My first message from the road. Where to begin? Well, I was on the road for well over an entire day, due to the flight timing and a long layover in London made even longer by a flight delay. But I am easily amused, and this was no trouble (except for not having lip balm allowed on the plane, curses).
Our in-flight crew on the plane from Vancouver started off the humour of my trip by not knowing the pilot's name... "good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Air Canada. Your pilot for tonight's flight to London, England will be, uh..." click, silence. Laughter from all. More silence. "uh, John... uh, Smith". At this point I've resigned myself to the comforting knowledge that actually we have no pilot, we're guinea pigs for a new fully automated plane in which nothing can go wrong/click/go wrong/click/go wrong... so I go to sleep.
Having eaten more Sudafed decongestant pills than is wise (in order to avoid the loss of hearing I so enjoyed in Mexico when I flew there with a cold a few years back... it's funny when you're yelling in broken Spanish on a beach holiday, but not perhaps as funny when you speak no Swahili at all), I am feeling rather unwell by the time I reach London but determined to enjoy Heathrow. Sadly, having now spent a layover there, I can authoritatively tell you that NO ONE enjoys Heathrow. I did hop the tube out and go to Picadilly Circus (it gets me every time. Since age two. How can a place called Picadilly Circus be so lacking in elephants and popcorn? Oh well. I still go there everytime I hit London, hoping.) but it was freezing cold and I was wearing lululemon (not wanting to beep going through the security thingies).
Well I managed to finish one entire book by the time I left Heathrow at 9:30pm on December 31st (local time, you lot were all still getting up that day, I write you from the future, oh Canadians (okay not everyone I'm writing to is in Vancouver but the majority)). Of course I unwisely read my only fluffy novel first, so now I have the choice to read about spirituality or politics for the rest of my trip. Um. Or take up Swahili lessons instead.
British Airways is amazing. They give you a little packet with socks, an eye mask, and a travel toothbrush & paste. I had a vacant seat next to me so I took theirs too, plus their pillow and blanket. Again I cocooned up and slept the whole flight, with no harm to show of it except my alarmingly swollen ankles upon arrival. Of course the pilot (BA has pilots, they have not yet cut back like our national airline) charmingly woke us up yelling "happy new year Greenwich Mean Time!!!" at midnight, putting the Mean into GMT in a big way. Odd, too, because wherever the heck we were in the skies, it was already 2007. So again I just went back to sleep.
Jomo Kennyatta airport is tiny. And they have exactly three luggage carousels, which only occasionally function fully, in the international arrivals area. But somehow it was the most efficient and friendly airport ever. And I speak as a Vancouverite who loves YVR in the extreme, and who has experienced Vegas, Philadelphia and London airports and left hating them all. Nairobi is the most welcoming airport yet, filled with smiling and helpful locals who cannot tell you enough how glad they are you're visiting their country.
Faith, my local contact, picked me up and away we went. Since I arrived at 9AM on January 1, it was quiet on the roads. Most people are from outside Nairobi originally so they go back to their families at holiday times. I am assured daily by Faith that upon my return to Nairobi, I will see a wholly different side of it!
We checked me into my hotel in Faith's very calm, safe neighbourhood and she gave me a couple of hours to freshen up and settle in. I put my big fat swollen feet up and instantly was alarmed to hear what sounded like riots in the street. I tried to remember what I had been told to do - something like duck and cover, I think. The rioting noises went on and on, getting louder and more passionate. Some kind of rally? I listened carefully. Then I heard, quite distinctly, the word "Hallelujah" repeated over and over, and then everyone started singing. Apparently I was hearing an evangelical church service down the block. This service continued for the rest of the day. My first Nairobi riot and it was a spiritual experience.
Faith and I went into the city centre by something called a 'matutu'. Anyone who has been here, or has been to Turkey and been in a 'dolma,' knows that this is a hoot of a way to get around. You are sardined into a minibus and stop at random, not clearly marked places to pack more people in. Somehow it all works. We had lunch across the street from the Nairobi Hilton, a huge cylinder of a building that is very distinctive. Huge is relative, though - buildings are simply not tall here. I had traditional stew, and so far I have to say I'm not having the 'flavourless corn mash' experience I thought I would, cuisine-wise. No doubt it awaits me in the countryside where I'm headed next.
We then contacted Faith's friends, who are also friends of Karun's (my soul brother who arranged this incredible volunteer vacation for me). They live in the lovely suburb called Karen (after Karen Blixen - I recommend that any of you who have not seen the movie Out of Africa rent it today. Just to hear Meryl Streep say "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills".) Anyway the countryside is lush and gorgeous, and the roads are full of potholes the size of moon craters, so the high-speed bus trip out there was a combination of wistful gazing into the scenery and intermittent jolts of shock-absorber-free fun. We visited the Giraffe Centre, a conservation effort to save the endangered Rothschild giraffes, and I wish I could send you the pictures of me feeding them. They are the sweetest things. There are also funny ugly-cute warthogs in the enclosure with them, and lots of fascinating birds. We attended an ecology talk at the centre, which is an amazing place that provides free ecologically minded educational opportunities for Kenyan children. Their simple message is: teach children to love the environment as themselves, so that they will take care of it and have a world to inherit". the people running the centre are so passionate and sincere, you cannot help but fall in love with it all.
Then we went to have tea at the friends' place (Robert and Kevina). She is a Newfoundlander originally who works in international development, and he is a local Kenyan. They have rented the sweetest little house, it's just behind an orphanage run by the church so you hear children laughing all day. And they just adopted a dog who then suddenly gave birth to nine puppies, so the next set of photos after the giraffe kisses is me nuzzling itsy bitsy puppies.
By the time we left their place it was dark (light/dark patterns here are the same year round, basically it's light from 6a-6p every day) and the nearly full moon was glowing, illuminating the hibiscus flowers and bougainvillea trees. They gave us a lift in their jolty little VW bug to the Karen Shopping Centre and there we caught another matutu. The hilarious thing about matutus (one of the hilarious things, there are many) is that at night, they become little nightclubs. Blacklighting, insanely loud dance music, the whole nine yards. I can't do it justice in words.
Anyway, we got back around 9pm and I had to admit I was tired. So I had a great night's sleep and this morning, I braved GIZZARDS with my breakfast because I came here for new experiences, right? Well, much like Vegas - Gizzards are something I can say I've tried once so I never need try again. And I'll leave it at that.
Today I'm going to spend the day with Faith, helping her welcome new delegates she has coming for an urban youth project that sounds amazing, and in the afternoon she'll hand me over to my main contact at Wajee bird sanctuary/resort, which is to the north of Nairobi in an area called Nyeri. I'll be there about a week or a bit longer, and then back to Nairobi for a few days to get tours of UN, Red Cross, meet Human Rights workers in the field, and so on. Then on to new adventures! I'll write more when I'm back in Nairobi, there are lots of Internet Cafes here (called simply "cybers").
Best wishes to you all for a beautiful start to 2007. I'm having an amazing time and I've only been here 24 hours.
I send you love and blessings from Africa!
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