books

finally I put down the "State of Africa", a giant 700 pages, consumed me in total 2 month and a few days to complete. It tells the history of Africa continent since independence, and it is not boring at all (some of us presumed books about history dull). It is almost my favorite type of read - fiction with a historical story at the background. Only that there is no fiction in it, all the horror and sorrow were just a while ago. Actually when I was reading the last few chapters of the book where it commented on 20 century, I can very well flipped open the newspaper of the present day and continue the story almost non disrupted - stories or rather news from Susan, from Somali, from Congo... It was the best read on history I every enjoyed! There were times that I had to put aside the book and stood up to breath and swallow cold water, just to remind myself that the history has passed; there were also times that i could not close the book despite late hours in the night for i was so fascinated of how little i knew, how fractional my information was from those so called news report on the TV. I'd like to read more on this topic and welcome recommendation.

i need some small delicacy between big meals for digestion sake, I guess. So I went to the book store called "bookstop" here in Nairobi although I still had a whole piles of big books that I intended to finish before going back to Europe (by now i am sure that i was too ambitious so Achim will actually need to include some of them in his large luggage allowance). The owner without doubt Asian descendant as a lot of business here are ran by them. He's kind and he has good eyes on the customers. Before I left the store, he showed me a corner where there are a whole shelf of African topic 2nd hand book. "I saw you standing in front of the African section (brand new) for long, thought you might be interested to these as well", he said. I thanked him for his kindness but explained to him though I am more than happy to read more but my journey home is in 2 months so I could not possibly buy more of those before finishing the ones i posted oversea from Germany (with expansive postage charge!). In the end i settled with buying the 2nd-hand "No. 1 Lady's Detective Agency" whose name I have seen so often in most of the African reading list. It staged in Botswana and the story is lovely. I am done reading in 3 days (I think if you sit still you can done reading in a few hours but that is not really me) and I want to read more from this writer. The story is still African, still has dark side of fate, but it is soothed perfectly with the author's descriptive but not over-done writing. It has a good ending and full of emotion for the country and the African land - it is just adorable. It is my lemon ice cream on a hard working day.

"Barack Obama" with a reggae tone

we heard this song on one of our daily matatu rides - couldn't really understand the lyrics but it kept on going with "Barack Obama" non-stop. Amid the whole craze of Obama, this song is sticking strong to my head at the moment.

people keep saying that Kenya is the best country to watch the big day outside of US - but let me rephrase this - Kenya IS the best country to watch the big day even counting US! Everything is about Obama here nowadays, sharing some statistics:

Kenyan who can imagine an Obama failure: 0

Kenyan who believes in actual benefits/changes to Kenya if Obama wins: more than 50% of the population I'd estimate - and for sure everyone from western Kenya where this golden boy's father came from

One of the many shocking comments - from a 25 year old student (since she's 25, I suppose she's a univ student):

"...it is definite that Obama will ship his family to the US. The visa restrictions will also be reduced. Also, I think he can influence more aid to come to Kenya. Kenyans will also have an upper hand to go to America compared to people from other nationalities..." (from Nation Daily today)

I believe this young girl has already packed her stuff and bought her one-way ticket to her American dream.

There are of course more sensible voices on this but they are drown without trace in the wave of madness of confidence. One of these sensible opinions was the title of the other major newspaper (the Standard) on the election - "America Decides", I'd rather put it as "Americans Decide", but either way it points out the obvious. It is the Americans who will give the mandate of who will be their next President, the reverse is also true: it is the Americans, whoever becomes the next President of USA needs to be accountable for primarily if not solely.

The winning of Obama, can only bring on one positive thing for sure - it is the belief that you can achieve something big despite your skin color, as long as you try hard enough. And this goes for all the Chinese, Indians, Latinos etc, not just the blacks.

-----------------------------oh but I do forgot-----------------------------

another positive thing is surely to come besides the cheerful mood - Kisumu airport is building a new terminal so that Air Force One can land there when Obama visits his grandma and his fellow relatives, and let me just say the whole Kenyan population since we are related to him in one way or another. A new terminal = new jobs = more money = bigger welfare. So I should really be lest sceptic on the whole thing!

besides building new terminal, people in Kisumu are also busy voting(!) - according to the Standard page 8 today, a mock voting exercise on the US election is organised today in Kisumu town, supports of Obama (= everyone) and supporters of McCain (= alien) can cast their votes, and obviously the election, contracted to the real one end of last year "will be free and fair and tallying, will be not conducted at KICC" as claimed by Mr. Lawrence Oyange, who is in charge of this "election".

Bring on more fun.

weekend to the west

Last weekend was a long weekend thanks for the formal president of Kenya’s birthday, I decided a while back that we SHOULD visit Kisumu – supposedly the 3^rd largest city in Kenya and it is right at the shore of Lake Victoria – the biggest lake in Africa (and the largest tropical lake in the world and the 2^nd largest fresh water lake by surface size in the world if you are a bit of statistic fanatic too) territorially belonging to 3 East African countries and the source of the mighty Nile. To add on to this long list of reasons, the only rain forest in Kenya – Kakamega forest reserve is just around the corner. So let’s go.

My excitement of the trip was firstly put off a bit by the delayed flight with Fly540 (the Germanwings/AirAsia/Easyjet in Kenya ) and then when we reached the New Victoria Hotel which should be a good mid-range hotel according to lonely planet, we were told that the room I reserved a few days back was taken already by someone announcing him/herself of the same name of mine (this made me really wonder)! So we were forced to look for another place. Luckily it was just down the street. Let’s just say it was dark enough to not notice how shabby the room was and too late of the day to mind.

Kisumu is much safer than Nairobi as we felt mostly safe wandering around even after dark just by ourselves (being one of the only two aliens in town). There were of course the usual “taxi taxi” touts but the annoyance was minor. The day after we spent a good half day to explore the city – and that is pretty much quite enough to walk about town! It is nothing of the scale of Nairobi but it was tropical heat to walk so we had to make many water-supply stops a.k.a sitting down in the handful of cafes for a soda. The town is sleepy compared to Nairobi but I really enjoyed the calmness (who needs the craziness of Nairobi anyway?!), the pave ways were more or less even though climbing up and down, and they were mostly shaded which strangely reminded me of Penang. Forget about taxi, to go around you have the options of bodaboda (bicycle taxi), pikipiki (motorbike) or tuk tuk(3-wheel motorbike); we even took a tuk tuk to the airport when we departed and the whole journey costs less than 3 euro with breezy air free of charge.

We walked towards the lake then along the train track – for we really wanted to figure out whether the train from Kisumu to Nairobi was still running. We were told by a friend that it is wonderful to see rift valley with the slow train journey but when we consulted the officers in Nairobi train station we were told the train was suspended. Along the road we spotted many signs signaling “mind the crossing” etc – it is all very necessary since we did not see any single running train for the whole day! We finally arrived and the officers there nicely confirmed the fact of the suspension but said “it will reassume next Thursday”. Damn it, of course only just couple of days after we would have left Kisumu! The funny thing is – although it seems no trains were running on any schedule, but there were at least 4 full time personnel there, doing nothing. So we wandered back to town and decided to try the fish stands along the lake. Definitely highlight of the trip! Tilapia are ample and fresh from the lake – we had one fish which weighted more than 1kg just for ourselves! It was all and all a finger-licking-tasty experience, for one thing the fish’s very fresh and tenderly fried, for another it is quite usual that fork & knife are not served in Kenya. I enjoy thoroughly eating with hand only we do need some practices for our poor fingers as they are not really used to grabbing hot flesh while my stomach can’t wait any second longer.

After our feast on fish and the million time saying “hapana asante” (no thanks) to the many sellers of all kinds of goods, we decided it was time to head for Kakamega forest. It was altogether another journey in itself. Firstly a matatu towards Kakamega and we shall get off at Khayega just before Kakamega which took us almost two hours, then a 30 mins ride at the back of a piki piki (mind you: 2 of us with a huge backpack all on one motorbike) on a really bumpy dirt road. Just before I thought we would never make it in one piece, we arrived finally to the heaven on earth for our weekend trip – Rondo Retreat. It was homey, cozy and completely integrated with the surrounding ancient rain forest. I don’t know how to describe that is why you can look at some pictures instead. It was nothing luxury but it was just the effortless effort they spent on putting up the place – many nice sofas to crawl in and armchairs by the magnificent garden, not to mention the lovely collected library with many interesting reads.

I slept like a babe that evening with the sound of nature and woke up renew to our exciting walking trip in the forest. Briefly discussed with our guide, we decided that we would take the longest half-day trail along the yana river. I was too optimistic about the hike and slid and fell hard on my bottom 5 mins after we began the walk. The good things were – I knew how slippery the wooden paths on top of the stream were under daily rain soak and now that my pants were all dirty I did not mind falling in mud again. One of the wonders of the forest was tree murdering. One tree will literally entangle another till the poor one dry out and die away. We also saw the blue monkey (which looks exactly like the wise monkey in Lion King, remember?) and the red-tailed monkey (which is more orange than red, looking like someone has lit up the poor thing’s tail). Another highlight was seeing giant army of safari ants – they were moving in a stream, and a few much bigger fighter ants were solders at the outskirt guarding the march and they will bite hard if you appear threatening! The ancient forest is also famous for its huge variety of butterflies – I had never seen so many butterflies in my entire life.

I was all wrecked after the long walk and glad that we finally made it back to Rondo. We had another lovely well cooked meal and not matter how unwillingly we had to start the whole motorbike+matatu hike back to Kisumu before it was too late. We would love to stay in Rondo for another night…only if we had enough cash on us! (they do not take credit card, see Visa or Master can’t buy everything) The motorbike ride was easier as the mid-day sun dried out the mud road a bit, but the matatu drive was a nightmare of nightmares for me. First of all, at one point of time there were 22 adults and 2 kids on board for a small tiny Nissen which was allow max 14 passengers, plus a small chicken held by one of the kids. Well people know me know that I have phobia for chicken since young (I know that is irrational but isn’t that just what phobia supposed to mean?!), so I was all worried and panic a little while comforting myself by thinking “oh this is just a small chick even without grown feather yet…and she will probably drop off in the next town… ” well she did drop off after 15 mins or so but here it came – a man with like 10 grown cocks and hens got on! In China people will transport these domestic animals in cages but here they were simply tied up by their feet and put underneath one’s seat. So these ten seemly harmless animals were just laying 15 cm away from me right next to Achim’s feet. I was dreadfully scared and being completely honest even a few drops of tear were shed out of fear. This guy with many chicken only got off before we arrived in Kisumu and hence the whole journey turned into a small personal disaster for me.

The last day in town – we went visit the very price-worthy Kisumu Museum. The ticket officers must be a bit disappointed that after all two muzungu were only paying the tiny resident rate of entrance fee so they actually sent a guard to double check our resident status after we entered : ) We paid 1 euro and saw a whole display of culture/history of the western region of Kenya, a well-planned simulated village of the Luo people (local tribal group around Lake Victoria), as well as a small but interesting aquarium, a few tortoises, crocodiles and a informative corridor exhibition of snakes ABC. Well, what can you ask more except a bit of explanation of why the above combination. We enjoyed the visit a lot anyway.

Our trip ended with a late lunch again by the lake in the shanty fish restaurant, watching locals driving cars or school buses into the lake so that they can wash their vehicles in a most convenient way; street kids lingering around with a bottle of glue at hand staring at food on tables waiting for their share of the left-over and many street sellers coming and going with their beyond imagination variety of craps. Oh, what a weekend.

magical masai mara part I

finally i wrote this for i felt into the usual sleepless sunday night and instead of counting sheep I went up to write on my laptop.

I could barely know how close I can actually get to the nature until I landed in Masai Mara with this tiny 13 persons plane, the plane was full though despite the worries of fewer tourists due to PEV (post-election violence) and lucky Achim was invited to sit on the co-pilot seat (I highly suspect that was because of his pilot style sun glasses!) First time experience with such a small plane and I felt excited but safe. Right before landing, I spotted a group of giraffes among the woods next to the airstrip. Deep breath, I knew this was going to be amazing.

Our first camp was an infamous eco camp in Mara called the Base Camp. You can even take a free tour around to see just how eco-centric they are and stuff from the 2^nd camp we went to referred to Base Camp as ‘very local community friendly’, which can be seen from first contact – most of the staff hired there are Masai coming from the surrounding villages. I love the fact that they have a person who is like a COK (Chief of local Knowledge) who came to us everyday, not only to explain the camp but also to tell us interesting facts of animals, e.g. imitating different animal sounds we heard in the evening and had a quick quiz with us on who is whom (hippos made the loud but easy to recognise snore from the nose while hyenas have this creepy high pitch call when they hunt that woke us in the night a few times). The service was really personal and flexible and the whole atmosphere was always relaxingly low-key.

We spent 3 nights in Base Camp and then moved on to the newly opened Karen Blixen Camp (it was even on the news since they opened the establishment at a really inconvenient time right before the election time) for another 2 days. However judging from the number of occupied dinner tables – it seems the hard time has passed which I am really happy for them. The camp is owned by a Dane whose family come from the same island in Denmark as this well-known lady and the guy who is currently running the Camp still has this sweet Danish accent when he talked which of course brought back my memory of cosy time in Copenhagen. This camp is more to the luxury direction, and it locates at a really impressive part of the Mara river. The water roared all the time and it was so great that we could merely heard each other when we tried to talk while lazying around on our balcony. I would say that Base Camp is more to my taste but I was completely speechless when feasting on our late lunch, watching a family of elephants getting shade under the trees, and then a few impalas and zebras amid a whole clan of Thomson’s gazelles came down to drink water by the river, observed closely by a whole bunch of hippos who became so active and naughty once the heat ceased.

I can not possibly write down my whole 6 days in the Mara as most of the experience is out of my commend of writing skills. Perhaps I can try with a few highlights instead.

My most often seen – wildebeest. There are literately millions of them on the ground of Mara at this point of time. They are main actors in the scene of migrations but they are sadly called the ‘clown’. Well, not without reason though. They look a bit strange and they act even more random – quite often one wildebeest will start running to one direction without any obvious reason and the other will just simply follow. They have really strong legs and they are successfully breed here as a group, so eventually they are probably not as stupid as we think.

Among the wildebeest you can often see one of my favorites – the zebras. They are just having the most comic face among all animals and they can act funny too. But they are as well brave and forceful. I read that they play a leading role in the migration though unfortunately we did not witness that this time. However we did see they attempt to cross the Mara river as a clan alone, which was a very dramatic yet touching scene. The Mara river is rather deep sometimes zebras have to swim with only their head out of the muddy water. Not to mention that one of the their biggest predators are just hungry after months of waiting – Nile crocodiles which can measured up to 5 meters and weighted to 1 tone. A stream of zebras chose the part of the Mara of strong tide and started to cross, within 10 minutes more than 10 crocs swam near the crossing ‘path’ from all directions. However do not underestimate these cute faces, they have solid kicks which can frighten off most of the crocs in the fierce waves and although sometimes croc did managed to catch a bite most of the zebras escaped and successfully made it to the other side (during the whole time we were watching only one poor young zebra were killed). You hear them bark intensively like hundreds of puppies which was in fact the call of family. Seeing so many crocs crumbing around the remaining clan of the zebras were anxious and lost, so some of the zebras who had made it to the other side actually swam back in order to be with their family!(maybe give them further guidance and just to comfort the young ones) And they are as well smart. Seeing the crowd of carnivores at bate was too large they changed strategy and looked for a different location to cross.

The fastest animal on land – Cheetah. They might look similar to leopard at the first sight (or it is just me an wildlife idiot grown up in city?) but after some hints you distinguish them easily. Cheetah have rounded spots and have these tear lines just below their eyes. They made this ‘miao’ sound just like any kitten when they are trying to flirt with their mating partners and they are completely relaxed under the gaze of human beings. Actually they were so calm that sometimes they climb on top of the 4-wheel drive to get a better sight of their preys. On the other hand leopards are very shy cats. They are loners except during mating season. Most of the time they live on trees or lay down between low woods. They are very difficult to spot but we had a really good guide with us and we were the first car to ‘hunt’ down a leopard among the forest just before sunset among the high grasses and short trees.

see if you can find the leopard

My favorites are not the carnivores but the elephants and giraffes. They are the local breed which is significant smaller in size compared to for example India elephants. The similarity between these two is that they always seemed to wear smiles on their faces and the fact that they were co-appearing with a lot other animals all the time. In our walking safari for 3 hours, we were in the woods where a group of giraffes gazing, they were curious as well as cautious, keeping a certain radius of distance from us but circling around in a slow pace, stopping every now and then to stare at us with their very gentle eyes. It is hard to describe that joy! Warthogs are also happy creatures. Member the one who sings ‘Hakuna matata’ in the Lion King? That was the warthog. The reason why they were having no worries was really because they have extremely short memory! It can be a sad fact though in cruel nature as they could be so carelessly forgot about the danger they just encounter and go back to where they predators waiting : (

Ok, time for the king of the jungle – lion to come to stage. Their positive image is largely the result of popular culture, especially cartons. Their majestic look also helps to shape that up a lot I guess. But they are indeed most of the time quite lazy and even when they hunt they only have a 50/50 chance of success. In fact sometimes they stole others carnivores’ preys too! Especially the male ones – for me they are just modelling for foto! The female ones take up the responsibilities of feeding and protecting the young ones, they are usually in group of 3 or more sisters and their curbs become kids of all (fair and square). They excel in team work and hunt mostly only during cooler hours (not like cheetahs). Sometimes they have easy gain as well – (un)fortunately we saw a young lost wildebeest came down to the drink water at the river bank where a team of more than 10 mothers and curbs were resting. It took only a breath of 3 seconds for one of the lioness to catch this poor little thing. But there could be hard time especially when the wildebeests and zebras migrate to the other side – lions can grow so hungry that they have to pick a fight with buffalo – which is a chance to live or die.

... to be continued...

coming soon: Masai Mara stories and pictures...

I need to give myself some pressure so that I will eventually organise those 1111 pictures... literally, there were 1111 pics!

just outside of the estate where we stay, there are a line of tin-roofed small shops. Usually when I pass by them during the week, I merely notice what they sell as they are tightly closed, but during the weekend it is a complete bustling scene. There are the ordinary kiosks where you can get a good old glass bottle of cola and crest (local schwepps), along side the fruit/veggie stands. But there are also quite some others selling clothing, furniture, and "hotel" which basically means a place to eat. Today on my unimpressive matatu ride, attracted by the Simpson style mural, I encountered a shop named

TENDER OUCH SALON

oh mine, that's creativity and good humor. Not sure which part of service they are referring to, but doesn't it just catch your eyes and give you a big smile?

I need to take a picture of it sometime soon.

looking for the Sane man...

There used to be 2 mobile telecommunication providers in Kenya - Safaricom and Celtel.

the green color branded Safaricom is much more populous. Celtel was bought by the ambitious Middle-east and now African continent major player called Zain in 2005. From 1st August, Celtel is rebranded to Zain, the great launch included buying up all paints in color of magenta and hired thousands of people enthusiasticly changing all their service centres, shops and small kiosks into one big world of PINK. (from the pic is not very clear but German friends of mine, please imagine full house t-mobile color just brighter and deeper. YUP!)And this alone of course does not complete the grand marketing plan - so they have also initiated this program called "find the Zain man" through one of the most listened radio in the nation. The game is simple - they basically annouce via the radio station that during certain point of time (e.g. 7:30-8:30) a man carrying 100,000 ksh (1000 euro) will be at certain spot (e.g. today in front of my office) of town, all you need to do is to identify this man and ask him to prove it by showing the id of the radio host - then the 100,000 is yours! sounds really interesting. So today just right acrossed my office, mostly young people, were shouting at every man passed by, asking "are you the Zain man" , "I am looking for the Zain man" etc. Of course there is no description of this person and the only thing you know is that it is going to be a man not a lady... it was a lot of fun to watch : ) and today within the destinated time, no one actually found the Zain man and get that damn 100,000 ksh! what a pity!

oh, you might be curious which network that I am using....

of course, I am in Zain (sane)...

august

Till today I am here for a full month now. It has been eventful on both positive and negative sides and I am keen to use this update to reflect some key aspects of my time here.

Work started almost immediately after I arrived which was probably not the best option for timing since I had no holiday for a while before quitting my job in Bonn just right before boarding my plane down south. I am a VSO int’l volunteer in Kenya so it is kind of like that VSO is the SN manager in AIESEC terms and supposedly taking care of the logistics and the assignment arrangement with the organization where I actually work for, which is called Ufadhili Trust. Ufadhili aims at mobilizing local resources in eastern African country to help their own people stand on their own feet, or using their motto “east Africans take control of their own development”. I like it a lot, at least the vision in itself. I am not a hardcore agents of virtues skeptics like Paul Theroux (he wrote great traveling books that I enjoy reading a lot) but I do have my doubts of all these international aid schemes that have been active in the continent for so long and have achieved so little, that is why I am interested greatly in the alternative – that Africans can be self-help and self-dependence.

Out of Work can be probably more exciting except for the weekends. One frustration for both us is the fact that quite an amount of time needed to be spent on daily commute since our housing was not as strategic as one might wish. We are working on that now by looking at other lodging locations, which help to bring us some new friends here. Last Sat we were just sitting at a really chill bar and meeting up with Kenyan friends one after another who were really nice, fun, inspiring and helpful. I really hope that we can stay at a new place soon where we can spend less time on jammed matatu on the jammed road and more time on going to nice places meeting new/old friends in this beautiful country.

Weekend was the highlight so far for the past months. Since I came we’ve been visiting new places all the time during the past 4 weekends, well mostly concerning shopping and eating or general leisure theme. But also the excitement of getting to know new people, other volunteers, returned Kenyan and of course locals. Yesterday was the best! My ex-colleague from the yellow company has promised to give us a Narobi tour. I thought it would be something like Karen-Ngong kind of tour where tourist guides normally bring you and this will be just a friend’s version. But no way, it was a tour seeing really different parts of Narobi. We started from South B where we both live, continue to the industrial area where the major productions base and then to Buru Buru which used to be a huge neighborhood designed for Nairobi middle class by some high royalty in Britain (can’t google that out so need further confirmation) centuries ago. It has humanist design of curving roads and stone houses although one can not see very clearly the original structure after all these years’ reconstruction. And from there we drove through Eastleigh where the Somalis settle. There was all crowds, heat, uneven pave ways, and under the bright sun even more obviously dusty. My friend told us that everything trades here and if you are looking for anything they can get you ANYTHING you want as long as you can pay – gun, for example can be one of these goods. I was a bit shocked upon this piece of info and asked “so should I roll the window up a bit?” My friend nodded. Up north we went. All in a sudden, the dusty & dazzling streets have magically extended into waves of greenery and highway of top standard; houses disappear from sight. We came to the Winsor golf and country club – which is ANOTHER planet compared to Eastleigh. We stepped out of the car for the first time – with the excuse of breathing in some fresh air! In the far we can see white tents next to a lack amidst lovely forest. Another friend pointed at them and told me that those are for weddings. How lovely that it is almost dreamy. People say Kenya is a country of contrast, and Nairobi is definitely topping that saying.

Funny observation is what makes life here lovely. Hmm, let me share one to spice up a bit. More you need to come back to check my blog : ) Business idea nr. 1 – Chinese should come here to open salon besides all the construction projects. I’ve never seen a population that is so obsessed with their hair. Achim once said that he has problem distinguished all those Chinese faces during his time in Beijing, well I have a similar issue here but for different reason: some of my female colleagues change their hair look every there weeks or so! Yesterday in the team meeting I was staring at a colleague called Sofia with confusion, last week she was with this short dark black hair of lively curls but today she was with this all brushed up big tail at the back of her head. How can her hair grow so much over the weekend? Well, if you go into a local supermarket then you will get a hint – usually among all the grocery, you come to a section of all kinds of hair extension and wigs! Achim and I joked that we will stock our luggage with some of those for carnival back home! Go to any salons, especially those in the estates, it is always busy around the clock. Ladies spend hours to get their hair done since the African hairdos are anything but simple. When appreciating another colleague’s new combo hairdo of braid at top + straighten + color highlight, I casually asked how long did that take and the answer was shockingly 4 hours! Never been in a salon so long in my life! Actually I think that is the sum of my hours in the salon in Bonn during the last 12 months. They are creative and determined – all kinds of construction can be applied to their hair so that it will look exactly how they want. According to my experience, Chinese salons are among one of the most innovative (=“importing” latest tech from Japan & Korea), reasonably priced and relatively patient. 4 hours is still a gigantic number for Chinese salon but I am sure they can make it. It might probably add another taste to the image of Chinese people here as well, being too hard-working and equipped with Kongfu.

Wow, I would still like to comment on food but let’s pause here as I am tired of typing : ) write later!

better shut up and rest

I am in a bad mood recently, maybe a low tide, a normal down time in the learning curve of someone experiencing a new culture (which we talked about so much in AIESEC during cultural preparation). I am sure I had those in Denmark and Germany as well, and I guess I survived them just fine, so I am certain that I can fight the blue here as well, some time soon.

caught a cold and felt sick a bit over the weekend, so now trying every means to at least have a warm shower instead of cold water at 7am 10-15 degree morning.

I know I can get pretty emotional in phase like this, so I better shut myself up or else words will appear in this blog that I might regret in the future. So allow my silence for a few days...

swahili

I am learning Swahili now with a teacher contracted to VSO, yesterday I had lesson of 2 hours so now I can greet people properly esp. reply to the typical tourist "jambo" shout in a more decent way (to show off that I know a little). Besides greeting, the only 2 things I really know are:
1, to say what is my name and quest about others
2, to ask do they have wife or husband and further on asking how many children do they have

the latter one has become the laugh of my office (I am happy to be the entertainer every now and then). Obviously you do not ask around people how many children do they have but this is the sentence that I really want to practice, so I chase people around with this silly question. "Una watoto wangapi?" I am not good at guessing people's age, and esp. not good at that in Africa. I think some africans are just having really perfect smooth skin that lasts long. My swahili teacher Mwalimu Charles has 5(!) and even one mjukuu (grandchild) which I could never tell - I thought he's only around his 40 or so. We practised my new acquired sentence to ask about how many children do his brothers and sisters have. It turned that he has 4 brothers and 2 sisters, and in total his parents have 27 grandchildren (not known number of grand grandchildren)! When he heard that my parents have me as the only kid, he said "pole" (sorry) in such a sentimental way that made me feel pity about this fact as well. Hmm, big family. I do not see yet what is so good to have a big family except for sports purpose, but maybe I will be enlightened someday...

oh how I enjoy learning swahili, it is a lovely and not very complicated language (compared to German).

on a different tone, a voluteer (Kenyan) in Achim's office was very curious about Germany and asked a lot of questions. Some interesting and some not. e.g. "do your people teach your girls that career and work are more important and that is why they do not marry and have kids?" well, I was never educated in Germany so I leave my judgement aside, but I thought what I've been taught was that I have my choices, just like the others.

Kenya, Tourism and China

well, I have to say I haven't seen many Chinese tourists and businessman here yet although I have heard/read of many stories of them. But one significant difference I noticed here is - In Europe when I travelled, the local will always addressed me firstly as Japanese when failed usually tried Korean then probably Chinese. It was irritating but understandable. In Nairobi though, everyone is addressing me with "Ni hao" or "Chinese"!! So it seems that Asian are predominantly represented by Chinese here. Oh, how proud am I. Guess I will have a lot more to tell in topic of Africa and China, but later.

I have known tourism is an important money-making machine in Kenya, but not completely comprehend how crucial it is until I realized that there is always at least one page (most of the case a few) on both the top two daily newspaper here ("Nation Daily" and "Standard") every day. Current stories usually tune in to encourage domestic tourism, telling Kenyan that how cheap it is for them to visit their national park (which is not said, how ridiculously more a foreigner needs to pay though) and how wonderful their national parks are (which I'm truly bought in). In a sense, tourism is the only "business" that is mentioned daily on the news.

this blog entry has gone a bit random, but what I really want to share was a piece of news that I read a few days ago on Daily Nation which linked perfectly the two: Tourism for Kenya and China. The vice president of Kenya has visited BJ for her magnificent opening of the game with other 80 or so heads of state. In his meeting with some high officials in China (sorry I forgot which one) he enthusiastically expressed his wish, saying (in my own words) how Kenya is beautiful and more Chinese should visit this magical country. He has further detailed his expectation by saying "there should be 10 million Chinese visiting Kenya annually". I was shocked and literally stared at the number for a few seconds. 10 MILLION?! Annually?! I quickly did my simple math, we have 1,3 billion population in China so a bit over a century literally every Chinese would have visited Kenya! I googled some figure this morning, well last year the total number of Chinese visiting abroad were 40 million, more than 90% made their first trip oversea in SE Asia. Safari, mountain climbing or idling around the white sand beach are by all means luxury, even to quite some Europeans; and not to mention such a long journey require quite some days off for my fellow Chinese which is even a bigger luxury in workaholic China. How is the vice president exactly having in his mind that we can achieve this ambitious number of 10 million annually together? My big puzzle.

Alles in Ordnung?

Nicht ganz. But it is fine.

In Germany one of the most common way to ask “how are you” is to say “Alles in Ordnung?” which can be directly translated as “is everything in order?” which actually sound more like “everthing’s fine?”. You can tell how important “order” or “system” is for Germans. I have been told by many that I am “Germanized” or worse (!) people “praise” me by saying “hey Wing you are actually not Chinese but German.” I do NOT agree, I know I enjoy the comfort of knowing what is going on and where to find out if I am not and I am spoiled after all these years in Europe. However now I am coping Nairobi, I can be more than assured to say that I am still ok being non-German.

There is no system here or there is a secret one which you are only born to if you are lucky enough. Typical encounter is taking the buses. Actually I have never taken any official buses but all those more private and flexible “Matatus” (smaller or mini buses) that come to the corner of where we live way more often than those official buses. Matatu is one of the must see/try experience in Nairobi and they are famous for their individual colorful styling of the whole vehicle no matter how shabby the actually mechanic functionality of the car is, and second to none its often loud music (unfortunately for me mostly hip hop and rap, but I have also sampled one with more traditional type). I read that they are more regulated nowadays and at least they do take care of the actual capacity of seating in a single vehicle. Most of the time, you can find a number either on the side or in front of the car supposedly indicating its direction and route. But be warned, as someone just land in this city, there is almost no way to find out how many lines are there and where do they go (not on maps, no website, of course no online ticket system). There are official but more non-official getting on/off spots around the greater city, but there is never a number plate at the spot providing you with any info of which bus/matatu might stop there. So forget about a route map, lest a time table. Oh, and not even a fixed route. Of the same number of matatus, they can very well go on an different route (as compared to what you might just took the same morning) – depending on not so much about traffic but whether the machine can be filled up more quickly to ensure ends are met for this one journey. Not forgetting about the price - which by now you can certainly guess – that is also not fixed. The general guidance is 30 Ksh, but it fluctuates as how the market goes, the rule is the least traveled time/route the least a passenger pays, which is what market economics all about, isn’t is? So for going back and forth for work costs me 40 one way, but getting into town on Sunday morning (when everyone is with family and at church) will be just 20. So if you need to go somewhere unfamiliar and just like us can not afford taxi regularly then ask and ask again your informed local what the number of the matatu is and which part of the town you can hop on one. For the very first time, I do not blame those who can afford a car are actually driving one on the already completely crammed street, as taking matatu can be a real tiring experience if not yet a dangerous one considering how some crazy drivers “jumped” around in the city. But all our journeys so far have been task-completed and they stop just in front of our building if we manage to take the correct ones, so I am not complaining : ).

Oh since I mentioned transportation, air pollution can’t escape my mind. Nairobi unfortunately is still not a pedestrian city, not only for the crazy traffic and quite often uneven pave way, but most sadly because of its heavy street pollution. There are no heavy production at sight and during the weekend when you walk in city centre there can be actually beautiful blue sky, I conclude that the number 1 (if not the one and only) polluter is car emission. I am suspicious about the health (mind you not functionality) of most cars on the street, and they consistently pipe out ink black waste smoke. As some one who had lived 4 years in Beijing and love the city, I’d recommend the Beijing mayor, when facing pushy questions from foreign journalist about bad air in BJ, instead of defending and having the odd/even-number vehicle system, he can just direct people’s attention to Nairobi. I know this is a bad trick but every kid tends to use it when she is asked why such a low grade, I still remember vividly my response “XX scored even lower!”

Not walking around the chaotic city does not stop me from enjoying the lively street market. After all 4 years, I have fresh mango, papaya, pineapple and the much sweeter small banana again. And waking up to sweet-sour-all-mouth-watering passion fruit as breakfast daily: PRICELESS.