Peace in Chaos

It’s the little things that surprise me here. Like this morning, I was picked up on time for my day trip around Nairobi. Weird how I didn’t have to wait for anyone, it’s almost like I expect to wait now. Sarah and Karen had plans for today so some other colleagues from the office, Rafiell, David, and Sam, joined me on my tourist adventure. As always, the traffic into Nairobi was crazy. I am continually amazed at how long we just sit in the car at one place. Just to get from one side of the city to the other it took us over an hour. In the car I talked with David about the government system in Kenya. He explained to me how there were so many different political parties and people didn’t even vote for platforms, they basically voted on personality. David told me how they vote once every five (?) years for everything. Not like in the States where different votes are held for different people all of the time. I explained to him how our government works in America and what the major differences between the democrats and republicans are. People are in Kenya are fascinated with United States politics; I think it has something to do with their obsession with Obama. 

Our first stop of the day was the Karen Blixen Museum. It’s funny how the guys I was with had never even heard of the museum. As soon as we saw a Karen Blixen sign, we turned into the parking lot. It was only the coffee shop. After piling back in the car and driving further down the road, we arrived at the museum. The parking lot looked deserted. The guys were really confused at why I would want to go to such a place. Even though I haven’t read any of her books, since it’s a tourist site I thought I might as well check it out. On our guided tour we saw the house she lived in while in Kenya and learned about her life, as well. Original artifacts were present in eat room, the most intriguing being a real lion and cheetah rug. The campus the house was located on was beautiful. The tour was short, but we spent a majority of the morning walking around and admiring the landscaping. I was amazed how such a serene location could be located in a city as crazy and chaotic as Nairobi. The dense vegetation led up to a picturesque view of mountains in the distance. David and I had another interesting conversation about Kenya. We talked about the outside organizations that come in to help Kenyans and just give them the supplies they need or set something up without the resources to maintain the new addition. David explained to me how frustrated he was with the money flowing in, when in reality what Kenyans need is the knowledge to be able to sustain themselves. Outside organizations need to teach, instead of do. This made me think about the research I am doing here. Sure, I’m finding how climate change is affecting the people, but what am I going to do to prevent more climate change from happening? How am I going to teach with my results? The results I receive mean nothing if I can’t apply them to create change for the better. Something to think about…

Not originally planned, the guys knew of a cool place with crocodiles and an ostrich farm. Having only seen a crocodile at a distance, they thought it would be cooler for me to see one up close. In the enclosure we saw, there were quite a few. Men who worked there, poked and prodded the crocodiles. The crocodiles would snap. I jumped in shock every single time. When the men working there went inside the enclosures, I thought for sure they would serve as the crocodile’s meal. As David said, “Dude, you realize this is in 1,000 ways to die.” Haha, very true. One of the men working there even let us hold a small one. Crocodiles are born out of eggs and are very small. The one we held was about two years old. Even so, there was not a doubt in my mind that the baby crocodile could take a bite out of my arm. Thankfully, nothing happened. I also held a tortoise. The tortoise was quite heavy.

Moving on we walked around a lake shaped like Africa to see the ostriches. We were sidetracked by some camels on our way. Multiple groups of small school children were playing in this park area, and the camels were available for riding. I couldn’t pass up the thrilling opportunity. The camel, such a large animal, plopped down on the group next to me for me to climb on. I climbed up and almost immediately, the camel bolted up. The man in charge had the camel sit back down for David to join. The ride took us around the park and was bumpy. All of the school children looked at us most likely wondering why anyone above their age would find riding a camel so much fun. When we returned to the tree the camel sat down again. When the animal goes to sit, it leans about as far forward as it can without tipping vertically. I held on tight, not wanting to go over the front. In less than an hour I had ridden a camel and held a crocodile—so cool! We finally made it to the ostriches. A giraffe was mixed it with them as well. I went to touch the giraffe and when it moved quickly I decided I didn’t want to lose my fingers or anything so I let the guys do the touching. Once we were done we walked out to the parking lot. Our driver was nowhere to be found. Eventually he showed up and we headed to a new mall in the area.

This was another Westernized district with a KFC included. I also was super excited to see they had a Planet Yogurt. We went into the grocery store to buy some snacks. Craving fruit snacks, I asked if they had such a thing. David, Rafiell, and Sam looked at me as if I were crazy. When I asked the lady who worked there, she gave me the same look as the rest of them. I walked down every aisle and came across a package with contents that semi-resembled fruit snacks. I still have yet to try them. We gave into the Westernized culture and ate at KFC for lunch. The KFC was similar to those in the States with only slight variations. The options weren’t as varied. I settled with fries and a mini loaf of bread. I was expecting the mini loaf to be fresh, similar to their biscuits. It turned out to be a package of bread, how disappointing. Rafiell commented on how little food we received compared to how much we paid. I suppose this is what westernizing places does. I couldn’t resist the frozen yogurt and made a huge bowl for myself. The guys I was with probably thought I was crazy, but the yogurt tasted so good.

Our next stop for the day was the Nairobi National Park. Like Tsavo, we stayed in our own car for the game ride and our driver for the day drove us through. I really wanted to see a lion. Rafiell said he saw some there before, so my hopes were set high. Originally we saw some ostriches and monkeys had greeted us at the gate. We couldn’t find any game cars to follow and our chances at seeing much of anything else were looking grim. David made comments like, “Well, I guess ostriches are pretty cool, right?” or “If there aren’t any animals in this land we should ask for our money back and they should use this land for something productive.” He kept us laughing and away from any approaching frustrations. Soon we came across some giraffe, standing square in the middle of the road. As we wound our way through the paths, we came across a few gazelles as well. Still no lions. We also came across a bridge. As we got out of the car, David said, “I think getting eaten by a lion is in 1,000 ways to die as well.” No lions came, and we all survived. The park closed at six and we didn’t start our way back to the gates until a quarter til. In the rush we were in to get out, of course we got lost. We would approach signs, but none of them seemed to have any direction to the main gate on them. Our path became a guessing game and soon we found ourselves following the dust a car must have left. We found our way out, not the same gate we entered through, but I guess we escaped. Nairobi National Park is the only national park in a capital city in the world. What surprised me most about it was the way in which such a peaceful and beautiful place could be located in a city sprawling with crazy drivers and crowded sidewalks. From the inside of the park we could see tall buildings in the distance, but there was a calmness to the place. Nairobi National Park truly proved to be a peace in chaos.

There was a huge traffic jam on our way back to icipe so I think we opted to take the long route, going through small towns I had never seen before. The roads would be long areas of openness until we would hit a city and have to slow down again. Even with this other way it took us more than an hour to get back.