The Longest Day

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I’m sure when I came home from Germany, I was exhausted from traveling so long, but this is a little ridiculous. That was one flight, this is three or four over two days.

Wednesday morning, we got up in the hotel, ready to check out between 10 and 11, as requested. Except we had no water in our room. Sarah told the people at the front desk many times, and after a few hours, it still wasn’t working. When they kept asking, she told them we would check out just as soon as we showered. At about 11:15, someone came in and checked again and then offered us buckets. I suggested maybe we could shower in a different room since everyone else had already checked out. We did, and the water was hot! (I thought my scalp might burn.)

Sarah and I went back into town to grab some lunch and say goodbye to Nairobi. Last night (Tuesday), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined us here in Nairobi, so there was lots of news and security- we’re glad we didn’t fly out a day earlier! We grabbed some newspapers and hopped the bus back to the hotel. Both of us were so in to the papers we were reading, we missed our stop, but noticed soon enough so it wasn’t too bad. Plus, we had lots of time. We hung out in the hotel internet lounge and waited for Charles to call.

There was only one thing left we wanted to do in Africa, and he said he’d take us after work. We wanted to see Kibera slum. It’s the largest slum in Africa, with 1.2 million people living in 1.5 square miles (that’s about the size of Central Park.) Charles picked us up and we dropped our bags at his house before heading to the southwest corner of town to see Kibera.

Rather than going in and walking around, he thought it would be a better idea for us to sort of stand on a hill and look at it. He told us some history of it and surprised me, at least, by telling us that he lived there after high school. “For three months we survived there.”

One of the things about the slum that he told us, which I had never realized, is that some people live there by choice. Everyone who lives there still has to pay rent, but it can be as low as $7.75 a month, compared to up to a few hundred in the nice parts of town. Some people end up living there because of the rural-urban migration, and others live there because it’s very cheap. Lots of people work in town, and most of the children are in school. Some people will work and earn plenty of money, but they’ve come accustomed to the cheap rent and scrounging for everything else. With only 1 toilet for every 500-1000 people (which you have to pay to use), if I had the money to move out of there, I would do so in a heartbeat.

Charles also told us that Kibera is about the safest place to live in Nairobi. Yeah, there are thieves all over, but there’s almost no violence. I thought that was interesting.

He also pointed out some apartment buildings on one side of the slum that were being built. The government calls it “upgrading the slums.” Apparently, people did it at a different slum as well. The government comes in and builds some apartment buildings at the edge of the slum, and gets a bunch of people form one area to move in. Then, they take the space that is now vacated by the people and build more apartments. Rent is the same, but everything is nicer and much more sanitary. In theory. The last place that did it couldn’t convince the slum-dwellers to move in, so other people moved into nice apartments for cheap rent, and then the rent skyrocketed and the poor people couldn’t afford it anymore. The apartments in Kibera are sitting, vacant, and nearly finished. Unfortunately, everyone in the government is jostling for the credit of cleaning up the slum, and will make a lot of money off it. The MP for Kibera told the people that the central government doesn’t really care about them, so they’re not moving either. Quite the ordeal.

After Kibera, we headed back to Charles’ house, where he lives with David and a few other Choir people. It was nice just to have a few hours to chill and chat. I showed him pictures from the wedding and tour, and we traded stories. By this time in the day, it felt like another day and even another city! A quick last stop to Nakumatt for some in-flight food, and back to the house to meet David and Tamzin. We had a bit of time to connect with them before the taxi came. Instead of Andrew, it was his business partner, Jim. They do various tours and things, and are wonderful guides. Their cars are by far the cleanest I have been in in Africa, and such a nice change from the grime and stench of the others.

David and Charles dropped us at the airport, just in time to finish our dinner and board the plane. The odd thing about Nairobi airport is that you go through security to get into the building, which was a little tricky since we didn’t have our boarding passes yet. And then, there’s no security again until just before the jetway.

We took off just after 10, for an 8-hour flight to Amsterdam. I has planned on and hoped to sleep a lot of the flight, but sleep never came. Sarah was out hard, though. Because I had to take my medication, I made a friend in the galley who gave me lots of water, and then the remainder of a big bottle to take back to my seat. The rest of the flight, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I couldn’t, and I was too tired to do anything else. Bummer.

When we arrived in Amsterdam, we found out that our flight to Portland was canceled, so they had rerouted us through Minneapolis. No big deal, except it put us into Portland only slightly before our connecting flight (with a different airline) to get home. Unfortunately, not sleeping and the booking thing caused me to be very grumpy, sleepy, and feeling a little sick. I’m not sure which was the cause and which the effect, but it was a long stay in Amsterdam.

I tried to sleep on the floor, which I generally have no problem doing, but I was freezing my tail off (after previously melting). It was almost like my body forgot how to fall asleep. Really weird.

The flight to Minneapolis was late getting out, because it’s an American airline. (All the flights on foreign airlines let on time.) The flight was good, and the movies were better than on the other one. I managed to get a few hours of sleep; some on my own, and some with the help of drugs.

In Minneapolis, we ran around to all sorts of terminals to see if we could change our flights, or at least get our bags checked all the way home, so we didn’t have to get them and recheck them in Portland. Because we would miss our flight home, the kind Southwest Airlines man rebooked us on a different flight home. Running a bit late by now, we hustled back across both Twin Cities (it was far) to catch our plane on time. The woman at the counter didn’t want to check our bags because the stickers on them were handwritten (because of the change in Amsterdam). I was delayed getting into security because some lady needed a gate pass for a meeting. Then, the lady who ran my bag said it was too full and needed to go through it and check it for pot and lotion. I was a bit frustrated by this point, but the lady was nice and I couldn’t blame her for doing her job.

By the skin of our teeth, we made it with enough time to wait in line. Sarah even picked up a Mountain Dew for me while I was proving that my Rubik’s cube was free of sharp objects.

I sat next to a pretty well-behaved two-year old and her mother, and we had a nice chat. I’m pretty sure today is World Wide Fly With Your Kids Day, since all of our planes had amazing amounts of children on them. The flight to the States had a group of 9 kids under 7, and multiple families with multiple kids of the same age. It was nuts.

We landed in Portland right on time, so we could go get our bags off the carousel once again, recheck them and go back through security. (Is anyone counting? That’s our 5th time going through security in the last 30 hours.) Had our planes been on time, we would have been picked up by a good friend of mine, and gone to get good, American pizza. Since we didn’t want to wait that late, we got some good gourmet pizza at the airport.

Three cheers for PDX having free wireless! It’s amazing just how fast high-speed is! We got so used to dialup (if we were lucky) that we’re not sure what to do with such efficiency. Too bad one of our bags was left in Minneapolis. All the important stuff was in our carry-ons, so we were just happy they all came to the country with us.

The flight from Portland home was quick and efficient. By the time we got up to cruising altitude, it was time to descend. The crew was great. Sarah slept most of the 42-minute flight, and I dozed a bit as well.

Amy picked us and most of our luggage up with a big hug and a gallon of drinking water. The absolute best welcome home gift I could imagine.

This could be my last post about Africa, but I doubt it. There are a few other funny stories that didn’t make the dailies, and probably a bit more unpacking and musings. I’ll try to post some photos when I’m not so toast as well. Thanks for reading!

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