south africa, hooray!

I am now in South Africa and one thing that has stuck out is how much it looks like America. i was pretty shocked to spend $30 on a single taxi ride. there are no goats in the middle of the road. no deteriorating sedans blasting music with steering wheels at a 45 degree angle to keep the car straight. no men sleeping under trees on the side of a busy road. if these hints of what i had known as africa exist here, i haven’t seen them amongst the malls and neatly trimmed hedges.

the cost of living is undoubtedly higher. it feels different to converse with africans who are accustomed to paying $1 for a soda or a mini-bus ride. or those that spend $20 to go to SeaWorld and see a seal show. There is certainly segregation and I am sure my Lonely Planet is not guiding me into impoverished areas on purpose. I am just noticing differences. It’s like I’m in America, but I’m still in Africa.

I arrived in the morning to Johannesburg and took my (pricey) taxi to an area of town called Melville. I dropped my stuff and went to the Apartheid Museum and wandered through apartheid history, jogging my memory of my Politics of South Africa class in college. I splurged and had the best hot water shower and night’s sleep in a long while at a very nice B&B. I then taxied into Soweto, the large township responsible for the Soweto student Uprising in 1976 and housing Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu on the same street. OMG. I napped. (I forgot to check the weather, and South Africa is approaching winter, so Johannesburg was 50 degrees and raining, felt like a Seattle winter = naps). I also finished Our Time to Eat, which was quite good.

I then wandered out of my awesome hostel and walked to the famous Vilakazi street. The area of Soweto I walked around in felt like a neighborhood to be canvassed by the Obama campaign: low income, young men hanging in small groups on the street, chatty old ladies on their porches. Everyone was friendly. I walked and read all about the fascinating history. I was reading one sign about a South African liberation song that was sung by students as a form of protest and low and behold two 5-year old boys showed up just at that moment to sing the song for me. They wanted money, which i sadly didn’t have, but they sang anyway in their stained t-shirts. I walked more, looking foolish in my socks and Toms, and found the “Koppie” which was a rock and look-out for student groups where meetings were held and police were chased away. Now, it’s covered in plastic bags. I would have taken a picture of the ironic beauty, but alas I forgot my camera. I wandered back to the hostel, hung out at the “beach bar” with the only other guest, a nice Irish guy, and went to bed by 9pm.

I arrived the next morning two hours early for my bus. I tried to nap but a man yelled at me that I was not allowed to sleep. And then Jehovah Witnesses came around to our seating area. They had a binder FULL of literature in dozens of languages. How come Kingdom Hall can find a way to translate literature and it takes us public health people weeks to find a Tingrinya translation? Freezing cold at 6:30am led me to Wimpy (the fast-food answer to S. Africa), which was full, so I sat in the “smoking room” and ate my eggs and toast with an older, shaky white lady who chained smoked. I regretted that decision, but appreciated the warmth. The 8-hour bus ride that followed was pretty uneventful.

My taxi drivers got lost in Durban trying to find the hostel, so I laughed from the backseat while they studied the map in the Lonely Planet. We found the hostel, I pounded through half of Freedom and went to sleep by 10pm (again). The next day, I woke up early and met my dorm mate, a nice girl from Holland and we went in search of the internet and found it! And then ended up at the Durban version of SeaWorld. It was a trip. Durban looks and feels like Miami. The live seal show solidified this judgment for me. Following a brief swim in the ocean, I went to buy a 24-hour bus ticket to Cape Town which was sold out! (things get busy on Easter weekend, apparently) so I now have an additional night in Durban.

There are worse things.

(i also have been taking pictures, but the net is too slow to upload. soon.)

encounters from africa

i ate my way through this past weekend, which is surprisingly easy to do in nairobi. grace was visiting from kigali and arrived on thursday night. i had a ceremonious little going away dinner, where i cooked pasta and salad (can't claim to be a creative cook). the rest of the weekend we walked around kibera and markets and downtown nairobi. it was fun to be get out and do all these things my last weekend in nairobi.

"yay, Lauren, you have friends!"

feeding giraffes

still feeding giraffes

federico loved the giraffes

an upper view of kibera

i'm starting to get a bit nostalgic, as happens when i'm about to leave. this is the last time i'll eat githeri, the last time i will walk to this place, the last time i will see this person, etc. it's emphasized by the fact that i don't know when i'll be back. laabda baadaye, nitarudi kenya. becoming settled in a new city happened without much fanfare, just one day everything felt comfortable and content. now, i'm gearin' up for the next adventure!

this past week has been easy. last day of work on monday where i turned in my CDC laptop and said my goodbyes. tuesday i went to a cultural orientation class for urban refugees, a mix of burundian and congolese about to move to the U.S. i observed the teacher talking about winter clothing, "you will need a hat, scarf and gloves. life does not stop in winter, you must go to work anyway. and there is this clothing, they call them long johns..." an older man with 1/2 inch thick glasses was shocked he couldn't physically discipline his children. and a promotional video was shown, which read just like an obama campaign ad, with sweeping views of mountains and autumn leaves and the grand canyon, people of all ethnicity stood in front of a brick wall and said "Welcome!" there were cheerleaders and bikers and jazz musicians and little african american girls playing in water from a hydrant and LOTS of cowboys and people rebuilding homes in new orleans and skiers. it choked me up and it also made me yearn for america. i was waiting for the follow-up video to be of long lines at the WIC office, and snow at the bus stop, and overcrowded schools and 1-bedroom apartments and gang violence, but there was no such thing. maybe they show that video on day 3.

last night as a final hoorah (no, really, this is REALLY my last night..) a bunch of us went to karaoke. i, naturally, sang 'leavin' on a jet plane' and simon sang 'give me hope, jo'hanna' about johannesburg....although the lyrics were a bit awkward:

Well Johanna she runs a country
She runs in Durban and the Transvaal
She makes a few of her people happy, oh
She don't care about the rest at all
She's got a system they call apartheid
It keeps a brother in a subjection
But maybe pressure can make Jo'anna see
How everybody could a live as one

[chorus:]
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
Hope, Jo'anna
Gimme hope, Jo'anna
'Fore the morning come

'total eclipse of the heart' was sung, there was ample dancing and lots of smiles (and i may have found an enjoyment in karaoke..)

deb, josh, ashley, simon and i

...and everyone danced

.....and debby and i sang

....and everyone eventually helped

group shot

i have dinner tonight with miss hartstone and her mom (yes!) then i leave nairobi tomorrow, stop in eldoret, then kampala then fly on to johannesburg and then around s. africa, where i'll be clueless and lost for the next three weeks. nairobi treated me well, asante sana.

sunny weekend

friday after work i had some happy hour beers in the canteen with friends and the motor pool staff, stole josh's bike for a few glorious laps around the parking lot and sat in traffic en route to the train station to meet jonathan. i found him and we upgraded to first class (ohhh! ahhh!) and got on the train, bound for mombasa. our compartment was small but the one next door was open so it all worked out. we got to hang out the window and look at stars, eat some chicken for dinner and i slept pretty early. the train is this wild snapshot of history, now really only utilized (at least 1st and 2nd class) by traveling white people attempting to bask in the colonial history of what it must have been like when one had to take the train. also, not much has changed on the train since it was built. the history is here.

leaving the station at night

jonathan in the retro-cool food car

the next morning a staff member came around and said "the train is stopping here. and won't move all day." of course. silly of us to assume our train to mombasa would make it all the way there. so we hopped off, quickly followed the 3rd class kenyan passengers through the little market and got on a bus. one hour later we were in mombasa, on a tuk tuk and en route to another bus which would take us to watamu. i napped in the 2 hour ride. and, well, watamu is gorgeous and quiet and white sand exists and so does a ridiculously large italian population. we had good pizza from an italian man that didn't speak english or swahili (??). apparently lots of italian older women ("...with white hair") come to kenya in search of "a kenyan man" for the weekend. one notorious pair of said italian women didn't get what they came for and wrote a disapproving review of the whole hotel. i heard all of this from a cabana boy who was trying to court me into marriage (i didn't give him our phone number, dad) 'cause jonathan thinks it's funny to tell kenyan beach boys i'm single "and looking for a boyfriend." it never ends well.

view of the quiet, beautiful beach

view of the ocean when the tide was out

we did a lot of sitting. lots of lounging. some swimming. even went to a spontaneous beach party put on by rebellious beach boys. we left before it "started at 2am" though. then we sat in a matatu back to mombasa. that ride was hot. we wandered around old town, found a perch overlooking the water with men drinking strong, ginger-full coffee and had a cheap dinner. it was a nice, chill weekend. just some nice sun and swahili people. i made it to work this morning in what i wore on friday and a head scarf 'cause i didn't bring shampoo to the coast and i looked like a ragamuffin.

my sunburn and i stumbled upon the old SIT office!

a view of jonathan's head on the waterfront

and it just dawned on me that i haven't gotten my weekly 'this modern love' in the reader 'cause of the nytimes paywall. BLAST! that was always the highlight of my monday.

mid-week update

it's thursday, which is certainly the new friday. work is going a-okay, just one week and a bit left, so i am hurrying to finish the projects i should have been diligently working on for the last 3 months. lots of refugee movement data. for example! in FY 2009 Congress proposed admitting 12,000 refugees, but only 9,670 actually got admitted. that trend is consistent across the ages. we still don't have water in our kitchen, which has become a pitiful excuse to eat out. this week, so far i have had pizza, ethiopian, raviolli and tonight we will dig up indian food and dance (and dance) 'cause it's steph's last day, which is sad.

all else is well, life here is wrapping up swimmingly. i have become increasingly aware that the (ex-pat) people i genuinely enjoy here are simply those that do not believe they are rescuing the human condition by living in kenya. that's the one soap-box-worthy idea i can't stop trying to put words to. it's just a place to live. another city with some struggles and beauty all thrown together. and not even in an attempt to sound humble--it requires no actual sacrifice to live in nairobi, not in the luxurious bubble i have had the priviledge of floating in for the last 3 months, anyway. i just miss my bicycle. and all of you. and maybe the sunday morning farmer's market (which is odd, 'cause this whole city is a farmer's market, just no crab cakes).

one look at you and heaven's on fire.

otherwise i have been reading some good things:
1. mother jones on tumblr
2. bbc's adam curtis on humanitarian intervention (watch the videos)
3. long new yorker article on a political crime in guatemala
4. a photo essay of those refugees affected by Arab spring
5. and a university of nairobi student just dissapeared this past week, so other students rioted (and ultimately caused a lot of traffic in nairobi)
6. this nytimes (!) article about the energy of ubranization: "....and what you find is that we have created a lifestyle where we need more watts than a blue whale..."
7. on april fool's day, i was told the lead kenyan newspaper publishes fake headlines. good one. this is one of them, about kenya's new nuclear power project.

love this song

this weekend jonathan and i are attempting the overnight train down to the kenyan coast, armed with only a lonely planet and a sense of adventure. sun! and fun!

i think i'm a little bit in love with you

....but only if you're a little bit, little bit, little bit in lalalala love with me [ll]

As is always the way, right as you're about to leave a place you find a new, deep affection for it. i have come to adore nairobi. i like meeting strangers and sharing a drink or a mildly ridiculous experience and not knowing any baggage or their personal history. i make my own judgment of character and the brief relationship only continues if it's fun. it's all supposed to be fun. and bars don't close. ever. you can come and drink rum and red bull while dancing till 6am. everyone is transient. in some way, even Kenyans in Nairobi (the ones i would meet in swanky-ish ex-pat bars, anyway) are coming or going from University or their home land. It's all brief, but intimate. New (seemingly close) friendships are formed quickly, and I enjoy meeting a new person all the time.

regina, leon and kimani at her (new!) soda stand in eldoret (left over from before the camera battery died)

We threw a party on Friday night. Part birthday party for Ann, part going-away party, part random excuse for a party. It was an overall great time. Our apartment was packed with dancing, drinking, international, transient people. We had (err, attempted) jell-o shots, we had a noise complaint from a rather uptight neighbor, a glass broke, and then we all migrated to the local club and danced till it closed down. All in all it was a successful night.

roy was multi-tasking: blowing up balloons and preparing the DJ set for the party

Federico and I in the kitchen

Matt and Phil passionately discussing something on the balcony

the CDC "canteen crew"

The night before we went out, mostly out of habit. ("Thursday is the new Friday") It was a fun night, again, more dancing and social, diverse people. The night ended with me hopping on my friend's motorbike and riding outside of town to watch the sunrise. When I got home, my face was quite dirty (due to the dust that got by the helmet i was wearing) and i was exhausted, but it was a fun way to end a night/begin a morning. And the foggy view within the ngong hills was pretty spectacular, only made better by the children walking by in their school uniforms.

Saturday, Federico and I woke up and decided to ignore the mess in the kitchen. Our kitchen's water supply is connected to town pipes that just aren't working, so we have had no water for 2 days (Opps?) We went to a nice brunch and I found a delirious Matt and we wandered around a market in Kibera. I bought some awesome 2nd hand blouses and Matt and I bought vests and wandered back to his house, proud and sophisticated in our new clothes.

Sunday I woke up, feeling refreshed and rested and Federico, Ian, Steph and I piled into "Twiga" (Federico's mid-90's Rav-4) and went to Nairobi National Park for a self-imposed safari. It was beautiful and so nice to get out of the city center for a bit. We saw animals, had some laughs, fought some baboons for a picnic table, and toyed (for hours) with a cheap, Chinese-made Ipod/radio hook-up that just didn't want to work. Then we passed by Carnivore to meet the other GWU girls for a beer and came home and passed 4 hours talking on the balcony and watching a hilarious video of a dowry ceremony that Federico had the privilege of attending awhile back.

steph and i at a lookout in the park

twiga! (lots of giraffes in NNP)

we wanted that picnic table, so steph showed the baboon who was boss.

#selftimer success

our brief guide with a baboon skull

Us with the other "Twiga" and the obvious Deep Heat tire cover

there is a lion there! (middle, right part of the shot)

a view from within the park

I wandered out with Steph to find a taxi and met my favorite askari, Collins, who was washing cars in the apartment complex parking lot while listening to loud, Luo music from the guard shack. He is my favorite security guard: young and friendly and always asking if i'm having a good day. I once gave him a beer when I came home from watching a football match, so I think that immediately gains you friends. He bought me a Valentine's flower a while back, but because I wasn't around to claim it, "it withered here" {points to guard shack}.

{Sigh} Anyway, I am getting sad to leave, it was a near-perfect weekend.

3 weeks to go.

It's been over a week since I wrote something. humf. all is well in Nairobi. We have made a habit of going out on Thursday nights, which typically makes for a difficult Friday morning at work, but we're all just working for the weekend anyway. There is a fun, ex-pat packed, bar here with an adorable DJ that plays the xx {swoon}, so we typically find ourselves there. Last Monday we went to see Burlesque for 'mzuri monday movie madness,' which means for a mere 600 KSh you get a movie ticket, hot dog, popcorn and soda. The movie was shamefully entertaining. It's been raining here, which ultimately just means traffic is unbearable and all semblance of a social life stops. Friday night we went to see a flamenco dance show organized by Federico and spend 1/4 of night in traffic.

flamenco show

I've been researching refugee movement from E. Africa for a presentation I'll give before I leave the CDC (in a mere 3 weeks). The numbers for this year are not looking good: there is a ceiling of 15,500 refugees from SS Africa, but as of now, less than 5,000 have been resettled. This is due to increased security measures and strict interview protocols (that continued 'War on Terror' is felt by hundreds of thousands of innocent Somali refugees). Also, of 1,000 refugees only 4 get resettled. So, next time you see a refugee family attempting to navigate the bus, remember that there are 996 more biding time on a camp in the desert somewhere. It's daunting. I also watched the documentary "The Letter" about Lewiston, Maine and what happened when a number of Somali refugees moved there and ignorance fueled a pretty large crisis following 9/11/01.

This past weekend Matt, Roy and I went back to Eldoret for a GWU MPH Fellow reunion. And it was awesome. Delicious Indian food. Late night dancing at Spree. Enough drama to keep it interesting. Reunion with Andrew and Jani and a trip to the farm for sundowners which ended in goofy games, trips down memory lane and missing the bus out of Eldoret on Sunday night. I also got to see Purity and Leon and he is getting so big! and was wearing mock Converse high tops, of course.

I've started watching 'the wire', I made a green curry, I run on the treadmill, I buy things at the grocery store, I'm nearly done with reading Cutting for Stone (i think it means i'm not reading enough, when i'm excited enough to announce the fact i've finished a book), there is karaoke tonight, party at our apartment on Friday, my camera charger came (so let the rebirth of the photos begin!), and this song is sexy, and I watched Rives tell a story:

i have a 9-5, in Kenya.

So, i should start this post with the acknowledgment that my friend, Grunder, should get the music credit for directing me to the band, Snowden, which I linked to in the last post. (He realllly wanted to make sure you knew that. {winky face!})

In Kenya recently, Luis Moreno-Ocampo (the chief prosecutor at the ICC) indicted six men for participating in facilitation of the post-election violence in 2008. There has been some hoopla 'cause the Kenyan government (and a significant amount of people) believe and want the "Ocampo 6" to be tried in Kenya, as a testament to their success as a state. It seems clear that this is just a dodgy way to let the cronies get away with their (potential) war crimes. And two of them are potential presidential candidates in 2012. {I smell a conflict of judicial interest} But it's really divided people a bit. One man (after a few beers) jumped down my throat when I said I was from the States. Blabbering something about how we called upon his political leaders to be tried for crimes they didn't do, etc etc. Unbeknown to this drunk countryman, the U.S. isn't a signatory member of the ICC, so he was getting upset for nothing. (However, Obama recently did say he supports the Ocampo 6 being tried outside of Kenya). Now the government of Kenya have called on two British lawyers who have defended Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosovic (I'm not sure how they sleep at night) to try to defend these men for the international community. But, I think the ICC will stand and if trial is going on in 2012 (which is likely) then the future of Kenya's political climate could change.

Well, now you're all caught up on Kenya's politics. That's what I read all about while sitting in a bar on Sunday and eating roasted goat meat and drinking warm Tusker. People share newspapers. One person buys it and he is the true owner, but it gets passed about a bus, bar, street corner, etc. It's a reasonable, cost-effective way to know what's going on. This weekend was....fun. We did a lot of dancing and drinking. I spent my days laying on my couch and by the pool, watching mad men (which i finished. it is a great show.) and reading. Met some new faces, spent some quality time with my roommate and on Saturday night, I got my wallet stolen. They got $40 and my sense of pride.

damn nairobbery.

On Sunday, I went with Roy, Matt and Steph to a soccer match in Eastlands (old, seemingly athletic kenyan men drink beer and play soccer). It was a nice way to spend a Sunday. We had goat meat and sat around with about 60 jovial Kenyan men (who were not in church...?)

masaai men graze their cattle anywhere

taking down the net after the football match

stephanie and i sitting in the shade

matt and roy, ordering food? tell jokes? not sure which.

this morning i read that this guy saw a depressing, truthful version of Dubai. and my heart goes out to Japan. these photos are serious. and this article ("he slept with the house help and now i want out") was a "Most Viewed" on the local newspaper. Uh Oh.