72 hours in Nairobi

It's three days into our stay in Nairobi, and so much has happened already.  After arriving on Sunday night at 9:30pm local time (8 hrs ahead of Montreal), we climbed into our two enormous Bunduz safari trucks for the first of what will soon be hundreds of times and got our first view of Nairobi.  The weather was like a dream.  The air was humid and warm, much like a summer night in Montreal.  As we drove through the streets of Nairobi, the air smelled heavily of dust, and then a much stronger smell of burning garbage reached us as we drove by small fires on the side of the road.  As we got further away from the airport and the fires, the air freshened up a bit.

Monday morning we got up earlier and re-traced our path from the research centre we are staying at on the outskirts of the city back into the downtown core, but the changes from the night before were astonishing.  The streets were teeming with cars, buses, and crowded 14-seater vans called matatus, which are incredibly cheap, but not necessarily law-abiding ways for locals to get around the city.  There is construction everywhere here.  All the stereotypes of Montreal as a city notorious for its traffic, construction, and j-walkers seem like mild little quirks next to the chaotic streets of Nairobi.  We spent the day at Nairobi National Park, where we saw lions, warthogs, zebras, giraffes, buffalo, many different kinds of birds, as well as a crocodile, rhino, and (very!) recently devoured impala carcass.  Most of my pictures of these "wild" animals are set against the city skyline, as the park is actually in the middle of the Nairobi.  This led to the first of many discussions on land use in Eastern Africa.

Yesterday, Tuesday, we traveled back to the city and visited the University of Nairobi.  Professors there presented to the CFSIA participants and local Geography students a couple lectures on Kenya, and specifically Nairobi as the rapidly growing economic center of East Africa.  Then in smaller groups, we were brought on a tour of the Central Business District of Nairobi by students at the university.  I could go on about the fascinating differences between Nairobi and Montreal, but that would take hours.  However, I will share these tidbits: in general, the students at UoN are much better dressed that McGillians, and they are all At Least trilingual, most able to communicate in their tribal language, Kiswahili, and English. 

Today, we spent time at both the United Nations and the Canadian High Commission.  While I couldn't really follow all that was going on during the conversations about Pro-poor housing and Capacity building, it was very interesting nevertheless.  The UN was swarming with middle school students, "Model UN" delegates.  Also fascinating was just having a look around the cafeteria.  Montreal is relatively multicultural, but this was something else altogether.  All kinds of people, men and women, older and younger, from all over the world coming together at the third largest UN headquarters in the world (after Geneva and New York).  Also interesting was finding out what Canadian embassies and high commissions actually do abroad!  However, no one could quite figure out why the Commission needed both tennis courts AND a swimming pool... :S 
So, today certainly felt a little strange, walking through fancy buildings with high tech equipment and air conditioning after spending yesterday walking around a much more unpolished part of the city, and I'm sure it will seem ever more unreal in 24 hrs time.  Tomorrow, we are going to visit two very large slum areas, one of which is the largest slum in Africa, where 1 million people are crammed into the size of roughly a single golf course.  In fact, previous slum areas have been bull-dozed down in order to create golf courses. 

Already I have seen and learned so much; I can't believe that I have only been here 72 hours.  We've barely begun!
I hope you're all doing great back home in Canada,
All my love from Nairobi,
Kirsten
(10:43pm local time)