Never too old to learn

So, I got back from Nairobi this morning just in time for Thanksgiving...which is, not surprisingly, a normal day here. While I didn't have enough time in Nairobi to see anything beyond the drive from the hotel to work, I nevertheless learned a lot in my 48 hours there:

• I weigh 12.5 stone. I've never understood what it means that someone weighs x number of stone when reading the British press, but Kenya being a former British colony, the scale in my bathroom was in both stone and kilos (but not pounds).



• You always hear about Anglophone and Francophone countries in Africa, but when someone mentioned "Lusophone" countries as if I should know what that meant, I hadn't a clue what they were talking about. Oddly enough, none of the African residents I asked knew what that meant either, but finally someone from France told us it referred to Portugese-speaking countries. So now you can bust that out at your next party and impress your friends and loved ones.



• I'm afraid I missed out on one of the local culinary delights...Goat Eating.



• Maybe everyone else but me knew this, but "hakuna matata" is an actual Swahili expression meaning "no worries". (Although I still prefer "jambo", which is the Swahili word for "hello" and is especially amusing when spoken to African hotel staff by middle-aged/elderly white people wearing safari gear.



• Think international travel is all glamourous? It doesn't necessarily feel that way when you're crammed into a rickety old van that gets a flat tire on the way to work and has to pull over to the side of a busy road in Nairobi. (Somewhere there's a blogger in Nairobi who is posting that it is especially amusing when a bunch of white people in business suits are standing along the side of the road during rush hour next to a broken-down van.)




• My first night, I slept horribly in part because I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. Could have been a coincidence, but it turns out Nairobi is at about 5,500 feet (1,675 meters) elevation, which is higher than a lot of Swiss ski villages.



• Whereas in Dakar the local mini-buses were called Alhamdoulilahi and often had Muslim-themed decorations, in Nairobi at least half of the minibuses, or matatus, had sayings like "Praise the Lord" and "Jesus Saves" and "Look to God" on them. Lots of others went to the opposite extreme and said things like "100% Pure Pain", "The Game" (referring to the rapper of the same name), "Home Boyz", and possibly my favorite, "White Boy". Having nearly been in multiple accidents between the hotel and work, I'm still not sure which theme would inspire more confidence.



• I had the following conversation with the hotel concierge:
  ME: Is it safe to walk downtown during the day?
  CONCIERGE: Oh, yes...but it's not recommended.
  ME: Why is that?
  CONCIERGE: For safety reasons.



• Flowering jacaranda trees liven up even the ugliest of cities. (Lame picture, I know, but it's the best I could do from within the safe boundaries of the hotel grounds.)