The second thing I realized is that every morning, my guide, driver, and seventeen people at the hotel asked me if I had slept well last night. Everyone from the desk clerk to the serving people in the breakfast room were all very concerned about my sleep. I know they are service people, but everyone did seem nice in Ethiopia.
I arrived at the airport in Nairobi and had not even gotten to passport control when I was met by a representative from my safari company. Everyone else went into the health (vaccinations) line, but she walked me right to passport control. Don't I have to show my health record, I asked. You have it? she said. Yes. Ok, so you don't have to go there.
She insisted on rolling my bags, and when I got out to the car, there were two men - a driver and Joseph. Was he a guide? concierge? Who knows? Three people to pick me up at the airport. She got into the driver's seat and I was surprised for a minute until I realized that they drive on the left side here.
Flying into Nairobi, I thought it was on a lake because there was a clear "shoreline." Then I realized that it was all land, but the buildings were not randomly spread out and thinning on the outskirts as in most cities. The city goes to that line and stops. On the ride to my hotel, the guide explained that there is a national park that borders the city. So I saw my first zebras on the road, as well as some gigantic, scary birds.
Joseph said the ride to the hotel was forty five minutes if the traffic was good. The traffic was beyond horrible. The three lanes in each direction main highway was a parking lot. We literally stopped for half an hour without moving. There are roundabouts with lights that you ignore because there is a traffic officer who directs traffic. So why did he stop our side for half an hour?
During the (long) ride, I learned from Joseph that there are forty two tribes in Kenya so they speak forty two languages. Nonetheless, Swahili is the national language and English is the official language. Everyone speaks three languages: their native tongue, English, and Swahili.
My hotel is across the street from the University of Nairobi. As we passed it, I saw a sign that said "Corruption-Free Zone." How do they enforce that, I asked. Joseph said that it is illegal to take or pay bribes at the school. Aren't bribes usually illegal? If you put up a sign, does it work?
It was still mid-afternoon, so I asked Joseph if I could go for a walk by myself. He seemed dubious and said he would go with me. When I came down twenty minutes later, he was waiting for me, but I had discovered the swimming pool, and had no need to go further. I read in the sun all afternoon at a nice pool in a beautiful setting. The view from my room:
Our first stop this morning was the Giraffe Center. There is only one species of giraffes but seven subspecies, three of which live in Kenya. The Rothschild subspecies was almost extinct, so at this center, they breed them and reintroduce them into the wild. The giraffes are so gentle and eat right out of your hand. And you will never see them this close anywhere else. They are so tall and funny looking. Look how big just his head is compared to me.
I don't know if you can see it in the last picture, but they stick their tongues out about six inches and you can put the pellet of food right on their tongue. Some little known facts about giraffes: they sleep standing up but only for five minutes to half an hour a day. They have to spread their legs wide and bend their necks to drink, a position that is uncomfortable for them. So they drink over twenty gallons at a time and then don't drink again for a month.
Driving to our next destination, we talked about education in Kenya since we had seen a few school groups at the Giraffe Center.
Peter, the guide, said that school was mandatory through high school and that the parents could be put in jail if the children did not go. Diane from Denver: That's great, you can't make children do anything in America. Children just do what they want. Peter: Here children always listen to their parents, and even to any adult. Diane: No one disciplines their children in America. And you can never discipline someone else's child or you will get into trouble. But the children pay later. When they grow up, if they don't figure it out for themselves, they will all become criminals and end up in jail. When they get out of jail, they just commit more crimes. And Obama let all the criminals out of jail.
I was right to be worried about a trip with rich Americans.
Meanwhile back to Nairobi ... we next went to the Elephant Orphanage. Elephant mothers are pregnant for fifteen months and nurse for two years. If a baby loses its mother before it is two, it will die in the wild. So the orphanage takes them in, feeds them formula until they are two, and then carefully reintroduces them to the wild.
This baby is the youngest and needs the blanket for warmth. You can see that the baby elephants stand only three to four feet tall. But a full grown elephant is five times bigger, weighing five to seven tons!
Next we had a lovely visit to Isak Dinesen's house. Out of Africa is one of my favorite movies, so years ago I read the book which turns out to be completely different from the movie but really quite good. I remember the overall story but not the details, so this week I started reading it again, and although I am only halfway through, I really liked seeing the house and her pictures.
The owners of the company hosted us for lunch in their house. The wife kept telling us that we were eating a home cooked meal, but she had a cook, two people serving, and it came up in conversation that she has a chauffeur. She does have a lovely house, and is a third generation Kenyan - of Portuguese and Indian ancestry - so she was interesting to talk to.
After lunch we stopped at the National Museum which combined natural history (stuffed animals and birds), anthropology (the Leakeys' and early man) and history (pre-colonial, colonial, and independence). It was all quite interesting, and I did learn one trivia tidbit that I never knew: monkeys are not apes. I always thought the two were synonymous. The most noticeable difference between monkeys and apes is that monkeys have tails and apes do not. Who knew?
So my overall impression in my one day here ... Nairobi is a city of over four million so you can hardly compare it to the places I visited in Ethiopia, but it does seem more modern. There are quite a few universities in Nairobi, and there seems to be an emphasis on education. The traffic was at a standstill again when we drove back to the hotel this afternoon, so we got out and walked. Everyone around us was walking fast and purposefully. I also saw a few Western chain restaurants and stores, something I had not seen in Ethiopia, and some microbreweries.
At dinner they gave me the local newspaper to read. The most interesting story was about a 17 year old boy whom the court had just ordered to be released from prison and the government was ordered to pay him $4,000 in damages. It seems that when he was 16, he and his girlfriend slept together (gasp!) and she got pregnant. Her parents had him arrested and charged with defilement. The court found that since he was underage, he had been defiled as well, so it was discrimination to charge only him and not the girlfriend as well.
Finally, some signs of Nairobi:
Where do you go shopping after you have been to the Giraffe Center?
For people who squat over a hole in the ground and do not know how to use a modern toilet.
And when you enter the Elephant Orphanage.
Tomorrow we will fly to Tanzania and have our first game drive.
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