Old Friend, New City

Over the weekend, I finally was able to travel into Nairobi to visit my friend Christine.  We were in the same group at the conference in Dubai, and I’m so happy that I got to meet up with her.  From Mombasa, you can take a nice tour bus to the capitol city.  The ride took about 9 hours, but the time passed quickly enough; I slept, read, and watched the countryside as it passed.  The scenery was usually pretty great, covered with baobab trees and highlighted by the occasional sighting of Mt. Kilimanjaro or a baboon.  Then the hills turned into skyscrapers and I knew I was there.

Christine and her sister picked me up at the bus depot and took me to their house.  They live in the Parklands area of the city, which is historically the Indian part of town.  It was a nice, quiet area dotted with Buddhist temples and parks.  Just up the road from her house one can find numerous embassies and a UN office.  

We spent the weekend being equally lazy and touristy.  We watched plenty of music videos and bootleg DVDs in between visits to the National Museum of Kenya, shopping malls, outdoor markets, and a national park.  I definitely fell in love with Nairobi.  It is the best African city I have visited so far.  It earned this stellar ranking by being a modern city (it had traffic lights, garbage cans, and road signs) with bustling commerce and a strong middle class, while still retaining a strong African identity (there were open-air Masai markets and no lack of mataus).  It’s hard to explain, but basically I saw a city living up to its potential, and that made me extremely happy.  I could definitely live in Nairobi.