SO here we are! I'm typing this from the expat community of Ruaka in north western Nairobi and here I shall try to recount some hysterically funny scary and bizarre moments that i've already encountered whilst here in Kenya.

I have just been distracted by the characters of Joseph senior and Joseph junior walking past the window and waving at me. Joseph senior is the gardener for Alison and Paul, and Jospeh junior is gardener/daytime guard. He sits in a little hut next to the cast iron gates that secure the driveway, and got all upset this morning when he was unable to let Paul out to go to work, as he was having the day off and forget to inform Jospeh junior of this... who incidentally is quite the handsome young man!

The safety here is (understandably) very secure, with the very possible threat of the crazy Somalians who do indeed make trouble wherever they seem to go. There is much to be safety conscious about, but for this first part of my journey I am staying in an expat area, the nakumatt (kenyan tesco's) does literally sell everything. It is the ultimate in ethical living - everything is locally shipped to the supermarkets, it has not circumnavigated the globe several times as much of our UK foodstuff does. There is no such term as free range or organic, because there's nothing to oppose it like battery farming and GM crops. Indeed, on the last friday of the month (payday here in Kenya) a man with his herd of goats will stand on the verge between the roads on the kenya - mombassa highway (although just WHAT justifies a road being a highway, i'm not sure...) offering them at cheap prices, either dead or alive.

I have arrived at what is supposed to be the middle of summer. Whilst it is still around 25 degrees here, the effects of the El Nino out in the pacific is being felt here as it continues to drizzle and then chuck it down alternately. The rise in the ocean (this phenomenon is felt across the equator) temperature just by 2/3 degrees leads to mre evaporation causing more cloud cover and then in turn leading to more rain. There were several areas of Nairobi that, by late this afternoon as we drove past, were heavily flooded with rushing streams full of that iconic red murram earth.

The roads as I well discovered today are hideous. Which I had always heard, but I always thought people just generally meant a few rotten potholes. But oh no. We came across a stretch of road near mathaiga (where the stupidly posh and out of place colonial gentlemans club still exists, and has a men only bar as I was shown last night at dinner) which literall had potholes 3 foot by 4. The main two reasons for the roads being in such disrepair are fairly simple. When Kenya got it's independence in 63 or thereabouts, the roads and railways were in peak condition (for the time) and would still be had they been maintained. However, the tax obsessed Moi spent the money 'elsewhere' and as such manyof the roads have fallen into disrepair. The other main reason is that where roads have in the past been relaid, they have not set the foundations properly so as soon as the rain comes, the road just falls apart leaving this gaping big potholes.

When Moi was elected out, and Kibaki was elected in then better things started happening on the roads. Now that corruption is nowhere near as bad as it was with Moi, the EU are willing to fund road building. The road to Kisumu is in fact being rebuilt as we speak. The EU pays for the road to be rebuilt, but to ensure that it is done properly european contractors are drafted in to actually build the roads. This caused uproar with local builders etc who wanted to know why they weren't given thejob. Well it's simple - they had their chance to build the roads, and they kept money for themselves by not setting down the right foundations. I.e the government paid for top spec roads but the contractors/builders kept a lot of the money for themselves. So is it so surprising that the EU drafted in their own workers? Not really. It's a hard but truthful reality.

The land is so arable here down in the the south west of the country, that it could easily produce enough crops to feed the entire country. But it is the infrastructure that lets it down, and there is no feasible way to get food from the south up to the barren land near Lake turkana in the north west and the Somali border in the east, which can often not see rainfall for four years.

One very enjoyable thing I have noticed already about Kenya is that it is so plush and green. Thick vegetation down here grows everywhere (again, with this murram earth, the land is incredibly fertile) and it's refreshing to see even in the centre of town big trees often playing resident to storks that sit atop the branches hunched up like old men.

Today I was driven around Nairobi and the thing that hits me most is the extreme in which you can go from Mathaiga where the plush country club lies, and dozens of embassy and ambassadors buildings with trim hedges and lawns are, straigh to Kibera. The worlds biggest slum. We didnt go into Kibera as there are no roads or even paths, just narrow alleyways between corrugated tin shacks, but we did drive straight through another slum right on the side of the right. And to have only been in Mathaiga and Ruaka just 10 minutes before. I've never seen anything like it. And Kibera is another British mistake in history as well I have found out. The Kenyan government (whilst still fairly corrupt, is at least doing lots of good things at the moment here) refuses to do anything with Kibera. Their argument is that it is a piece of land and the British government assigned it to the soldiers who had fought in WWI and came from the north of Africa, so that they had somewhere to live. So their argument is that there are no Kenyans that live there. But with over 80% unemployment and several million 'living' in Kibera that claim seems so impossible and ridiculous to believe.


We journeyed on Nairobi's 'ring road' today, (Nairobi equivalent of the the M25) which apparently is the hotspot for carjackings in the country. At night. I was first surprised to see that Paul has a radio like some police dude in the 4x4, but after hearing this, I fully understand the security link there! With Paul working for the company that he does, he and other managersof the company could be targets for ransoms. For this reason alone, the radio in his car has a direct link up to the GSU which is Kenya's idea of the SAS. (cool!)

4x4's is the subject of my final rant, and quite deservedly I feel! There is a growing faction back home of people objecting to the useof 4x4's in such urban areas. And frankly, anything is urban compared to these roads (and i've not even been up country yet). But what is funny is the locals and their 4x4's. They're all old and shabby and look at least 20 years old. You might foolishly put this down to the lack of money here, but locals won't even give a landrover a look if it is newer than 20 years old. If you took one of these shiny black contraptions in the Amboseli National Park for example - the real home for 4x4's you'd have to get the KWS to come pull you out of the mud every 5 minutes. It's funny really, considering people's attitudes to the new, and how in this case, the older landrovers are much more basic and do what they need to do - drive over stupid terrain and go through floods without floating.

Anyway, enough for one day! If you read this leave a post! Am missing home already. Us masungas stick out like a sore thumb here...! I'm not missing UK prices though. Or transport. The government should seriously think about bringing over some matatus to england instead of the red buses..... hahaha if you've ever been on one you will know just how much I am joking. You have to have a death wish to go on knowing what they're like. And a sign saying 'mug me please'. ha!


Hannah