Nairobi - Overnight Layover
11 May 2006
It’s about 5:30 in the morning. I am sitting on a green YMCA blanket in a small room that contains a sink, a desk, and a bed. Luckily there is a mosquito net that enshrouds my bed which I appreciate. I have been sleeping for almost 10 hours, usually checking the clock each hour to make sure I don’t oversleep and hoping everything goes well with the final flight to Kigali.
Nairobi, Kenya has been quite an experience. The land is lush and green. The trees fan out over the grasslands. Large birds that I have never seen before fly gracefully in the blue horizon. There is natural beauty all around. Unfortunately my bed smells of urine. The bottled water I drank made me vomit. I have felt uneasy from the moment I stepped foot in this beautiful country. I know I will be all right because I feel watched after, but the glances, the stares, and the police with assault rifles make me wonder what the people think as they walk the streets.
I asked John, my native taxi driver, what the high barbed wire fences were for that stretched along the airport road. “They keep out the animals,” he said. As we drove, John pointed out the city center, the football stadium, and many other sites on our 20 minute drive to the YMCA hostel. In comparison to NYC, Nairobi driving is insane. NYC felt more like walking than driving. Bumper cars would be my way to describe the roads of Nairobi. Almost every car had its corners bent in and what astounded me most were the motorcyclists with locked cases on their bumpers weaving in and out of traffic. Sometimes they were on the road and sometimes they were on the dirt banks. The drivers didn’t seem to be afraid of hitting each other.
People were everywhere walking in and out of the streets and fields and buildings. To keep individuals out of certain areas high fences were built with barbed wire stretching a few feet above the top. Trees nearby were covered with barbed wire to make sure nobody could sneak into the walled enclosures. I felt like I was staying in a military barracks trying to keep out the tide of conmen and dangerous men. Why were there so many fences? Why so much barbed wire? Was the common man in Nairobi so base that only fences and wire could keep him out in much the same way as the airport fence I had seen earlier?
(Note: Later on in the morning, I had the chance to talk to some of the workers at the YMCA. They seemed happy and kind. My comments earlier appear to be off the mark. Fear has a way of placing the blame on others and looking defensively instead of objectively for answers. The common man in Nairobi was good and wholesome. It was certain individuals that made it difficult for the rest of the population.)
It’s about 5:30 in the morning. I am sitting on a green YMCA blanket in a small room that contains a sink, a desk, and a bed. Luckily there is a mosquito net that enshrouds my bed which I appreciate. I have been sleeping for almost 10 hours, usually checking the clock each hour to make sure I don’t oversleep and hoping everything goes well with the final flight to Kigali.
Nairobi, Kenya has been quite an experience. The land is lush and green. The trees fan out over the grasslands. Large birds that I have never seen before fly gracefully in the blue horizon. There is natural beauty all around. Unfortunately my bed smells of urine. The bottled water I drank made me vomit. I have felt uneasy from the moment I stepped foot in this beautiful country. I know I will be all right because I feel watched after, but the glances, the stares, and the police with assault rifles make me wonder what the people think as they walk the streets.
I asked John, my native taxi driver, what the high barbed wire fences were for that stretched along the airport road. “They keep out the animals,” he said. As we drove, John pointed out the city center, the football stadium, and many other sites on our 20 minute drive to the YMCA hostel. In comparison to NYC, Nairobi driving is insane. NYC felt more like walking than driving. Bumper cars would be my way to describe the roads of Nairobi. Almost every car had its corners bent in and what astounded me most were the motorcyclists with locked cases on their bumpers weaving in and out of traffic. Sometimes they were on the road and sometimes they were on the dirt banks. The drivers didn’t seem to be afraid of hitting each other.
People were everywhere walking in and out of the streets and fields and buildings. To keep individuals out of certain areas high fences were built with barbed wire stretching a few feet above the top. Trees nearby were covered with barbed wire to make sure nobody could sneak into the walled enclosures. I felt like I was staying in a military barracks trying to keep out the tide of conmen and dangerous men. Why were there so many fences? Why so much barbed wire? Was the common man in Nairobi so base that only fences and wire could keep him out in much the same way as the airport fence I had seen earlier?
(Note: Later on in the morning, I had the chance to talk to some of the workers at the YMCA. They seemed happy and kind. My comments earlier appear to be off the mark. Fear has a way of placing the blame on others and looking defensively instead of objectively for answers. The common man in Nairobi was good and wholesome. It was certain individuals that made it difficult for the rest of the population.)
posted by Kurt at 11:02 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home