yeah, extremely random. So after sitting in this for about an hour we finally make it back to Lauren’s place, or should I say America. It was as if we traveled back to the States. She lives in a five story building, which is in a circle of three others. There is a pool in the middle with immaculate landscaping and walkways throughout. In her apartment she had a large living room connected to a dining area, kitchen – with an oven! – and laundry area where there was a washing machine! There were also two bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. Wingo and I were pretty blown away. I guess when you get used to having two burners and not much else it’s the little things that get you excited. Not saying our place is bad in anyway, just Lauren’s place has it all.
Well we put the oven to good use by making sweet potato fries to add to our pasta dinner. We went out to a couple of places nearby, but this was a relatively quiet night because we had some fun plans for the next day. We got up early and were out the door with Lauren’s driver Daniel again for our day adventure. We planned to drive to Lake Naivasha, about an hour and a half away, and go to Crescent Island. Another one of our GW friends was taking an overnight bus to meet us in Nairobi for the trip but it was delayed so instead he got dropped off in Naivasha as we were arriving in the small town. We grabbed some snacks for the day and were off to the island. Once we pulled off the main road and drove down for a little there were zebras and giraffes just grazing along our pathway. After going a bit far into the brush, we found where we were supposed to park and proceeded to walk up to the large house that was occupied by the woman who owned the land of the island. There was a pretty steep fee for touring the area, but we convinced her to give us the student price even though only half of us had our IDs on us – I didn’t even bring mine to Kenya, who would have thought I would need my GW id here, I hardly even need my license.
She was kind of a crazy older white woman who seemed to be very protective over her land and discussed with us all the changes that she has seen after living here for over thirty years. We just listened politely then went on our way. We met up with a guide who proceeded to take us along the island, walking “next to” so many different animals. There were zebras, wildebeests, water buck, and giraffes. It was so cool to have them all out there in the open. You really didn’t have to be nervous at all either because they were a lot more scared of us then we could be of them. We were walking towards this one large group of wildebeests that were sitting under a tree - there had to be close to 40 or 50 - and they all just stood up and moved away. We felt kind of bad for kicking them out of their area under the tree, but it was interesting to see them all just stand up slowly and move away without us making any sound or seem threatening in any sense. The tree they were under looked pretty cool so I decided I wanted to climb it. You will see in the pictures I just uploaded that Wingo and I were successful, but we really couldn’t move too much further up the tree then the first set of branches. We walked all along the island and saw some pretty amazing sites. The water was so very blue and the green leaves of the trees created such a dynamic scene. One more interesting part of our walk was the fact that there was a python that was seen around the area that our guide told us we could try to find. Jonathan and Wingo thought that would be cool; I was going to be totally ok if we missed the snake. Thankfully when we came upon the hole it was said to have lived in, the guide could tell that it had already buried itself inside and that it wasn’t going to come out any time soon. Darn, no ten foot snake this time. We stayed on the island for a few hours, but it was definitely time to head back to Nairobi and get ready for the fun nightlife that was ahead of us. One quick aside, we decided to stop at Daniel’s mother’s house on the way back to say hi which was totally worth it. We got to see her house and land, and very cute kitten :). His mother was very welcoming. What is so great about side trips like that is that you feel more connected to the area. We were able to hang out in a part of the town that represented how most people in Kenya live. Nairobi is very nice and all, with it's amenities, but Daniel’s mother’s place was homey and comfortable. So after a short trip to her house and the car battery dying – no worries we got to watch a seven year old hold the cables to a replacement battery while Daniel turned on the car – we made it back to Lauren’s place.
The nightlife in Nairobi is a lot of fun. First Lauren had a bunch of people over to hang out before meeting up with others at the first bar we went to. There was one person there named Lameck, who Wingo knew from the time she spent in Bangladesh, who actually lives in Nairobi. He brought a bunch of his friends, so there was a large group of us hanging out and dancing before we moved to the next bar. It was just down the road and there were places to sit and hang out. Now something to note about bars/clubs in Nairobi, there is no such thing as “closing time.” As far as I know all, if not most, are open 24 hours. So as five o’clock (am) rolled around we decided to go. We were all obviously pretty tired at this point, so we grabbed some food and all went back to Lauren’s apartment. Thankfully we had no real plans for the next day so we woke up late and had some breakfast at a place that could double as any nice breakfast joint in the US. We decided to go downtown and see the Masaai market that had everything you could ever want from Kenya. Now this is the kind of place that you need real energy to enjoy. The second you walk in – the market is all outside, but there is a fence around it – you have someone jump to you and start becoming your best friend. I apparently was not in the proper mood for this place because the second this one guy started walking with me and telling me that I can get anything and that I can take my time, 50 billion times over and over again, my glare to him was probably not the friendliest. I have to give it this guy though because his persistence was none you would have ever seen. If anyone else got that glare they would probably have walked away, but he continued to tell me that it was ok, I can look and then give him anything I wanted to buy. We would then talk about price later. So I just kept walking, trying to ignore him even though he was like a gnat next to a light bulb. What made it even better was that his brother jumped in for the fun. So I was able to have Two people tell me about all the nice things I could get. I decided that I couldn’t fight against them anymore so I just went with it. I blame it on being tired from the night before, and tried to maintain some patience with them. I ended up finding some nice things which the three of us got to take and sit in a corner and barter with. After seeing his first price and pretty much laughing in his face, we went back and forth for what seemed like forever, or nearly 15-20 minutes, and came to something that seemed a lot more reasonable. Now who knows if I got totally ripped off, but doing the calculations in my head it didn’t seem too bad. We took all of our things back on the bus to head to Lauren’s apartment. Wingo and I threw all of our stuff in our bags and jumped in the cab back to the airport almost immediately in order to be in time for our flight.
The weekend was so much fun and helped changed some of my perceptions about Nairobi. People like to nickname it Nairobbery, and although I know people who have gotten things taken, you just need to be aware of your surroundings and be smart. It’s a fun city, and ended up being a great weekend away that helped me feel a little like I was back at home. I will be visiting again soon I hope.
Everyone should look forward to the next post where I meet the Obama Mama (Grandma)!
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