Kenya

Nairobi to Cape Town Overland

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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May 5, 2002
We left for the 4000 mile seven week trip in a Mercedes Benz truck overland from Nairobi to Capetown. As Bob suspected there would be, there are 17 kids all under the age of 30 on this truck-very cheeky Aussies and Kiwis and half a dozen ball-busting Britains. Overland trucks are the cheapest way to travel Africa so the trucks are always full of kids-guess we will be content with being the token elders.

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The master of African roads is the truck driver-cars cannot manage the ruts and potholes. The truck can go almost anywhere with its powerful engine and wide tires. James understands the power under his control. We are dumbfounded by his ability to wedge the truck into the smallest path, narrowest driveway, around the sharpest corner! Drivers are extraverted and have tremendous confidence-an almost regal bearing. I read this on my blog to James and he whooped and hollered and jumped up and down…Yes! Yes! That’s me! That’s me! First instruction from Rod: it’s a TRUCK and not a bus! Every time someone calls it a bus we are supposed to buy Rod a drink-I’m the biggest offender. I just laugh.

We are all divided into four groups that rotate daily-cooks helper, dish washing, security and “dog’s-body.” Security has to stay with the truck when are parked in the towns. Dogs-bodies are the go-fers. They fill up the water jugs at the camps and set up the folding seats. They set up the folding table for food preparation and put up George’s tent. (George is the Kenyan cook.) They also periodically sweep out all the dust and mud out from under the seats and the aisle of the truck. Dish washers make up three tubs of water-one soapy, one with disinfectant and one rinse. They set up two plastic pans for hand washing-one with soap and one with disinfectant for rinse. They dry the dishes by swinging them in the air.

George makes a fire on the ground with the charcoal he has purchased along the road and sets a big grate over the top.

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The charcoals much softer than ours…coals are red and coffee-water hot in just a couple minutes. Cooks helpers peel veges and generally do whatever George wants them to do while they try and keep out of his way. George has pretty fixed and definite ideas about how he wants things to go.

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For breakfast we have had eggs all different ways, French Toast, pancakes, dry cereal made with reconstituted dried milk, toast, wieners, bacon, canned spaghetti, beans. Lunch is grated carrots, sliced tomatoes, grated cheese, green or red peppers, sliced meat and bread for sandwiches. I ask Claire if this is always going to be lunch and she says yes, but to shut up and don’t complain because it’s the only fresh veges we get! So I don’t say a word! George usually puts out the leftovers from the night before too. Pineapple or bananas or dessert.

Dinner usually is served with creamed soup first and then African stew with mashed potatoes or rice, steak and baked potatoes, chicken and rice with good spices, spaghetti with interesting sauces…and many more good things like that. We sit on little camp stools to eat. A couple times George has fixed the African staple, maize, for us-a kind of fine white corn meal. You dip your fingers into it and form a little ball with which you then dip into a spicy meat stew and eat. When it is dark and getting colder and we want to sit awhile around the campfire we put a few coals on the ground underneath each folding canvas seat…works nicely.

The truck has padlocked compartments all the way around with doors that fold down. George has the keys on a shoelace that he wears around his neck. I get tired trying 14 keys to find the one that unlocks the compartment where our baggage is so I paint the key with someone’s nail polish. George just laughs.

The truck periodically pulls over for “toilet stops.” We scatter…boys on one side of the truck and girls on the other. On one stop I was one of the last to get off and after walking down a small bank I looked to the left and saw 6-7 shiny white butts all in a row. I yelled to the girls that I wished I had my camera-you can imagine the hullabaloo! Our hands get sprayed with disinfectant before we get back on the truck.

There are two heavy plastic drops on each side in place of windows that are rolled up during the day so we get lots of fresh air and can see out. It also gives us accessibility to people standing around the truck when we are parked at border crossings and supply stops for those who choose to stay on the truck. If everyone gets out we put the drops down because local kids are known to jump up and grab things off the seats. If we are in a camp the drops come down to keep the monkeys and baboons out of the truck.

The other riders on the truck ranging from early twenties to early thirties are bright and sassy. Besides Bob and I there are two other couples, Damian and Melissa from Melbourne Australia and Tim and Belinda from New Zealand-the rest are single-Heather and Fiona are sisters from New Zealand, Nikki from New Zealand but had been working as a nanny in London, Michelle, Claire, Sarah and Lorelle traveling together from England. Adrian is from Australia with a Canadian passport who lives and works in London and Pete is a New Zealander. In Victoria we will pick up Michael from Johannesburg South Africa and lose everyone else except Nikki, Fiona, Heather, Sarah, Michelle, Adrian and us. Heather, who was working as a nanny in London had a friend who knew Mick Jagger”s nanny (hope this is right, Heather!)

Most are already well-traveled-the four girls from England spent a year traveling together after “uni” (university) and Michelle and Nikki have done overland trips before-Nikki amazingly did a 6 month overland trip in the year 2000 on the old “hippie trail” from England to Kathmandu via Iran, Pakistan and the Karakoram highway. Both Michelle and Nikki are gunning for a job in the overland business and will remain in Africa at the end of the trip.

It’s fun listening to the British, Aussie and Kiwi accents but they insist Bob and I are the ones with the accent! I am starved for conversation and want to discuss the linguistic, cultural and political differences among the English speakers but I sense they don’t like it…that maybe they assume I am being critical of them…the arrogant American…little do they know how critical I am of my own popular culture and the foreign policies of my government.

There is a library (big box of tattered paperbacks) ranging from slut novels to the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela on the truck for long travel days. There is a cassette deck with speakers at the front and the back. The smokers have to sit in the back-always Michelle in her funky little hat under which you can barely see her sparkly eyes and Rod the tour leader. At the very front of the truck there are two steps up to a section of four seats on each side where the Brits usually sit facing each other so they can chatter. The rest of the seats face forward. There is a cooler for drinks.

We have lucked out with a really nice group that is very compatible and everyone enjoys each other. Tim from New Zealand says he couldn’t imagine his mom doing an overland trip-makes me feel good. Rod has confiscated the Michael Jackson tape but the rest of the music blaring all day on the truck stereo is ungodly as you might imagine. We would prefer to remain steeped in images of Africa…the sounds of the local dialects in soft voices…he sound of children’s laughter…the look of the bright wide smiles…the sounds of the daily village activity and of the animals in the parks, the sight of the incredible red clay soil reflected in the morning and evening light, the mind blowing brightness of the stars at night…the breathtaking red sun while it is setting down on the Zambezi…we have left home partly in an effort to get away from the abrasiveness of western popular culture…but James says the other riders are young-this is their time to enjoy…

Bob and I don’t sit together…24 hours a day since February is more than enough togetherness. The truck is not full and many of us get two seats to ourselves. In July and August we are told the truck will be filled to capacity-36 people! I can’t even imagine it! It is good to be traveling now.

Terrorism in Kenya

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The U.S. embassy in Nairobi was bombed a few years ago. The U.S. was going to rebuild across town, a merchant said, but now the location is being moved again.

Across the street from a local cooperative selling arts and crafts is a vacant lot. A woman in a purple gallabaya is using pans to scare birds off the lot. On the other side of the lot is a mosque. The merchant told us they think that the Muslims paid off the government to let them set fire to about a hundred Christian businesses and cooperatives that used to be in the vacant lot-six of them Maasai cooperatives.

Danger in Nairobi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

We were advised to go nowhere in Nairobi on foot at night. The downtown area is poorly lit and muggings are common. When Bob was here six years ago his trekking outfit arrived late at night. He  had told someone he was going out for a walk. Before he could take off however, his trip leader pounded on his door in a panic-told Bob he didn’t dare go. So thinking the leader was a bit compulsive, Bob went down and asked a Kenyan guy in the cigarette kiosk if it was true. The guy responded that if Bob went out he would likely be mugged within two blocks.

As it turns out, at our first meeting the night before we left Nairobi, one of our well-traveled American safari mates who had been working in Spain for 4 years, was swindled out of $450 the day she arrived. They posed as police looking for counterfeit money and intimidated her into showing them the money…which they confiscated saying they needed to copy down the serial numbers at the police station. The “police station” was a sham. They were very very good she said with some chagrin.

Bob had an experience in Arusha where a guy heard the teller at a bank tell Bob to use an ATM. The guy tried to get Bob to follow him and Bob had to try to lose him.

Later, in Zanzibar, while walking along a beach Bob took a picture of a boat. He was approached by a guy who flashed a badge and told him he was a policemen and to go with him. Bob said no and walked off the beach back into town.

In Dar es Saalam, while the truck was parked in front of the internet, a “tout” followed Bob around for an hour and a half trying to get him to use his “guide” services. He wanted to show Bob something off the beaten track and after about a block and a half Bob realized there was “nothing he wanted to see.” He started heading back to the truck and the guy tried to get him to take a picture of the post office which Bob knew was a no-no. Two more guys came up to him from nowhere and flashed their badges at him and said “We are the police, come with us.” A third guy came up in uniform and told Bob to get into the car. Bob said no and walked away faster and faster until finally he ran about four blocks back to the truck. Bob said it was spooky because if they had tried to strong-arm him he didn’t know what he was going to do.

Discovering African Issues

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One evening we had coffee in the Hilton coffee shop and just hung around watching the people come and go. There was an international UN conference on urban planning so there were people from all over Africa and the parade of women’s evening wear was wonderful to see. One striking woman who said she was from Rwanda had gone to school in Canada. She said the conference was dealing with many issues but primarily with the rights of the poor in shanty towns whose homes get bulldozed down in the middle of the night by the government or the police.

In fact, the local English newspaper, the East African Standard, recently featured an article about 200 armed policemen who destroyed shanties at the Kamuigi slums in Nairobi without warning at 6am. The article said the tenants accused police of being used by officials of the Kamuigi House Company Ltd to evict them. There was a dispute in court between officials and shareholders of the company but the police did not wait for the court to rule or the government to intervene. The land in dispute, the article said, was bought by 168 members at a cost of 125,000 shillings (100 shillings are worth more than a dollar) from an Asian who had since relocated.

Street Children in Nairobi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The next morning we went out to explore on foot and spent the entire morning dodging begging children. I am an older grandma figure so I get “mama, buy me some shoes-I have no shoes please. One piece of bread for me.” We are the new tourists in town so we are really targeted. The other tourists and expats have learned to walk the streets with stone faces already. I have learned to carry food in my backpack…we are told not to give money because many of them use it to sniff petroleum glue.

There is a local project to train kids to be street entertainers so thy can earn their money instead of begging. But as Bob says, they are still homeless. I asked a taxi driver why they were on the street and he said that some have deceased parents and others have good parents but the kids are just runaways. I said, yes, we have those in the United States too!

Nairobi…First Impressions

Posted on by Laughingnomad

On April 30, 2002, the plane from Cairo landed in Nairobi Kenya to music from “Out of Africa” (groan) and a horrific monsoon-season rainstorm. A taxi ride to the downtown area that should have taken 20 minutes took three hours.

The Parkside Hotel where we are staying, across town from the Hilton and Stanley Hotels, is decent and many of the non-governmental organization expats stay here. For a city with a population of two and a half million people the downtown area is surprisingly small and you can walk across it in about 15 minutes.

First Impressions
You immediately see signs of the ousted English: driving is on the left side of the road, many of the taxis are English (they look like black 1940 limousines)they serve English breakfast including pork and beans without the pork. Besides Swahili and the tribal dialects, English is spoken as the common language.

The feel of the people and sound of their voices is soft and resonant-not strident as in Egypt. The smiles on these faces are wonderful. We are very happy to be here.

We don’t feel in the least bit uncomfortable yet. We are called Mama and Papa…disconcerting reminders of course that we are not 20 something backpackers.

The women all have straightened hair unless they have cornrows or short cropped hair. The men all have very short cropped hair. One seller, comparing his lack of hair with Bob’s referred to both of them as having “mosquito highways” the literal translation for a bald head in Swahili!