Folks, it's been over a week since my last blog post. This is partly a function of how busy things have been at work and partly a function of my busier evening and weekend social life in Nairobi.
But it's primarily a function of my laziness. There are so many things I want to write about that I haven't gotten around to putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys, as it were). This week, that's going to change: I am committing -- right here -- to keeping the posts flowing for the next seven days. So keep checking in!
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Friday, 6 August 2010
The Infidelity Hour
You probably know that I hate Nairobi traffic. There is, however, a silver lining to the dark thundercloud of Kenyan gridlock: morning talk radio.
The taxi company that I take to work caters mostly to international community workers, and the drivers are required to pick the same English-heavy channel every morning. The DJ and callers speak mostly in English with a sprinkling of Swahili, so it’s easy to understand.
Between 8:00 and 9:30 am, the discussion is devoted to two topics: public corruption and infidelity. Corruption discussion = boring. But discussions on cheating = hilarious, depressing and revealing, all at the same time.
The show uses the same format every time: the discussion typically kicks off around 8:15 with a story about a man or a woman who was caught cheating, who cheated without getting caught, who caught his or her partner cheating, who knows someone who is a mistress, who suspects they are being cheated on, or who has an interesting anecdote about cheating. After the DJ has explained the story, he asks listeners what they would do if they found themselves in that person’s shoes.
(Actual) examples have included:
1) Story: a married Kenyan woman gave birth to her third child. The child was visibly half Caucasian. Her husband was very upset and at a loss of what to do. Question: what would you do as a man in this situation? Do you leave your wife?
2) Story: a recently married man finds that his girlfriend spends a lot of time out with her girlfriends and doesn’t get home until quite late one or two nights a week. She doesn’t tend to call or text while she’s out. Question to men: do you think it is important to tame your wife once you get married? To women: do you think you need to be tamed?
3) Today’s story: the king of Swaziland (honest!) had his police raid a hotel and found that one of his ministers was sleeping with one of his wives. (Aside: who is dumb enough to sleep with the wife of an absolute monarch?) Question to men: have you ever caught your partner in bed with a close friend? And what did you do? To women: have you ever been caught red-handed?
4) Story: a man tells his mistress that his wife suspects he is being unfaithful. The mistress is worried about her identity being discovered and facing the wrath of the wronged wife. Question to mistresses: have you ever faced the wrath of his wife? To wives: have you ever had to deal with a mistress? Do you do it directly or indirectly through the husband?
The stories are rarely as interesting as the sound bites from the people that call in. There are angry callers and calm ones, mistresses and wives, men and women, people with firsthand accounts and people who answer in hypothetical. The callers are an interesting glimpse into how fidelity is seen in Kenya: publicly condemned, definitely widespread and even accepted as a fact of everyday life.
One of the most surprising things about listening to the Hour of Cheating is how reasonable and un-macho many of the male callers are. In response to today’s story, a number of Kenyan men called in to discuss how they would handle their wife giving birth to a child that was obviously not theirs. One pointed out that it was the husband’s responsibility to keep the family together, no matter what happened, and to be a good father to the child even if it wasn’t biologically his. Another explained that infidelity is painful, but it’s a wound that can be repaired if the woman is willing to amend her ways and not do it again. A third said (correctly, I’d say) that men become extremely angry when they first find out about infidelity but that they calm down in the end. Maybe the callers on this show aren’t representative of the general population, but their responses seemed more understanding and forgiving than I would have expected.
There are some less surprising aspects of unfaithfulness. Infidelity in Kenya, I have gathered, is often a partly financial relationship. Certainly engaging a prostitute is a very common pattern for some men – and is purely transactional. But a typical pattern of long-term infidelity involves a married man having an affair with a younger woman (who may or may not be married herself). We can call this type of relationship the “sugar daddy affair.” This arrangement should be familiar to most readers: the man generally provides the woman with money, entertainment and things; the mistress enters into a kind of medium-term goods-for-services exchange. In many cases, there is an emotional component, but the financial aspect is never too far below the surface. Last week, when a female caller (who claimed to be a mistress) explained that she never received any material things from her lover, the DJ and callers expressed shock at the situation.
According to many of the wives who call in, they often suspect that their husband is being unfaithful without any concrete evidence. But since extramarital affairs have a material component, the struggle between the wife and the mistress is not only a fight over dignity and love, but also over financial resources. As the DJ frequently points out: if you can’t tell exactly how much money your husband is bringing in, how can you be sure that he’s not buying his mistress a car or giving her money for school? For wives and mistresses, it’s a zero-sum game; what the mistress gets, the wife and kids don’t.
Although the discussion about infidelity on the radio is often gossipy and matter-of-fact, the issue of infidelity (especially sugar-daddy affairs) has two major implications from a development standpoint.
First, infidelity, and having multiple partners in general, is a major health risk. In Kenya, infrequent condom usage combined with high STD rates and widespread infidelity is (quite literally) a deadly combination. The problem is the same in other East African countries. Public health workers across East Africa see sexual transmission of major diseases such as HIV as one of their top priorities. Sugar daddy-type affairs often involve older men and younger women, which lead to the intergenerational spread of HIV. As my health-worker friends point out, the intergenerational transmission of HIV/AIDS is one of the main ways that HIV levels remain so high, since younger generations get infected earlier than they would if sexual activity was confined to peers.
Overcoming dangerous sexual practices is hard work. Last summer, Uganda and Rwanda launched “anti-sugar daddy” campaigns: one sign in Kampala showed a young girl in a college uniform making a ‘no’ sign with her hand to an older man in a luxury car. (Oddly enough, the government was gender neutral enough to print “anti-sugar momma” posters: a young man refusing a beer from an older woman in a suit – a somewhat less likely situation). On the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, signs in Swahili said ‘If you truly love her, you’ll protect her,’ with regard to condom usage and affairs. In downtown Dar-es-Salaam, humorous murals reminded passerby that sleeping with teachers and government officials was a dangerous and unhealthy practice for young women.
The second problem relates to savings and investment. One of the phenomena familiar to African development workers is the so-called “girl effect” – the notion that females are much more likely to invest money they receive in health, education of children, basic needs and savings. Men, in general, spend a much larger share of funds on luxury and unnecessary items such as alcohol, women, imported goods and entertainment. This isn’t to say that men are always less wise with their cash, but there is considerable evidence that this tendency holds true overall. Many microfinance institutions and development organizations will only work with women for this reason. When there’s only so much money to go around, they reason, why spend where it won’t have an impact?
How does this relate to infidelity? When infidelity involves a sugar-daddy type relationship (and what mistress wouldn’t at least want to be taken out to dinner?) it siphons funds from the household to another woman, often in the form of luxury goods, clothing or entertainment. Rather than being spent wisely at home on education, healthcare, etc., the money is wasted on items that produce little return on investment. Each trip with the mistress means that one of the children might not be able to attend school that month. Critics of this view might point out that accepting funds from a cheating husband is the only means that some young women can start their own businesses, attend college or university, or support themselves, but such situations are probably uncommon.
It can be a little depressing to hear about all the cheating that’s going on. There’s not much to do except for me to keep listening.
The taxi company that I take to work caters mostly to international community workers, and the drivers are required to pick the same English-heavy channel every morning. The DJ and callers speak mostly in English with a sprinkling of Swahili, so it’s easy to understand.
Between 8:00 and 9:30 am, the discussion is devoted to two topics: public corruption and infidelity. Corruption discussion = boring. But discussions on cheating = hilarious, depressing and revealing, all at the same time.
The show uses the same format every time: the discussion typically kicks off around 8:15 with a story about a man or a woman who was caught cheating, who cheated without getting caught, who caught his or her partner cheating, who knows someone who is a mistress, who suspects they are being cheated on, or who has an interesting anecdote about cheating. After the DJ has explained the story, he asks listeners what they would do if they found themselves in that person’s shoes.
(Actual) examples have included:
1) Story: a married Kenyan woman gave birth to her third child. The child was visibly half Caucasian. Her husband was very upset and at a loss of what to do. Question: what would you do as a man in this situation? Do you leave your wife?
2) Story: a recently married man finds that his girlfriend spends a lot of time out with her girlfriends and doesn’t get home until quite late one or two nights a week. She doesn’t tend to call or text while she’s out. Question to men: do you think it is important to tame your wife once you get married? To women: do you think you need to be tamed?
3) Today’s story: the king of Swaziland (honest!) had his police raid a hotel and found that one of his ministers was sleeping with one of his wives. (Aside: who is dumb enough to sleep with the wife of an absolute monarch?) Question to men: have you ever caught your partner in bed with a close friend? And what did you do? To women: have you ever been caught red-handed?
4) Story: a man tells his mistress that his wife suspects he is being unfaithful. The mistress is worried about her identity being discovered and facing the wrath of the wronged wife. Question to mistresses: have you ever faced the wrath of his wife? To wives: have you ever had to deal with a mistress? Do you do it directly or indirectly through the husband?
The stories are rarely as interesting as the sound bites from the people that call in. There are angry callers and calm ones, mistresses and wives, men and women, people with firsthand accounts and people who answer in hypothetical. The callers are an interesting glimpse into how fidelity is seen in Kenya: publicly condemned, definitely widespread and even accepted as a fact of everyday life.
One of the most surprising things about listening to the Hour of Cheating is how reasonable and un-macho many of the male callers are. In response to today’s story, a number of Kenyan men called in to discuss how they would handle their wife giving birth to a child that was obviously not theirs. One pointed out that it was the husband’s responsibility to keep the family together, no matter what happened, and to be a good father to the child even if it wasn’t biologically his. Another explained that infidelity is painful, but it’s a wound that can be repaired if the woman is willing to amend her ways and not do it again. A third said (correctly, I’d say) that men become extremely angry when they first find out about infidelity but that they calm down in the end. Maybe the callers on this show aren’t representative of the general population, but their responses seemed more understanding and forgiving than I would have expected.
There are some less surprising aspects of unfaithfulness. Infidelity in Kenya, I have gathered, is often a partly financial relationship. Certainly engaging a prostitute is a very common pattern for some men – and is purely transactional. But a typical pattern of long-term infidelity involves a married man having an affair with a younger woman (who may or may not be married herself). We can call this type of relationship the “sugar daddy affair.” This arrangement should be familiar to most readers: the man generally provides the woman with money, entertainment and things; the mistress enters into a kind of medium-term goods-for-services exchange. In many cases, there is an emotional component, but the financial aspect is never too far below the surface. Last week, when a female caller (who claimed to be a mistress) explained that she never received any material things from her lover, the DJ and callers expressed shock at the situation.
According to many of the wives who call in, they often suspect that their husband is being unfaithful without any concrete evidence. But since extramarital affairs have a material component, the struggle between the wife and the mistress is not only a fight over dignity and love, but also over financial resources. As the DJ frequently points out: if you can’t tell exactly how much money your husband is bringing in, how can you be sure that he’s not buying his mistress a car or giving her money for school? For wives and mistresses, it’s a zero-sum game; what the mistress gets, the wife and kids don’t.
Although the discussion about infidelity on the radio is often gossipy and matter-of-fact, the issue of infidelity (especially sugar-daddy affairs) has two major implications from a development standpoint.
First, infidelity, and having multiple partners in general, is a major health risk. In Kenya, infrequent condom usage combined with high STD rates and widespread infidelity is (quite literally) a deadly combination. The problem is the same in other East African countries. Public health workers across East Africa see sexual transmission of major diseases such as HIV as one of their top priorities. Sugar daddy-type affairs often involve older men and younger women, which lead to the intergenerational spread of HIV. As my health-worker friends point out, the intergenerational transmission of HIV/AIDS is one of the main ways that HIV levels remain so high, since younger generations get infected earlier than they would if sexual activity was confined to peers.
Overcoming dangerous sexual practices is hard work. Last summer, Uganda and Rwanda launched “anti-sugar daddy” campaigns: one sign in Kampala showed a young girl in a college uniform making a ‘no’ sign with her hand to an older man in a luxury car. (Oddly enough, the government was gender neutral enough to print “anti-sugar momma” posters: a young man refusing a beer from an older woman in a suit – a somewhat less likely situation). On the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania, signs in Swahili said ‘If you truly love her, you’ll protect her,’ with regard to condom usage and affairs. In downtown Dar-es-Salaam, humorous murals reminded passerby that sleeping with teachers and government officials was a dangerous and unhealthy practice for young women.
The second problem relates to savings and investment. One of the phenomena familiar to African development workers is the so-called “girl effect” – the notion that females are much more likely to invest money they receive in health, education of children, basic needs and savings. Men, in general, spend a much larger share of funds on luxury and unnecessary items such as alcohol, women, imported goods and entertainment. This isn’t to say that men are always less wise with their cash, but there is considerable evidence that this tendency holds true overall. Many microfinance institutions and development organizations will only work with women for this reason. When there’s only so much money to go around, they reason, why spend where it won’t have an impact?
How does this relate to infidelity? When infidelity involves a sugar-daddy type relationship (and what mistress wouldn’t at least want to be taken out to dinner?) it siphons funds from the household to another woman, often in the form of luxury goods, clothing or entertainment. Rather than being spent wisely at home on education, healthcare, etc., the money is wasted on items that produce little return on investment. Each trip with the mistress means that one of the children might not be able to attend school that month. Critics of this view might point out that accepting funds from a cheating husband is the only means that some young women can start their own businesses, attend college or university, or support themselves, but such situations are probably uncommon.
It can be a little depressing to hear about all the cheating that’s going on. There’s not much to do except for me to keep listening.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Call to Relax
I just returned from an amazing weekend in Lamu Town. Lamu is part of the Lamu Archipelago, a small chain of islands off Kenya's coastline, quite near Somalia.
It was short trip: Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. But even that short stay in and around Lamu was enough to fall in love with the place. I have to give Lamu the title for East Africa's most charming and romantic spot. The rich and famous have been fans of Lamu for a while; Bill Gates visits the area from time to time and Princess Caroline of Monaco has no fewer than four houses here, not to mention the scores of wealthy finance types with cash to burn. Fortunately, the islands remain accessible even to humbler elements like me.
Getting to Lamu from Nairobi involves traveling to minuscule airports and jumping on even smaller planes. The views of the flight as we got close to the coast were terrific:
Pretty much every aspect of the weekend was a huge hit. I traveled there with a great group of people -- four volunteer consultants working at TechnoServe (my employer last summer in Tanzania). For most of them, it was their first time in Lamu as well, so we had the chance to explore the island together.
Our accommodations were outrageously nice. Rather than staying at one of Lamu's fancy hotels, we rented a mansion for the weekend. The mansion was called Mnarani House, which means "the house at the minaret." And indeed there was a beautiful mosque right next door - nice for views, not so nice for sleep when the call to prayer blasts at 5 am, twenty feet from your head. Muezzins aside, the house itself had a charming Swahili open-plan layout. In general, I've always found Islamic architecture to produce some of the nicest homes - simple exteriors and elegant interiors centered around courtyards, sitting areas and gardens. This house followed that tradition: there were four floors, and each floor was divided up with low walls which created sitting areas, a coffee nook, the dining balcony, a reading area, etc. Instead of windows, the house had several balconies and open views of the town so that place was always kept cool by the sea breeze. The bedrooms were really beautiful, with en-suite bathrooms and unusually shaped windows that prevents those outside from seeing in allows a nice breeze to blow through at night.
We spent most of the time in the house eating in the open-air dining room or hanging out on the cushion-filled rooftop, which had great views of the mosque, the beach and the mansions nearby. This is the view of Mnarani House and mosque:
One of Lamu's biggest attractions is the seafood. The apartment that we rented came free with a chef and steward; we only had to pay for the ingredients. The seafood there was amazing: fried calamari on the first night; oysters, crabs and lobster on the second; a gigantic, grilled white snapper for our final lunch. Everything had been caught hours before we ate it. Even the side dishes were great: avocado-onion salads, coconut-cooked rice, dressings like ginger, lime, garlic and chili.
We hired a local guy to give us a tour of Lamu town on Saturday. The tour itself was somewhat half-hearted, more of a loop through tourist boutiques owned by our guide's friends than a history-focused trek through the island's points of interest. Nonetheless, we spent a few hours in Lamu's quiet streets filled with crumbling buildings, narrow alleyways and vegetable stalls. The photo opportunities were incredible, and I tried to do my best with my entry-level Canon. The quality of the footage was good enough that I told myself I would learn more about photography before the summer is over. Here are some of my favorites...
Lamu's transportation industry is donkey-based. The narrowness of the roads, the lack of bridges to the mainland and the small size of the town make cars totally impractical on the island. In other places where I've seen similar constraints (Utila, Honduras), people have used golf carts as a fill-in for cars, but not here. Human and cargo transport is done primarily with donkeys, who are everywhere. I saw donkeys working, donkeys standing around, a donkey being forcibly bathed in the ocean and donkeys recuperating in Lamu's donkey hospital/sanctuary. Here is a young donkey downtown.
The beach outside of Shella (where we stayed) was a 10-mile stretch of pristine, powdery sand with very few visitors. Definitely one of the nicest beaches I've seen in a long time. The near absence of tourists and total lack of hotels was refreshing (if surprising). I wonder how long the island has until the big hotels arrive. I spent quite a few hours swimming and lying on the beach.
The highlight was probably the sunset dhow cruise we took on Saturday. As in many parts of the Swahili coast, Lamu's fishermen use dhows (traditional wooden vessels with a single, spinnaker-like sail) for getting around. Two local guys took us out for a two-hour sail around the island just as the sun was going down. Here is me on the boat with Simon as we set out:
And Lamu town at sunset:
I was sad when it was finally time to leave for the airport. And by airport, I mean this:
PS. As I am posting this, I'm sitting in a hotel in Arusha. It's noon and the hotel lounge is blasting house music. Why, Tanzania, why?
It was short trip: Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon. But even that short stay in and around Lamu was enough to fall in love with the place. I have to give Lamu the title for East Africa's most charming and romantic spot. The rich and famous have been fans of Lamu for a while; Bill Gates visits the area from time to time and Princess Caroline of Monaco has no fewer than four houses here, not to mention the scores of wealthy finance types with cash to burn. Fortunately, the islands remain accessible even to humbler elements like me.
Getting to Lamu from Nairobi involves traveling to minuscule airports and jumping on even smaller planes. The views of the flight as we got close to the coast were terrific:
Pretty much every aspect of the weekend was a huge hit. I traveled there with a great group of people -- four volunteer consultants working at TechnoServe (my employer last summer in Tanzania). For most of them, it was their first time in Lamu as well, so we had the chance to explore the island together.
Our accommodations were outrageously nice. Rather than staying at one of Lamu's fancy hotels, we rented a mansion for the weekend. The mansion was called Mnarani House, which means "the house at the minaret." And indeed there was a beautiful mosque right next door - nice for views, not so nice for sleep when the call to prayer blasts at 5 am, twenty feet from your head. Muezzins aside, the house itself had a charming Swahili open-plan layout. In general, I've always found Islamic architecture to produce some of the nicest homes - simple exteriors and elegant interiors centered around courtyards, sitting areas and gardens. This house followed that tradition: there were four floors, and each floor was divided up with low walls which created sitting areas, a coffee nook, the dining balcony, a reading area, etc. Instead of windows, the house had several balconies and open views of the town so that place was always kept cool by the sea breeze. The bedrooms were really beautiful, with en-suite bathrooms and unusually shaped windows that prevents those outside from seeing in allows a nice breeze to blow through at night.
We spent most of the time in the house eating in the open-air dining room or hanging out on the cushion-filled rooftop, which had great views of the mosque, the beach and the mansions nearby. This is the view of Mnarani House and mosque:
One of Lamu's biggest attractions is the seafood. The apartment that we rented came free with a chef and steward; we only had to pay for the ingredients. The seafood there was amazing: fried calamari on the first night; oysters, crabs and lobster on the second; a gigantic, grilled white snapper for our final lunch. Everything had been caught hours before we ate it. Even the side dishes were great: avocado-onion salads, coconut-cooked rice, dressings like ginger, lime, garlic and chili.
We hired a local guy to give us a tour of Lamu town on Saturday. The tour itself was somewhat half-hearted, more of a loop through tourist boutiques owned by our guide's friends than a history-focused trek through the island's points of interest. Nonetheless, we spent a few hours in Lamu's quiet streets filled with crumbling buildings, narrow alleyways and vegetable stalls. The photo opportunities were incredible, and I tried to do my best with my entry-level Canon. The quality of the footage was good enough that I told myself I would learn more about photography before the summer is over. Here are some of my favorites...
Lamu's transportation industry is donkey-based. The narrowness of the roads, the lack of bridges to the mainland and the small size of the town make cars totally impractical on the island. In other places where I've seen similar constraints (Utila, Honduras), people have used golf carts as a fill-in for cars, but not here. Human and cargo transport is done primarily with donkeys, who are everywhere. I saw donkeys working, donkeys standing around, a donkey being forcibly bathed in the ocean and donkeys recuperating in Lamu's donkey hospital/sanctuary. Here is a young donkey downtown.
The beach outside of Shella (where we stayed) was a 10-mile stretch of pristine, powdery sand with very few visitors. Definitely one of the nicest beaches I've seen in a long time. The near absence of tourists and total lack of hotels was refreshing (if surprising). I wonder how long the island has until the big hotels arrive. I spent quite a few hours swimming and lying on the beach.
The highlight was probably the sunset dhow cruise we took on Saturday. As in many parts of the Swahili coast, Lamu's fishermen use dhows (traditional wooden vessels with a single, spinnaker-like sail) for getting around. Two local guys took us out for a two-hour sail around the island just as the sun was going down. Here is me on the boat with Simon as we set out:
And Lamu town at sunset:
I was sad when it was finally time to leave for the airport. And by airport, I mean this:
PS. As I am posting this, I'm sitting in a hotel in Arusha. It's noon and the hotel lounge is blasting house music. Why, Tanzania, why?
Monday, 26 July 2010
Reconstitution
I arrived in Nairobi at an interesting time for Kenyan politics. On August 4th, the Kenyan people will vote in a national referendum to decide whether to adopt a new draft Constitution.
Nairobi is buzzing with talk abour the vote: billboards (mostly pro-Yes) are everywhere, senior government officials have left to lead rallies in the countryside, radio shows talk about it constantly, and people debate the pros and cons of the new document. I talk with Kenyans about the Constitution many times each day. Most have strong reasons for or against it, but very few are willing to predict the sort of civil unrest that the vote with cause.
You might remember the ugly post-election violence in Kenya in 2007. Following the official declaration that Mwai Kibaki had won the Presidential election, ethnic groups allied with the insurgent (current Prime Minister) Raila Odinga staged a large number of non-violent and violent protests. They complained that the other side has rigged the election, a charge echoed by most international observers. The violence took different shapes in different parts of the country, with ethnic minorities from one party's camp being harrassed and attacked in areas dominated by ethnic groups aligned with the other candidate. The violence finally abated when Kibaki's and Odinga's factions agreed to an extra-Constitutional power sharing agreement with Kibaki as President and Odinga as Prime Minister. This arrangement was novel, but it was accepted by the courts primarily as a means to end the violence. As the conflict settled down, hundreds had been killed, thousands injured and tens of thousands displaced from their homes, particularly in slum areas of Nairboi such as Kibera.
Before even talking about the current Constitutional battles, it's important to put the 2007 violence in context.
Kenyan politics are different from those in many countries. As one of my Kenyan colleagues pointed out, it's impossible to peg political leaders as left-wing or right-wing, progressive or conservative, traditional or modern. Although national politicians have views on particular issues -- education, trade, healthcare, housing, crime -- their positions don't really affect their voter base. Rather, political affiliations in Kenya are almost exclusively tribal. Kenyan politicians have an infamous and unfortunate track record of diverting public resources to their own -- or affiliated -- ethnic groups. Analysts have noted, for instance, that when control of the Presidency shifts from one group to another, funding to schools and hospitals in geographic areas populated by opponent ethnic groups tended to drop significantly. In light of such practices, it's easy to see how Kenyans could be very skeptical about politics and about the validity of their leaders' intentions. As a result of the patronage politics, elections (especially Presidential elections) are extremely high stakes. If your candidate wins, educated partisan cronies can expect plum jobs and the common follower can look forward to increased funding for public services. If he loses, however, they can predict that resources will be diverted to ethnic groups that backed the winner. A lot of this is described in Michaela Wrong's bestseller "It's Our Turn to Eat" -- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Our-Turn-Michela-Wrong/dp/0007241968.
Combine high-stakes, patronage politics with endemic campaign corruption* and voter fraud and you can a lot of angry people at the polls.
It's an easy contrast with Tanzania, which has a drastically different political environment. Tanzania's post-independence leader, Julius Nyerere, had a very different vision for his country that his Kenyan contemporary Jomo Kenyatta. Nyerere had communistic ideals and believed that the natural mode of living for sub-Saharan Africans was a traditional, communal, family-centered village. He believed that the ideal economic mode of production was also the commune, a strategy which was not particularly effective for increasing agricultural output. Nyerere also stressed national unity - he oversaw the unification of Tanganyika and Zanzibar into modern-day Tanzania, promoted the use of Kiswahili as the official national language, and encouraged national Tanzanian identity over ethnic-tribal identities such as the Sukuma, Yao or Suba**.
If it's hard to say which approach is better, it seems obvious that the differences in vision between Jomo and Julius produced a real divergence between their countries. In Kenya, politics is contentious, tribal and high-stakes; in Tanzania, a single party - C.C.M. - has ruled the country since independence and political battles take place (when at all) around local parliamentary elections. In Kenya, people feel strong tribal identities and prefer to speak their native tongue or English (which they can do well); Tanzanians have embraced Swahili as a lingua franca but generally can't speak English well. Kenyans are (as a rule) entrepreneurial, competitive and trade-oriented; Tanzanians are more relaxed, more trapped by red tape and high tariffs, and less competitive within the region. Kenya performs significantly worse than Tanzania in terms of wealth and income inequality. (On land inequality: three families in Kenya each own 1 million acres of land. On income inequality: as measured by the UN's Gini coefficient index, a widely accepted indicator of income inequality, Tanzania has a 34.6 - in between France and Australia - while Kenya gets a 47.7, meaning that income distribution is more unequal than in the United States, and almost as unequal as Brazil).
Thanks to its more commercial orientation, Kenya seems to have come out ahead of Tanzania economically. In terms of politics, though, Kenya seems to have it bad: ethnic tension, tribal identities which override national unity and debate of issues, endemic corruption and substantial inequality in both land holding and income. As a function of these structural problems, political decisions (such as elections) can lead to violent results, often along ethnic lines.
Now that Kenya is moving full swing into the national referendum to approve the new Constitution, who knows how things will shake out? The Constitution contains the usual sorts of provisions found in constitutions drafted since World War II. There are the usual things related to the branches of government, stronger separation powers, the right to vote, to free speech, etc. These aren't controversial. Like many African constitutions, this one protects so-called "second generation" or "affirmative" rights: healthcare, education, housing, fair wages, culture, and family life, among others. Although it's unlikely that the Government of Kenya could actually provide all those rights, no one is going to object to that sort of language.
Three parts of the Constitution have been the source of debate:
- Abortion. Abortion is currently illegal in Kenya and you can go to jail to performing one or undertaking one. The Constitution officially outlaws abortion but provides for a number of open-ended exceptions that many conservatives (primarily Catholics) think will increase access to abortions in Kenya.
- Kadhi (Islamic) courts. The Constitution provides for the official establishment of Kadhi, or Islamic courts in Muslim areas. It also provides for exceptions to certain provisions of the Bill of Rights for professed Muslims. Although Kadhi courts currently exist (with statutory, rather than Constitutional backing), you can imagine that this has pissed off the Christian set.
- Land. It's a little unclear what Chapter Five actually means for land reform, but the section is widely understood to mean that the Constitution empowers government to ensure equitable distribution of land, including reversing some illegitimate purchases (land grabbing) that go back to the post-independence period. Because Kenya has such uneven land distribution, this is of major concern to landholders in the Rift Valley who stand to lose a lot if their sketchy land deals get investigated and possibly invalidated. As a result, Daniel arap Moi and his cronies have been telling Nairobians that if the Constitution passes, Maasai herders will come and seize all their land. Some people actually believe this.
But it's not just the major points of debate that pose problems. Getting a country of almost 40 million people, many of whom don't speak English and have limited schooling (let alone legal education), to understand a massive documents with hundreds of parts is an insurmountable task. As my driver yesterday, Peter, pointed out, he speaks English fluently but doesn't have the legal education to understand what the provisions really mean. ("If you have not been trained in the law, how can you know what this really means?"; "What does it mean if [the Constitution] says 'the government shall do something'? That's in the future."). Of course, there are people on both sides of the debate constantly telling him what it means, but he doesn't trust what they say. So even though he has read parts of the Constitution, he's not even sure he will vote in the end. Peter was most worried about his old grandmother in the village, who doesn't see well and can't speak English; he's concerned that if she tries to vote, the people at the polling station might trick her into picking something she doesn't want. Getting to the polling station is only half the battle.
All the issues inherent in the Constitutional referendum - the high-stakes outcomes, the propaganda, the lack of understanding of its contents, the underlying ethnic tensions - are going to make for an interesting vote next Wednesday. I just hope that no one gets hurt.
* Corruption is generally bad. Transparency International gave Kenya a corruption ranking of 146 out of 180 in 2009. This put it on par with Russia, Zimbabwe and Ecuador.
** There is one notable exception to the unity and uniformity of Tanzania - Zanzibar, which has courts with the jurisdiction to hear Islamic law claims and whose residents tend to vote for minority political parties such as the C.U.F. The Zanzibari exceptionalism enshrined in Tanzania's legal structure stems from the negotiations that took place at the time of union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika, theoretically a merger of two equal sovereign states. It's similar to special legal treatment for Texas or Quebec.
*** For a copy of the draft Constitution, click here: http://muigwithania.com/2010/05/05/kenyan-constitution-pdf/. Warning: it's long.
Nairobi is buzzing with talk abour the vote: billboards (mostly pro-Yes) are everywhere, senior government officials have left to lead rallies in the countryside, radio shows talk about it constantly, and people debate the pros and cons of the new document. I talk with Kenyans about the Constitution many times each day. Most have strong reasons for or against it, but very few are willing to predict the sort of civil unrest that the vote with cause.
You might remember the ugly post-election violence in Kenya in 2007. Following the official declaration that Mwai Kibaki had won the Presidential election, ethnic groups allied with the insurgent (current Prime Minister) Raila Odinga staged a large number of non-violent and violent protests. They complained that the other side has rigged the election, a charge echoed by most international observers. The violence took different shapes in different parts of the country, with ethnic minorities from one party's camp being harrassed and attacked in areas dominated by ethnic groups aligned with the other candidate. The violence finally abated when Kibaki's and Odinga's factions agreed to an extra-Constitutional power sharing agreement with Kibaki as President and Odinga as Prime Minister. This arrangement was novel, but it was accepted by the courts primarily as a means to end the violence. As the conflict settled down, hundreds had been killed, thousands injured and tens of thousands displaced from their homes, particularly in slum areas of Nairboi such as Kibera.
Before even talking about the current Constitutional battles, it's important to put the 2007 violence in context.
Kenyan politics are different from those in many countries. As one of my Kenyan colleagues pointed out, it's impossible to peg political leaders as left-wing or right-wing, progressive or conservative, traditional or modern. Although national politicians have views on particular issues -- education, trade, healthcare, housing, crime -- their positions don't really affect their voter base. Rather, political affiliations in Kenya are almost exclusively tribal. Kenyan politicians have an infamous and unfortunate track record of diverting public resources to their own -- or affiliated -- ethnic groups. Analysts have noted, for instance, that when control of the Presidency shifts from one group to another, funding to schools and hospitals in geographic areas populated by opponent ethnic groups tended to drop significantly. In light of such practices, it's easy to see how Kenyans could be very skeptical about politics and about the validity of their leaders' intentions. As a result of the patronage politics, elections (especially Presidential elections) are extremely high stakes. If your candidate wins, educated partisan cronies can expect plum jobs and the common follower can look forward to increased funding for public services. If he loses, however, they can predict that resources will be diverted to ethnic groups that backed the winner. A lot of this is described in Michaela Wrong's bestseller "It's Our Turn to Eat" -- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-Our-Turn-Michela-Wrong/dp/0007241968.
Combine high-stakes, patronage politics with endemic campaign corruption* and voter fraud and you can a lot of angry people at the polls.
It's an easy contrast with Tanzania, which has a drastically different political environment. Tanzania's post-independence leader, Julius Nyerere, had a very different vision for his country that his Kenyan contemporary Jomo Kenyatta. Nyerere had communistic ideals and believed that the natural mode of living for sub-Saharan Africans was a traditional, communal, family-centered village. He believed that the ideal economic mode of production was also the commune, a strategy which was not particularly effective for increasing agricultural output. Nyerere also stressed national unity - he oversaw the unification of Tanganyika and Zanzibar into modern-day Tanzania, promoted the use of Kiswahili as the official national language, and encouraged national Tanzanian identity over ethnic-tribal identities such as the Sukuma, Yao or Suba**.
If it's hard to say which approach is better, it seems obvious that the differences in vision between Jomo and Julius produced a real divergence between their countries. In Kenya, politics is contentious, tribal and high-stakes; in Tanzania, a single party - C.C.M. - has ruled the country since independence and political battles take place (when at all) around local parliamentary elections. In Kenya, people feel strong tribal identities and prefer to speak their native tongue or English (which they can do well); Tanzanians have embraced Swahili as a lingua franca but generally can't speak English well. Kenyans are (as a rule) entrepreneurial, competitive and trade-oriented; Tanzanians are more relaxed, more trapped by red tape and high tariffs, and less competitive within the region. Kenya performs significantly worse than Tanzania in terms of wealth and income inequality. (On land inequality: three families in Kenya each own 1 million acres of land. On income inequality: as measured by the UN's Gini coefficient index, a widely accepted indicator of income inequality, Tanzania has a 34.6 - in between France and Australia - while Kenya gets a 47.7, meaning that income distribution is more unequal than in the United States, and almost as unequal as Brazil).
Thanks to its more commercial orientation, Kenya seems to have come out ahead of Tanzania economically. In terms of politics, though, Kenya seems to have it bad: ethnic tension, tribal identities which override national unity and debate of issues, endemic corruption and substantial inequality in both land holding and income. As a function of these structural problems, political decisions (such as elections) can lead to violent results, often along ethnic lines.
Now that Kenya is moving full swing into the national referendum to approve the new Constitution, who knows how things will shake out? The Constitution contains the usual sorts of provisions found in constitutions drafted since World War II. There are the usual things related to the branches of government, stronger separation powers, the right to vote, to free speech, etc. These aren't controversial. Like many African constitutions, this one protects so-called "second generation" or "affirmative" rights: healthcare, education, housing, fair wages, culture, and family life, among others. Although it's unlikely that the Government of Kenya could actually provide all those rights, no one is going to object to that sort of language.
Three parts of the Constitution have been the source of debate:
- Abortion. Abortion is currently illegal in Kenya and you can go to jail to performing one or undertaking one. The Constitution officially outlaws abortion but provides for a number of open-ended exceptions that many conservatives (primarily Catholics) think will increase access to abortions in Kenya.
- Kadhi (Islamic) courts. The Constitution provides for the official establishment of Kadhi, or Islamic courts in Muslim areas. It also provides for exceptions to certain provisions of the Bill of Rights for professed Muslims. Although Kadhi courts currently exist (with statutory, rather than Constitutional backing), you can imagine that this has pissed off the Christian set.
- Land. It's a little unclear what Chapter Five actually means for land reform, but the section is widely understood to mean that the Constitution empowers government to ensure equitable distribution of land, including reversing some illegitimate purchases (land grabbing) that go back to the post-independence period. Because Kenya has such uneven land distribution, this is of major concern to landholders in the Rift Valley who stand to lose a lot if their sketchy land deals get investigated and possibly invalidated. As a result, Daniel arap Moi and his cronies have been telling Nairobians that if the Constitution passes, Maasai herders will come and seize all their land. Some people actually believe this.
But it's not just the major points of debate that pose problems. Getting a country of almost 40 million people, many of whom don't speak English and have limited schooling (let alone legal education), to understand a massive documents with hundreds of parts is an insurmountable task. As my driver yesterday, Peter, pointed out, he speaks English fluently but doesn't have the legal education to understand what the provisions really mean. ("If you have not been trained in the law, how can you know what this really means?"; "What does it mean if [the Constitution] says 'the government shall do something'? That's in the future."). Of course, there are people on both sides of the debate constantly telling him what it means, but he doesn't trust what they say. So even though he has read parts of the Constitution, he's not even sure he will vote in the end. Peter was most worried about his old grandmother in the village, who doesn't see well and can't speak English; he's concerned that if she tries to vote, the people at the polling station might trick her into picking something she doesn't want. Getting to the polling station is only half the battle.
All the issues inherent in the Constitutional referendum - the high-stakes outcomes, the propaganda, the lack of understanding of its contents, the underlying ethnic tensions - are going to make for an interesting vote next Wednesday. I just hope that no one gets hurt.
* Corruption is generally bad. Transparency International gave Kenya a corruption ranking of 146 out of 180 in 2009. This put it on par with Russia, Zimbabwe and Ecuador.
** There is one notable exception to the unity and uniformity of Tanzania - Zanzibar, which has courts with the jurisdiction to hear Islamic law claims and whose residents tend to vote for minority political parties such as the C.U.F. The Zanzibari exceptionalism enshrined in Tanzania's legal structure stems from the negotiations that took place at the time of union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika, theoretically a merger of two equal sovereign states. It's similar to special legal treatment for Texas or Quebec.
*** For a copy of the draft Constitution, click here: http://muigwithania.com/2010/05/05/kenyan-constitution-pdf/. Warning: it's long.
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Kiberans
My roommate and I went to Kibera yesterday. I wanted to see the slum; she wanted to take pictures. As I mentioned last post, Kibera is a famous and massive slum settlement within the jurisdiction of Nairobi Area. Kibera was originally a well-to-do settlement occupied by Nubian soldiers who had been granted land by the colonial government in gratitude of their service of Great Britain in the First World War. Over time, more and more people from outside Nairobi moved in to Kibera and rented out simple rooms or built makeshift homes out of simple materials. Today, it's gigantic, with a hard-to-gauge population estimated between 600,000 and 1.5 million residents. (As I stated last post, it's widely considered Africa's largest slum. This is probably accurate, although it depends on the estimate you use for Kibera's size). It's very poor, with dangerous health conditions, lack of good drinking water and a constant risk of crime, especially after dark. In addition to the usual, everyday struggles of Kiberan life, the residents have to cope with frequent flooding, police violence (http://updatesonkenya.blogspot.com/2008/01/massacre-in-kibera-msf-doctors-without.html) and occasional slum clearing efforts that force the residents out of their homes (for a positive spin, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8258417.stm). In a nutshell, life is tough. Another fact: a number of movies (including The Constant Gardner) have featured scenes shot in Kibera... so you may have seen it before.
Instead of trekking around the settlement, we spent part of the afternoon at a community center in the "upper class" part of the slums. The idea of an upper-class slum sounds like an oxymoron, but poverty and poor living conditions are relative in Kibera. The area where the community center was located was pretty decent -- vehicle-accessible, equipped with running water, and dotted with little businesses that seemed relatively prosperous (my favorite was a women's clothing store: "Ghetto Fabrics. Respect Tha Motherhood").
The fact that we ended up at the community center shows just how tightly-knit the expat scene is in Nairobi. On Thursday, I went to the birthday party of a guy I just met, where I met a French guy who has recently taken over sponsorship of a women's group in Kibera from another girl. Since the original sponsor left, the French guy had taken it upon himself to go every Saturday and play with the children who come when their mothers are at the women's group. He invited me to go. Bizarrely enough, when we got there, I ran into Josh, a fellow development person that I have run into all over the place: Kampala, Boston, and now Kibera. It turns out that he's working on a project in Kibera for an extended period. The chance of running into someone you know inside the slum seems slim indeed.
Playing with the kids was great. We did some dancing to Nigeria, East African and American hits, kicked around a soccer ball and did airplane rides (an exhausting activity which consists of me throwing the kids up into the air and catching them). I particularly loved that the kids - unlike older Kenyans - were more than happy to speak to me in Swahili. When I speak to an adult Kenyan in Swahili, he or she will almost always switch to English immediately. Maybe because they haven't spent much time in school yet, the kids were immediately comfortable with Swahili and played right along. I guess those with younger siblings were probably used to speaking with someone who talks like a 3-year old.
Here are some snaps. The first picture is mine:
The second picture comes courtesy of my roommate, a professional photographer with some great African work -- http://jeancurran.com. In this photo, we are dancing to one of Nigerian favorites. In case you were wondering:
I was feeling pretty sick on Saturday so we didn't end up staying very long. Playing with the kids was a blast, though - I'll be back there on other weekends.
Before I go, a quick note about Map Kibera, Josh's project. As you might guess about a giant, unplanned settlement like Kibera, there isn't much in the way of official maps. For proof, look at Google Maps, which does a great job of Nairobi if you're looking a nice restaurant in Westlands - Kibera is essentially a grey area (http://maps.google.co.ke/maps?q=map+of+kibera&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Kibera&gl=ke&ei=0eVLTMaSHIWv4QbBxYyaDA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ8gEwAA). The lack of maps isn't a major problem for residents, who know their communities very well. It is a problem, however, for development practitioners and government planners looking to provide much-needed basic services to Kibera. Without an accurate mapping of residential areas, businesses, religious centers, schools, hospitals, pharmacies and places to get water, it's very difficult to ensure that interventions best serve the needs of the million-ish residents of Kibera. Enter Map Kibera (http://mapkibera.org), an interesting collaboration project that's working to map the key resources within Kibera. The project is substantially underway and has mapped a huge part of the settlement with the help of tech-savvy resident trainees. It's worth taking a look at his interesting example of information technology being harnessed for development (this type of thing is known in the biz as ICT4D).
Instead of trekking around the settlement, we spent part of the afternoon at a community center in the "upper class" part of the slums. The idea of an upper-class slum sounds like an oxymoron, but poverty and poor living conditions are relative in Kibera. The area where the community center was located was pretty decent -- vehicle-accessible, equipped with running water, and dotted with little businesses that seemed relatively prosperous (my favorite was a women's clothing store: "Ghetto Fabrics. Respect Tha Motherhood").
The fact that we ended up at the community center shows just how tightly-knit the expat scene is in Nairobi. On Thursday, I went to the birthday party of a guy I just met, where I met a French guy who has recently taken over sponsorship of a women's group in Kibera from another girl. Since the original sponsor left, the French guy had taken it upon himself to go every Saturday and play with the children who come when their mothers are at the women's group. He invited me to go. Bizarrely enough, when we got there, I ran into Josh, a fellow development person that I have run into all over the place: Kampala, Boston, and now Kibera. It turns out that he's working on a project in Kibera for an extended period. The chance of running into someone you know inside the slum seems slim indeed.
Playing with the kids was great. We did some dancing to Nigeria, East African and American hits, kicked around a soccer ball and did airplane rides (an exhausting activity which consists of me throwing the kids up into the air and catching them). I particularly loved that the kids - unlike older Kenyans - were more than happy to speak to me in Swahili. When I speak to an adult Kenyan in Swahili, he or she will almost always switch to English immediately. Maybe because they haven't spent much time in school yet, the kids were immediately comfortable with Swahili and played right along. I guess those with younger siblings were probably used to speaking with someone who talks like a 3-year old.
Here are some snaps. The first picture is mine:
The second picture comes courtesy of my roommate, a professional photographer with some great African work -- http://jeancurran.com. In this photo, we are dancing to one of Nigerian favorites. In case you were wondering:
I was feeling pretty sick on Saturday so we didn't end up staying very long. Playing with the kids was a blast, though - I'll be back there on other weekends.
Before I go, a quick note about Map Kibera, Josh's project. As you might guess about a giant, unplanned settlement like Kibera, there isn't much in the way of official maps. For proof, look at Google Maps, which does a great job of Nairobi if you're looking a nice restaurant in Westlands - Kibera is essentially a grey area (http://maps.google.co.ke/maps?q=map+of+kibera&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Kibera&gl=ke&ei=0eVLTMaSHIWv4QbBxYyaDA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ8gEwAA). The lack of maps isn't a major problem for residents, who know their communities very well. It is a problem, however, for development practitioners and government planners looking to provide much-needed basic services to Kibera. Without an accurate mapping of residential areas, businesses, religious centers, schools, hospitals, pharmacies and places to get water, it's very difficult to ensure that interventions best serve the needs of the million-ish residents of Kibera. Enter Map Kibera (http://mapkibera.org), an interesting collaboration project that's working to map the key resources within Kibera. The project is substantially underway and has mapped a huge part of the settlement with the help of tech-savvy resident trainees. It's worth taking a look at his interesting example of information technology being harnessed for development (this type of thing is known in the biz as ICT4D).
Saturday, 24 July 2010
Settling
I like to make a blog post right when I arrive in a new country. It helps me capture my first impressions about a place more accurately. That hasn't happened this time - I got in Sunday night and waited until today (Saturday) to write this. So please join me for some week-old first impressions.
For having been here a week, I feel like I haven't seen much of Nairobi so far. The other places I've gone to are Kileleshwa (a decent neighborhood where I live), Westlands (a swanky zone where every other expat lives), Upper Hill (where I work - on a hill) and Statehouse (where I spend 30+ minutes every day mired in traffic). I have only a vague sense of where things are - it's just like traveling through random points in space. Nairobi isn't thought of as a nice place to live (e.g., - one of worst 50 places to do business as an expat: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/592780/-/u65oaa/-/index.html), so I was suprised to find that the parts I've seen are nicer than expected: hilly, tree-lined streets, nice houses and apartments, great views (esp. from Upper Hill). The only real bummer is the lack of accessible green space, but it's not really a problem with the serengeti and ranges of hills just outside the city.
There are less nice parts of the city (whose nickname is Nairobbery). One of the most famous areas, though not necessarily the most dangerous, is Kibera, the world's largest slum. Kibera Slum is a giant area with a (human) population the size of Manhattan and quantities of small livestock to match. Like the infamous favelas of Brazil, Kibera has attracted plenty of attention from development types (who are involved in improving conditions there) and tourists (who pay locals to take them on protected slum tours). Although I find the idea of ogling at urban poverty on a tour distasteful, I'm toying with the idea of going there this weekend to check it out.
Currently topping my least favorite things about Nairobi is the traffic. I have been here for less than a week days and have already spent (easily) six hours on the road getting between home, work and dinner. My taxi drivers have repeatedly suggested that I try not to travel during rush hour, which apparently extends from 7:30 am-8 pm with occasional lulls in mid-afternoon. I'm sorry, but traffic or no traffic, I am not getting out of bed at 6:30 in order to beat rush hour. But it's not all bad; the silver lining to the dark cloud of long taxi rides is listening to hilarious morning talk radio, which divides airtime between discussing marital infidelity and government corruption. But that's a whole separate post.
My living situation is great. One of my friends hooked me up with a place that I share with two Irish expats. One's a journalist for the Irish Times and the other is a freelance photographer-slash-photojournalist. They're both laid back and fun, and it's refreshing to live with people who aren't in my line of work. It seems that the vast majority of expats my age also work in development, so I'll get enough of that socially. I see living with a professional photographer as a chance to finally learn how to improve my technical skills beyond using the Sepia and Color Swap settings on a my Canon PowerShot. For the price, the apartment is pretty good. On one hand, I sleep in a single bed, my room is a little bit cold, and the shower is lukewarm. On the other hand, the common area is nice: clean, parquet floors and semi-cheesy safari-theme furniture that I really like. Here's home:
Socially, Nairobi seems more surreal than anything. I went out a few nights this week for dinner with other expats. The places we ate could easily have been in New York or Washington (although here, prices are substantially cheaper). Over three nights, I ate at a sushi restaurant, an Italian place with brick-oven pizza, and a swank fusion brewpub. I wasn't trying to go to fancy places, but it's just where many people - Kenyans and foreigners - seem to go out around here. The area where most of the expat action takes place (Westlands) is a really high-end stretch of the city with nice cars, gleaming shopping malls, international cuisine and trendy bars. I guess the fact that there are so many creature comforts explains so many business, NGOs and international institutions have major regional offices in Nairobi. I'm happy to have access to nice things, but I'd love to spend more time at basic local places... I miss last summer's daily regime of Swahili coconut rice, brown beans, collard greens and mishikaki (grilled beef skewers).
That's all for now. Will write more soon.
For having been here a week, I feel like I haven't seen much of Nairobi so far. The other places I've gone to are Kileleshwa (a decent neighborhood where I live), Westlands (a swanky zone where every other expat lives), Upper Hill (where I work - on a hill) and Statehouse (where I spend 30+ minutes every day mired in traffic). I have only a vague sense of where things are - it's just like traveling through random points in space. Nairobi isn't thought of as a nice place to live (e.g., - one of worst 50 places to do business as an expat: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/592780/-/u65oaa/-/index.html), so I was suprised to find that the parts I've seen are nicer than expected: hilly, tree-lined streets, nice houses and apartments, great views (esp. from Upper Hill). The only real bummer is the lack of accessible green space, but it's not really a problem with the serengeti and ranges of hills just outside the city.
There are less nice parts of the city (whose nickname is Nairobbery). One of the most famous areas, though not necessarily the most dangerous, is Kibera, the world's largest slum. Kibera Slum is a giant area with a (human) population the size of Manhattan and quantities of small livestock to match. Like the infamous favelas of Brazil, Kibera has attracted plenty of attention from development types (who are involved in improving conditions there) and tourists (who pay locals to take them on protected slum tours). Although I find the idea of ogling at urban poverty on a tour distasteful, I'm toying with the idea of going there this weekend to check it out.
Currently topping my least favorite things about Nairobi is the traffic. I have been here for less than a week days and have already spent (easily) six hours on the road getting between home, work and dinner. My taxi drivers have repeatedly suggested that I try not to travel during rush hour, which apparently extends from 7:30 am-8 pm with occasional lulls in mid-afternoon. I'm sorry, but traffic or no traffic, I am not getting out of bed at 6:30 in order to beat rush hour. But it's not all bad; the silver lining to the dark cloud of long taxi rides is listening to hilarious morning talk radio, which divides airtime between discussing marital infidelity and government corruption. But that's a whole separate post.
My living situation is great. One of my friends hooked me up with a place that I share with two Irish expats. One's a journalist for the Irish Times and the other is a freelance photographer-slash-photojournalist. They're both laid back and fun, and it's refreshing to live with people who aren't in my line of work. It seems that the vast majority of expats my age also work in development, so I'll get enough of that socially. I see living with a professional photographer as a chance to finally learn how to improve my technical skills beyond using the Sepia and Color Swap settings on a my Canon PowerShot. For the price, the apartment is pretty good. On one hand, I sleep in a single bed, my room is a little bit cold, and the shower is lukewarm. On the other hand, the common area is nice: clean, parquet floors and semi-cheesy safari-theme furniture that I really like. Here's home:
Socially, Nairobi seems more surreal than anything. I went out a few nights this week for dinner with other expats. The places we ate could easily have been in New York or Washington (although here, prices are substantially cheaper). Over three nights, I ate at a sushi restaurant, an Italian place with brick-oven pizza, and a swank fusion brewpub. I wasn't trying to go to fancy places, but it's just where many people - Kenyans and foreigners - seem to go out around here. The area where most of the expat action takes place (Westlands) is a really high-end stretch of the city with nice cars, gleaming shopping malls, international cuisine and trendy bars. I guess the fact that there are so many creature comforts explains so many business, NGOs and international institutions have major regional offices in Nairobi. I'm happy to have access to nice things, but I'd love to spend more time at basic local places... I miss last summer's daily regime of Swahili coconut rice, brown beans, collard greens and mishikaki (grilled beef skewers).
That's all for now. Will write more soon.
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Rebirth
Hey everybody. After a long wait, Tanzlines is back!
For those of you with whom I haven't been in touch recently, life has been busy since I last blogged. I've wrapped up my second year at Harvard Law, worked on some land-reform projects with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, taken a few personal vacations and spent two months as a deal-lawyer-in-training in Skadden Arps' Washington office.
As usual, though, I've found my way back to Africa. This time around, I'll be based in Nairobi until early September. I landed an exciting opportunity to work with the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank Group that helps countries grow through investment (rather than just aid). My project involves helping the governments of the Great Lakes countries (collectively known as the East African Community) reform their business laws in order to grow. But more on that later.
This season, you can expect the usual mix of Tanzlines posts: part travel tales; part thoughts on development, social enterprise and law reform; part musings on life in Africa.
Please follow me, share posts and write comments. More to come soon!
For those of you with whom I haven't been in touch recently, life has been busy since I last blogged. I've wrapped up my second year at Harvard Law, worked on some land-reform projects with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, taken a few personal vacations and spent two months as a deal-lawyer-in-training in Skadden Arps' Washington office.
As usual, though, I've found my way back to Africa. This time around, I'll be based in Nairobi until early September. I landed an exciting opportunity to work with the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank Group that helps countries grow through investment (rather than just aid). My project involves helping the governments of the Great Lakes countries (collectively known as the East African Community) reform their business laws in order to grow. But more on that later.
This season, you can expect the usual mix of Tanzlines posts: part travel tales; part thoughts on development, social enterprise and law reform; part musings on life in Africa.
Please follow me, share posts and write comments. More to come soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
