Day 1....meeting the rellies in Nairobi!

Day 1 of blogging and Day 1 of my African Adventure!

For those of you waiting for the safari photos.....you'll have to wait until Day 5 or 6, sorry! I'm going to document my trip in order (to anyone that knows me really well, this will come as no surprise).

After travelling for about 28 hours (~17 hours flying time) via Amsterdam I arrived safe and sound in Nairobi on Friday night where my cousin George and his son Erin (yes, I know that's the female spelling of the name in N. America but we're in Kenya now) met me at the airport and brought me home. During the short drive to their house I could already tell Erin and I would become good buddies. He's one of the smartest and most entertaining 12 year olds I've ever met.


Erin, George, Valerie

We had a lot of catching up/learning about each other and our family to do and stayed up talking until 2am local time! That helped with the jet lag and got me on track with the 7 hour time difference.

So, well fed, all talked out, and exhausted I went to bed and slept like the dead until 12pm the next day when I awoke to find out Jimmy and Ligia (my "family" from Toronto who fortunately were also in Kenya at the same time as me) had arrived to take George and myself around Nairobi. How wonderful to have personal tour guides who speak the language and are familiar with the city and local customs but also understand what a culture shock it was for me. None of my travels could have prepared me for Africa.

Jimmy, Ligia, and I at Edna's café

First stop was lunch at Ligia's friend Edna's café. My first encounter with Kenyan hospitality (and the first of many "stay, stay and have a drink!" conversations).

Then we made the trek over to Jimmy's brother's (Charles aka Son) place. I say trek because the traffic in Nairobi is horrendous and the driving etiquette is even worse (as the locals never tire of talking about). Between cars, trucks, mutatus (kind of like buses), motorcycles, people randomly crossing the road and nobody wanting to let anybody in, it is the definition of chaos....at least to my foreign eyes and ears. Although the city is in the process of building many new roads and bypasses the process is to randomly shut down roads and not post any signage to indicate anything.

 

Streets of Nairobi and a Mutatu

Nicer street downtown Nairobi, same traffic issues

It was at Son's place that I encountered my first "only in Africa" moment. It seems a ditch was dug across the entrance road to the ranch and the workers had left for the day. What to do? No big deal, find a way to drive around. Having trouble climbing the curb? No big deal, put some rocks down and drive over them! As they say in kiswahili, "Hakuna matata" or "No worries"!

This cyclist was not bothered by the spontaneous ditch and neither were we

Where there's a will there's a way

 

Son, Me, Juanita (aka Chieffe), George

 



We rounded out the day at Ligia's sister's (Audrey) place where a cup of tea turned into a lovely dinner and all around good chat with LOTS of laughing. It didn't take long for me to feel at home in this far away city and feel like I'd met a whole new set of family that I never knew existed.

I should have known then that the highlight of my African adventure would be the people I would meet, the kindness of "strangers", and the overwhelming sense of community and family.