Our first visitor

Posted by: Helen

My big brother Matt lives and works in Dubai, so we’re much closer to him now we’ve moved to Kenya.  During the recent national holidays in the UAE celebrating the muslim festival of Eid al-Adha, he visited us for a 6-day holiday.  As our first visitor, we’ve given him the honour of his own blog post.  

Disclaimer: the same courtesy may be extended to other visitors but cannot be guaranteed...

We thought it might be interesting for people back home to hear his thoughts on Kenya and on our lives here in Nairobi.  How was his trip?  What has surprised him? Does he think we’ve changed?  Read on to find out...

So, Matt, how has your trip been?

Fantastic, thank you!

You’d actually been to Nairobi once before, yes?

Yes but only briefly.  On the way back from Tanzania, we were supposed to change planes but Kenya Airways was on strike so we stayed overnight.  I only really saw the inside of the airport – and my hotel room.

So how does Kenya compare to other African countries you’ve visited?

In terms of development, I’d say it’s about halfway on the index.  Egypt and South Africa are much more developed but Kenya seems more developed than Zambia.  Certainly Nairobi has more infrastructure than Lusaka (Zambia’s capital).

How did you find Nairobi this time around?

I like it much more than my first one-night visit!  My impressions are of a diverse city – in culture and economics; I saw a man pulling a cart down the road laden with old tires, using his own strength, and behind him, a guy driving a shiny BMW.  It’s clear that different areas of city are inhabited by different types of people; places for ex-pats, places for wealthy Kenyans, and slums for those who have much less.  My impression was that the city seems quite safe, and that crime is there not because of hate but because many residents simply need the money.  I think you need to be streetwise here, but I found no problems.

So where did we take you? (testing him here..)

We went to Embakasi, where you work at the KUB, and saw your building and had lunch in the tin shack opposite.  We went to Bus Station several times!  Erm... Gracehouse Hotel where you were involved in training new volunteers and I came along.  Then on our trip - Lake Naivasha, Hell’s Gate National Park and we climbed a mountain.  Mlangu?  No, Mount Longanot.

And who did you meet?

Many people!  All your colleagues including your office-mate Irene and your boss, Jackson. Plus Johnson who tapped me for Dubai-related business ideas.  Your askaris (security guards) at your building, your VSO neighbours Allys and Eddie when we had beers in South B dinner at yours.  Erm...  your friends Marc and Veronica, and Amol who came with us to Carnivore restaurant, and I saw my Kenyan friends from Dubai who were also home for Eid!  I met VSO staff at the training whose names I can’t remember, also the new volunteers including a nice British guy called Simon.  Joel, your taxi driver.  Oh, and John the boat captain who took us out on the lake.

What are the biggest differences you see between Kenya and the UK?

The reaction to foreigners is different – they shout: Mzungu! at white people which feels strange.  But like the UK, they are very welcoming to foreigners, I also felt very welcome. The traffic is much more crazy, there is a feeling of everything being much less organised, a feeling of chaos. 

I think in the UK people can isolate their families and are very private, whereas here children are raised by the whole community and people are much more in each other’s space.

Describe Kenya in 3 words.

Green.  Wild.  Can I have more than 3 words?  Energetic yet relaxed.

What was your highlight of Kenya?

Cycling through Hell’s Gate National Park, and getting really close to the zebras!

Is there anything you didn’t like so much?

Hmm, probably being holed up in the matatu on the way home from Naivasha.  I was stuck in a seat with no leg room.  And – I didn’t like that there wasn’t enough time with you guys, I only had 5 full days!

You stayed with us in South B, what do you think of our neighbourhood?

Vibrant!  For a residential area, it’s surprisingly commercial, there are businesses just everywhere – fruit sellers on the side of the road, a garage that becomes a bar at night... It’s a place where folks are just getting on with their lives.

Has anything here surprised you?

I would imagine that less shocks me these days, because I’ve travelled and live abroad, but the gross inequality here still hits me.  What else? It’s more physical here, Kenyan don’t seem to need as much personal space as we do!  It’s surprised me how Kenyans just get on with things without complaint: if the matatu is full, the lady just squeezes in backwards and perches between the seats.  And if the tout can’t reach to get money from all passengers, people just pass the coins forwards, and the change backwards.  In the UK, people would be outraged, but here they think, ‘This is how it is, I’m going with it.’

Also there were many more links to Arabic culture than I realised.  Living in the Middle East, I could guess correctly around language and customs, despite knowing nothing about Kenya before I came (the Swahili language and culture, was massively influenced by the Arab traders who first arrived on the Kenyan coast in the 7^th century, particularly from Oman).

How do you think this experience is changing us?

Well, for the better!  I’m her brother so I can say this: I can imagine Helen in the past complaining a lot more, squashed into a matatu or being made to wait around.  She handles those things with much better humour now.  Once you’ve done this year, you guys can go anywhere and do anything; something frustrating happens but you’ll no longer find it stressful , and you stop thinking ‘I can’t do this!’  It’s those qualities that VSO selected you on - flexibility, patience – but magnified: you are more accepting, more chilled; you can choose how to react.  I think it will help back in the UK too, you’ll be more effective because you’re more in control.  So really it’s less about Helen and Dan changing the world, and more about the world changing you.

You read this blog before you arrived.  How do you think the blog reflects the reality of life here?

Pretty accurate, I reckon the blog rings true.  I think at the start you may have overemphasised certain aspects because you were writing from emotional reactions – the colours you painted were so much brighter when it was all new.  And yes, some of what you write sounds naive to me, but the honesty makes it a really successful blog.

What aspect of life here should we blog about next?  What’s missing?

Maybe something to do with the war propaganda in the newspapers you were both talking about (how Kenya’s ‘war on terror’ in Somalia is reported here).  Or, more about the trips you take?  What about the struggle I’ve seen you both having this week with your work; the frustrations you feel when forced to work in a Kenyan way, which is very different to what you’re used to?  I know you’d have to change names to protect the real people involved!

Finally, what are your top tips for our other friends and family who are coming to see us?


Be flexible.  Drop your expectations of western-world things like organisation, cleanliness and punctuality.  But, raise your expectations of what you’ll experience, because you’ll have a great time.  Don’t come with a list of ‘musts’ and stress about it.  Things are unpredictable here but you won’t have failed because even a few cool things here will make for an awesome trip.

........

I can’t really describe the joy of having a visit from a familiar face after the past few months, but safe to say it was just.... awesome.  Big thanks to Matt for being our first visitor, and fitting so well into a week in our lives; it sounds like he had a lot of fun too.

It was great to see you bro – hoping to see you in 2012, somewhere in the world....