Blogs from Kenya, Africa

Wednesday September 16 Nairobi, Buru Buru We (Emma and I) are very slow moving in the morning. Toilet is of the squat variety and for now no running water, although we did have hydro this morning. I had arranged to meet my friend Alice in town at noon - but they were delayed so Emma and I went out to her brothers school for a meeting. The school is out past another suburb called Buru Buru but it was nice to take the matatu along Jogoo Rd. Our first matatu broke down so we got on another one. A few blocks later I hopped off as I thought Emma wanted to get out. After I hopped off, the matatu took off with Emma still on it. So there I am walking down the road by myself ... read more

Sleeping through the afternoon yesterday meant that I couldn't sleep at night, so I gave up trying and settled for one of the rubbish magazines that I had bought to read on the plane. As I sorted through the magazines, I found a Virgin Atlantic safety card tucked in amongst them. I'd obviously picked it up by mistake whilst clearing out my seat pocket on the plane. Initially I felt guilty to have deprived Virgin, but only for three seconds, because I'd actually spent about half an hour before take off trying to take photos of the funny pictures on the safety card. My favourites are the child with a ridiculously long head (the elasticated band of the oxygen mask would never go over it), a man with a 60s mullet wearing purple sunglasses with an ... read more

In the old stories, mountains were the navels of the world, the axis mundi, the abode of the gods. Where there was no Kailash, Fuji, Olympus, or Sinai, people built their own: the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia, the pyramids of Egypt, Teotihuacan, Chichen Itza, and the Empire State Building in the Americas. The mountains connected heaven and earth. They were a conduit for the flowering of myth, the place where the sacred and the profane overlapped. My story was less sacrosanct. I was walking around Mt Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa, so I wouldn’t have to do anything so stupid again. I’d been comforting myself for about a month with the thought that this was the last time. That it was time to put away childish things and spend more time vacationing where alcohol ... read more

Heute begebe ich mich mit Paul ins Dorf Majengo, welches nördlich von Mombasa liegt. Nach einer 15minütigen Fahrt mit einem Boda Boda (Motorbike) auf dem Malindi Highway, halten wir in der „Nähe“ des Dorfes an. Jetzt geht’s zu Fuss weiter. Wir laufen ca. 30 weitere Minuten durch den Busch. Sobald wir die Hauptstrasse verlassen, befinden wir uns in einer schönen Landschaft mit weiten Feldern, Wäldern und Palmen. Unterwegs treffen wir auf einen Masai, welcher sich zuerst nur für Geld fotografieren lassen will. Danach können wir uns einigen, dass ich ihm ein Kleidungstück übergebe ;-) Dieses Dorf ist ein bisschen anders aufgebaut. Das Dorf ist über eine grosse Fläche verteilt und immer wieder treffen wir auf Hüttengruppen, wo Menschen leben. Dies hat auch so seine Vorteile, da auf diese Weise nicht allzu viele Dorfbewohner auf’s Mal auf ... read more

Yesterday I did a tour through Kibera, the second biggest urban slum in Africa (second to Soweto in South Africa). Kibera is about 2.5 square kilometres in size, and estimates of the population range from about 200,000 to 1 million. People from all of the Kenyan ethnic groups reside in Kibera, and there is a high percentage of Muslim and Christian devotees within the community. The houses in Kibera are pretty much the same as the mud houses that we build in the village, although they are smaller and more closely packed. Unfortunately, the same number of people, if not more live here, so it's usually anywhere up to 10 people being packed into a house not much bigger than a 2 toilet cubicles. There are no rubbish collection schemes, nor any rubbish bins anywhere, so ... read more