Well, I made it! Sorry for the radio silence so far, but our internet at home is currently down and I didn't get my laptop at the office until late yesterday afternoon. Hopefully Zuku, the internet company, will be out to fix our modem in the VERY VERY NEAR FUTURE, and I can get on a better blogging schedule. That being said, here we go...
The journey from Doha to Nairobi was quiet, and strangely "dinner" was served around 2:00am. The only real problem was that even though I took a ZzzQuil, I only slept for about an hour and a half of the 5+ hour trip. The rest was spent reading (judge away) the first Fifty Shades novel. How is it even possible these poorly written trilogies keep lighting the book sales world on fire? Like seriously, some of the writing is just painful (pun intended?). Anyway, when I get to the Nairobi airport I made my way through immigration, got a shiny new visa in my passport, and headed down to collect my bags and change over some money to Kenyan Shillings. I got my three gigantic bags off the conveyor belt and then struggled to try and wheel all three at once. Fun fact: Basically impossible.
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| I'm all sorts of official. I think its kind of funny that they put it right next to Morocco, the only other African country I have visited since I got my passport renewed after SAS. |
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| Kenyan Shillings. 1000Ksh, is equivalent to about $11.50 at today's exchange rate. |
Luckily a nice porter saw me struggle and came over with a cart which I loaded up and whisked away. Upon walking out of the terminal I found Jeff, a lovely taxi driver that my supervisor Jared had sent over to fetch me. He was holding a sign with my name on it, so we did some quick introductions, loaded up the car, and headed to my office, which is quite close to the airport on the main road into town.
When I arrived, I met a few people on our team and one of the HR people I have been in contact with. They informed me that they were waiting for a phone to be brought over for me. Didn't know I got a company phone. Pretty sweet. The only downside was that I had to sit around the office waiting for like 2 hours before it arrived. Oh well, more time to read. I hung out, got my phone, and figured out what the plan was for the next day. We agreed that they would send a car for me at 9:00am, and then I hopped back in the cab with Jeff to head to the embassy and my apartment.
Nairobi is exactly as I remember it. The exact same smell (a little burnt, with copious amounts of exhaust), the exact same god-awful traffic, the exact same matatus and trucks speeding in and out of lanes. It was kind of crazy, but I jumped right back to 2005. I will probably devote a whole entry to traffic one day, and how absurdly terrible it is, but that's for another day. Just know this...it's bad. It took about an hour to get from my office to the American Embassy, where D works. I called (from my new phone, mind you) and she came out and gave me the key and some helpful tips, and about 30-minutes later I was at our apartment.
Security is a major thing in Nairobi, especially for female expats living alone. We live in a secure compound, with three buildings that are walled off and guarded by rotating teams of askaris, or guards. They opened the gate for me, and we made our way to my fourth floor walk-up (eesh). Being the me that I am, on my first trip up the concrete steps I fell and smashed my knees into the edge of the step. I am now sporting two HUGE bruises, one on each kneecap, which are SUPER attractive. Or not. Thankfully, Jeff helped carry my three 50lb bags up the four flights of stairs, which was amaaaaaaaaazing. I will do a more detailed apartment entry when the internet is back up and running.
Alone in the apartment, I began to do some settling in and unpacking. It is significantly easier and faster to unpack than to pack, so I made fairly quick work of it. My room is very spacious and has two great big built in closets, complete with drawers and shelves, which is fantastic. Everything has its place and I still have a ton of space left. The rest of the apartment is large as well. We have three full bedrooms, including a master bedroom that is currently being used by a temporary roommate, who will be moving on to her new apartment at the end of January. Once she's out, it will be a guest room that has its own full bath ensuite.
We have two bathrooms in the hall, one with a toilet and sink, and the other with a shower and sink. it is definitely helpful when multiple people are getting prepared for work in the morning! There is a living room with a comfy couch and two chairs, a dining room with a lovely table and chairs that D just had built, a walk in pantry, kitchen, balcony, and porch washing area. All hardwood floors make it feel even bigger. Photo tour will happen soon, but you should COME VISIT.
After moving my stuff in, I came out to watch some TV on the couch and ended up falling asleep for about an hour and a half. I woke up completely basked in sunshine, as we get a lot of afternoon/early evening sun in our apartment. It was WARM. The weather has been fantastic, between 65 and 75 F, with cool breezes and variable clouds/sun. But when that sun beats down on you it is HOT!
D came home in the evening and we caught up and eventually had dinner (delicious potato and leek soup that she had made, with sandwiches). We were up talking later than I expected, and then I was having a little difficulty falling asleep, so I didn't end up really crashing until about 11:15pm. Can you tell that my sleep schedule is a little messed up? Aigh. At 11:30pm, my phone went off, notifying me that I had a text, from an unknown number. It said that the taxi was actually coming to pick me up at 8:00am. I changed my alarm to go off earlier, and finally fell asleep.
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| View from out of the window of our conference room. Such gorgeous weather!! |
Laden with goods, I headed back at to Tony and we drove the additional about 15 minutes to my apartment. All told, my like 3 hours of chauffer service cost $38, which is not stellar, but neither is jet laggedly stumbling around the city on public transportation. I got dropped off, put my stuff down, and went down to meet D and one of her taxi twins, Paul. He's going to take me to work for the rest of the week so I can get a little acclimated to the city (and the time zone) before plunging into the challenges of East African public transportation. The good thing is that one of my co-workers looked it up for me today, and it looks like I'll only have to take one bus to city center, and then one matatu out to work. We'll see how that goes. Whenever anyone who lives here hears where I live and where I work they visibly wince before bemoaning the commute. Not great. But I'll make it work! (Note: I wrote this last night. This morning I left at 6:20am, which will be my normal time, and it only took TWENTY MINUTES!!! to get here in the taxi. It is going to be longer when a bus is involved, but today was awesome.)
After that got all sorted, D and I hung out and talked for a while, and two of her friends stopped by briefly. We also went downstairs and she introduced me to the neighbors, a couple with four kids and one on the way. It was nice to chat with them, and then we came back up to settle in for the night. As a continuation of my nesting, I went to install some new light bulbs. D was helping me, and after we accidentally pulled one off of the wall, I stuck it back on and she flipped the switch. And out went ALL the lights in my room. And the master bedroom. And the master bath. Oops. We definitely blew a circuit, but even when we went to the circuit breaker we couldn't get the switch to flip and stay on. I ended up going down and recruiting our neighbor to come help, and miraculously he tried once and it stayed. Of course. Crisis adverted, we stepped away from the light sockets and went about the rest of our evening.
Wish we'd had that many bathrooms for our mornings last year. Sounds like you are getting settled in, so I can hardly wait to hear about the baby elephant!
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