Finding an apartment in Nairobi

Three months until the official end of my fellowship and I signed a one-year lease. I am acting in direct opposition to the fact that I might have to leave this place in three months. I am obviously in denial, though not so far in denial that we didn’t negotiate a one month notice to break the lease clause in our contract – despite advice from my friend’s boyfriend that we could just flee the country.

The decision to get an apartment was an attempt to control my life. After months of living in a transient state (When am I moving to Zambia? When I am moving back to Kenya?), I needed to feel permanent. I needed to commit to something, so I committed to an apartment in Kenya. I am trying to embrace the fact that I don’t know what will happen in three months, where I will be living or if I’ll have a job, but I’m finding it difficult. Embracing a go with the flow attitude is harder for me than controlling everything. So renting the gorgeous apartment and buying furniture is a way to control a small part of my life (though I won’t commit to a bed).

Finding the apartment itself was enough of a headache. The three of us worked with no fewer than five different agents, all of whom tried to show us this same one apartment at some point or another that no one was renting but every agent in Nairobi knew about. We were on edge for the entire process. There was a constant threat we could be conned. We heard horror stories of people who bought houses, got the keys, tried opening the door and found a family already living in it. We tested our agents on a regular basis – asking if we could talk to the landlord and telling them we would pay them by check. Then, after we eventually found our place, we had to “break-up” with all of the other agents we had been working with. For one of them I refused to answer his call and he never tried again, but the other one wanted an explanation. I had to tell him we had been seeing other agents and were going with one of their places. It was hard, I had really liked him.

But now we have a gorgeous apartment and are gradually accumulating furniture for it. I am piecing together a life for myself that I might have to leave soon. Denial is a great thing.

The next frontier: Legal action and the AU women’s protocol

Ok! It has been way too long since my last post and I owe a good one.  But the reason I have not posted in awhile is because I have been busy writing this for Pambazuka News:

Pambazuka News

Woo hoo! I am officially a published author. I wrote the article with my supervisor. Don’t feel you have to read it. It is a bit dry. Also, it was picked up by allAfrica.com, which makes me even more excited than having it published in the first place!

allAfrica.com

Are you here to stay?

Perhaps the day when I get jacked $60 from the ATM and fight with the National Bank of Kenya is not the day I should be writing this post, but here it is.  I’ve been asking myself this question a lot and discussing it with fellow expats as well.

Moving to Nairobi was by far the easiest transition I have ever experienced.  Easier than moving to college where I had to get used to being away from home and trapped on Notre Dame’s campus.  Easier than moving to New Orleans where I had to get used to living with 12 other people on my tiny AmeriCorps stipend.  In Nairobi I already had an apartment with two nice roommates (even though my rent is WAY too high) and after running the Hash the first week, lots of new friends.  Apart from getting lost on the bus my first day, I had very few hiccups.

Life after the move is what is frustrating.  The more you live somewhere, the more you become aware of just how much you are getting ripped off.  I am targeted on a daily basis for extra money from everyone.  Sometimes it is so blatant I want to laugh (or scream).  For example, when the guy on the matatu charges me 60KSH after charging everyone else 50KSH.  The office manager stopped sending me for office supplies after I was charged extra for computer paper.  It becomes a constant battle, a battle that after 3 months is wearing me down (although I am getting a lot better at standing up for myself!).

It’s not that I blame anyone here for it.  Why wouldn’t you want to rip the mzungu (white person) off? They probably have more money than you, and the truth is I do.  I don’t mind that I pay a little extra here and there, I mind when it is so obvious that it questions my intelligence and my integrity.  I don’t think I could sustain the battle long term without getting seriously angry at the people around me.

Talking to my expat friends, they all say they could live here.  Nairobi has great restaurants, beautiful houses, and huge malls.  When I mention my daily bargaining frustrations they reply that you wouldn’t deal with that if you lived here: you would have a house; you would have a driver; and your maid would go shopping at the market for you.  It’s all true.  The people who live here permanently have all of those things.  They are also usually working for their government, a huge NGO, or the UN and therefore not attempting to negotiate with immigration officials (like me) because their jobs take care of all of that.  But what kind of life is that?  Where your survival mechanism is to completely shut yourself off from the city you live in and surround yourself with niceties and other mzungus?

No thank you.  If I am going to live somewhere I am going to take it with its daily bargaining frustrations and attempts at bribery.  I am also going to take it for its $1 fruit salads and cheap transportation.  And so Nairobi and I will have a go at things and I’ll get better at standing up for myself.  But at the end of the day we will part ways and I’ll go back to complaining about the MTA and NYC cops.  Maybe I’ll just be grateful that even though they are jerks, they don’t ask me for money.

Kori Bustard

My first encounter with the Kenyan police

Mom and Dad, maybe you don’t want to read this but I wasn’t arrested, nor did I get into any yelling matches.

A little background material:  The Kenyan traffic police are constantly stopping cars in an attempt to find something wrong with them and solicit a bribe.  Usually the problem is that the passengers aren’t wearing any seatbelts.  They even do this to matatus where I doubt that the 10-year-old vans  even had seat belts when they were first built.  But if it’s not seat belts it’s drivers licenses or insurance, even when there is nothing wrong.  They hassle you and threaten to arrest you unless you bribe them.  If you’re Kenyan and refuse to pay the bribe that usually means you spend a night in jail.  Everyone here has told me that they won’t arrest me though, because I am white and therefore a bigger pain than worth.

Last night my friends and I decided to go to Carnivore as a going away meal because one of them is going back to the UK.  Carnivore is a restaurant where you pay a set price and then they come around with all types of meat (including exotic ones like ostrich, camel (yuck!), crocodile, and ox balls (double yuck!)) until you can’t eat anymore.  I felt a bit sick afterwards and can’t imagine eating that much meat in one sitting again in my life, but it was an experience.

So we were on our way to Carnivore when our cab driver leaned over to me and said “tell them this is a private car and not a taxi or they will want a bribe.” Before I could ask any questions we were pulled over and a police officer was peering through my window.  I was wearing my seat belt in the front but my friends, whose belts were broken, were not.  The cop happily pronounced that he was going to arrest them.

A back and forth ensued where my friends tried to explain that the belts were broken and the cop just repeated that its illegal and he must arrest them, opening the back door and demanding that they come out.  The driver and the officer exchanged words in Swahili and then the driver turned to me: “I tried to tell him this is an office car but he won’t listen.” This was my moment. “What?” I replied, a bit shaky. The cop told the driver to get out of the car.  The cop turned to me: “This is a taxi?” And I replied in a calm voice that even surprised me:

“No, it’s my office car.”

“It’s not a taxi?” He clearly doubted me.

“No it’s my office car.”

“What office is that?”

I gave him my office name. (Trying to avoid the blog coming up on google searches)

“They were not wearing their seat belts, I must arrest them.”

“They are broken.”

“Well who am I to blame for them being broken? You?”

“No. I don’t have control over that. It’s my office’s car.”

There was more discussion in Swahili between the driver and the cop.  At this point, I told the cop I was going to make a phone call.  It was another trick I had heard of.  Apparently the cops fear you have connections so if they see you making a phone call they get scared and let you go.  I actually did have a plan, it wasn’t a total farce.  My roommate’s father is a commissioner in the anti-corruption bureau so I was going to call her.  But before I could get through the cop turned to me and said, “next time I will arrest them.” “I will tell my office to fix the belts,” I responded, and we were on our way.

Our taxi driver, whose father was a cop, told us that he hates police and that his father did a lot of bad things as a police officer.  I told him that I didn’t like police either and we compared police in the US and police in Kenya.  He explained that when you tell the police it’s an office car, they let you go because if it’s an office car then the police know the bossman will come down to the police station yelling.

My friends and I discussed at dinner that in the end we would have given him a bribe if we really needed to avoid going to jail, but we were really glad to avoid it.  I was also really impressed with my calm while lying straight to the officer’s face, but I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised at my ease in lying to police. 🙂 You got to do what you got to do.

Amboseli

This past weekend I went to Amboseli with David and three new friends.  Amboseli is right on the border with Tanzania and the park is in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

It was a bit odd going back to the mountain I climbed 6 years ago (almost to the day).  I got a bit self-reflective.  I kept thinking what I would have done if my future self had told the Corey on top of the mountain 6 years ago where her life would be in 6 years.  I think I would have been ecstatic.  My mind would have totally been blown.  So it made me think that I should trust myself and my decisions more, especially since I had been doubting my decision to come here (only a LITTLE bit) the past few weeks.

But OK, now for the fun part.  The first day it rained and cleared up right when we went out for our game drive.  A huge rainbow appeared across the entire park.  I don’t think I have ever seen the entire arc of a rainbow, until this Saturday. It was amazing.

We also got really great close-ups on a group of lions when they walked in front of our safari vehicle!

And as mentioned earlier, great views of Kilimanjaro (and a giraffe).

We stayed in a permanent safari camp with beds, hot showers, and great food.  We sang an early Happy Birthday to David and then our waiter made him dance with the Masai group that was entertaining us that night. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera.

Finally, an interactive blog post.  This picture lends itself to speech bubbles so please feel free to throw ideas for what these giraffes are saying in the comment section!

Teacher rape in Kenya

I have been getting a lot of emails about this recent news article on the Kenyan government firing 1,000 teachers who had sexually abused their students.  I have just a few things to say in response to it.

First, this is an issue that we are focusing on at Equality Now.  We are working with many local organizations to identify the best way to target the problem, whether through lobbying efforts or actually holding the Ministry of Education accountable in court.

Second, I am a little doubtful that the government actually fired the 1,000 teachers it claims to have fired.  If it did, then the problem is much more rampant than this article alludes to.  In every case I have encountered while being on the ground, the teacher was NOT fired but was transferred or demoted.  Sometimes this leads to the teacher abusing girls in their new location.

The sad part in all of this is that many times the girl believes she is the teacher’s girlfriend and will not testify against him.  Other times the families will accept payment from the teacher not to take the case to court – and where people are living in poverty and the justice system is inaccessible, money is a very tempting option.

I will keep you updated on our efforts.

True size of Africa

Thanks to Jessica for sharing this map.

While you hear things like “the Democratic Republic of Congo is the size of Western Europe” and rebel groups control areas “the size of Rhode Island” this map helps put things in better perspective.  On the map, DRC is the country outlined faintly under the label “China.”  Is it no wonder that 18,000 UN peacekeepers, without proper communication equipment, can’t control the DRC and things like this happen? (In comparison we have 98,000 troops in Afghanistan, which is slightly smaller than Texas, and well, you know how we are doing there.)

Perhaps we should start asking ourselves why the Congo is a decade of failure and mass rapes, and why it has taken so long for the world to pay attention.  I remember reading about mass rapes in the Congo when I first worked for Equality Now 5 years ago, but until only recently has the Congo received any sort of international attention.  As always, following the money trail explains why the Congo has been ignored for more than a decade.  International corporations rely on the conflict and rebel groups to supply them with the cheap minerals that come out of the Congo like the ones used in our cell phones.

In July, President Obama passed a bill that requires American companies to disclose if their minerals come from rebel groups in the DRC.  While there are no penalties for companies who use conflict minerals, it is a first step, and I encourage everyone to pay attention when buying electronics.

ICC not welcomed in Kenya

After weeks of dragging their feet and creating procedural obstacles, the Kenyan government has taken their obstinacy to a new level.  My guess is with the International Centre for Policy and Conflict, the state is definitely behind this:

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Robbers%20strike%20at%20rights%20group%20offices%20in%20Nairobi/-/1056/1027644/-/3jt1y7z/-/index.html

Amusing signs in Nairobi

Tacos Club is a bar and they don’t sell any tacos.  “Kuku” means chicken in Swahili.