Hello from Kenya

A public toilet in CBD

Hello from Nairobi! I landed here two weeks ago and will be here working on a project for the next six months.

I haven't written much about my visit yet because, well, I've been pretty busy. I work all day on my local consulting gig and then moonlight on a separate consulting project that I'm finishing up remotely. Much of my first two weeks have been going back and forth from the office working to my house working more (hopefully without annoying my two roommates) and then sleeping. All in all, my current consulting lifestyle is pretty dull.

But I feel like I should try to put together something about my initial time here so far. Whatever I put together today will have to be small, but it will be something. I'll put it in a list so I can do it quickly and get back to my projects. More in December, I guess?

• Leapfrog Modernity: I visited Nairobi for 20 years maybe 7-8 years ago. It's definitely changed a lot since the last visit. I landed into a much more modern airport; the one I had visited previously was one story and oddly riddled with potholes on the pedestrian walkways between gates, but the new airport looks like anything you'd see in Europe or the US. But there are other things that show how Nairobi (and other bigger African cities) are leapfrogging decades ahead from where they were a few years ago, thanks to the internet.
  My main form of transportation is Uber cars, which is cheap and fast...but Uber here also provides services for motorcycle rides (aka boda bodas), which is a staple form of transportation in any developing country I've been to. Boda bodas are cheaper and faster than cars (because of the traffic) but are a bit more dangerous (because of anything related to motorcycles), and they're now really easy to book without having to argue about prices (something I have hated to do).
  Not only do they have Uber, but they also have Uber Eats! I haven't used it yet, but my housemates use Uber Eats pretty regularly. It looks like most restaurants are offering Uber Eats in my area, which is convenient. I probably won't be ordering from KFC or Dominoes, but getting Ethiopian delivered sounds like a great future plan.
  Part of the modern leapfrogging also means that there are cashless places here that I've already stumbled into. Granted, mobile money has been a thing in Kenya long before we started hearing the word Venmo in the US, and many people here who aren't banked even get paid by their jobs via mobile money for their purchases and bill payments.
  And Nairobi is developing everywhere. I see highrises getting built all over the place (though some think that many of the empty construction sites are fronts for Chinese money laundering or something), and most of the buildings I go to that have restaurants I want to visit are still pulling the plastic wrap off of their windows, they're so new.
  And the roads are getting built better. The dusty roads are getting paved and there are even new overpassing highways across town. The rides are smoother than in other places, for sure.
  It's really amazing to see how quickly cities are growing outside of the Western world.
• Clean: I've been pleasantly surprised with how overall clean Nairobi is. I've been to other cities in other developing countries and have felt overwhelmed by the dusty streets completely drowning in trash. While there is some dust and some trash in Nairobi, and most of where I've been traveling around has been largely wealthy areas for ex-pats wealthy (probably mostly white) immigrants or the wealthy local population, I'm very happy to see that it's not so bad and some areas even have legitimate sidewalks (like my street). It smells better than NYC, too, which is a good thing.
• Good Events and Pretty Food: While I haven't been getting out much and have been subsisting mainly on eggs and the beans/rice lunches provided at work, I have gone out a few times. Every restaurant I've been to here so far has been really pretty and has tasty food. Last weekend I went to a new restaurant that has vegan/gluten-free/raw/veggie/dairy-free options (most likely they're catering to the massive ex-pat wealthy immigrant crowd), and it was as tasty as any health-focused restaurant I've been to in NYC. Right now (as I type) I'm in a popular Eritrean cafe and am eating a delightfully tasty veggie platter for $10. And the list of other places I've been told to eat at while I am here continues to grow the more days I'm here. Nairobi is booming with food.
  And I'm excited to get myself further immersed into the booming arts and theater culture here once I'm one contract down come December.
• Suburban Division: Nairobi reminds me of Brisbane, Australia in one particular way - it's divided up into separate suburbs that somehow loosely orbit around the Central Business District (CBD). CBD is where the government buildings are and I've seen a few public toilets (like in the picture) patiently offering busy bureaucrats easy on-the-go relief (though they don't have that many, they have probably more than NYC). I live in a mostly wealthy local and immigrant area called Kilimani, surrounded by other slightly different wealthy local and immigrant areas. We have sidewalks, sushi joints, and shopping malls. The only thing about the setup of the city is that it's not entirely walkable, so Uber is my best friend as I travel around the town. Otherwise, it's pretty easy.
• Traffic: It's bad. No matter what. There are cars for days, here. While there are public bus services and matatus that get you to different places while crammed into the vehicle with a lot of other people, a lot of people use the bodas and Ubers to get them around if they don't have a car themselves. This means there are a lot of cars everywhere, even/especially on new highways. Commutes to and from work take much longer than they should - my commute probably at least doubles most days to get to the office because of the traffic. Sometimes, just to keep moving, my work's carpool drives through the famous and massive  Kibera slum, which is harrowing on a different level because of its narrow roads and life spilling across them everywhere. I'm now learning to appreciate Audible so I can listen to books while I patiently sit in my commute's carpool for hours a day.
• Stable Weather: While the East Coast and Midwest start getting clobbered by snow and unpredictable daily temperatures, the weather here hovers between 60 and 80 every day, which is pretty pleasant. I wear a sweater in the morning to work, and on the way home I've got my hair up and am sticking to just a tee-shirt. I've stopped looking at the weather forecasts - the only thing I have to watch out for is rain, so I carry an umbrella all of the time. Otherwise, I'm pleasantly outside when I can. I do miss the pumpkin season, but it sounds like that season was shortlived at home anyway.

What am I doing in Nairobi? I'm working on an urban sanitation project. The organization I'm working with gets people living in informal settlements (aka slums) access to reliable and safe toilets that are regularly emptied and its fecal waste is safely treated to make fertilizer and animal feed. It's pretty damn cool, and I'm here helping them get better clarity about their data, measurements, and methodologies for assessing their performance and impact.