Monday

I have stopped numbering days because I am losing track, so we will change it to days of the week. I am also sure that I am going to start to fall behind on the next days of the trip as I shift my focus away from my own experiences and we start to work specifically on previewing those the students will have.

As I look back on it, Monday was an exceptional day. Exceptionally challenging, exceptionally rewarding, exceptionally intense, exceptionally relaxing, exceptionally educational… you get the idea.

I started with a trip to the mall. I took an Uber up to one of the many of what I would describe as western shopping malls because I needed another small suitcase (I am leaving the other suitcase I brought with the puzzles for the school in Kibera and my small suitcase is jammed without any room to bring anything home). Don’t be ashamed of me, but I was willing to pay western prices for the privilege of NOT haggling over the price with street a street vendor. I will get that experience in the Masai village.

The traffic today was insane. Have you ever taken one of the local approaches to the George Washington Bridge at a busy time where there are 12 lanes of traffic coming from three different directions all merging into two lanes with people honking and cars and trucks coming within inches of each other? Add in 20 motor bikes, subtract the honking, and that is what EVERY intersection in Nairobi is like. I wanted to take pictures but it is not a good idea to hold your phone in an open window as it can easily get snatched by someone. It was especially bad yesterday as many more people were out in anticipation of Tuesday’s planned protests. I made it eventually. All shopping malls in Kenya have security and metal detectors. The result on the inside is a sterile, quiet, peaceful respite of the privileged from the chaos outside, I enjoyed a relaxing cup of delicious Kenyan coffee and a croissant.

I found an ATM to withdraw some Kenyan currency. Everyone accepts credit cards, except the street vendors. Many businesses, especially those who service expats, accept Apple Pay, though in Kenya, they have their own electronic pay service called MPesa. I tried to download the app, but you can’t use it without a Kenyan cellphone provider. A lot of the tipping is done in US cash, but if I want to buy things in the Masai village (and I do!), it is better to have Kenyan Shillings. The conversion rate is a good math problem that I look forward to inflicting on, I mean sharing with, the students. You move the decimal point to places to the left and take about 3/4 of that amount. So 100 shillings is about 75 cents or a little more.

The thing I dislike the most about being here: I can’t wear my sandals like I would want. Out in the bush it is not good to wear open toed shoes for so many reasons. Those of you who know me know how much it pains me to wear socks, and with the dust, or mud when it rains, it’s also not a great idea in the city. Socks are also the one part of my wardrobe that are not quick drying, so with my new found plethora of luggage space, I splurged and bought a few more socks so that after today, I have enough to wear a new pair each day without washing any.

After returning to my apartment to refresh (traffic even worse by this time), I headed out for my next activity, which was a meeting with the head of an educational consulting firm. Julia De Le Torre (our MFS Head of School), had connected me with a former graduate school colleague of hers who lives and works in Kenya and we were able to set up a meeting. I went in with no expectations, but we had a lovely chat about her background and company and the work she is doing in Kenya and other countries in East Africa. I wasn’t here to ask for a specific activity and in fact, one of the challenges is that the student trip itinerary is already spilling over with little time for additional options. But given our school’s increasing focus on global engagement and her work in Kenya, I was open to connecting with anyone who might be a good partner moving forward. I also shared with her information about our intensive learning program and my purpose for this trip and beyond. In addition to the potential for future connections, she did have an immediate and tangible connection for an environmental education group that could help facilitate a meaningful interaction between our student groups around climate action. I will have to wait until my school visits to know more, but this was a productive and enjoyable time meeting her and talking education. Here are Jenn and I after our meeting.

For my next activity today, I had booked a market visit and cooking class with a local cook and food blogger. Once again the traffic was even more insane and I met my leader and two fellow participants (a young couple from DC) at a mall/intersection/bus staging area that was an angry beehive of activity.

The experience starts with a ride on a Matatu (more in a minute) out to the second largest market in Kenya at the western edge of the city near one of the larger slums. After picking up local ingredients in the market, we got on another Matatu and went to her apartment to cook an authentic Kenya meal. We chose to have goat stew and learn how to make chapati.

So about 7 years ago, the day to do operations of the public buses in Nairobi were given over to private operators. These range from small vans, which have a claustrophobia inducing number of people jammed into them and are everywhere, to larger ones. Many, but especially the larger ones, are painted very colorfully, almost like graffiti, in an effort to attract customers. Many of these also have giant speaker systems blasting local rap music with video screens and neon lights. It is considered a truly authentic Nairobi experience. The mob scene at the staging area with the managers shouting trying to fill their buses and people banging their hands on the sides to get them to open the doors was beyond description. Once we were on board and started to move (centimeters separating each bus), the music was deafening. Throughout the ride and the entire evening, I went back and forth between thinking “What am I doing here, I am too old for this, I want to go home”, to, “this is incredibly fun, I’m so glad I did this”.

The market was equally intense. If you have travelled a lot, you know that much of the world does not buy in bulk and stock their refrigerator. You buy what you need for that day fresh. Kenyans are especially proud of the freshness of their food and its lack of chemicals and as I saw in my ride through the surrounding area, it is all available right from the farm each day in the outlying regions of the city. Everything grows well here and there are cows, goats, chickens and sheep grazing in every available space (sometimes very close to the road). We were there around 5:30 and the market was bustling with people with a single bag (mostly women) buying fresh produce, herbs, grains, and meat for the evening meal. Our guide showed us around and stopped at her preferred and trusted vendors to get the things we needed for our meal. Vegetarians look away, but slaughtering animals is an important part of Kenyan culture so yes, we stopped at her favorite butcher where she trusts the freshness and quality with carcasses and slabs of meat hanging in the open air shop and flies everywhere. She told them what she wanted and we watched them hack it up in front of us. She explained the strict systems in place to insure quality and safety and showed us the stamp that must be present from the government inspectors to insure that day’s meat adheres to those standards. In what I am told is a very Kenyan thing to say, she explained that all the flies are a sign of how fresh it is. I am not sure of the science there, but I trusted her judgement and that of the many exceptional reviews she has accumulated and just went with it, feeling the horror and disappointment of my vegetarian spouse from 5000 miles away. Without debating the ethics of harming animals, if you are going to eat meat, this is a much healthier way of doing it than the environment harming, hormone dependent cruelty of factory farming that we use to sustain our habits at home.

We waited for another Matatu and rode further out of the city and then walked a bit away from the main road to her apartment where we learned about the incredibly labor intensive process behind making Kenyan Chapati. I am not sure I could duplicate it, but she provided the recipe and links to her YouTube channel, so I would like to try. We had it with the goat stew, some sautéed shredded cabbage and carrot and a stable of Kenyan cuisine that I am told is eaten at almost every meal, Kachumbari. It is diced tomatoes with red onion, cilantro, seasoning, and often avocado. It is very much like a pico de gallo, but has no lemon juice or dressing. Once we finished (the chapati took FOREVER), we sat down to an amazing meal and talked everything from Kenyan traditional gender roles and marriage, to Kenyan politics and the protests. Despite those moments of doubt, it was a fantastic experience and I am already working to connect my host with her to see if we can adapt this to do with the students.

Wairimu (our guide) had an adorable cat named Pumba who she intentionally asked the butcher to cut some especially chewy pieces off so he would be kept busy gnawing on that while we cooked!

Tuesday

A lot of family and friends expressed concern of the news of the protests and violence in Nairobi prior to my arrival. I think the impression from the news was one of lawlessness, chaos, and danger. There were those who used this as an opportunity for violence and looting, and there was a violent response to those protests a week ago, several people were killed. I had checked in with my host and felt confident in my safety and his judgement. My response to people who asked me about it at the time was that it was the same number of people who were killed in Washington D.C. in the insurrection at the Capital. I didn’t go anywhere near Washington then and I wouldn’t be near similar situations here.

After being here and talking to locals, I have learned much more about the Kenyan tradition of demonstrations, the all too familiar corruption, tone-deafness, and distaste for the truth of the current president in Kenya, and the encouraging response and activism of the younger generation of Kenyans who want change and more control of their future. I wont go into much more detail but the anger is over extremely large tax increases that disproportionately affect less wealthy people with no observable accountability over how that money is being spent to improve conditions for the people and a very public flaunting of extravagant and nepotistic spending by high level government officials. So, late last week I started to hear talk of a planned second round of demonstrations. Apparently, demonstrations are always on Tuesdays and start around 11 am. At the very least, many roads will close and most businesses, stores, and restaurants will also close. I had registered with the U.S. State Department before leaving and I got an alert that the embassy is closing for routine consular services today. This is most likely why everyone was out yesterday in anticipation of staying home safely. As I write this, I am hopeful that they will stay peaceful this time and the police and military will exercise restraint. I am 100% insulated from all of this.

The immediate effect is that visiting a school in the Kibera slum was off the table for today. I was scheduled to check into a hotel near the airport later in the day, so my host arranged to get me in earlier. Even though the area where I was staying was most likely safe, we thought it best to be proactive, not knowing which areas would be affected and which roads would end up closed. The hotel is 2.5.4 Ole Sereni. +254 is the country phone code for Kenya. It is a lovely hotel near the airport and my room looks out over Nairobi National Park. It contains giraffes, lions, rhinos, zebra, and all the other Kenyan wildlife you would experience on safari, but against the backdrop of a bustling world capital. So, I get a much needed bonus day to refresh, regroup, and relax. We have moved the school visit to tomorrow. I’m told that barring some unexpected catastrophe, things should return basically to normal tomorrow. Amusingly, spill over protests always happen on Thursdays!?

Oh!!! One more thing. I have been appreciating the Indian influence here, but have yet to have my first masala chai. My host and I had breakfast together this morning and I ordered one. It was awesome! Besides the perfect spicing, it is so much less sweet than chai in the US!