Musings

My time here is wrapping up (Friday is my last day of work, then travels). Almost three months have elapsed since I touched down at Jomo Kenyatta Airport, and over that time I've noticed many interesting/peculiar habits of Kenyans. Sensing a blog post in the making, I started keeping a list, originally written, then mental, and now not so much of either. Below are some of these musings.

The front seat

Kenyan's sit in the front seat of taxis and chauffeured cars. A pretty simple observation, but striking in it's dissimilarity with American (Western?) custom - have you ever pulled opened the front door of a cab, when there was no one in the back? In fact, many cabs front passenger seats are so riddled with newspapers, CDs, empty coffee cups and other random shit that they only begrudgingly let you into their cabin.

Here, not only do taxi drivers not mind if you sit in the front, some might actually be offended if you do not. On a recent two hour commute home from the airport (Nairobi traffic is horrible), I was seated in the back and my colleague in the front. After dropping we made the first drop-off, I remained in the back. "You can come up front," the driver said. "I'm alright," I replied, quite comfortable the way I was. "No, no, come up front" he quickly retorted, seemingly offended, and swung the door open for me without leaving his seat. Tired and not wanting to argue, I acquiesced.

Why was he offended, though, I wondered, and am still pondering. In the US, moving to the front after a fellow passenger is dropped off is customary when riding with someone you know, so that the driver does not feel like a chauffer. But when the driver is a chauffer, what does he have to be offended about? I am paying him.

Not all drivers exhibit this behavior, but almost all Kenyan passengers do; that is, they prefer the front seat, opening the back door only if the front is full. This probably has something to do with the fact that the front seat is not covered in random shit, and there is no bullet-proof separator limiting the recline/extension of the bucket seat, but I don't think that is the whole story.

Passengers converse with their drivers - not just small talk, but (relatively) substantive discussion - and it’s easier to hold a conversation from the front seat. The driver-driven relationship is much friendlier than the typical transactional one between cabbie and rider. Of course, this is partly due to the basic fact that people actually have drivers here (if not personal drivers, favorite taxi drivers, since much of Nairobi is not dense enough to sustain perpetual cab flow). I've not yet experienced daily chauffer service in the states, so I can't comment on the equivalent driver-driven relationship with certainty, but I suspect the banter - let alone anything more involved – in black cars between Wall St and the Upper East Side is minimal.

Furthermore, and more interestingly, the front seat dynamic seems in no small part due to a less pronounced class barrier between the driver and driven. Part of this is simply that there is less of an economic gap: From what I can tell, cab drivers are relatively well paid compared to their counterparts in the US (in purchasing power parity terms), and development workers, while also relatively well-paid compared to American non-profiteers, are far less affluent than the financial titans and CEOs who employ chauffeurs back home.

And in addition to, or perhaps because of, the narrower financial gap, the social division also appears less marked: besides conversation, driver and passenger also share afternoon tea and Friday night beers.

Perhaps I’m overanalyzing this, and perhaps the analysis portrays a bit of pretentiousness on my part. In any case, at the least, this points to a random but interesting difference between American and Kenyan culture.

An inconvenient package*

Soy sauce in a plastic bag. Chili sauce in plastic bag. A kilo of sugar in a plastic bag. Milk in a plastic bag. Milk in triangle-shaped Tetra-pak (similar to cardboard). Cashew nuts in vacuum-sealed plastic. Rice in aluminum foil. An oversized plastic box with no lid and a hamburger-shaped cutout for my salad.

What do all of these types of packaging have (actually, lack) in common? At least two things.

One: Resealability. This simple, amazing feature, conjured up by CPG marketing folks years ago, to get us to buy bigger and better product, is now almost taken for granted. Starting with the twist tie and rectangular-plastic-thing for bread, it spread to the tab-and-hole in cereal boxes, plastic milk and soda bottles, the Pringles can, zippered shredded cheese, and on an on. And where we don’t yet take it for granted, inventions such as the chip clip have filled the void, allowing us to enjoy a 24 oz bag of Jalapeno Crunchers for weeks not days.

Conversely, here I have to empty my cashews into an old Planters container I brought over from the States. Or I must fold the top of the pasta bag over and position it tightly against the side of the cupboard. Or I need to discard the top Oreo every time I revisit the tubular aluminum package.

Two: Useability. While resealablity is mostly germane to goods bought in the grocery store, useability is most relevant to take-away (why does no one else in the world say “take-out”?) restaurant food. American Chinese restaurants pioneered this feature with their (resealable) pentagonal boxes, suitable for vertical eating (and sharing) via chopstick. And with the boxed food comes soy sauce and hot sauce, either in small, pre-perforated packets or circular plastic containers with lids. Both make for easy pouring over food.

In Kenya? My vegetable fried rice comes wrapped in aluminum foil, immediately spilling out, ever so quietly, as I unravel the package. And the soy sauce? It’s in a 10 inch, tightly-knotted plastic bag, from which I have to pour very carefully lest it a) spill the entire 5 oz onto my food and/or b) spill all over the table.

Why haven’t these two innovations reached the African continent yet? Not sure, though I suspect there must not be enough demand. Such value-added features add a few pennies (or more) to the cost and consumers are presumably less willing to pay for these unnecessary bells and whistles. Perhaps IP-ownership issues play a role as well - Western firms own most of the innovation, and while American and European goods are available here, they are often sparse and significantly more expensive than local product.

Reading this, I’m sure you’re thinking I sound a bit spoiled. It’s true, I am. Actually, we [Westerners, particularly Americans] are. Spoiled by ever-lasting freshness, by convenience. By Pringles, by Ziploc. By 33% more free and Costco-sized boxes. By variety – which leads to firms having to innovate on all four Ps (including Packaging) in order to distinguish their products. But most of all, we are spoiled, and tremendously privileged, by our prosperity, which allows us not only to enjoy all these things, but analyze and write about them as well – in research papers, magazine articles, PowerPoint presentations, textbooks, and, of course, blogs.

Other interesting Kenyan tidbits

• The phrase “it’s ok” is heavily used, often as an affirmation (and in many other unusual ways). Example:
  • Me: Can I have a bottle of water please?
  • Waiter: It’s ok.
• When available, elevators are used – even if it’s only 1 flight and the car takes 5 minutes to come
• People call each other “boss”
• “By the way” [as a conversation starter] and “serious?” are disproportionately-used phrases

I had several others, but that’s all I can think of now…will post another list if they come to me.

*In case you couldn’t guess, facts presented have not been verified

House party

Last night I got a proper introduction to Nairobi’s party scene. I’ve been out to bars and clubs before, but last night, along with a couple friends, I went to a house party, staged on the lawn behind two villas in one of Nairobi’s affluent neighborhoods. Going to a house party, I think, provides a more intimate view of the city’s party culture, unrestrained by a public environment and expensive drinks, and stimulated by familiarity with the other patrons. Besides being a good time, it was by far most diverse party I’ve ever been to.

One of the friends, Peder, a Norwegian former volunteer in my organization’s Kampala office, was friends with the Italian IT consultant/Phd student/DJ whose birthday was the cause for the shindig. He’d been to a party hosted by this DJ a few years ago and said it was raging. So, along with Bosco, my Spanish coworker, we set off for the party – an American, a Norwegian and a Spaniard off to an Italian’s party. On the way back, we shared a cab with a Spanish girl and Parisian. In between, we met Japanese and Singaporean girls, Americans, White Kenyans, Black Kenyans, more Spaniards and Italians, Britons, even an Afghani.

Besides ethnicities, the crowd – which grew from about 30-40 when we arrived at 11PM to 70-80 at the peak around 1:30AM – was also varied in other respects. Expats and well-to-do Kenyans comingled (one thing that was probably not varied was economic class). Styles of dress ranged from the bland American girl with a tanktop and khakis to the Italian donning black capris with magenta-outlined pockets and a stylish top; from the European with a sweater draped over his shoulders to the presumably-gay black guy (nationality indeterminate) with his skinny jeans and tight fitting tucked-in button down; and from those with well-primmed hair to a crew rocking Yankee fitteds (who, unsurprisingly, I’d later see smoking a joint).

Libations were plentiful, for most of the night. Upon entering the garden, we soon recognized the store of alcohol, a table just beyond the fire pit, around which several of the 40 people were gathered. Guests were told to bring some alcohol as a contribution - we’d brought a couple of bottles of vodka and a six pack – all of which rested on this table: 20-30 bottles of alcohol, a plethora of mixers, and plastic cups. It was tough to make out everything given the lack of lighting, but the stock appeared dominated by vodka – Smirnoff mostly – with a few bottles/ boxes of wine, champagne, and at least one bottle of rum. A hookah also rested, dangerously, on one edge. Below the table rested three coolers stocked with beers, mostly domestics but a few Heinekens as well.

More than enough, it seemed. As the night wore on, however, the table got more and more depleted. By the time 3 AM rolled around, there were less than a handful of bottles left. (The depletion was aided by the slide of several bottles, in succession, off one side of the table and onto the earth below. How this happened is unclear, but it’s not hard to imagine several possibilities given the concentration of inebriation.) Nevertheless, the selection was more than sufficient to leave me pretty useless today, nursing a minor hangover that is only my second in the more than two months I’ve been here – for better or worse, a somewhat uncharacteristically low rate.

The music was what I call “Euro”: a mix of house, techno, trance (side note: are those all the same thing?), and pop-dance mash-up that I’ve heard many a time before, from clubs in Spain to Argentina. (Basically, I use this term to describe anything other than the hip hop which dominates the US party. Whether or not it is actually a genre, or the dominant party music in most of Europe/the rest of the world, I don’t actually know.) The crowd was somewhat into it – more and more as the night progressed – eventually filling the “dance floor” (the grass in front of the DJ table, illuminated by a multi-color strobe/party light). But the DJs were really into it – both the Italian and the drastically overweight Kenyan who manned the ones-and-twos (Macbooks in this case) pulsated as they played.

Overall, the vibe was good. It was like any other party: people were just having a good time, talking, dancing, smoking, drinking, making out. There was even a promoter: a pale white guy in his mid 20’s wearing a feather boa around his neck passed me a flyer for next weekend’s “Sex and the City” Easter Bash (9pm-6am).

Like any other party, but in a garden in Nairobi, with Euro music, and an amazing mosaic of cultures.

Hell’s Gate

On Sunday night, I twittered the following on my Facebook page:

Neel Bhargava is exhausted from mountain biking, camping, and riding in minivans with 19 people.

Add “zebras” and “European girls” to that list, and that sums up my weekend trip to Hell’s Gate* National Park.

*The park derives it’s name from a geographical point in the gorge. The narrow break in the cliffs, once caused many drowning deaths among the local Masai people, according to our guide.

Mountain biking

Hell’s Gate is the only park in Kenya where you can roam freely, unaccompanied by a vehicle, guide, or weapon, leading Lonely Planet to write “there is visiting national parks, and then there is experiencing national parks – and Hell’s Gate is an experience indeed.” I haven’t visited any other parks so far (not counting Mt. Kenya), so I can’t yet verify this claim but it was, indeed, a really cool experience.

I’ve always been interested in mountain biking*, although it’s largely been an unexplored interest. In 6^th grade, I remember ordering catalogs from Trek, Specialized, and Cannondale, eager to have a cycle to match the caliber of my friend Brian’s, but was never able to acquire one of these very expensive (and unnecessary for a 6^th grader) machines. Instead, I was relegated to bike around the many hills and woods of Danbury, CT on my Huffy.

When I heard that biking was the preferred method of traversing Hell’s Gate, I penciled a visit in as a must during my time here. (Walking the park is an option, but the size of the park is prohibitive. Taking a vehicle is also possible, but rarely used due to the unique lack of restrictions noted above.)

Unsurprisingly, the bikes available for rent at the park were also not quite top-of-the-line. Luckily, we were able to find mountain, rather than road, bikes; they were both old and unsophisticated, but they worked. They were not, however, comfortable. This was apparent within seconds of sitting on the bike’s visually padded yet tactilely stiff seat, but I did not fully realize the extent of the discomfort until after re-boarding the cycle after a two hour trek down the well sculpted gorge. It was a slightly painful, and thus much longer and less enjoyable, ride out of the park and back to the campsite.

All in all though, it was great – being able to explore unabated, getting within a few yards of exotic animals, with nothing more than the hot, dusty air in between was very cool, and trekking the gorge was all very cool. It was also excellent exercise: I estimate we covered about 25-30km, which may not be much on a road, but for a novice biker like myself on rough terrain and under an 80 degree sun, it was a challenging workout.

*Mountain biking is actually somewhat of a misnomer here: the landscape was mostly flat, but the terrain was dirt and rocks. Perhaps “offroad” biking is a more appropriate term.

Camping

Camping was also exhausting, for different reasons.

The campground was beautiful, situated on Lake Naivasha and covered with hundred-foot tall acacia trees, and the auxiliary facilities were more than adequate – hot showers better than that in my apartment here and a bar and restaurant with decent food. The primary “facilities”, however, - namely the tent and sleeping artifacts – left much to be desired.

When I’d called the camp to reserve space, they told me they would have a two-man tent, two mattresses and two blankets ready (for me and my fellow traveler, Bosco, a new volunteer from Spain). Mattresses? An unusual, but most welcomed, tool for camping, I thought; maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all. I was wrong. It was. The 1 inch-thick, old, dirty “mattresses” provided little barrier between my back and the rigid earth beneath. The tent did serve its main purpose of protecting us from the rain and other elements, but did little to block the noises emanating from the bush on the other side of the electric fence – hippos, birds, monkeys, et. al.

It was sort of cool, I suppose, to be “out in the elements” and “with nature”, but any slight enjoyment this created was banished after a couple hours of lying there, continually repositioning myself thinking I would finally find a sliver of earth that was not rock-hard. In total, I laid there for a good 8 or 9 hours but slept only 3, and awoke with stiff back to complement my sore backside.

I’ll never understand the draw of camping.

Riding in minivans with 19 people

Actually, they were matatus, remodeled old VW minibuses, but I figured minivan was more understandable to the general reader. Furthermore, I underestimated the number of people. There were actually closer to 25 – my Spanish companion (who had commented on how crowded the country seemed even before this ride) pointed out that there were 5 rows of seats in the back of the matatu, not 4 as I’d thought.

Five rows, with 3 proper seats per row. No need to grab the calculator – that’s 15 seats total, plus 3 in the front, for a total of 18. So how do you get to 25? Well, for one, you simply let anyone who wants a ride climb aboard. After we’d reached about 16 or 17, I’d think, with each subsequent passenger, “that has to be the last one…they can’t fit anyone else.” And time and time again, I was wrong. People would hop on without thinking twice, and squeeze their way to the back where the bench was slightly wider than the others, or place 1/8 of themselves on a seat and somehow support the rest of their body between the 1-seat and 2-seat benches that characterized the middle rows, or simply tell a small child to get up and stand in front of them.

It was, I must say, an exercise in maximum efficiency. It was also highly unsafe. No seatbelts – in fact, no seats for some –, no airbags, and no respect for driving rules is a bad combination. But, when in Rome…

The abovementioned matatu was the first of two. The second, from Naivasha back to Nairobi was slightly less anarchic. But, after being confronted by multiple agents and bargaining our way down from 400Ksh to 200, we got duped into taking the non-express route, which became apparent only after we’d made our 15^th stop in 25 kms. It took forever; luckily, I had a good seat in the front, or it would have been much less tolerable. Bosco was not quite as fortunate – he was stuck behind me, forced to clutch his backpack in his lap the entire ride, looking extremely nervous and suspicious the entire ride. Later, he asked me, with a touch of amazement, if I wasn’t also “a bit worried.” Few more weeks, I thought, and, like I did, he’ll realize that, in most cases in Kenya, discomfort is more of a concern than is danger.

Zebras

Zebras were the animal highlight of the park. They were everywhere; usually not in large packs, but a few dotted the landscape every half-kilometer or so. I saw two within ten minutes of entering the park, and furiously peddled to catch up with them, not realizing how relatively abundant they were in the park. The abundance led Basco to comment on our ride back that he’d “had enough” of the referee-striped animal.

Other animals prevalent in the park were: impala, gazelle, eland, and warthogs (Pumba from Lion King). Buffalo are also common, but we missed their daily commute from one part of the park to the other. Giraffes are also usually seen; unfortunately we did not spot any, probably, said our guide, due to the heat – they were hiding themselves in the shade.

European girls

European girls love to bike, it seems. More so than the guys, or perhaps they just like to travel (to East Africa) more. Either way, the fairer side of the Germans and Dutch were well represented in the Kenyan countryside that day. The three German girls – two working in Nairobi, one a student visiting from Deutschland – were unaccompanied; the three Dutch girls were travelling with one guy. Who knew a bike trail in a national park in Kenya would have a better ratio than Underground on Saturday night?

Unfortunately, that’s where the story ends - they all went back to Nairobi that same day.

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Check out facebook for the full album of pictures (to be posted Thursday)