Nilifika!

...Which means I have arrived! I am back on Kenyan soil, and Kenyan soil is back on me! (it's quite dusty here... hasn't rained in a while, although it is 'rainy season'(?).

After a tearful goodbye, a couple long flights with a lovely 8-hour layover in London where I got to visit some friends of mine from Victoria, I arrived, tired, at the Nairobi airport at 6am! Wow. I'm really back. Everything just feels familiar now, on my third time over. This means that I may not be able to write things that other people would find interesting, since a lot of it seems just old hat to me now, not as many surprises or shocks.

I got picked up by Philip, a staff member of ICM (International Christian Ministries, who own the school where I will have my lodging during my research in Kitale), who drove the back roads, right next to the Nairobi National Park to the Mairori house where I am lucky enough to stay for my time in Nairobi (friends of my friends David and Alison in Victoria). We spoke of politics, what it was like in January during the disturbances here, and what it is looking like in the future. I knew Philip from my last visit here, and I knew he would give me a more realistic version than some I had gathered elsewhere before I got here.

After breakfast and a shower I... did not go to bed. No way! I went into town!! Although drowsy, I had enough of my wits about me to navigate passably. I bought a cheap cell phone and some notebooks at a supermarket, found an internet cafe and a good cup of Kenyan chai for sustenance, and eventually made it to the museum, one of my destinations for the day.

I wandered first though, because although I must have walked from downtown to the museum tens of times before, this time it felt like nothing was familiar, like all the old landmarks had changed. Maybe it was my drowsiness, or maybe it was my bad sense of directions... I couldn't find anything familiar, but I did recognise where I had been, which is why I knew I was in circles. I didn't want to make the circles too big because there are some streets further away I didn't want to wander down by accident (I never did see those streets, but I had seen them on previous trips, when I was with other people). Finally, I asked a traffic person where the museum was. He didn't know, so he asked a man with shrivelled feet, in a hybrid of a self-propelled tricycle (pedalled with his hands) and a wheelchair. He asked if I could walk there.. I said yes, and then we were off. He 'drove' on the road, and I walked fast on the sidewalk... when we crossed busy streets it was perfect because he was like a shield for me. My technique for crossing busy streets is to wait until someone who is more confident than me (pretty much anyone) starts to walk. Then I walk on the opposite side of them (so cars would hit them first), and walk at the same pace. This guy was a bigger shield than just one person!

We went on a very busy road, which is not at all the way that I usually went, but eventually we got there. Once at the museum I saw my normal route, which is actually just one long straight line to downtown- only one turn, which follows a curve in the road (start on Moi ave and go straight!!). I had walked on and past that road ten times that day, without knowing it was the key to get where I wanted to go!

At the museum I looked up a friend who works there, but she was not in. I also bought Mike and I a family year membership to Nature Kenya, which gets us monthly newsletters (email) plus free admission to all the museums in Kenya... there are maybe 15 of them(?). It is a super deal, since adult admission to the Nairobi museum is KSh800 each (x2=1600) but the membership cost only Ksh1400. Cool, eh? And it supports a great charity.

After walking back to town (about 20 minutes) I caught a bus home to where I was staying (about 30-40 minutes?) in Karen, a posh suburb with lots of trees and big houses. The bus I caught was from the company 'CitiHoppa'. If I remember correctly, this bus was amazing and plush and fancy two years ago, but doesn't look like it has had any repairs or upkeep since then! So now it is just a larger, quieter and receipt-giving version of the rambunctious matatus (minivans packed with 15 people).

I stayed up til 8pm, then slept for 13 hours. Ahh... it's amazing what a difference sleep makes!! After a leisurely morning with the kids in the family (the girls only, the older boy, in grade 7 needed to go to school for Saturday morning!), I am now in the little center of Karen. Perhaps I'll go the Karen Blixen's home next, on my free Museum admission, which is just around the corner from my hosts!

The plan for now is to meet with people related to stoves on Monday (maybe Tuesday too), and travel to Kitale on Tuesday (maybe Wednesday) by bus. Then I'll start in on this masters research! More about that later!