Nairobi Checklist

Ngong Hills, Kenya- I went hiking (more like steep walking) in Ngong Hills (S01 degrees 26.136' E036 degrees 38.402'), just west of Nairobi and realized that things here in Nairobi are going rather well. Right before I left NYC for Beijing I was carrying around a 75 point checklist of things to do before I left on this adventure. Shannon S. said it was giving her a migraine just looking at it, while other friends just shook their heads in disbelieve. But this is a checklist I think you will appreciate.

1-Jobs: I have 2 jobs here in Nairobi. I will be working part-time with the Australian High Commission doing refugee resettlement, which means I will most likely get to travel out of Kenya to refugee camps throughout the region. I should also get to do some interviews in the camps here. We have our first social “bar night” on Thursday and I volunteered to lend my skills acquired at New York Bartending School, Class of 1998. I am also working for an United Nations agency called the International Office of Migration helping to create a migration policy for Somalia, which is a pretty big endeavour being that it is not really a functioning nation-state at the present time.

2-Roof over my head: Through a friend from my last job I was introduced to a lovely man named Terry W. who kindly offered me shelter until I get settled. He has a beautiful home near both my jobs, which makes getting to work (transportation gets an entire blog posting on its own coming shortly) fairly easy. There are 2 others living there, 1 permanent, his name is Martin, and Bob who is visiting from the US like me.

3-Swimming: I finally made it to the pool! I found one 5 minutes from my house and it only costs 150 Kenyan shillings ($2.30) for a swim. The pool isn't heated, but the weather has warmed up now and the sun was shining! I had to dodge a few learn-to-swimmers who were swimming widths, but otherwise, it was so nice to be in the water after about 3 weeks of nothing but walking.

4-Volunteering: I had my first practice last week with the girls at Kenya High School. They are at a pretty basic level…some have just learned to swim, but I hope I can do some good. None of them have goggles so I might be doing a big online Speedo purchase before the month is out. We started on Friday with the importance of "time-management" i.e. if they are late for workout they don't get in. I hate being the bad guy, but I also hate tardiness. Monday we do streamlining and how to climb out the pool like a swimmer. I really wish my coaching partner Jamie B. was here, I think that is going to take a lot of practice.

5-Safari Partner: Note to self: Don't ever, ever, ever do online dating again. Okay, that was a given after my disastrous over 40-only responses on Match, but posting want-ads for men in your blog seems to be a do! Not 1 week after I asked for a man over 6'2" to be my safari partner, but one appeared. It turns out that "Simon" the anthropologist from Canada I mentioned the other day put in an application for a part-time safari partner and, while I didn't know it, safari is actually more than just riding around looking at wild animals. Ku-safiri is Swahili for 'to travel'.

Simon, whose real name is Scott M., was my Ngong Hills’ travel partner and his Maa language skills came in handy when throngs of Maasai children accosted us with beaded goods on our way up and our way down. They were pretty darn cute though and we bought a few bracelets and keychains. Then we drove them down the hill to where they lived. I thought it was a bit risky for us to drive them around in the Land Rover, but since Scott lives in the community and they go to school with the children of the family he lives with, he said it would be fine. So far no charges of 2 "wazungu" (people who are white) kidnapping local children have been laid.

As far as Ngong Hills go, on the one end of the range if you go hiking there is a chance you could get mugged. Martin went there with a big group last year. When 2 of the guys walked ahead they were mugged, and I mean everything was taken, including their clothes. They walked back in bare-feet and their underwear. Suffice to say, we went walking on the other end of the range; I don’t need mugging to be added to my checklist of things to do in “Nairobbery” as it is affectionately known in Lonely Planet.