Runda Walk

October 10, 2012
These are some of experiences as I walked the three miles from my house in the Runda Hills area of Nairobi to the nearest market.

 

 Leaving the house
Getting out is not an easy task.

At the exit to the outside world is a steel gate topped with razor wire. 

 Hardened steel padlocks with bolt locks secure the main gate and pedestrian door.

There is no way to leave the house without having a key to unlock the gate.

Prisons seem less secure. 

To relock the door from the outside, you need to feel the lock on the other side of the door

 and insert the key. The process needs to be reversed upon entry. 

This is what the gate looks like from the outside.

 

The neighborhood

 

This is the street where I live. 

This is one of the passersby.

 

The houses in the neighborhood are both private with a scattering of embassies. At a local realtor's office, none of the houses are under several million, the highest listing being $500 million USD.

Nairobi is not a cheap place to live.

The irony is that although the houses are expensive, they share the same unreliable and continually interrupted electric and water supply as the rest of Nairobi.

 

In the background is not a tree house for children to play, but an armored elevated bunker.

This the welcoming sign.

 Matatu is a mini-van bus.

Boda Boda is a motorcyle for hire.

Near the shopping center is a water park with screaming children,

a real delight to my ears.

 

 

 

 

 

Pizza night

October 7, 2012

One of my volunteer roommates has a wonderful tradition of making pizza on Sunday night, no matter where he may be in the world.

Jim with his pizza.

 

First Day on the Job

October 5, 2012

IFDC (International Fertilizer Development Center) offices are located on a gated campus. The main tenants on the campus are from the Kenyan Department of Agriculture. There is a nice outdoor cafeteria with cheap and nice meals. I was given a desk of a person who is on a trip to another country, shown the toilets, break room, and introduced to the staff, mainly Kenyans.

The main event of the day was an award given to the“Employee of the Year” by the Dutch director who heads up our regional office. It was very nicely done with a cake and champagne.

I met immediate supervisor for a brief chat about what I may possibly be doing. He is out of country for the next week, but given a stack of brochures and DVD’s, coupled with meeting with many of the office staff, I should be kept busy, if not be bothersome.

 

IFDC staff in Nairobi

 Presentation of award by Regional Director

Agribusiness Program Leader, my immediate supervisor

 Entrance Drive to Offices

Offices on first two floors of this building

Day at the Mall

October  6, 2012

 New Market Shopping Center

To get a feel of the area I live, I decided to take the three mile walk to the shopping center. The streets are somewhat confusing due to the hills, high walls, and all the street names starting with “Runda”.

You would think walking at mid-day would be tortuous, but being at about 6,000 ft. elevation with low humidity and a nice breeze, the walk was very pleasant.  Asking directions is always a challenge and walking an extra mile because of either not understanding or not knowing, just makes getting to your destination that much more enjoyable.

The “New Village” shopping center could be found in any upper-income American town, complete with a maze of passageways which could compete with our experiences in the medina of Fez, Morocco. The food court offered meals from about 15 different countries. I was even to buy a battery charger for my camera which I was unable to buy in the U.S.

I tried to take pictures in the shopping center, but was quickly facing a security person who said it was against the law to take pictures of the buildings or passageways. He did let me keep the one picture.

Kenya is way ahead of the U.S. when it comes to cell phone service. You put money into a cell phone account which is very easily transferred to any other account or cell phone. It is fast, easy, and very cheap.

Converting money has its own problems. No one takes $100 bills unless they have been printed after 1999, for some places after 2006. This is quite different from the black market traders of Uzbekistan.  

I decided to walk back a different way and the road I was supposed to take. I ended up in some other town exhausted. The cab ride back was not bad.

First Impressions

October 4, 2012

Africa… just the name sounds exotic, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, the Dark Continent. Africa a place filled with wild beasts, strange tribes, unusual customs, and danger. Let me tell you about my first gew days.

I arrived on packed KLM 747 from Amsterdam, filled with anxious safari goers, hard to find an African aboard. At the airport, I zip through immigration, my luggage is there, and a young lady holding a sign with my name shows me to a car whose driver cuts across sold lines of cars where I enter a world of high walls, covered with thorny vegetation and topped with electrified wires or razor wire. This is the Runda Hills district of Nairobi where the diplomatic embassies and their employees live.

The house where I as well as two other volunteers live belongs to a Canadian diplomat and his wife. There are four bedrooms, five baths, beautifully appointed foyer. living room. dining room, and foyer. The kitchen has got every appliance a home could have except a dishwasher which is somewhat superfluous, seeing there is a full-time housekeeper who does our dishes and washes our clothes to fill time while the homeowners are away. Then there are the gardens filled with flowers, compost bin, diesel generator, vegetable garden and a fulltime gardener. We are three miles from the nearest grocery store and ten miles from the office, but then again there is a driver for that.

The house has twelve pages of instruction from the homeowners about the staff, fixtures, security system with the most pages about the care, feeding, and temperament of the two household “guard” dogs.

Although the grounds and house are lovely, there is a sense of isolation and remoteness about the place. The high walls, dogs, security patrols, alarm systems, and warning signs creates a sense of which doesn’t quite mess with the friendliness of the African I have met so for.

 

Driveway leading to front gate. Gate is locked from inside with a little slot to reach the lock behind. Razor wire graces the top.

 

One of house's two "Guard" dogs coming to greet and lick you.

 

Front Door

 

Rear wrap-around porch

Rear yard and some gardens

 

Kitchen

Upper level bedroom hall

Smallest Family adds One

September 30, 2012

Gregory Shuraleff, II today, of a family with maybe the fewest members with the same surname added another member, Jesse Shuraleff, nee Olson, at Cape Cod.

Mary Shuraleff, nee Landy; Nicholas Shuraleff, II; Gregory Shuraleff, II;

Jesse Shuraleff, nee Olson; Gregory Shuraleff; Nicholas Shuraleff, III;

Christine Shuraleff

Next Stop.. Kenya

·       On October 3rd it is off to Nairobi, Kenya to do a 6-7 week stint as a "Marketing Expect" through the National Peace Corps Association.

For those interested, here is some info about the house where I am staying when in Nairobi. 

 http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=210875601364584183127.0004c08c0a67b32b1841a