After a week of living the Peace Corps dream in the
mountains of Kenya, I traveled down to Nairobi for what is probably best
described as the exact opposite of Peace Corps life. Through a
friend-of-a-friend, I was warmly, and extremely generously, invited to stay
with some U.S. Foreign Service Officers living in the capital.
I’ve already described Kigali as clean and quiet (perhaps
too much so), and Kampala as real and raw (which you can also interpret as dirty). Nairobi is
cosmopolitan, and adds a whole new flavor to my experience in African cities. The streets of Kenya’s capital are busy and lead out into various
suburbs where you can find a little bit of everything. From luxury malls to
dirt cheap (and delicious) Indian food, Nairobi really does have it all.
My first full day in Nairobi I spent exploring the southwestern
suburb of Karen. If you find yourself in Nairobi, I recommend taking a day
to explore this neighborhood, as you’ll find all sorts of fun (and very
touristy) activities.
The suburb is named after the Danish Baroness Karen
Blixen, also known as Isak Dinesen, author of the famous memoir, Out of Africa, about running a coffee
farm in Kenya in the early 20th century. Since I had read the book
and seen the Meryl Street and Robert Redford movie, I felt compelled to visit
the home-turned-museum, and the restaurant next to it,
which were interesting, although if you’re not a must
see.
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| Famous view of the Ngong Hills, so often mentioned in the book from the Blixen home. "Ngong" means knuckles in Massai. The four hills stand alone in the plains around Nairobi and do in fact look like knuckles. |
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| Finding True Love in Nairobi |
My first stop in Karen was to the Giraffe Center, where I fell
in love with a giraffe named Daisy. Luckily for me, she reciprocated my feelings and
showed me by landing me a kiss! The African Fund for Endangered Wildlife Kenya,
which runs the operation, does a lot of great work educating visitors, and
youth around Kenya, about wildlife, and giraffes in particular. While visiting
the center, I learned a lot. Fun fact: a giraffe’s tongue grows to be almost
one and a half feet long! In addition to several giraffes, the center is also
home to many warthogs. Giraffes and
warthogs enjoy each other’s company, providing one another with extra security,
since giraffes have excellent vision, while warthogs have excellent hearing.
Because giraffes and warthogs alone don’t fulfill my daily
wild life quota, from the Giraffe Center I headed to the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage,
where I watched elephants as young as three months get bottle fed (their
bottles were only slightly larger than the bottles of my three month old
Rwandan neighbors). The Trust running the operation is doing really wonderful
conservation work, rescuing baby elephants who are found abandoned in the wild,
their mothers often victims of poaching, which continues to be a problem acrossthe African continent.
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| Orphan Elephant being fed by a caretaker at the David Sheldrick Center |
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| Nairobi National Museum |
My favorite tourist
activity in Nairobi was the Nairobi National Museum,
which I can confidently say is the best museum I have visited on the continent.
The museum holds the greatest collection of early human fossils in the world,
many of them discovered by the Leakey Family.
If this doesn’t excite the paleontologist in you, know that the bird collection
includes hundreds (if not thousands) of specimens from across East Africa. I’ll
stop here and pretend like I haven’t just outted myself as the world’s biggest
nerd.
Nairobi is a huge city with lots to see and tons to do. The
nickname “Nairoberry” has stuck, in my opinion, more for its catchiness than
truth. Like any other city in the world, there are security issues. As a young,
clearly foreign, solo female traveler (and recent victim of a robbery), I took
extra precautions, particularly in the way of not being out at night downtown.
Still, I was able to enjoy the bustling city, in no small part thanks to the
incredible generosity of various friends of friends and relatives of friends, who took me
out to delicious meals, and so generously hosted me.
