put your troubles in a little pile

Kenya will sort them out for you.

This last week in Nairobi has been great; I've made new friends, gotten to travel around the city a bit and have "young people" fun, as well as rest, relax, and get some work done.

I spent Tuesday around the house with Joyce, and we made dinner together for the family, all of which would be joining us that evening.  After seeing Alli off in the morning I was a bit sad that I wasn't going to get up to Ol Pejeta too, but managed to console myself cooking rabbit and a quick cake with Joyce.  Dinner was great fun, I've definitely learned a lot by listening to NPR and being aware of the world around me, so I was able to contribute to the conversation more than occasionally.  Kiuri tried to explain his philosophy of why he doesn't eat eggs, which has to do with trauma and the prevention of a potential life which I didn't quite understand, but made a valiant effort.

Wednesday was an excellent yet unproductive day.  After having breakfast with Kiuri after his morning yoga, I hung out in my room and read for quite a while. I kept promising myself that at the end of that chapter I would put my book down and get to work, but never did that happen. Around 12:30 Kiuri showed up asking if I wanted to get some lunch in Westlands, and I happily accompanied him.  We went to a local buffet restaurant where I was served all together too much food -- mokemo, a green-banana dish that I love, and a variety of lentils and beans, chapati, and soukuma.  We chatted while I ate happily with my hands, and talked about Kenyan culture, which I am always happy to learn about.  Kiuri also educated me on the subject of Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry, which was playing above us on television.  The film moved incredibly slowly, Kiuri claims it moves in real time, but has never really watched all of one.

After lunch Kiuri and I ran some errands in Westlands including heading to a print shop that also makes tee-shirt prints, and then somewhere he could get some real blueprints made.  We discussed the many intricacies of matatu culture and driving, including the high-paced lives of the Matatu Touts.  These men are the ones that hang onto the side of each matatu and try to convince you to ride that particular matatu on that particular line. The differences matatus boast are entertainment systems -- some even have dvd players in the back in addition to cds -- interior decor, and of course the personality of the tout.  Furthermore, the touts are treated like rock stars in their local communities, and often are inextricable with the drug scene.  Matatus, despite my original expectations, are owned by many different cartels (Kiuri's word, not necessarily what I would have chosen) and many different matatus will run on the same line, thus requiring the touts to convince willing or unwilling passengers to get onto the matatu.  It's a crazy business, and we watched some Matatus Behaving Badly outside the printshop as we waiting.

After arriving back to Joyce's I was promptly picked up by Keni, a friend of Kiuri's who is closer to my age and knows a lot of younger people around the city.  I ran some quick errands with him, including picking up some wine for his sister's birthday (Nana of previous lore), and dropping said bottle off at his house. He has a family cat, Socks, who had five two-week-old kittens for me to be enamored of.  Pretty incredibly adorable, and Socks was very tolerant of us picking up the babies and playing with them.  The kittens were not so impressed.  Then we headed to Zen Garden, a nearby restaurant and gardens, for some cocktails and pizza.  Keni told me about his masters thesis on the world food crisis, and I was pretty enthralled.  There are a lot of aspects of many agricultural businesses that I knew nothing about, and considering my background in agriculture and ranching, should probably educate myself on.

From Zen Gardens we headed to Abyssinia, an Ethiopian restaurant for more wine.  We were shortly joined by a huge group of American tourists who were loud and very entertaining for us.  I felt that I was superior to their general tourism by being a researcher, and Keni agreed that I was at least superior in that I was hanging out with a Kenyan.  After Abyssinia we met two friends of his at a bistro for some dinner, both of them French women who work in very similar positions at different branches/versions of world banks.  We had a great time discussing French wine tasters' unnecessarily fussy tastes, our jobs in general, and some mind bender/con artist-ish guy named Darren Brown, who Keni swears can subliminally message people into anything.  We weren't so sure, but were promised links.

Thursday was another relaxing day as I did some laundry, finished up some cleaning and errands, and got ready to leave Friday morning.

This morning dawned clear and bright, and I woke up early but relaxed in bed until around 8 before getting up.  Everything was packed already, so I simply had some breakfast and a chat with Kiuri again, and got ready to go.  I was picked up by my driver, Evans, at 10:00 and we shortly had the car loaded with my tent, cot, and bags and were on the road.  The drive to Ol Pejeta was beautiful, as usual, and not as long as I had expected; we arrived in just three short hours.  Kim met us at the Nakumatt shortly with Alli and Jenny and we headed into town to get some groceries for me to contribute to our general food and run errands.  Jenny headed to a hardware store (chains she wanted and chained she got, I don't work there any more), Kim got her spare tire fixed from a puncture, and I practiced driving on the right -- aka the LEFT -- side of the road.  I only got left behind a few times, and even then I could navigate fairly well.  We stopped at some curio shops that Kim frequently goes to, and Alli got a giraffe sculpture and some antelope.  I picked up two pair of earrings and a beautiful zebra kanga (kind of a skirt-like-thing that women here wear) and nothing else. I promised the various store owners there that I would be back and there for many months so they needn't be pushy, but there were a few things I was interested in buying.  I will have to figure out the best way to bargain and play my hands right so I can get the best deals while there (although I didn't get at all ripped off on my earrings today; 250 /- for 2 pair, less than $5).

After around three hours of errands we headed back to Ol Pej and Jenny led the way while I drove. Kim drove much faster and ahead.  At the gate, I was happily shown through as the research coordinator had warned the gate staff of my arrival.  We got to the research center and after putting my things in my room I sat down for a cup of tea and was happily greeted by David!  David is one of the supervisors of the chimp sanctuary and was Brenda's and my main guide when we were in Sweetwaters last time.  He is incredibly friendly, knowledgeable, and generally happy.  It really lifted my spirits that he was happy to see me, as I was a little sad that I was leaving Nairobi where I had had so much fun.  Not that I wasn't happy to be in Ol Pejeta again, just that I had a few lingering fears about my work here (will it work? will they hate me? will I fall in the river and get chomped by hippos? will a chimp drag me into an electric fence?).  I asked David if he had any updates for me about the chimps, and he told me that there was a surprise.  I asked what it was, but he was pretty close-lipped.  Then he sneakily discussed this something in Swahili with Kim, mocked me for my lack of Swahili (telling me that I would have to learn more!), wouldn't tell me any more, and departed smiling.  I will see him tomorrow, though.

George arrived with some other Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) vets later, and was also quite happy to see me.  He thanked me for the computer, and stayed for dinner.  We had some great discussion about the chimps and their health checks and naming in Kenya.  It was great to see the fun, non-working side of George.

Alli, Kim, and I had good talks late into the evening, and here I am, updating you now.

So basically, Ol Pejeta is awesome and I am glad I am here again.  Once again, no pictures: I was driving today, and could hardly be expected to take pictures as well!  Additionally my internet works quite well, and that makes me really happy, because it means I can keep updating and adding pictures.

Getting on the road today and up to my field site has done wonders for my mental state, and I'm no longer totally worried about my permits or progress or potential failure or that I might not see any animals other than chimps and how that would really be a bit sad.  Thank you, Kenya, for that peace of mind.

Nairobi

Joyce and George have a beautiful house, situated in the hilly part of West Nairobi, in the UN area of Mutheiga.  They have a vegetable garden and keep rabbits and chickens for meat and eggs. I have my own room in the house with a very comfortable bed, my own bathroom, and it is very quiet.  When I turn the lights off to go to sleep, it's basically pitch black, which is also really nice.  Last night I slept like a champ, only woke up once at 4 in the morning, and promptly went back to sleep until around 8.

After I got up I had a sweet potato and spinach for breakfast, which Joyce told me when she came downstairs to join me was a pretty traditional breakfast.  In this house, they eat a lot of traditional foods so I will become quite accustomed with real Kenyan food.  After chatting over tea and breakfast, we decided what we would do today: go to the Sarit Centre for Joyce's eye appointment, and so I could get a phone, modem, and explore the area a bit.

It was so much easier to get a phone than I ever anticipated.  Joyce called her son to ask for a recommendation of the best company for me in Nanyuki, and he said Airtel. Airtel was conveniently on the bottom floor of the Sarit center, so I walked in, asked for a phone and a modem, and 30 minutes later both were up and running.  All I have to do to add minutes/mb is buy them at any store and then add them to my phone or modem using a secret pin provided on the purchase card!  It's so simple.  A modem, by the way, is not what we typically think of as a modem in the US or Australia, it's a 3G access point and is like a big thumb drive that plugs directly into your computer to give you access to the internet.  You are charged by the mb of upload/download, and you can bundle your charges to get the best deals.  For example, right now I'm paying 300 bob (about USD$3.50) for unlimited internet for 7 days.  Since I've got a lot of emailing to do this week, I consider that a pretty good deal.  When I get out to Ol Pejeta I'll probably dial back to a 1 or 2 GB plan and hope that lasts me the summer.

In the afternoon we headed over to Joyce's apartment complex (that she built) so she could pay some repairmen and I could meet two of her three children, Kiuri and Wambui.  We imposed on Kiuri for a cup of tea, since I am trying to kick coffee, and chatted for a while.  I have been enjoying my adventures around Nairobi, although they aren't too adventuresome as yet -- I haven't gone out on my own as I don't know the area that well.  However, I imagine I might be ready to in a few more days.

Sunday was relaxing and pleasant, I had a mellow morning on the internet and reading and then had tea with Joyce on their patio after lunch.  The patio has spectacular views as it looks down the hill on a forested ravine and there are only a few roofs to be seen, even though houses do exist down that way.  I had thought I heard monkeys on my first night here but brushed it off to a foreign bird call, however Joyce corrected me and told me that monkeys do come here.  Sykes monkeys (Cercopithecus albogularis) probably, as they are what I saw later this week in Karen, but I am not sure.  Apparently they run into the chicken coop and steal the eggs and often make off with the vegetables from the garden.  If I were a monkey, I'd want to come to this garden too!

I was picked up by surprise on Sunday late afternoon by Nana (Nah-nah, not nanna like grandma), one of Wambui's friends.  We met up with two more of her friends and Wambui and went to Solar Garden, a nyama choma restaurant and bar, for some drinks and some choma (fire roasted meat).  Nana, Wambui, and their friends were very easy to talk to, much easier than some of the other friends-of-friends I have met with in the past, and were happy to explain all about the area and geography to me as we drove around.  All around the Westlands areas flats (apartment buildings) are popping up on old house properties and this is causing all kinds of trouble with electricity and water as there is not the infrastructure to support that amount of residence.  Water lines are a particular problem as the lines on these estates were often only laid down for a single house with 8-10 residents, and without re-doing the water lines apartment complexes are springing up on top of them.  One of the girls we were with has to collect and store water once a week when the water comes on in her apartment and hope that it lasts her until the next time the water comes on.  Additionally, the electricity goes out almost every time there is rain (this I truly do not understand), either in a transitory way, rolling brownouts, or just overall blackouts.  This area of Nairobi is really cute, and I very much enjoyed driving around there, but I don't know that I'm cut out to store my water up for a week at a time.  I am told that it's all a matter of becoming used to it, though.

Nana also helped dispell the thought in me that all Kenyan drivers are completely nuts.  My ride from the airport to the house had me pressing on the passenger side break (aka the floor) constantly, and even my trip with Joyce was a little scary as the area around Sarit was very busy and filled with drivers. Nana explained that mostly it was the Matatus Behaving Badly (new show idea, obviously) as they are so obsessed with getting the next fare that they will do anything to get there quickly, including constantly cutting people off and driving on the side of the road. Furthermore, I think most of them do not care if their vehicles are scratched so it's a very low-risk-high-reward situation for them. Nana was a much more relaxed driver, happy to go with the flow and not worried about getting to our destination Right Now Now Now.

Despite this, I still managed to have a stress dream about driving after all that driving around in Nairobi. In my dream I was backing my subaru out of a parking space with a slight uphill incline (I was going backwards and uphill) and I noticed someone behind me so tried to brake. I pressed on the brake with both of my feet and literally leaned all of my weight into the brake and still my car didn't stop rolling backwards, and I dented another car.  I was horrified.  Then I woke up, thank goodness.

Monday was a real adventure and exercise in bureaucracy.  I had planned with Edwin to go to the Institute of Primate Research (IPR) in Karen (a suburb named after Baroness Karen von Blixen, a realisation that has led me to two things: I want a suburb named after me, and I want to change my name to "von Blixen").  IPR is the institution that I am affiliating with to get my research permits, and I have been communicating with one of the researchers there over the last few months to prepare my application.  I had emailed him on Wednesday to ask if I could come in on Monday morning and he emailed back with the affirmative, stating that he might be out of town in Arusha at a conference but he would forward my information to a few of his colleagues so they would be able to assist me when I arrived.  Well, I arrived, and all of the colleagues he had given my information to were either out of town or unfamiliar with my case and my needs.  One man, Danson, kindly made several phone calls to determine what needed to be done to help me, only to find out that the people who were needed to sign my paperwork were also out of the institute that day.

I decided to stick it out and waited in Danson's office for two hours to see if anyone would come back to sign my forms.  On our way to lunch we encountered one of Danson's colleagues in a parking lot and, as seems always to happen in Kenya, Danson immediately introduced me.  I didn't catch the other man's name, but he asked where I was from, and when I said "California" (I never answer "The US," always California, curiously), he said "Oh, California Davis? The University of California Davis?"  I was immediately shocked as most people have never heard of Davis, but evidently a close colleague of his had travelled to Davis to do his PhD and liked it so much he never came back!  Danson kindly bought me lunch, ugali and beef stew which was really quite good, and then we headed down to registration to see what could be done.  In registration, a kindly secretary helped me out and told me to leave my forms on the appropriate desk and she would make sure they were signed, the letter of affiliation written, and handed in to the ministry.  I thanked her heartily, gave her my phone number so she could call me once this was all done, and left.

Danson was very apologetic that the day had not been more successful, but I said it wasn't a big deal.  I had fortunately thought up a plan-B in case something like this happened and now I will be enacting it.  We exchanged email information so we can keep in contact, as he is interested in traveling to the US and getting a PhD there.  One huge upside to the day was getting to see Sykes monkeys, as they foraged on the ground around IPR and played around in the trees on the pathway. At one point I was walking with my backpack, which contained my camera, outside some lab buildings and heard a huge rustling to my left. I immediately looked and saw a large monkey about two arm lengths away from me.  I would have whipped out my camera to take a photo, but as IPR is a biomedical research facility they would probably not have appreciated the presence of my camera.  (By the way, their primate center is in a forest and way more beautiful than ours. It still smelled of monkey, but I couldn't see them for all the trees, although I could hear the male baboons grunting away from across the property where their enclosures were.)

All in all the day was not unsuccessful, and I have an email in to the institute now so hopefully my application will be processed shortly.  Plan B involves heading up to Ol Pejeta this Friday morning with the rental car, and bringing all my things with me.  While I am there I will do no official research, just getting to know the chimps and using Alli's expertise to make sure my methods are sound and will work out.   Of course, getting my permits couldn't be easy, so whatever.  It'll happen, I'll just light a fire under their tails with my frequent phone calls and emails.  Or be really polite. Either way.

Then yesterday evening I picked up Alli from the airport, though her plane was substantially delayed.  It gave me a lot of time to think things over about my own travels.  It was originally one of my undergrads who put me onto the idea of using tampons to deter bag searching.  He told me a story of a friend's mother who used to bring bird specimens back from the field illegally, and hid them in socks (or something) that she then sprinkled tampons around.  My own trunk, full of Kim's research supplies, I had packed full of socks, underwear, books, and then dumped a whole box of tampons on top of and I'm pretty sure nobody looked in it more than cursorily.  I fully attribute that my success in sneaking those supplies out to that.

And finally, I've been getting rather an annoying number of phone calls from the 530 area code of late. I'm sure it's important and I don't want to know about it and have turned off my US cell phone to avoid incurring charges.  So, friends, if you need to call me, for love or an emergency, please do so to my Kenyan phone number:

+254 787 611 455

Kenya is 10 hours ahead of California, so just keep that in mind.