07 August 2008

5th

Sweet. After 32 hours with no sleep, I really needed that. Shame It didn't last longer as I had to get up at 7ish to be ready in time to head out to one of the smaller slums in Nairobi, populated by a scant 100,000 people. Bernard drove us, so we only had one car accident on the way, wedging the front end of our minibus under a lorry. No whiplash, it's cool. I feel confident that, had I been driving, it would have been a whole lot worse. I'd never want to drive in Kenyan traffic.

The slum was an extreme culture shock. It looked like a war zone. The most uncomfortable thing is that everyone treats you like a celebrity, everyone you walk past stares at you and the children all wave and run up to you shouting "How are you!" as it's the only English they usually know at that age. I never expected people that share a living space of eighteen cubic meters with five or six other people to seem so happy.


We visited a couple of local clinics and a chemist, met the staff and learned about how they try and cope with their limited supplies. I'll be working with them soon enough. The school was great. All the kids wanted to hold our hands until we each had about five children hanging from each arm, bless.

On the way back, there was a traffic jam, all the touts come out to play. Standing in the road peddling their wares to all the stationary vehicles. I made the mistake of taking an interest in a hat for sale and the haggling ensued. The traffic cleared in front and our driver took off, revealing the desperation of the seller as he sprinted for two-hundred meters alongside the minibus trying to close the deal. I haggled him down to half price and I feel sorry for him even now (also for myself as the hat doesn't fit too comfortably after all that).

The girls have really taken a shine to my DVD collection (probably more than they have me) and I'm slowly getting to know them, a few are pretty cute. I may have just slightly offended one of the Americans when she kind of engaged me in a political debate (and she's a republican) but I really didn't mean to. I'll try and repair the damage some more tomorrow.


Sorry the blog's a bit behind, I don't have much opportunity to get online to post them. Pictures soon, I promise.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Did you cut and paste into the wrong bit during that last paragraph?

Regardless, this all sounds hella awesome. I can't believe you haggled a desperate Kenyan down to half price, you utter shit.

And yes: pictures! SOON!

Steve:- said...

Thanks, corrected.

I'm having difficulty getting pictures up here. I'm going to the coast over the weekend, staying in a hotel that will hopefully have better computers.