since October 7th I have been in Nairobi. At the airport in Stuttgart, I met Hiram again, who has helped me so much in the past weeks and months to have a good start in Kenya by organizing a bed, airport pick-up service, and somehow also friends.
At the airport in Stuttgart
With a stopover in Istanbul, I landed in Nairobi at 3 a.m. after a 10-hour flight. The friendly immigration officer wanted to give me a visa for a whole year while laughing and joking, but I can't quite decipher the stamp and believe that it only applies for the next 3 months. A friend of Hiram and his brother picked me up from the airport and dropped me off at Maggy's place (also a friend of Hiram), who also opened the door for me with joy at 6 a.m. She was my host during my days in Nairobi and helped me a lot..
...to get a SIM card. This is very important here because most people and shops use their mobile phones for M-Pesa, which can be used to pay or send money almost anywhere. Cash and credit cards are less common here.
...to book a flight to Lodwar and to make sure I always get from A to B safely
...to order Uber cars (the taxi app that is banned in Germany) and pay with M-Pesa
...to translate Swahili into English
...to feel very, very comfortable in Nairobi quite quickly. We had only Skyped once before my arrival to get to know each other. Her hospitality was truly overwhelming and I'm looking forward to hopefully meeting her a few more times in Nairobi, Kakuma or somewhere else in Kenya in the coming months.
We took a matatu towards the city center to get to a large shopping mall. Matatus are private minibusses that can accommodate about 15 people. Honestly, I still haven't fully understood how to figure out which matatu is going in my direction and where they stop. Besides the driver, there is usually another person who collects the money and holds onto the doorframe of the sliding door. Tapping signals on the car frame from the passengers indicate that they will soon get off. The matatus that I saw were full of advertisements for Christian singers and Bible verses. There was also a flat-screen TV playing music videos at an ear-deafening volume. We drove for half an hour for 50 shillings, which is about 40 cents.
Shopping mall where you can get everything from SIM cards to kitchen appliances, cocktails, and at a huge Carrefour store
After meeting Maggy's friends in a bar, we went to a huge office building to watch the Manic Monologues: mental health is still a taboo topic in Kenya according to the director. I was very impressed by the power that the many independent monologues brought to the stage. Well-dressed people were sitting in the audience and I felt a bit underdressed. We were all given a green ribbon as a sign of acceptance for mental health.
Theater
On my second day in Nairobi, there was a festival and a road trip associated with it. With Maggy and other friends of Hiram, we drove to Machakos for an Amapiano event. Amapiano is South African house music. We had a great time there, many DJs played and we also danced to Nigerian Afrobeats. Amapiano also includes whistles, so whenever you wanted, you could just whistle along. Many of the tracks are in Swahili. This is the first song I Shazamed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpz9IEZEgOs It's about how lucky it is to have friends (and drink with them.) The only drawback of the event: alcohol was unfortunately much more expensive than in Germany. Every 10 minutes it felt like someone in the group said: GOOD VIBES ONLY. And that's how it was all day until dawn.
On the way to Machakos, shortly after Nairobi a German hospital in Machakos The crew for the festival Jägermeister and RedBull were certainly not missing I've eaten more meat in the past few days than in the past 7 years. Goat tastes really delicious A whistle is a must, just like the sweater in the evening.
Sunday started with a long brunch in a hotel in Westlands (a good area of Nairobi) to celebrate the birthday of one of Maggy's friends. Still sleep-deprived and without an appetite, I sat there and sadly looked at this huge buffet because I would have liked to try everything, but it was not the day for excessive eating. The evening became long as Monday was a public holiday and no one wanted to go home.
Birthday brunch
Monday - Huduma Day is a holiday that is dedicated to community service. But most people have told me that it doesn't really matter what the holiday means, as long as it's a day off. Originally, the 2nd President of Kenya introduced the holiday in his honor. After the holiday was abolished a few years ago, the constitution did not allow it. So the holiday came back with a new meaning and name. Like many others, I used the day to get out into nature a bit. With Philip, a German friend of Hiram, we drove to Nairobi National Park and did the safari walking tour, where the animals are kept in very large, natural enclosures, like in a very beautiful zoo. Mostly, there was only 1 of each animal, like half an ark. In the end, we spent some time with the monkeys, who emptied all the trash cans and came closer to our bananas. We also ended the evening in a bar. I got various contacts to people in Kakuma. Overall, every event was a good opportunity to network. Having accommodations, drivers, or simply nice people in Kakuma makes the departure there easier.
All the animals were chilling - holiday mode The lions were the lucky ones, there were 2 of them! I should stop posting random animal pictures, but I've already fallen in love with the zebra Sorry, just one more with the monkeys. But really, that's enough now!
I've heard several times that I won't last long in Kakuma. (That's the place where I want to conduct my field research, but you will hear enough about that in the coming months.) Because there's nothing going on there, the living conditions are very harsh, the weather is too hot, and I will miss Nairobi terribly. Maggy has invited me about 1000 times that I can come back to Nairobi anytime and I am always welcome.
Maggy cooking Ugali (Kenyan national dish made from maize) with spinach and goat meat. I think it's delicious
On Tuesday, I visited the Jesuit Refugee Service in Nairobi. I had been in contact with the organization for the past few months since they also work in Kakuma and I would have liked to do an internship with them. I got some helpful contacts and it was nice to meet the people behind the emails in person. There, too, an employee told me that life and work in Kakuma are very draining and the weekends are endlessly long because there is nothing to do. I'm a bit afraid that I have gotten too used to the urban life of Nairobi.
A few words about Nairobi. Before my departure, I was afraid that Nairobi would be similar to Abidjan (Ivory Coast), a city where I couldn't get a wink of sleep because it was too hot, too loud, and too mosquito-infested. I didn't get a single mosquito bite here and in the evenings I had to put on a sweater. The weather felt like the last warm summer days in Germany when the nights start to get chilly. So really very, very bearable.
On the streets of Nairobi An Uber driver dropped me off 30 meters too early and I panicked for a moment because I can't navigate yet and it is best not to walk long distances alone in Nairobi. Looking lost is not very helpful there.
Without Konrad, through whom I met Hiram, through whom I met Maggy and all the others, the start in Kenya would have been very different and much more difficult. So, thanks a thousand times!
And thank you, readers! I'm very happy if you read my blog. If you think that I reproduce racism or write unreflectively about people, things... please tell me! With some of the things I experience, it is very difficult for me not to generalize and not to impose my preconceptions on them. I haven't been as aware of my whiteness as I am now for a long time. But that doesn't mean that I always know how to handle it correctly.
It would be cool if I could also hear about your lives. I have internet here in Kakuma almost all the time and the evenings are very long because I don't walk around outside after 6 p.m. So feel free to call or write to me. The rest of my trip to the north and the bumpy arrival here in Kakuma will be shared next time
