Trip to Kenya Part 1: Nairobi and Malindi

Like a boss

Flew into Nairobi for work on Sunday. I'm going to spend about two weeks in Kenya, doing training and various sundry activities related to microfinance. It's a nice change of pace, as Nairobi has full-on shopping malls that actually sell ice cream and donuts and Western candy (noticing a trend here?) and reasonably priced breakfast cereal. I walked from my hotel to the Nakumatt on Sunday and purchased a Snickers ice cream bar. Definite highlight.

I woke up at 2:45 am Monday morning to watch the Super Bowl. I watched on slingbox as best I could considering the poor connection, and went to sleep with the Packers up 21-10 just before halftime. I woke up two hours later just a few minutes after they were announced champions. Good way to start a day.

I spent Monday in the Nairobi office, and then flew to Malindi Monday night. It's a seaside city positively teeming with old Europeans with ridiculous tans and inappropriate clothes. Anyway, tomorrow I'm taking a matatu five hours into the bush to take another matatu another three hours further into the bush. Good times! I'll post photos when I get to Mombasa on Friday.

Couple o' photos

Apologies for the long delay since I last posted. It wasn't because I didn't have the time, although I have been getting steadily busier since my return from London, but because nothing very exciting has happened. Which I suppose is somewhat interesting in itself; it's feeling a lot more like home here, as I build routines and make friends.

Three activities that I've been doing pretty regularly- Ultimate Frisbee on Sunday afternoons, quiz night on Monday nights, and boxing class 1-2 times a week. I've met some cool people at all three, which has been nice. There's a decent expat community here in Kigali- lots of interns/aid workers/volunteers, but also embassy employees and businessmen. (Visitors' tip: the embassy people are the ones with sweet apartments. Go to their parties.)


Work has been going well. This last week I did a one-day training blitz from Gikongoro in the South to Ruhengeri in the North. The picture at the top is one of the volcanoes near the border with Uganda/DRC.

The other pictures are flowers at my house.

Jolly Olde England

I just got back from two awesome weeks crashing with Andrea and Dave in Wimbledon. The best part was obviously hanging out with Georgia Ruth, their brand new daughter, who is an exemplary baby. She has convinced me to drop everything, find a woman, and have one for myself. The Wallaces are just a couple stops away from London, so I went down several times to see the sights, such as the British Museum, filled with glorious, glorious plunder from ancient civilizations:

The Rosetta Stone

And also the Tate Modern, filled with unwashed masses of art students and if-you-don't-like-it-it's-because-you're-not-smart-enough-to-understand-it art.

The plaque next to this one had a complete paragraph talking about how it represented Adam and Eve and something about sex.

In all seriousness, the Tate was pretty sweet. I actually spent more time there than at the British Museum. They have a lot of the cool pop art like Warhol and Liechtenstein, and the weird stuff like Dali. My favorite was this German portrait photographer named Sander who was taking pictures of everyday people in the 30s. Hadn't heard of him before this visit.

I also visited Chipotle.

Other notable places we visited: Hampton Court Palace, where 400 yrs ago this year King James commissioned the first English translation of the Bible. Westminster Abbey for Evensong service. Herrod's to marvel at all the things I'll never be able to afford. Regent Street to marvel at all the things I'll never be fashionable enough to wear. More than a couple pubs. Wimbledon Common. Kingsbridge. Hyde Park. Buckingham Palace.

I'm working on plans for when I can return. It's a super place.

Cross-post- Faithful Politics

Hello family and friends,

I'm currently enjoying Christmas Eve with my sister and her family here in London, England. I'll post some photos later, but for now, here's an article I wrote for Faithful Politics, a website which is devoted to exploring the interplay between our Christian faith and our political actions and beliefs. The website was started last year by one of my good friends from Wheaton, so it's worth checking out the other articles on the site.

http://faithfulpolitics.org/2010/12/24/a-tale-of-two-kings-herod-jesus-and-the-glory-of-christmas/

It's Not Really Looking Anything Like Christmas

Another sunny, 77° degree day here in the tropics. Even though that's 50 degrees warmer than Littleton and London, and 70 degrees warmer than Medford, I'm not going to gloat. And although there is less humidity here than all of those places, keeping it mild and cool despite the warm sun, there's no sense in me bragging about it.


Actually, I am a little jealous of the snow and cold, partly because I'm weird like that, and partly because it is evocative of the most wonderful of times of the year, the Christmas season. (As I've mentioned before.) But I am trying to enjoy it as much as I can today, because if the news reports are to be believed, England looks something like this:

London, today

Which will be fun, as long as my plane lands. My next posts will be from the motherland, where I will almost assuredly have some Vin Diesel-like shenanigans with dirty diapers and baby vomit.

PS- Nuclear family- your Christmas gifts will arrive some time in January, I haven't sent or ordered or thought about them yet. Sorry.

When Moths Attack: UPDATE

I have no idea how, but this guy managed to squeeze himself through a crack somewhere and ended up in my kitchen. (UPDATE: There are two of them.) As you can see, he is very large. A cat was trying to get to him before I came out and chased it off to take this picture.

Commence: Operation Kitchen Liberation. Updates to follow.

Update:

Kitchen is secure. At approximately 9:33 PM, I approached the kitchen from the east. Preliminary visual surveillance showed no sign of the intruders.

Fig. 1: Preliminary surveillance. Visual contact: Negative.

After a brief delay dedicated to writing my will, I breached the kitchen door at 9:36 and cautiously moved inside. Knowing something of the habits of moths, I was careful not to touch anything, or put my hands in areas where they might be hiding. I could not see either moth, so I fell back to my room to regroup and rearm.

Fig. 2: Weapons

I again returned to the kitchen with sandals in hand this time from the north, and immediately laid eyes on bogey 1. As you can see in this picture, he had positioned himself perfectly for a sneak attack above the door I had previously used to enter the room. A chill ran up my spine as I understood his dark purpose, and wondered at the malice in his tiny heart.

Fig. 3: Evil incarnate

My attention immediately turned to the moth that I knew remained hidden somewhere in the room. I slowly went around the room, poking my sandal into bags and under cupboards where it might be hiding. The second place I searched was the corner with the trash bin. I hypothesized that the moth would allured to the smells of death and decay.

Fig. 4: An Ambush

I was, unfortunately, correct. No sooner had I kicked at the trash can than the moth launched itself at me. I dodged and parried its strikes, until I could put some distance between myself and that confining corner. This one was considerably larger than the pictured moth, who twirled his mustache and gazed through emotionless, dark eyes at the events below. Then without warning, the attacker flew out of the open door and into the night.

At 9: 45 I coaxed the remaining moth down from the corner by throwing things at it, then dealt it a death blow in midair with my sandal. I put its carcass in a paper bag and was taking it out to the trash, only to discover that the other moth was WAITING ON THE PORCH FOR ME. No joke, this moth flew at me again, then took up a watchful position near the porch light. If I could somehow make this house airtight, it would be so.

Bird-Sized Moths are now #1 on the list of Things I Will Not Miss When I Leave Rwanda.

I'm Still Here

Nothing eventful has happened, but I thought I should update everyone on how it's going.

Well, I'm sick. Nothing bad- just fever/bowel issues. If at home, I would just lay up for a couple days, but here there's always the worry that it's dysentery/malaria/typhoid. Probably not, but I'll let you know if it is.

Work is going fine, albeit slowly, because the major focus of my work has not yet started. This is kind of nice, as it allows me to work from home a couple days a week, and I've used the extra time to orient myself a little further with Kigali. I'm getting a better feel for the shops and how to get from A to B.

I ordered a desk for my room from a small furniture shop. They're one of these poorly located, not advertised, wouldn't know about it except that my friends told me about it, kind of place, so that's fun. After a very brief haggling session, I agreed to pay RWF 20,000, or $33 for just a simple table. But of course, Jerome told me that it would be ready in two days. That was nine days ago. Which I'm okay with, because I'll now be able to pay like half that amount. My goal is to get it down to 12,000.

Only six days until Christmas break! I'm flying up to London this Friday to hang out with the Wallace family for a couple weeks. In case you're not a member of my family or otherwise not aware, my sister gave birth to little Georgia Ruth Wallace a couple weeks ago, so I'll get to meet my niece. Looking forward to that very much.

It's been raining for days. It's usually clear in the morning, but heavy, wet tropical storms come through in the afternoon that disrupt the power and the internet, along with making everything humid and preventing the clothes on the line from drying. This is the end of the rainy season- when I return to Rwanda in January, we should have at least two months without a drop.