From the moment I met her I knew there was something about her.I was standing on the street with my pals waiting for the other girls to come down so we could head over to the party.I had just turned when I saw her coming down the stairs. She was wearing a black leather jacket, blue jeans and a white-striped long sleeve with folded arms. I think I was staring and she noticed.She came over for hug.Okay now that was not just a normal hug strangers give each other.She put her arm through my back,pulled me in and slowly kissed my cheek.She was letting go slowly too.I thought my groin would burst.I think I chuckled too and my pal noticed what had happened and winked at me.It was hot yet it was around 10pm at night. She told me her name and I said mine.She asked if I was cold.If she only knew how my body was defying the cold around us she would not have even asked.

The other girls were delaying so much she wanted to leave for the party.Two other girls left with her.She turned to look if I was coming too but I said no I’ll wait for the others.During the time they left to the time my group arrived at the club passed well.I kind of love walking on the streets of Nairobi alone with many people.So we arrived at the club,got some seats and I went to get a drink.Guess what,I met her there getting her drink.I moved closer to her and she put her arm on my shoulders.She is taller than me and much of butch…and strong.She was holding me really tight to her side.Maybe she was high but she did not look drunk at all.Poor me I was blushing.It had been awhile since anyone had shown me all that attention in such a short period of time. She asked me why I was blushing but I did not answer.She asked me where I was sitted,I pointed and she said she’ll come looking for me.I left her at the bar and went to take my seat.My friends were already on the dance floor.It wasn’t long before she came over and sat beside me. That chic had swag (lol)! She was cool and controlled.I gently nudged her with my shoulder and then she gave me one of those long looks that just makes one feel week.It was either I was horny or it had been long and I needed to get laid.She noticed my tattoos and asked about them.We kept talking for awhile and it was nice that we could make conversation.

Soon I was almost drunk.The courage was back and I could neither be put down nor settle.I told her I wanted to dance she said its okay she will wait for me.Off I went to join my friends for some dance but I was back to check up on her.She told me to sit on her laps.I did.I stood in front of her,put one leg beside her and then the other enabling me to sit while still facing her.Now we were not talking, she was looking at hands, fingers,interlocking hands etc etc. She was looking really good and I was not shying away from staring at her lips and she decided to do what I was thinking.Her face was now close to mine and I could feel her breath against mine.She was teasing me, brushing my lips with hers,biting my lower lip and all I wanted was to have her already.My chest was now thumping and I could not take her teasing anymore.I took her face in my hands and planted one on her.She responded by kissing me even harder and holding me tighter.After that I just fanned myself and realised the people around us now looking away.

The cold alcohol she was taking gave her a toothache so she was not that much of a mood to dance.But she let me go and have my fun.My bestie who is a gay guy M had now arrived and I was so eager to see him.It had been so long.I went outside and when I saw him I just ran to him and jumped on him for a hug,kissed him and I almost cried.Well I was high and very emotional and the night was just too beautiful .He introduced me to his boyfriend and I hugged him too.I walked them in, showed them a good place to sit then I stole M.I took him to meet her and later he told me,”Gurrrrrl, she is cute!Where did you meet?”I told him right there and he gave me this shocked yet happy look and I laughed at him.He said I should not let that one go.We knew if we kept talking both our dates will just get mad so we decided to meet later in the night.I went back to her, did a small lap dance then decided to sit down….on her.There’s one thing about me.If I like you and I have alcohol courage I would do anything to you and assume anybody else around us.I stole another kiss before I was off again.A small demon inside me made me dance with this girl.After awhile she was kissing me.I pushed her and danced away. M saw me and what had happened and was laughing his heart out.We both went downstairs there was a dancing competition going on.I had forgotten about the kiss with the strange girl but was reminded when my ‘date’ appeared in front of me, took my hand and took me to a corner and said,”I have seen what you did.”

I am sure I looked stunned.I wanted to lie and said that wasn’t true but she looked quite mad and I said,”Im sorry?!” It sounded more like a question than an apology and she shook her head and began to walk off.I was already screwing up something that had barely started.I called her back and she turned.Now I honestly apologised and told her it meant nothing,it was the other girl who had stolen the kiss.She pulled me closer and asked me if I can’t ‘defend’ myself or say no.I told her I could but she was fast when she stole that kiss (lol). She still looked a bit mad so I kept talking telling her its her that I like and no one else in the place.Finally her smile was back, cuter than ever.She asked me to go back upstairs with her and I agreed.You should have seen her holding my hand up those stairs..it looked like “you are coming with me,woman!!”  At the top of the stairs she stopped me,pinned me to the wall with one of her legs between mine pushing me upwards.She kissed me so passionately then told me not to kiss another girl,and left me there still finding words to say.Well, damn I did like this girl.I decided to try my best to sit at one place.To cut the long story I could not sit still for more than 10 minutes but this time she followed me to the dance floor and I was able to behave myself.Soon we were leaving around 5am. On the way to my stage she asked me if I wanted to see her again or this was the last time we were to see each other.I told her I wanted to see her again.She said she wanted me in her life. She kissed me goodbye and one last hug before I joined my friends and headed back home.

The next day she called and had a long talk getting to know each other.I just hope there is something there.

Right now, it’s nothing more than an empty plot of land, covered by just a few shrubs and the odd Neem tree. But within a few years, these grass plains just outside Accra, Ghana, could be transformed into a fertile breeding ground for world-class innovation.

Earlier this month, Ghanaian president John Mahama launched Hope City, a $10 billion high-tech hub aiming to foster technological growth and attract major players in the global ICT industry to the West African country.

The ambitious project is the brainchild of Ghanaian businessman Roland Agambire, head of local technology group RLG Communications. Smart and futuristic, the hub’s sustainable facilities will include an assembly plant for various tech products, business offices, an IT university and a hospital, as well as housing and recreation spaces, including restaurants, theaters and sports centers.

“What is lacking in the African continent is a place where you can have well-designed products, backed with concrete research and proper hardware and software developers to be able to create infrastructure for the telecoms industry,” says Agambire, 39, whose company has acquired the land where the technopolis will be built.

“So the inspiration behind Hope City is to have an iconic ICT park where ICT players from all over the world can converge to design, fabricate and export software and everything arising from this country,” he adds.

Read this: Why tech innovators are Africa’s future

Construction is expected to begin by June 2013 and when completed — within three years, if everything goes as planned — the technology park could house 25,000 residents and create jobs for 50,000 people.

Agambire, one of Ghana’s top businessmen, says his company is financing 30% of the project, while the remainder will be funded by a wide array of investors and through a stock-buying scheme.

The entrepreneur says the IT hub has already attracted several partners, including Microsoft, with Microsoft corporate vice president Ali Faramawy among the guests at the Hope City launch event.

Agambire adds that the Hope City project also has the support of the Ghanaian government, as it aims to create create thousands of jobs and help turn technology into one of the country’s main economic drivers.

“What we want to do is to create the environment and the human resource base for the technology industry to be able to use that [environment] and tap that opportunity,” he says. “That’s what has happened in China, that’s what has happened in other places of the world.”

‘Africa’s highest tower’

Hope City will be developed in an area of about 1.5 million square meters, located some 30 minutes west of Accra’s city center.

Designed by Italian firm Architect OBR, the technopolis will be made up of six towers of different dimensions, including a 75-story, 270 meter-high building that is expected to be the highest in Africa. A system of bridges at different heights will link the towers together, creating a circular connection between the buildings’ functions and public amenities.

OBR co-founder Paolo Brescia says the project’s goal is to create a living place of discovery and exploration that reflects the tradition and culture of local people in a contemporary urban setting.

To achieve this, the architects designed Hope City with Ghana’s traditional compound houses in mind. Originally made of mud brick walls and thatched roofs, compound structures have been a prevalent form of housing in the country for centuries, built to promote communal life and mutual assistance.

“We wanted to recreate, at a different scale, the same feeling of the compound house in a way that it could work as a compound cluster,” explains Brescia.

“This place is designed to keep people together,” he adds. “We developed this idea, not as a campus, where you have buildings which are dedicated to single functions, but as a city which is developed in a vertical way so that everything could be interconnected.”

‘ICT revolution’

The launch of Hope City comes just a few months after Kenya broke ground on its own flagship tech mega project; located some 60 kilometers southeast of the capital Nairobi, Konza Techno City is being touted as “Africa’s Silicon Savannah,” a major IT hub that aims to create some 100,000 jobs by 2030.
This city hopefully will bring the tech companies together and spark a new ICT revolution in Ghana.
Florence Toffa, Mobile Web Ghana

Kenya has already experienced a major IT boom in recent years, spurred in part by a surge in the number of innovation centers, such as Nairobi-based iHub, which enable young coders and aspiring entrepreneurs to collaborate, network and develop their trailblazing ideas.

Read this: How ‘Afropreneurs’ will shape Africa’s future

Similar spaces have also mushroomed across Africa in recent years, from Egypt and Nigeria to Tanzania and Madagascar.

In Ghana, one such center is Accra-based Mobile Web Ghana, a vibrant tech space with more than 300 members. Florence Toffa, director of Mobile Web Ghana, welcomes the launch of Hope City.

“This city hopefully will bring the tech companies together and spark a new ICT revolution in Ghana,” she says, adding that the project could equip local techies with the necessary skills to develop apps that would solve community problems, as well as provide a platform for tech companies to find new talent and opportunities to invest in.

For Agambire, this is a project that will position Ghana at the forefront of African technology.

“Africa is hungry for development,” he says. “Want to make sure that in three years down the line, Hope City will be a reality and will be one of the biggest dreams that Africa has ever seen.”

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Go figure – no notice, no warning on the weekend. You just discover the tap runs dry

We were fortunate because we have a couple of water tanks which were full. However, there are also 10 other people living on the compound, plus another 8 workers. It’s amazing how far the water doesn’t go when you have that many people on one piece of ground.

A 5 minute drive up the road is Kwangere, one of the many slums in Nairobi.

 Some of our house and property team live here. There are much worse slums, but still, it’s not somewhere we would choose to live.

They too had no water. Normally, if you live in a slum you don’t have running water anyway, you have to go and pay around 20 cents for a jerry can of water. But what happens when there isn’t any?

People get sick. You can’t wash your clothes, cooking equipment or kids. You have to walk even further to get your water, or worse, you have to use the money you normally would buy food with, on water.

There are always water tankers parked up on the side of the road but for those 10 days when the town supply dried up, none were there. They would’ve been pleased because it was a boom time for them.

In 10 days we went through two 10,000L truck loads full of water.

This is a 10,000L tank

It was amazing how when the town supply came one how everyone gave a big sigh of relief. We pay for water anyway but it was great having that assurance that as soon as we wanted it, water would be there.

That’s what it must be like when people in very dry areas finally get rain. Or even better, when they get something like what BeyondWater does – have a deep bore well. That way they can be assured that for the next 20 years, their community will have safe, clean drinking water.

While I can say I’ve experienced first hand what it’s like to have a short supply of water, I can’t really say that it impacted me. But when I travel a couple of hours out of town to visit a community and everything is super dry and the dirt is actually dust, that impacts me.

It moves me to keep doing what we do. Educating people about the one billion who don’t have access to water and another billion who don’t even have a toilet. Fundraising to meet the need and then celebrating with communities who are moving closer to self sustainability.

The question is – what are you doing to fight global water poverty?

Aaron Colverson directed the compositions and the lead singers included Asali, backed by Harleen Matharu and Rapasa. Asali also sang a song for the Members of Parliament called “hodi hodi” written by her. The live band ensemble was made up of tabla player Prasad Velnakar, bass guitar Andrew Ngatia, percussionist Charles Obuya Owino, acoustic guitar Nathan Okite, flute Kirit Pattni, santoor Mohan Shah and percussionist Eric Okite. Believe it or not it all happened on Saturday 8^th June night at the Kenya National Theatre, under the beautiful tree that pours down magnificently in the garden. During the concert there was a live painting or great wall of paint and graffiti being completed by “Bank Slave” and Bhupi Jethwa, which took almost 7 hours to do.

“Dear lord when I get to heaven
Please let me bring my man
When he comes tell me that you’ll let him in
Father tell me if you can

Oh that grace, oh that body
Oh that face makes me wanna party
He’s my sun, he makes me shine like diamonds”

Lana Del Rey- Young and Beautiful (The Great Gatsby soundtrack)

‘IN MY YOUNGER and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.” ‘

Those are the two opening paragraphs in the book, ‘The Great Gatsby.’  I love that little 182 page book, with its lyrical beauty yet brutal realism of magic, romance and mysticism; and I couldn’t wait to watch the latest remake of the movie.

As is tradition when I am at home on Sundays, I usually wake up early, and drive into town to drown my face in overpriced popcorn as I catch up on movies before the people from Church or those that sleep in, flock the malls and cause snarl-ups. The occupants of the theatre this last Sunday included two drunk females with a doubtful reputation who frolicked noisily at the back seats and of course me looking depressed with my baby blanket wrapped around my neck.

                  Hemmingway described this cover as ‘the ugliest jacket he’d ever seen’

The film is directed by Baz Luhrmann who also directed Moulin Rouge. The directing is generally well done, immensely effective, enabling viewers to battle with emotions that are intricately strewn about and bringing out the strangeness of human circumstance in a vast heedless universe.

It was nice to hear actual parts of the book used as they were in the script, thus retaining the amount of meaning F. Scott Fitzgerald wove into sentences and the extraordinary dimensions and intensity carried in paragraphs. Luhrmann earned my admiration for his consciously artistic achievement in maintaining the glib sophistication and breathtaking lyricism found in the book.

The movie employs the use of a narrator Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) a move also used in the book, and particularly effective in bringing out all sorts of thoughts and moods putting the audience upon a point of observation on a higher level than that on which the characters stand and at a distance thus giving perspective. Set in the summer of 1923, the movie is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s when gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession.

In the movie, Carraway is talking to his shrink, a clever adaptation to explain the narration in the book. He talks about his life and interactions with his old-money friend, the brutal and Ivy League philanderer Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgarton), Daisy (Carrey Mulligan) the southern belle and wife to Tom and the mysterious and fabulously wealthy Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) who courted Daisy while he was an officer and temporary gentleman in the First World War. Gatsby, after losing Daisy to Buchanan because he was penniless, now seeks to recapture her. Luhrmann fuses the seductions of hedonism and luxury with vulgarity and opulence to bring out the decadence of the 20’s, to which Nick struggles to keep at bay.

I liked this adaptation, DiCaprio’s blue eyes are always welcome, especially every time he dipped his head to the right and called Maguire ‘old sport’ and you could see the two of them hold the gaze a little bit longer than usual, as if about to kiss…(sigh) if only.

The parties in the movie were just phenomenal; the lights, color and euphoria playing the mood of the Jazz-age effortlessly. The film has its fair share of romance, sex, tension as well as a drab scene where words appear on the screen and go away as snowflakes (the fuck was that?) The music used was also great, except Jay Z’s bits which are totally out of place, as well as his wife’s song (yes, spousal privileges or what not.) Fergie took the show home with the song ‘A little party never killed nobody’ ft. Goon rock and Q-Tip (that’s right, this artist took an ear bud’s name.) But my favorite song from the film is Lana Del Rey’s ‘Young and Beautiful’ a deep, soulful and intense piece that should remind you of Adele, but all you feel is a growing shudder as your muscles tighten and you explode in orgasmic pleasure; yes ladies and gentlemen, I found a new song to play during sex.

Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;

If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,

Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,

I must have you!”

-THOMAS PARKE D’INVILLIERS

source:  http://www.enca.com/africa/10-wounded-bomb-attacks-kenya

Nairobi, Kenya: Audrey Mbugua had been tormented and trapped for 19
years. She woke up one day in 2002 tortured about being called
“Andrew” and being treated like a man.

She studied the image on her national identity card, studied herself
in the mirror and realised there was something terribly wrong: She
was trapped inside a man’s body.

“It just wasn’t me. I was completely uncomfortable being this person
in the identity card who was not me,” she recalls.

Few people could get behind the mask of pain that enveloped Audrey as
she fought being in a body that brought her nothing but mental
anguish.

For years, she had attempted everything to deal with her predicament.
She had tried to get medication and even contorted her own solution to
suppress male hormones in her body.

She had devised ways to gain access to hormones to deal with her
Gender Identity Disorder (GID) without success.

She has even tried suicide.

Conservative society

It has been a roller coaster ride for the 29-year-old medical
biotechnologist who graduated with an Upper Second Class Honours
degree from Maseno University in 2006 after declining to take up Law
studies at the University of Nairobi.

She had attained an A- (minus) in her KCSE exams.

“I have dealt with depression almost all my life. The struggle to be
someone that I am not and trying to be comfortable in my female gender
in a very conservative society, has been a horrendous journey,” she
says.

When you first meet Audrey, everything about her is feminine. The way
she walks or laughs. Even her mannerism and her gestures speak of a
polished woman.

Audrey was born Andrew Mbugua in 1984 in Ndumberi, Kiambu County. She
had a normal and exciting childhood in a family of five — two brothers
and two sisters. Her father worked with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation
as a technician and her mother was a nurse.

“I grew up like any boy in the village, playing in the fields,
watching Tom and Jerry cartoons. I was the apple of my father’s eye.”

Audrey did so many things together like any father and son relationship.

“My dad and I were very tight,” she recalls.

Her favourite time was watching him dismantle the engine of their 1600
Chevy saloon car. He would teach her the intricacies of mechanics. She
learnt what a radiator, gasket, piston and drive shaft rings were. In
the village she was ‘Kadi’ or ‘Eddy’.

“At 13 years, my father taught me how to drive. He also introduced me
to such heroes as Mohammed Ali and Mike Tyson. He loved boxing.

“My mother had a library filled with medical books because of her
nursing career. I read so many of them and my interest in medical
journals was born.

Her career drive

“People look at me and assume I was molested as a child. In fact, I
had a very normal upbringing.”

Andrew, as she was referred to then, was smart in school and,
encouraged by her teachers, graduated from Kiambu High with an A-
(minus) mean grade, enough to get her into law school at the
University of Nairobi, which she had applied for.

She failed in only one subject that she never liked — Kiswahili.
Finally, all the medical journals and books she had been reading from
her mum’s library took their toll.

“I decided I wanted to study medical biotechnology as opposed to law.
The issue of HIV catastrophe intrigued me. In addition, in 2001 the
issue of anthrax as a biological weapon was in the news.”

She wrote to the Joint Admissions Board and requested her admission to
UoN be switched to a medical biotechnology course at Maseno. They were
stunned and asked her why? Could she put her reasons in writing?

So she wrote a long and convincing argument in one page and forwarded
it to JAB. Her explanation was accepted. but her father was furious.

“He wanted me to study law and could not understand why I would change
my course.”

The right thing to do

But there was more. Her physical metamorphosis was changing and she
was struggling with her body.

“Things were changing inside me and I felt more and more feminine than a man.”

As a 19-year-old, she was struggling with growing into an adult and her gender.

“I felt things were going haywire. This was not my body. I had a
conflict in both my body and mind.”

So she did something that really provoked her father. She plaited her
hair. It just felt like the right thing to do. He was infuriated.

“I never talked to my parents or siblings about what I was feeling. I
thought I could find a solution on my own.”

So she took the next step and changed her name. It had always felt
strange to be referred to as Andrew.

“I was a big fan of Jack Bauer on Fox show ‘24’. I was particular
drawn to the character of Audrey who was head of CTU. I don’t know if
I had a crush on her but I loved that show. So I took the name
Audrey.”

In any case, Audrey sounded very close to Andrew.

By now, she had become the local weirdo and her previous strange hair
was the talk of the village. She would draw stares when she walked to
the local shops, but she did something else: She changed her wardrobe.
Everybody said she was now crazy or had been bewitched.

“Everybody saw the outside, not the inside of me. I thought I was
going crazy, and to an extent, I think I was. I don’t have the right
words to express what I was going through.”

Feminine things

One day she went out shopping determined to get female clothes to
spruce up her wardrobe. She put on a dress and studied herself in the
mirror. “It was the first time I actually felt comfortable in my
skin.”

Audrey’s first year at Maseno in 2002 was exciting. She was
enthralled by the freedom of being away from home and her parents.

But the conflict inside her did not dissipate. It got worse.

“I sailed through my first year a loner, with no one to talk to about
what I was going through.”

Her friends found her strange and she was referred to as gay, they saw
her as a man with an affinity for feminine things, but they accepted
her. Audrey recalls one day during a lecture when the lecturer was
talking about transsexuals and the class pointed to her.

There was laughter all around.

The taunting from other students took its toll: “I hated people around
me and became a loner. I took my frustration to alcohol and succumbed
to cheap spirits.”

Audrey tried to figure out how she could get access to female hormones
and failed.

By her third year, she was barely surviving academically. Drowning in
sub-marine depth of depression, she went to the college clinic to seek
help. The clinic officer listened to her story then reached into her
drawer and pulled out a Bible. It didn’t help.

At interview room

By her fourth year, Audrey was doing alcohol to deal with her struggle
with GID. She was a wreck and now entertained the idea of attempting
suicide.

And then she had what she called an epiphany and quit alcohol. Audrey
graduated and was pursuing an attachment to work with Kenya
Agricultural Research Institute in Nakuru in early 2007.

She went for her interview for the Nakuru KARI molecular lab
attachment and handed her ID and graduation documents that showed her
as Andrew Mbugua.

She says her interviewer, Dr Malinga, knew there was something odd as
soon as Audrey stepped into her office. “She studied my papers and
told me ‘These are not your papers. You are not Andrew I am sure. You
are not a boy’.”

It was the first time she had felt somebody recognised her as a woman
first. “I felt really nice.”

Malinga continued: “Can you do good work?”

“Try me.”

She was accepted as an intern. She rubbed shoulders with research
scientists and allowed her to explore a whole new scientific world she
yearned to work in sometime in the future.

It also had its challenges. She had become accustomed to using the
ladies and one day was accosted by a senior female KARI worker who
scolded her for using the ladies washroom.

She threatened Audrey that if she used the ladies again she would lose
her internship. So Audrey would, rather than use the gents, hold
herself until she got home. It wasn’t easy.

But the rumour mills about her gender were the subject of talk around
KARI village area in Nakuru. They also became sometimes the subject
of hate. In 2007 a storm ran through the area and a crop of wheat was
damaged.

“The rumour was that I had caused the storm by bringing djinnis from
Coast. I saw myself as storm, a character in the X-men series of films
played by Halle Berry. I was like wow! I have powers over the
weather.”

One evening while having a plate of chips for dinner at a local
restaurant, a man walked in grabbed her plate and yelled at her “wacha
umajini wa coast hapa” (stop the witchcraft from Coast). He left her
holding a fork and left. The hotel owner just watched from a distance
and did not intervene.

Sometimes life during the attachment could be hard. She had barely
enough food and was earning a pittance for her attachment. She also
felt lonely being so removed from her parents in Kiambu. It got worse.
Her parents and two siblings migrated out of the country.

From brother to sister

In addition, in December 2007, Audrey had returned to Kiambu for
Christmas. The post-election violence exploded and Nakuru was a
flashpoint. She could not go back to KARI. So she turned to job
seeking around Nairobi and it wasn’t easy.

Still, she says: “Around my home, everyone thought I was crazy or
bewitched. My brothers and sisters accepted me for whom I was and told
me I was no longer their brother but their sister.”

She hit the interview circuit trying to secure a job. Her first job
interview was memorable. She got called by the interview panel and
walked gingerly into a sea of baffled faces. The chairman studied the
papers and shot her an accusing look.

He thundered: “Young lady, will you please wait for your turn! We
called for Andrew Mbugua, not you.”

She never got the job.

Audrey attended close to 18 interviews with the same results. It was
painfully frustrating. “When they looked at me they saw this creature
or animal that was strong enough to challenge their norms.”

Respect from touts

Audrey spiralled further into depression. She struggled to make ends
meet by repairing computers. It wasn’t something she was passionate
about but biotechnology was getting further and further away. Then she
had to deal with being taunted.

She would enter a matatu to Kiambu and hear whispers of “huyo ni chali
manzi (that’s a guy-chick)”. Most matatu touts and drivers knew her as
she had grown up with them in the same village or attended the same
school. They treated her respectfully.

Audrey learnt to walk away and ignore the whispers and snickers behind
her. By September 2008 it was getting worse. So far, she had
maintained a resilience and stoicism with regard to her situation. But
her toughness was relenting.

Recalls Audrey, “I was seeing my life, my dreams going down the drain.
For me the sky was falling.”

Unable to find work and removed from any circle of friends she could
confide in about her situation, she attempted what she had
contemplated for a long time — suicide.

Desperation and frustration collectively had driven her over the cliff.

She was unconscious.

Darkness.

Shrouded light. Distant voices. Whispers.

Her eyes snapped open. Audrey woke up in Kiambu hospital recovering
from her suicide attempt.

http://www.standard media.co. ke/?articleID= 2000085176&story _title=how- search-for- true-self- drove-audrey- to-suicide- bid

Nelito is quite a bit further away than Kaloleni. It maybe a 15 minute dala ride in the direction away from town. Then once you get dropped off by the dala the walk is uphill on the uneven, dusty roads for about 30 minutes. It’s not going to kill me, but I definitely realized how lucky I had been at Kaloleni.

Nelito has 4 classes: 3-4 year olds (about 18 kids), 4-5 year olds (about 13 kids), 5-6 year olds (about 10 kids), and the 7-9 year olds (about 7 kids). I spent my day in the baby class with the 3-4 year olds because this is where the teacher told me to go. I am excited to get to spend some time with the little ones. Although they are EXHAUSTING! There are currently 3 volunteers at Nelito who have been there for a month, but they all leave this week. I’m glad I could have some overlap with them because one of the volunteers was helping to teach me names and songs that they sing.

Today she had them copy the capital and lowercase letters a, b, and c. A couple could do it, no problem, but many others could not do it at all. This is a lot to ask of a child that age in my opinion. I tried making dots for the students to connect to form the letters, and writing the letters with them, hand over hand. It helped for some, but others need more time and that is fine. She also tried to teach them the colors red, blue, and yellow. I think they might need to learn them in swahili before they can learn them in english, but maybe not. It could help to at least make that association for them. I also think she needs to pull back and teach just capital or just lowercase letters. And maybe just do one letter a day. They are very young children. This could be a good opportunity for me to get some early childhood teaching experience. However, the language barrier will still be significant.

So Sweet! Eating porridge.

Beautiful Smile!

Serious face.

Porridge Time!

Tomorrow is one of the girl’s last day, so we are having a fun day! They’re bringing an assortment of food and games I believe. Cake was mentioned. I’m going to charge up the portable speaker I brought so we can listen to music and dance and sing. It sounds like it is going to be a lot of fun!

I did laundry today. The bottoms of all of my pants are just so dirty. They’re all a little bit too long so they get dirt and dust all over them. I also inevitably step in a puddle or get splashed on at least once a week. I scrubbed the bottoms of all my pants with a brush, but it didn’t help much. Laundry takes SO LONG! I really hate doing it. Mom has already suggested that I do a little at a time so its not so bad, but I have been unsuccessful at that.

Jodie came back from climbing Kili today. She said it was awesome! She said the guides were great! The food was great! Coming down is possibly harder than going up. Definitely take diamox (the altitude sickness medication). Don’t take 7 days, just do 6 because you’ll be so bored. (I’m not so sure I’m going to follow that little piece of advice though). Overall, I talked to her about it for a long time, and it again made me feel very optimistic. She said your mindset is very important. So no self doubt allowed. She knew some people who had thrown up because of the altitude and she got a little headache, but it was not too bad. I realized I’ll probably be climbing Kili in like 10 days, which is so weird to think about! Time is flying!

I haven’t heard back from my group going to Nairobi yet. They went on safari this weekend, so they’re just now getting back into town. I officially adopted Kithaka! I’m really happy with my choice to foster him! I cannot wait to go meet him this weekend!

Right now Will is taking his LSAT. Send positive thoughts his way! I am so proud, because with the help of my incredible mother, I was able to give him a Brain food goody bag with avocado, hummus with pita chips, dark chocolate covered acai, sunflower seeds, beef jerky, and beer (well a gift card to buy beer because shelby county doesn’t sell beer on Sundays) to celebrate after he’s finished. He was totally surprised! I was so glad I could do something small to help him during this stressful time. And I’m so lucky to have a fantastic mom who went and bought these things for me and delivered them to his house!

The bag unpacked at his house

I’m so exhausted right now. I did not sleep but 2.5 hours last night. I had, what I thought was a crisis come up about next year, but it’s totally fine. I talked to mom and feel much better now, except for the exhaustion. I will try and take some fun pictures tomorrow! Also, I updated my Safari post with a video which you can see here. It is a compilation of the video clips I took while on safari. The one of the elephant on our campsite didn’t work so well, but if you watch the little white dots, you can’t kind of make out an outline. Also, I took video of the kids singing and dancing at Dymphna’s so here is that video as well.

For trash pickers at Dandora, the dump is a necessary evil. Photo by Jason Patinkin

Hundreds of bent figures wade through a sea of trash. They pick their way across the smoldering landscape, stabbing at the garbage in front of them with bent metal rods. A flock of marabou storks flaps alongside, stalking for bones to snap up in their huge bills. In the distance, skyscrapers wobble in the rising heat waves.

The bent figures are the garbage pickers of Dandora, Nairobi’s main trash dump and one of Africa’s biggest. They make their living here by sifting through a society’s discards in hopes of finding anything to sell.  Read more…

Ate this fish with a face.

Attempted to stir some ugali.

Got laughed at by these girls (who actually know how to stir ugali).

Cried on Youtube.

This guy wore my sunglasses.

I saw some cows.

Drank one glorious cup of coffee.

Made friends with this dog in the Kenyan countryside.

Saw a sunflower bigger than that guy’s head.

Instagrammed this tiny little lady bug on a sunflower.

Drove past a fence made of bottles.

Saw this geological thing.

And hurt myself doing laundry again.  Chose a filter that makes it look as bad as my pride feels.

A view of part of Naalya: This was bush a few years ago -the bricks have swallowed up revolutionary zeal (Charles Obbo photo)

THIS is a FOUR-part story about the Arab Spring that toppled dictators Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in early 2011, and if/when/how it will arrive in the rest of Africa.

I found I could not begin to get my head around that question until I understood the role bricks, mortar, yams and cellphones are playing in shaping revolution and the advance – and often regression – of democracy in this fast-changing Africa.

So let’s begin with now Nairobi, which I used to visit as a young man many years ago. It was a hip city. But when I finally came from Kampala to live here in 2003 and started travelling around, I was shocked by how  errr… backward, the place had become. I was used to seeing cities go to seed because of war. Nairobi was the first one that went to rot through incompetent rule—by an “elected” government of former president Daniel arap Moi.

The mall at Naalya: Where the money goes, malls follow (Charles Obbo photo).

We used to travel from Kampala to Nairobi for business meetings almost every other week between 2000 and 2002, and most times stayed at The (Sarova) Stanley so we could just walk across to Nation Centre. I was struck by how gloomy the people were. And it was normal to see potholes and rubbish on the streets nearby.

Shortly after I relocated to Nairobi I used to drive home late, and there wasn’t a single streetlight working. It is a sign of how much things have changed that today I can do that same drive home at night without my car lights on if I chose to, and I will not run into a pothole.

The difference between Nairobi that evolved over the last 10 years, and the one of late 2003 is like day and night. There are very few things I can recognise in the suburb where I first lived. The roads, the endless lines of new apartments, malls, and high-rise office blocks are mostly a product of the president Mwai Kibaki years (2003-March 2013).

It is the same with many other African cities. Kigali, for example, was a corpse-strewn city in 1994 after the genocide following which Paul

Kigali City Tower: Seeing the streets strewn with bodies in 1994, it was impossible to imagine this is what would stand there today.

Kagame’s Rwanda Patriotic Army/Front (RPA/F) came to power. Today, the city is probably 10 times bigger and something beyond the wildest dreams of even the most insanely optimistic Rwandan in 1994.

The RPF old hands in Kigali have a joke that captures the situation in Kigali then. The story goes that a battalion of RPA rebels was sent out to go and secure the centre of Kigali.

After a while, they called the rebel command base to say they were probably lost, because they couldn’t find the  city centre.

“What do you mean you can’t find the city centre, did you get your coordinates right?”, command centre shouted at them.

“Sir, we are exactly where the coordinates say we should be”, the battalion commander said.

“Ok, read them back to me”, the guy at command centre said.

And so they did.

“Well, then you are in the city centre”, they were told.

Indeed they were. The problem was that soldiers were expecting imposing buildings and wide streets, not a little worn-out township.

Likewise in the north of Uganda’s capital, Kampala, 20 years ago there used to be a big farm owned by a friend. I would go to visit him on weekends, and we would walk around it for nearly all the morning; touring his sugarcane, then the banana fields, his dairy farm, and gaze at the wild expanses he had not yet tamed because he hadn’t figured out what to do with it.

His farm and the bush are no longer there. They are now part of the Naalya suburb, a vast and swanky middle class neighbourhood with its own malls. It is one of the many new neighbourhoods that have sprung around Kampala with the rise of the middle class.

The extensive outlay of cement, bricks, and tiles explain why a general-cum-half-civilian like President Yoweri Museveni, who in the last 15 years of his rule has presided over an incompetent and corrupt-to-the-core regime, has been able to rule Uganda for 27 years – three years longer all the past eight Big Men who have run the place combined.

There will be Twitter and Facebook insurgents in countries like Uganda, for sure. They will shake things up a little, yes, but they won’t cause the departure of their strongmen or their ruling parties.

The Arab Spring activists ran the Big Men out of town, but they failed in taking power and installing presidents from among their ranks in office. The armies, which had propped up Ben Ali and Mubarak, remain largely intact and, in fact, emerged as heroes. And when elections were held, some obnoxious parties and men, in Egypt for example, won—despite the best efforts of the Twitter rebels to stop them. So what happened?

I think bricks and mortar have done a couple of things. First, they have politically paralysed the new class of African middle class house owners. They want more, but cannot risk losing what they have.

The Maasai straddle the 21st and 20th centuries effortless—a classic case of African duality.

And the more that they want is not radical. They want the lights and streets in their neighourhoods fixed so they are safer and the value of their properties rise. They need the by-passes built to ease traffic congestion and the time it takes them to get to the airports to catch their flights. Corruption is a problem for them, but mostly because if the taxes they pay are stolen, then the potholes will not be repaired. Most of what they want can be fixed with a tweak. They cannot see how a system overhaul, sweeping away the whole political order, will make much of a difference. The compelling reason for them to embrace revolution is gone…except for the youth.

But that is the least of the complications. From that point, things get complicated. From Alexandria to Cape Town, there is something else that happens to us Africans. No matter how far up in the middle class and modern world we move, we always keep one foot in the old world of superstition, tradition, reactionary religion, clan, ethnic community, name it. We hold a smartphone in one hand and a roast yam in the other. The coldly rational, scientific Africans with highly developed democratic sensibilities who have grown out of the progress of the last 20 years are still only a handful (Archbishop and Nobel Peace prize laureate Desmond Tutu is among the very few who had a premature democratic mutation).

In one of the next three articles (http://nakedchiefs.com/2013/06/12/africa-revolution-series-part-2-tribe-religion-and-the-petty-middle-class-dictator/) later in the week we look at WHY we Africans progress in our own peculiar ways.

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Traveling for two days across the world proved to be somewhat interesting.

First plane ride!

Our what was suppose to be a 13.5 hour flight turned into 16.5. As we (like I was helping) were trying to land the plane, thunderstorms got in the way. I could see crazy lightning out the window and hard rain began pounding on the airplane. Our pilots made the wise choice not to land the plane and announced we would be rerouted to a different airport – no other information.

Semi-panic set in. What airport? We would miss our connecting flight to Nairobi. Would we catch a different plane at this other airport? Would we have to stay the night? How would this effect everything moving forward.

Forty-five minutes later we finally got a few answers. We were going to land at this other airport, refuel, and wait out the thunderstorms. We would then take off again towards our original destination. Sounded pretty good, right?

Wrong. Upon making our descent, we noticed we were in the middle of nowhere. Homes (of the few we could see) were made of sheets of spare metal. No roads. Lots of dirt. Flat barren land.

Djibouti Airport

We landed on a single landing strip – luckily it was on a United States military base in Djibouti. We saw numerous military tankers and jets, but not much more. We were safe.

After refueling and heading back, we barely made our connecting flight (luckily most of the flight was made up of people that were with us on our previous flight so they waited on us!)

After our quick flight to Nairobi, we were greeted by our van driver and made our way to the guest house for the night. Kenyans drive with a purpose to get to their destination as quickly as possible, with little attention to the lines on the roads. Maybe those are just a suggestion because I found that numerous times we were either taking up two of the three lanes or we were being pushed onto the edge of the road by another vehicle taking up several lanes. All this while dodging people, cows, and motorcycles, among other things.

Upon arrival I felt like the girl from that movie when she jumps out of the van and yells “land!”

The guest house was beautiful. It was a little piece of paradise in the middle of the largest city in Kenya.

Our house for the night

The kids loved the swing!

The next day involved more van time (much less traffic since it was early Sunday morning and a prop plane (lovely). Once we safely landed (praise Jesus) in Eldoret, we met up with Aaron Jones (missionary doctor working in Kapsowar that is from Bristol, as well), we loaded up another van (actually an ambulance) and made a 2.5 hour journey to Kapsowar.

Transportation to Kapsowar

The road was only paved for about the first 30 minutes and then we enjoyed a very bumpy and dusty dirt road the rest of the way.

Drive to Kapsowar

Luckily the kids fell asleep and no one got sick!

Safe arrival – including our groceries and luggage on top!

Aaron warned us of the three things to watch out for in Kapsowar – stinging nettles, Nairobi flies and fire ants. More to come on those items soon!

Kenya Vision 2030: “A national long-term development blue-print to create a globally competitive and prosperous nation with a high quality of life by 2030, that aims to transform Kenya into a newly industrializing, middle-income country providing a high quality of life to all its citizens by 2030 in a clean and secure environment.”

Sounds good, social, and sustainable. Let’s move on to the ‘Thika Superhighway’ – a formerly four-lane road between Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, and the industrial satellite town of Thika to the North, which was expanded to eight to twelve lanes for approximately 360 Mio. USD from 2009 to 2012:

Thika Highway Improvement Project:

Journalist: “It’s the best ever project for the country that will improve our transport system.”

Investor: “(…) it redefines the urban landscape of Nairobi.”

Researcher: “Thika Highway foremostly benefits Kenya as a nation. It is outward directed as a message that such a project can be realized.”

————————————————————-

Since 2008, the Kenyan government has been pursuing the implementation of its Vision 2030 through more than “120 transformational and cross-sector flagship projects” based on the vision’s economic, social, and political governance pillars. Thika Highway is one of the big flagships amongst all these projects, although the actual idea for the highway upgrade was already born decades before the government came up with its vision.

One could dig deeper into the development of Kenya Vision 2030 or the design of the Thika Highway Improvement Project, but I would like to look at the interrelation between these two and discuss the role of the ‘local poor’ vis-à-vis them.

From my in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in the Nairobi Metropolitan Region, I can say that Kenya Vision 2030 works (or better: performs) as a strong thought framework from which Kenya’s elite (politicians, investors, intellectuals, bureaucrats, etc.) views the development path and possible policies and projects for the country. Thika Highway is seen as the logical necessity for boosting all at once: the local socio-economic development, the hub function of the Nairobi Metropolitan Region, the nation’s economic growth, and the East African region’s trade interconnectivity.

Does this not sound perfect?! But practitioners as well as researchers know well from other cases that there is hardly ever a piece of the cake for every stakeholder. As supranational banking institutions like to admit: There are winners and losers.

But in contrast to the assumptions of narrow-minded traditional economic theories, conscious decisions must be taken by those in power to make the way for some groups winning and other groups losing. Without any doubt, the Thika Highway Improvement Project has brought undeniable positive impacts to the peri-urban corridor area between Nairobi and Thika! But as one interviewee who studied this area for many years correctly pointed out: “None of that was depending on the highway. That was dependent more on land use and physical development planning. So you know, I think this idea that people have that you build a highway and all these things emerge from it is nonsense.”

Turning directly to losers that can be found along the Thika Highway corridor, I would like to just exemplify the impacts on the ‘local poor’ (and I apologize for this fuzzy category that will receive much more space for definition and discussion in the final master thesis for which I conducted this research):

Investor: “Losers. (…) No. I think it benefits everybody.”

Researcher: “In lower rent places, the rents are going up, so now it’s becoming harder for poorer folks to go there.”

Government consultant: “Like, right now, one of the things that you can be sure of is that the major part of the poor people are going to be thrown out very fast. (…) Usually when a road is done like that, it’s not supposed to go through built-up areas. But you find that we have done the road without the planning.”

Government official: “(…) Why they don’t take care for themselves? (…) I don’t know how (…) it’s the business of the Government to (…) compensate those people who have been hit otherwise by market forces?! (…) Government has better things to do, much more urgent things to do (…).”

Civil society representative: “We’ll find there very high-quality property or estates along the Superhighway, but of course the informal settlements along that corridor will not go away. They will still be there. So, I think they’re working hand in hand, because that is the practice in several parts, particularly in Nairobi.”

So is Kenya Vision 2030 a good undertaking? Is the Thika Highway Improvement Project catering both to the global and local needs of Kenya’s society and economy? …Those are complex questions. For now, I can conclude that decision makers in Kenya would be able to assess more precisely the impacts of large-scale investments, if they looked into the ‘dirty complexities’ of projects like this one.

There are times on the road that one meal’s disappointments can push you to the brink.  It’s the little things that are often the last straw, that propel us the furthest into madness.

After two weeks in Kenya, I hadn’t had any time to myself, and I was starting to feel the psychological exhaustion that I’ve only ever felt while traveling.  My scheduled had tempered a bit, and I was sleeping well, but I hadn’t yet taken time to regain my footing and purge the travel grime that was clogging the machinery in my head.  Friday night I stayed at work late, not working but instead doing my eighth worst favorite thing in the entire world: waiting for Final Cut to upload a video to YouTube on a slow internet connection.  So I walked home alone, planning to meet up with friends later.  On the way I stopped at Fang Fang, a Chinese restaurant on the corner.  Chinese restaurants are ubiquitous, and the menus seem virtually the same everywhere outside of Asia.  Sweet and Sour Chicken it was.

I hadn’t actually eaten Chinese food in a long time – not since I was in China for a little over a month.  I brought back something sinister that soured the idea of introducing anything from the Middle Kingdom into my digestive tract.  But I figured after three years, it was time, and with a name like Fang Fang, it had to be awesome.  I carried it home in a black paper bag, which like most paper bags in Kenya, was actually made of plastic.  After inhaling it with a spoon while listening to an Alanis Morissette cover of Green Day’s Basket Case, I wasn’t in the mood to go out.  So I hung back, missing a 3D movie and karaoke.  And I slept for nine hours.

When I woke up, I laid around for a while then finally went into the kitchen where I found Murage, Wangari, and Koi.  Koi was making pancakes.  My first pancake was room-temperature.  Koi had put it on a plate with a knife and fork and I didn’t realize it was intended for me.  So I fiddled with my phone trying to figure out why Facebook wasn’t working, until Wang told me my pancake was getting cold.  I should know by now that when something is served with a knife and fork, it’s probably for me.  But I took my pancake and folded it up and ate it the Kenyan way.  Then I ate another.  The carbohydrates put me to sleep, and it was after emerging from a 4-hour nap that I encountered the fish.

I’d slept away most of the day.  Unable to decide what to do or whom to call, I decided what I really wanted in my life at that moment was beer.

I ducked through the door on the gate, tiptoed over the muddy patch on the dirt road, through another gate manned by a guard in a green cap, trudged over the rocky pavement, let an old lady unknowingly lead me across the sandbags marking the pedestrian trail through a construction site, and finally came out on James Gichuru Road.  After darting across the busy street, looking right and then left (and as I do in every Brit-influenced place, panicked once in the middle of the street and frantically looked right and then left just to be sure that overnight the Kenyans hadn’t decided to start driving on the right side of the road), I came to a small shopping center with a restaurant called Kengles and frequented by expats.  I sat down at one of the plastic tables in front of a television airing a tennis match between Venus Williams and the Maria Sharapova and ordered a Tusker beer. The menu offers Kenyan versions of the typical dishes found in any American restaurant: burgers, nachos, wings.  I decided on the tilapia.  I took out a copy of Time magazine and read about my president’s latest failings.

You’d think that eating, the most basic human necessity besides sex, beer and sleeping, would be the easiest adjustment abroad.  Everyone has to eat, and as long as you have an open mind and money to pay for food, there shouldn’t be any problem.  It always is, though.

The thing about Kenyan food is that it’s really, really good – I just don’t know where it is.  I’m used to three meals a day, minimum, and snacks in between.

Kenyan mornings, like mornings most places, start with bread. Sometimes it’s chapatti, sometimes sandwich bread.  Sometimes there’s butter or honey.  There’s often fruit.  But then lunch times rolls around, and there’s not any.  There used to be Oscar, a university student who cooked at home and then rode up to the media house on a piki piki to sell generous lunch plates for 100 shillings (~$1.17 USD).  But he moved away.

The samosa guy still comes around noon with bags of chicken, beef, and egg samosas. They’re 30 shillings (~ 35 cents USD) each, so I usually get three.  That’s two more samosas than each of my coworkers.  And I have to get there early, before he sells out.  The rest of the day includes munching on bananas, apples, roasted peanuts, cookies, and potato chips, which are called “crisps” here, which for some reason makes me giggle every time I say it.  (I can call fries chips, but I just can’t manage to call chips crisps).

So in spite of eating a diet composed of 75% carbohydrates, 5% chocolate, and 3% beer, my pants are getting too big.  The thought of a nice fish with vegetables was making me salivate.

The waiter brought silverware, a fork and crooked knife, four napkins, and a bowl of warm water with a lime in it.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with this bowl of water.  So I asked.

“It’s for washing your fingers,” answered my handsome and politely amused waiter in the green vest.

“Strange,” I thought. It’s fish, not baby back ribs.

I went back to the dispiriting Time article I was reading about Gitmo and the improbability of my country ever having a leader capable of righting its wrongs.  Then the waiter arrived with a huge platter of fish, rice, and vegetables.  As I cut into my fish with the flimsy, crooked knife, I met resistance and realized that successfully consuming this tilapia would indeed involve my fingers.

I had completely forgotten that fish have bones.

That’s what three years without traveling will do to a person, especially an American who grew up in a world of seedless fruits and boneless, faceless meat.

My first encounter with fish bones was in France, at Monsieur and Madame Pons’ house in Hérouville Saint-Claire, the last stop on the tram from Caen.  I managed to eat that insufficiently small and scaly black fish Madame Pons flopped on my plate, but not without a lot of effort.  It got easier as time went on, and for a while I was traveling so much that when I ate American fish, I was disappointed about the lack of bones.  Talking about fish bones was one of my things.  Imagine the voice of Girl-You-Wish-You-Hadn’t-Started-a-Conversation-With-at-a-Party from Saturday Night Live:

“There are countries, Seth, where the bones are in the fish.  They’re just like, there.  And they eat them.  People die, Seth.  They die.  And we don’t even put mayonnaise on our French fries.  Look around at all the global warming.”

At least this time I was eating alone so no one could witness my complete breakdown of Western manners.  I clumsily picked my way through the fish’s delicate skeleton, surreptitiously pulled tiny bones out of my mouth and added them to the graveyard accumulating on the corner of my plate.  The ones I didn’t get, I washed down with Tusker.  I hope I don’t die.

There was meat left, but I don’t know if it was okay to eat it.  The eyes were gone, or seared shut, but underneath the fish’s cheeks there was some more meat.  But I don’t know if you can eat a fish’s cheeks.

In spite of wanting another beer, I left the restaurant, feeling slightly accomplished and yet desolate at the same time.  Not knowing what to do, even with something as simple as a fish, when you’re alone in a foreign place is both exciting and terrifying.  Next time, I’ll eat the cheek meat and get a second beer, just in case the cheek meat kills me, I’ll be nicely buzzed when I go.

After a quick trip back home (the mall is not that far. I can’t tell you how many kilometers, but I bet most Kenyans can tell you. Many are pretty knowledgeable about distances. I’ve got the it’s-about-so-many-kilometers response for my how-far questions) we were heading to town. This time, we traveled by “matatu”, the vibrant, well-known and ubiquitous mode of public transportation in Kenya. Third sight of familiar, since it’s like the tap tap of Haiti. My friends of Okap would recognize the “yol,” which are pretty common in the Lettre L circuit. Three things were a little different from Haiti though: it seems that some of the matatus are consolidated, owned in group by an individual or company; also, they travel faster thanks to the good, large roads available; and a lot more roundabouts. The latter actually reminded me of my short time in Paris in 2010.

In town. Our host showed us the matatus we would have to take to get to work on Monday. It’s gonna be an adventure, I can tell. Then, more of the familiar. The bus station, or stage as they seemingly call them here, was just like in Haiti, at least like Okap. Life surrounding the station was also familiar: lots of small shops selling lots of things densely situated, lots of people moving in all directions. For a Saturday, it was really a “jou bese leve” (Haitian expression denoting Saturday as a very busy day) in Kenya. Saturday (June 1) was also a holiday; the country was celebrating its 50 years of self-rule. The holiday is called Madaraka.

In town we met a friend of our host; he invited us to join him to another friend’s birthday celebration. Jon and I, just in town for less than 24 hours, knew nothing about the birthday person. He (Kim) said that was fine. Apparently we were doing things the Kenyan way. We got to the place in Langata; it was kind of a local bar with couches and tables. Several people were already there, many drinking the famous Tusker –well-known beer around. It was going to be a night chilling, chatting, and most of all drinking.

Music was playing through a speaker with their videos simultaneously showing on a TV screen. More of the familiar. Hip Hop, African and Caribbean rhythms and songs. If I wanted to know the lyrics of the familiar Hip Hop tunes, I could just ask the young Kenyans that were part of the celebration, which was going well. Later on, the first major novelty of the day was there: nyama choma, a Kenyan dish of simply meat. It was delicious. We ate it with some ugali, the Kenyan equivalent of the West African fufu. More drinking made the night. Though I tasted the Tusker to see what it was like, I stuck with a low alcohol, juice-like, drink called Smirnoff Ice. Don’t be fooled by the name; it was indeed low-alcohol. That birthday celebration/hangout lasted at least 5 hours. Many went to nightclubs around the area to finish the night.

Jon, our host and two other friends who came to pick us up, and I left the local bar at about midnight to head to one of the nightclubs. It looked much more like a bar. Its name was Rafikiz (Rafiki is ‘friend’ in Kiswahili); it was packed. Inside and outside, people were sitting; many were drinking, some were dancing. That was the last sight of the day. We got home past 1am.

Which brings me to the here and now. It’s a lovely, sunny day in Nairobi and rooming with a British engineer, even for only a few days, already has me saying things like “it’s a wee bit wonky” and “do you fancy a drink?”. Louisa, the Brit, leaves in a few days and will soon be replaced by an American, so I’m sure the expiration date for these phrases is coming up soon.

I’ve reunited with all the KDI Kenya staff and enjoyed my first few versions of “How Are You”, as sung by Kiberan children. Perhaps the coolest part about returning to Nairobi is seeing the project that I worked on last summer in it’s nearly-completed form.

Before we get to that stuff, though, I want to share just a few pictures from some recent excursions. The Auerbach clan was busy graduating in May – Eric with his second masters and Ben with a PhD. Then of course there was me with my (first) masters and Ben’s wife, Sam, graduated with her NP. To celebrate, we all made our way to Montreal to eat and explore.

And now for the story about getting to Kenya… Upon trying to check into my flight on KLM, I realized that I had booked my flight out of JFK for Thursday, May 30, at 11pm. However, I booked a flight from Chicago to New York to catch this flight on Wednesday, May 29, in the afternoon. That meant I had a full day and a half to bum around New York. This was annoying in that I really could have used that extra day at home; nonetheless, I enjoyed my day in New York fitting in some last minute exercise prior to sitting in a narrow airplane seat for the next 20 hours.

BUT THEN… upon actually checking into my flight on KLM, I also discovered that I had a 9-hour layover in Amsterdam. Score one for me! This meant I had plenty of time to explore, which is exactly what I did. See below.

And now, of course, I am in Nairobi, half-settled into a fully-furnished and serviced apartment and jumping straight into my mile-long to-do list. The apartment is cleaned everyday. They even do our dishes – quite a luxury! And my first few visits to Kibera were met with lots of adorable children.

We pulled into the station and had a bite before we headed back into the insane traffic. I’m not even sure how long it took us, but it was long enough to listen to an entire sad story about some British politicians childhood on BBC Radio. So long, and painful!

We eventually arrived at Jungle Junction, and had heard that it was pretty run down but it was great for meeting people traveling up North and to repair cars so we decided to stay for one night and then find somewhere else.
Well, we didn’t need to! Jungle Junction is great. Okay, so it’s in the city but what else can you expect from a backpackers in Nairobi.
It was also great for Peter and Kristina because they were looking for people to possibly travel up north with, for security reasons!

We settled in nicely on the green grass, and decided it was cinema time. There was a mall in walking distance which had a cinema, and was showing The Croods. After watching the trailer in Mombasa, Kristina and I desperately wanted to see it!

Now Peter and Kristina met at a festival in Germany, had a love-at-first-sight story (they even got “married” at the festival) and decided to travel Africa together 4 months later. It’s a great story, but they have never had a “first date”. We have joked along the route that when we find a cinema, they have to have their long last first date!
Turns out Warrick and I are also newly together (or back together!), so we had a double date!

We put on our best clothes, dolled up a bit and headed off! We got tickets for the movie and got popcorn, coffee and Dormans chocolate brownies (THE best!) to snack on. The movie was great. It was so nice to go to the cinema. I actually hardly even go when I’m in Durban, so it was a treat either way!

The next day the boys got their way and we went to see Iron Man 3 in 3D.
Life changing movie? I think not. Entertaining? Definitely!
Problem was, poor Kristina didn’t understand a word because she has never watched an Iron Man movie and she battled to understand the fast “American English”. Truth is, even I battle sometimes!

We walked to another mall in search of flag stickers for our car, but we had no luck so called our taxi driver. He had been super chatty on the way there, and now (we suspected) had a few drinks in him and was even more chatty. He was a bizarre fellow with links to the police and what not. It was one of THOSE taxi rides home. Needless to say, we all wanted to kiss the ground when we arrived back safely at Jungle Junction.

It was a really sad day for me. Some of my best friends, Kate and Mark, were getting married and I wasn’t able to attend. My mom sent me a picture of Kate in her wedding dress and I just burst into tears!

Kate and Mark gave me a bottle of the wine they would be serving at their wedding before I left. I had kept it for 3.5 months, and when we got back to Jungle Junction I popped it open and Kristina and I polished it. It was GREAT wine, and helped to keep my eyes a little drier for the afternoon.

Friends at the wedding kept sending me pictures and videos of the wedding celebrations, and I really felt (for a second) like I was there! Modern technology is spectacular!

We bumped into Gavin, a guy Peter and Kristina had met in Namibia. He joined us for dinner and entertained us with a lot of funny stories!
We got onto the diarrhea topic, which seems pretty popular amongst travelers in Africa (it’s bound to happen at some point!), and Gavin told us a story of when he was feeling ill and didn’t have enough time to stop the car… And well, I don’t think I need to elaborate. But being Gavin, he just said to himself, “We’ll, there’s nothing I can do now!” and continued driving to the next town!!!!
We were all both shocked and in hysterics for the rest of the evening. Gavin has a dry sense of humour, and kept us laughing!

The next day we headed off the the Soko Soko Craft Market. It’s basically just an oasis of wealthy people staying in Nairobi, and trying to forget where they are. It’s a gorgeous market with tons of arts and crafts, but it was really expensive (as markets often are!) and I was grateful that I hadn’t been able to draw money. My all time best market spending: R100!

That night we decided to have roast vegetables because Jungle Junction has an oven, and we were all craving some nutrients after a couple days of eating caramel popcorn for dinner at the cinema.

We grabbed some Pesto bread and Sundried tomato bread, a ton of veggies and headed for the kitchen. Problem was, it was a semi-functioning gas oven. We probably should have tested its functionality beforehand!
After an hour in the oven, the veggies were hardly warm and we were one loaf of bread down. We decided to pan fry them, and they actually turned out quite decent!
The next two days Peter and Kristina sorted out their Ethiopian and Sudanese visas, while Warrick and I basically did nothing at camp. It was actually nice to just sit back and chill for a bit!

Three movies down, we left Nairobi and headed for Mount Kenya. Warrick and I wanted to go to the equator, and then planned to head back down south… Homeward bound!
The last few days were tough because we all knew that after Mount Kenya, we would have to say our goodbyes!

We drove up around a cloud covered Mount Kenya, and stopped at the Equator. There were about 20 British Army trucks lined up, and we had to wait to drive our cars up to the sign. In the meantime, Kristina and I got out and made use of our time by shopping at the local stores.
Like everywhere in Africa, there are 20 shops and they all sell the same thing.
And boy do they usher you into their shop.
“Me next, come to my shop. I give you good price!”

I felt like saying, “We’ll buddy, I didn’t like anything in that shop and I’m guessing you have all the same stuff, right?”. But I held it in and looked at a couple of shops. Eventually I gave up and we headed to the sign to take some photos. One of the army guys was originally from Jamaica and on hearing we were South Africans, he wanted a photo with fellow cricket watching fans!

After taking photos and buying a few gifts, we headed off to find a place to stay. We stayed at a place called Rangelands just outside Isiolo town.
It was our last night together, and we were all pretty sad about it!

We had a great little farewell, and like any good farewell should we had a great meal and then started drinking our sadness away. With Superhero and other tracks we all love pumping away, we drank and danced and hugged and danced and drank and laughed and danced! It was great!

We woke up feeling a bit under the weather (I wonder why?) and decided to pack up and have our last breakfast together in Isiolo. Turns out there wasn’t much in the way of restaurants in Isiolo, and we had stopped on the side of the road to figure out our next move. Chris, from Jungle Junction, had given Peter the number of a contact he had in Isiolo. Pawel is originally from Poland, and whilst backpacking all the way down through Africa, he stopped in Isiolo to help out at Fursa Children’s Centre. We gave him a call to see if he knew anywhere that we might be able to get breakfast. Before we knew it, Pawel had met us in town and had invited us to his home to have breakfast. He even extended the invite to stay at his house for no charge. All wanting to spend one more night together, we couldn’t refuse Pawels offer and followed him home.

He lives in the Fursa Children’s Centre property with his girlfriend. Pawel had some business to do in town and left after introducing us to Eugenia. She welcomed us into her home (4 absolute strangers!) and started preparing breakfast for us. Not to mention, she is 7 months pregnant!
She served us scrambled eggs on toast with coffee – just what we needed!

We relaxed at their place for the rest of the day, talking about travel stories. Pawel told us his story. He had left Poland with USD 100 and planned to travel Africa. He was adamant to not pay for any transport, and hitch-hiked his way down. He even managed to hitch a free ride on an aero plane!

On his travels down, he stumbled across Fursa Children’s Centre and desperately wanted to help out. He now runs the Centre, which supports over 30 children who are either orphaned or have social problems and cannot stay at home. He told us some horrific stories of the abuse some that some children have had to endure, and how Fursa has changed their lives for the better. The photos he showed us were proof of that!

They are trying to build a new house for him and the children to live in, because the place they are staying at now (well, I can only describe it as “the slums of Africa”) is less than sufficient. Problem is, he is battling to support the kids and finish the building project.

Having been there, and seen the work he is doing, I urge you to have a look at their website and make a donation… However small it may be! It will help secure these kids healthier and safer living conditions, and support them in going to school!

Pawel is trying to set up a sponsor for each child, which will cover his/her education and food. It only costs £1/day. If you can afford this in your budget, please get in touch with Pawel. He is doing amazing work, but he needs help!

Check out their Facebook page: Fursa Children Center

Pawel also told us stories of the road from Isiolo to Moyale, via Marsabit. Apparently there are a lot of bandits on the road, and they often rob tourists driving this route.
We all got a bit worried, especially Peter and Kristina who actually had to do it!
After an afternoon of debating, they eventually decided to travel with armed security guards to Moyale. Better safe than sorry!

The security guys stayed 90km north of Isiolo, and had no cellphone signal so we had to drive there to meet up with them and arrange a deal for Peter and Kristina.
Warrick and I decided to go with them for the drive.

We eventually got there, and Pawel managed to make a great deal with the security guards to join Peter and Kristina. All they had to do was fetch them in the morning on their way North. Easy peasy!

Turns out Kristina and Peter arrived there, and the guards suddenly wanted more money. When they couldn’t come to a deal, Peter and Kristina continued alone. Turns out they made it to Moyale without seeing one bandit, or needing security in any form, so it all worked out for the best anyway!

On our drive back, the sun started setting over the mountains and it was absolutely beautiful! We stopped on the side of the deserted road for a while and watched it retreat behind the black mountains. What was special was that as the sun set, the moon began to rise East – almost in perfect unison. It was a special moment!

We headed back to Isiolo and had dinner with Pawel and Eugenia. She had made delicious mashed potatoes and a homemade tomato, green pepper and onion gravy. We devoured almost every morsel before heading to bed for the night. Being in the middle of a bustling little town on a Saturday night, I had expected some noise, but Warrick and I both had one of the best nights rest of the trip so far!

We woke up to the sound of the kids giggling and talking around our car, trying desperately to figure out how we had got the tent ON TOP of our car! When I got out of the tent, I noticed our dusty car was full of little fingerprints!

The kids there are really sweet and ask some funny questions. The one little boy, Moses, wanted to know how much our car was.
“7000KSH?!”, he asked. That being a lot of money to him, but only R700 to us.
When Warrick told him it was worth 1 million Kenyan shillings, he couldn’t keep his jaw off the floor as he examined the car. He ended with, “Well, it is a very fancy car! It is beautiful!”.
Well Moses, I agree!

We had coffee together with Peter, Kristina and 30+ onlookers asking questions and giggling at the sight of 4 mzungus in their yard!
Eugenia then made boiled eggs and piles of toast for us to feast on.

Pawel and Eugenia were so good to us, and did not want to accept any money for their huge generosity. We managed to give them a donation and a bottle of Malawis world famous Nali chili sauce as a gift, and an invite to South Africa/Germany whenever they please.
It’s people like them that the world needs more of. Selfless, kind, accommodating and loving. We will always be grateful for their kindness, and hope to repay it some day!

After breakfast we had to say our goodbyes. It was a sad day indeed.
After two months of traveling with those crazy Germans, we couldn’t think of doing it any other way. We had experienced so many good (and bad) things together, and had become a little family away from home.
After almost convincing us to drive to Germany with them, we said goodbye to Peter and Kristina, and left Isiolo.

Nanyuki was the next town we went through, and we quickly spotted the Dormans Coffee Shop. Dormans is a spectacular brand of coffee, and Warrick and I decided to stop for our first solo coffee date. It was strange not ordering 4 cuppachinos, I must say!

We wanted to get out of expensive Kenya quite quickly, and decided to gun it all the way to Kadjiado, passed Nairobi. We made it just before sunset, and pulled into Bush Camp to have a look. It was a simple place, and the guy showing us around LITERALLY showed us around. He showed us every form of accommodation they had, including tree houses, even after repeatedly telling him we wanted to camp. It was a bit expensive for what it was, and there was no flat ground to camp on so we decided to move on and check out Masai Eco Lodge.

Boy am I glad we did. Sad part is, I didn’t get the guys name, so lets call him George. So I called George in advance and he happily gave us directions and already welcomed us to his lodge. When we arrived, we were welcomed with open arms. George is a great guy, also with a huge passion for traveling. Him and his wife have traveled all around South Africa and more, and they have bigger plans for the future. After talking for about 30 minutes, he offered us to stay in one of his en-suite guest rooms for the same price as camping. Well, we couldn’t say no!

We got settled and had THE nicest shower in a long time! It was our own private bathroom, had hot water, was clean as a whistle and the water pressure was glorious! All in all, an 8/8 on my personal shower scale!

We spent the night in a very comfortable bed and headed out pretty early the next morning. We said our goodbyes to George, exchanging email addresses so he could come visit us in South Africa, and left for Tanzania.

It’s amazing how just 2 kind individuals changed my whole opinion of Kenya. I had been a bit put off with how expensive it was, and how it did not cater to budget travelers needs AT ALL… And the people hadn’t been super friendly either, so I wasn’t sad to be leaving Kenya.
And then Pawel and George radically changed that. It just shows, no matter where you are from, what your culture or beliefs are, or what your path is in life – there are always people out there that make the journey worthwhile!
Thank you Pawel and George. (And George, I’m sorry I didn’t get your real name!).

Some bamboo is softer than others and, therefore, can easily be dented(think high heels) or scratched (pets or machinery) . For example, carbonized bamboo, which has been boiled to produce a darker color, softens the bamboo considerably. It however may be found to be more aesthetically appealing than natural  bamboo.

Strand Woven is the hardest type of bamboo flooring and is most comparable to the hardest of wood floors. It’s made from strips of bamboo that are shredded into strands and combined with resins, which help protect the flooring.

Strand woven bamboo is water proof and moisture resistant, which can greatly increase the life span of your floor compared to wooden flooring.

There are also solid bamboo and engineered bamboo flooring. Solid bamboo flooring comes in either horizontal or vertical grain types, which refers to the way the bamboo strips are laminated together when the flooring is manufactured. Which to choose? If you like the look of the natural bamboo nodes showing in the floor, then choose the horizontal grain. The vertical grain has a more uniform appearance with no visible knuckles, or nodes. Engineered bamboo flooring appears like solid bamboo from above, but those top layers are actually attached with adhesives to another layer of wood, such as plywood or pine (Source: Ask.com).

Color

Choosing the color is the easy part. That depends on your taste and the colors in the room. Bamboo flooring comes in a variety of colors that will suit any taste or interior. You can choose anything from a natural blonde to burnt mocha, Irish moss and red cognac. When considering color, traffic is again something to consider. The natural golden color is neutral and goes well in most decors, but it is not recommended in highly trafficked areas because marks will be more visible

Location

Bamboo can be specifically chosen depending on where it is to be installed. Indoor bamboo flooring differs from the outdoor decking. Decking is made from vertically laminated bamboo strips individually selected for color and compatibility.

It has low moisture absorption and high resistance to decay and UV damage, higher density and rigidity than wood finish and is easy to  maintain. All you need is your basic mop or broom to keep dirt and debris from piling up.

Additionally, outdoor decking has:

! No rotting, cracking, warping or splintering
! Looks and feels like natural wood, but harder and more durable than wood
! Can be cut, fastened, drilled and sanded like real wood
! Termite resistant
! Environmentally friendly alternative to using hardwoods

There is a price difference between indoor and outdoor bamboos. Generally, outdoor bamboo flooring costs more than the ones installed in interior spaces.

Outdoor bamboo decking

Contact us : info@stroikagroup.org to request your free catalog or order through our website http://stroikagroup.org/?page_id=837