I hoped that once the excitement died down that many of these young women would be able to build on what they had learned and actually start a business. These businesses wouldn’t be the next Google or Apple, but they could provide a few dollars a day to help feed a family. We had already seen anecdotal examples of success with new businesses, and clearly all of the young women had gained confidence in their abilities that would serve them well as employees or entrepreneurs.
The U.S. Embassy and Other Concerns
In life, if one wants to worry, there are always things to worry about. In familiar situations, we learn over time which risks create real and present danger and which ones can be safely ignored. In new and unfamiliar situations, we don’t have these rules of thumb, and everything seems scarier. It wasn’t clear to us as to whether the apparent upsurge in violence in Kenya was really something that we should worry about, but apparently, the U.S. embassy wanted to do something to respond to concerns raised by the extensive publicity surrounding it. They called a “town meeting” and invited all of the U.S. citizens living locally to come to the embassy. I didn’t think that I was going to get any new or useful information, so I decided not to attend, but their initial invitation and the follow-up message were additional reminders of the somewhat threatening environment.
I had basically forgotten about the meeting until the embassy’s follow-up e-mail arrived. At the meeting, a U.S. citizen had brought up an issue about the location of the embassy’s parking for U.S. citizens going to the embassy for various services. Evidently, the parking lot was a significant distance from the embassy and not particularly secure. The citizen was concerned, and probably asked if anything could be done about this situation. Well, the e-mail response from the embassy indicated that because of safety and liability concerns (my italics), there would no longer be parking available for U.S. citizens going to the embassy for services. They really took care of that problem!
While I had basically gotten over worrying about increased violence from Somali migrants, at this time Kenya presented other opportunities for worrying such as Rift Valley fever, which had broken out in the north. Rift Valley fever is a hemorrhagic fever disease, sort of like a mild form of Ebola (the horrific disease which kills 90 percent of its victims within a few days). Fortunately, Rift Valley fever mostly attacks animals like cows, goats, sheep, and pigs. However, the disease can pass to humans, and more than a hundred people had died. Not everyone who contracts the disease endures a serious case. However, those that do bleed from all body orifices and die within a few days. During the outbreak, the consumption of most meat plummeted and the demand for chicken and fish skyrocketed. Most cases of human infection actually come from contact with live animals, but people were still worried that they could get it from contaminated meat. If you bought meat from a reputable butcher, there was nothing to worry about. My general approach to life is to be optimistic and avoid unnecessary worrying. I didn’t change my eating habits, and I didn’t even get a bloody nose.
On the other hand, we did worry about malaria, and I was reminded why when I went to the office to ask a colleague, Carl, about the project he was working on. He seemed a little out of it, and when I asked about it, he said he wasn’t feeling well. I asked what was wrong, and he said he had gotten malaria, but he’d caught it quickly and was on good medication. He wasn’t concerned.
Nairobi, because of its altitude, is a relatively low-risk area for malaria, and so most people don’t take preventative medication. However, Carl had been to Tanzania and hadn’t bothered to take precautions. Every tourist is seriously warned to take prophylactic medication, but most people who live in Africa don’t. The medications do have side effects, both short- and long-term, and many people don’t want to take them for years on end. Maybe it’s a good gamble if you live in Africa, but for us, there was no question. Wendy and I religiously took the meds. And besides, those other people were missing out on some great dreams. Yes, that’s one of the side effects.
When you’re a tourist in a malarial area, there are two primary types of preventative medication to choose from, malarone and mefloquine. For short vacations, malarone is generally considered the drug of choice. It is probably somewhat more effective, and it has the fewest side effects. However, it has to be taken every day, and when we went to Africa, it was very expensive if you took it for a long period of time. Mefloquine, on the other hand, was also effective, needed to be taken only once per week, and was much less expensive. However, the potential side effects of mefloquine can be quite interesting. One is hallucinations.
Wendy and I didn’t have any daytime hallucinations, but the Tuesday night dreams were exciting. Monday was the day we took our pills for the week, but for some reason, the resulting dreams were most intense on Tuesday nights. Wendy periodically had scary nightmares and talked loudly in her sleep, but my dreams were just weird. I had the usual late to class, didn’t study for the exam, walking around naked dreams, but I also had some unique ones as well. One that I remember concerned not having a date for the senior prom. I was very upset that I hadn’t asked anyone to the prom and was remembering all the girls I had dated in high school (not a long list) and wondering if I should ask each of them. As I was going through this process, I remembered that I was married and couldn’t understand why I was worried about a date. But I still thought I should get a date. My mind tried to reconcile these thoughts, and then I woke up. It was really like going to a weekly festival of strange, short movies.
Although I was looking forward to getting off the medication and experiencing plain old boring sleep, we weren’t going to risk that in Africa. When I was talking to another colleague, David, about Carl’s malaria, he said, “Oh yeah, I had malaria and almost died.” Several years earlier, he had felt feverish and achy, but he was traveling away from home and thought it was just a virus. He hesitated in going to the doctor. By the time he went, just the next day, the malaria had gone to his brain. The doctor immediately told him that he might not survive and put him into intensive care. David was totally conscious and called his wife and told her that he might be dying. He called his brother to discuss his own funeral and burial arrangements and also asked his brother for help in taking care of his wife after he was gone. Fortunately, the doctors pumped David full of medication for several days and he lived. He chuckled as he talked about it, but it was really a close call. Wendy and I paid close attention to the calendar and took our meds every Monday like clockwork.
Carl quickly recovered from the malaria, but he was still feeling bad. He found out he also had an amoebic infestation. Those critters take a week of nasty medicine to get rid of. No, we weren’t in Kansas.
Continuing the unpleasant creatures theme, I had learned what to expect regarding animal encounters in our apartment. I had been surprised several times by geckos scampering up the wall to hide behind curtains or other cover. Fortunately, they seemed quite afraid of me and disappeared before Wendy saw them. In the unusual bug category, Wendy had called on me several times to kill some very large invaders (species unknown). They were about an inch wide, two inches long and appeared to be a cross between a beetle and a cockroach. They moved very fast, but ultimately made a large snapping sound as I crushed them under my size 14 work shoes. Overall, however, Nairobi’s high altitude and dry climate contributed to minimizing insect (especially mosquito) encounters, for which Wendy was especially grateful since she tends to be a mosquito magnet. Whenever they’re around, mosquitoes bite her and not me; I think because she is much tenderer.
While some of nature’s threats, such as malaria, are predictable and can be defended against, for others we can be totally surprised and essentially helpless. One day, I was sitting at my desk, and I felt a strange movement coming up from the floor. It wasn’t quite a shaking; it was more of a rocking. It was a feeling I had felt many times before in California, but I was in Nairobi, Kenya. Could this be an earthquake, here in Africa? Yes it was, and only the first of a number to come. Who knew they had earthquakes in Kenya? Looking at the geology, I guess it’s not surprising. Nairobi is located near the Great Rift Valley and between the extinct volcanoes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya. All of these would be obvious clues to the most amateur geologist, but it hadn’t occurred to me.
Wendy sat near to me in the office and reacted quicker when she felt the tremor. She instantly positioned herself in the doorway as we are trained in California (because doorways are more strongly reinforced and can protect you from falling debris in a moderate earthquake in the United States (for advice on what to do in a very serious earthquake, especially outside of the United States, search online for “The Triangle of Life”). Although she reacted quickly and followed the guidelines we had been taught, this would have been a problem in a serious earthquake. The doorway in which she positioned herself was capped by a large glass panel, which would have shattered into many sharp pieces and seriously sliced anyone standing below. Fortunately, the first quake only measured 4.4 on the Richter scale, so was only a little wake-up call.
The next quake hit on Sunday night, and it registered 5.4 on the Richter scale, which meant that it was about ten times as powerful. It hit while I was sitting on the toilet in our apartment. Talk about the ultimate in terms of helplessness. The only solution was to let it happen and hope. Compounding the impact was the fact that I was feeling a little tipsy from the few glasses of wine I’d had with dinner. Boy, was there ever a wrong night to overimbibe.
On Tuesday, a 6.1 quake hit near the end of the work day, and the panic started. It was the strongest quake yet, and the fourth in five days. People streamed out of office buildings and were reluctant to go back the next day. At first, running out of buildings seemed to be a foolish reaction, since that was not what we were taught in California, but later we learned that 90 percent of Nairobi buildings were not designed by professional architects or engineers. Maybe running out of those buildings wasn’t a bad idea. I reminded myself that the rules are different in Africa.
As the tremors continued, so did the panic. There had been no destruction of buildings, but this had been the longest string of earthquakes ever felt in Nairobi. Fortunately, the city was 155 kilometers from the earthquake’s epicenter in Tanzania, so the impact was lessened. Rumors circulated about a big tremor that was coming and some people slept outside their homes. As rumors of an impending large quake accelerated, including the quake’s date and time, experts continued to deny that earthquake prediction was possible and the U.S. embassy was forced to issue an official press release saying that it had not predicted a large earthquake on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. Over time, the earthquakes subsided, as did the panic, and things went back to normal.
Getting beyond the concerns with disease, pestilence, earthquakes, and Somali invaders, traditional crime was still an issue. Within a month or two of my arrival in Nairobi, I had pretty much forgotten about the two fatal carjackings. My friends were probably right; these had been an aberration. However, the city still had a long-standing reputation for nonfatal crime and was nicknamed Nairobbery. There were even anecdotes about the old days when criminals would steal your car at gunpoint but then put you in the trunk and politely drop you off near your home before taking off with your car and your money. Anyone who recounted these stories always followed them up with a warning that modern criminals did not adhere to these old ways and were to be seriously feared. Just in case we were getting complacent, we received several messages that definitely put us on our guard.
The first message was from Peter, one of our coworkers, which he sent to everyone in the office. It said essentially, “Please send any e-mail messages to me in care of my personal e-mail account since my computer has been stolen, and I can’t access my work e-mail.” On his way home one night, Peter was accosted as he was about to drive into his yard. As with most homes outside the slums, his property was surrounded by a high fence with a locked gate. Although this generally provides protection, it can also provide an opportunity for thieves. People are vulnerable as they arrive home and exit their cars to unlock their gate, allowing thieves to easily attack, which is what happened to Peter. In some senses, Peter was lucky in that the thieves only took his cash, cell phone, and computer. They often take the car. And of course, the situation can be life-threatening as well. From our perspective, it appeared as if Peter mostly took it in stride and just set about fixing the problems. However, it had to be a harrowing experience. Several days later, he got good news; the thieves had been caught, and he was called to the police station to identify them. Although he got through it without serious physical harm, it must have left a mental scar. Several people at TechnoServe had experienced similar trauma. Erastus told me of an incident, several years earlier when he was confronted by a thief with a gun, and he was certain that he was going to die. In another incident, just months earlier, an expat couple who were our good friends had been forced to lie facedown in the dirt as armed thieves went through their pockets and purse.
The second message, which was e-mailed from the U.S. embassy, just reinforced the ideas.
Warden Message: Carjacking of USAID Employee
This Warden Message is being issued to alert American citizens to the ongoing danger of carjackings in Nairobi. On May 3, an American citizen was carjacked on Ridgeways Road, off of Kiambu Road, by three male teenagers, two of whom were armed with pistols. The victim was not injured in the incident.
Extreme caution is advised once you turn off of Kiambu Road, going towards the Windsor Hotel, as there are many blind turns and the ability to maneuver around potential threats is limited. Be aware of your surroundings when driving this or other similar routes, and be especially conscious of any person(s) acting in a suspicious manner, who might be acting as a lookout for potential hijackers ahead. Do not expect pedestrians or passers-by to lend assistance as witnesses are usually unwilling to get personally involved in this type of situation.
If criminals demand to go to your house, dissuade them by telling them you live in a large housing compound guarded by security guards and police.
It is advised that you carry credit cards or ATM cards only when you have a specific need for them. Be willing to give up your valuables immediately; they are not worth your life. It is imperative that you remain calm and let the carjackers know you will comply with their demands and give them all of your valuables. Keep talking to them, listen to their instructions, and comply immediately and fully.
As temporary residents, taking lots of precautions such as only taking taxis and not driving a fancy car along with being able to limit where we lived, worked, and shopped, I thought our chances were good that we wouldn’t have this type of experience. But there were no assurances. I felt bad for the local residents who must know in the back of their mind that eventually their luck will run out, and they will be robbed or worse. However, the locals seemed to adapt. They were very attentive to potential danger, while at the same time seemed to take it in stride, as illustrated by an e-mail we got from Henry, another TechnoServe colleague:
On Wednesday, on my way to [a local town] on one of the dirt roads, a saloon vehicle overtook me at very high speed and made me suspicious. I slowed down to observe their movements, and after moving for less than 2 kms the vehicle slowed down and parked near some thickets. The guys did not look good to me, so I turned at high speed and drove like mad to the highway. There, I found another suspicious car, so I drove to the direction of Nairobi and used a different route from the main Nyeri Highway.
I cannot for sure say that these guys were carjackers, but my intuition told me so, and I acted. Better to be safe than sorry.
Let’s be very alert particularly with [our TechnoServe Toyota Land Cruiser] Prados on off-road destinations, especially during this electioneering period when their demand has gone to an all-time high.
CHEERS,
Henry
Wendy’s increased discomfort with personal safety was obvious as she resisted walking even a block or two in our neighborhood at night to the nearby mall and supermarket. On the other hand, I had pretty much rationalized that we were pretty safe and had put the messages from our colleagues and the U.S. embassy out of my mind. So I talked her into walking to the Phoenician Restaurant near our apartment.
Nairobi had many good, very diverse restaurants, a number of which were located very near to our apartment. What a difference from Swaziland. We had been to several wonderful Indian places, a Japanese sushi bar, an Italian restaurant, a multicultural café that served enchiladas and a Tex-Mex outlet at the food court, as well as the Phoenician, which is Lebanese.
For safety’s sake, the general rule in Nairobi is to never walk anywhere at night—always take a taxi. We generally followed the rule. We also lived in a nice area where it was very safe to walk around during the day as the streets were busy with people. Even at night, the area was generally well-lit and occasionally people could be seen walking.
Since the Phoenician was less than four hundred meters from our apartment gate, it seemed ridiculous to take a taxi. We had previously walked at night to the Japanese restaurant that was only one hundred meters from our gate, but it was almost visible from our apartment, and we were always within yelling/running distance from the security guard at one location or the other. Of course, if attacked, you should neither run nor yell, but it still felt very safe. The Phoenician was just enough farther away, around a curve on a tree-lined street that Wendy was very uncomfortable, but I decided we should walk anyway.
We prepared to walk by emptying our pockets of everything except enough cash to pay for dinner and one cell phone between us. Then we set out. During the day, the walk would have been delightful. The street at this point is well constructed with new, paved sidewalks, bordered by trees and other attractive vegetation. It was even brightly lit. The weather was pleasant. It was a beautiful night for a stroll, but it was still Nairobi. As we turned from the street with our apartment to the street with the restaurant, it was nearly deserted. We saw one woman walking toward us. She was walking very purposely and passed us by with no one uttering a sound. Then we heard a man, coming up from behind us. He was walking more quickly than we were. We didn’t change our pace, but Wendy squeezed my hand tightly as the man approached. As he passed us and walked on, the only sound we heard was the crinkling of his plastic grocery bag from the local supermarket. Though she continued to look over her shoulder and twitched at the slightest sound, Wendy and I arrived at the restaurant compound safely. We felt very relieved as the security guards let us pass through the steel gate into the restaurant compound.
I had prawns for a main course, and Wendy had some type of Middle Eastern chicken, but we started with several varieties of hummus and pita bread. The décor was simple but charming, and we felt very cozy sitting outside by a fire. However, the most unusual part of the evening was the music. On Friday nights, the restaurant had live music performed by a local duo, one on guitar and the other on keyboard. At first, they were playing instrumentals, some of which were recognizable American tunes. Then it got more interesting. This African duo, in the Lebanese restaurant, started singing, and the first few songs they sang were Kenny Rogers’s hits. They went into more country tunes and other popular U.S. hits. Then it really got international. The African duo, in the Lebanese restaurant, in Nairobi, Kenya, began singing a familiar Mexican song, in Spanish, with a Swahili accent. It was delightfully bizarre and definitely a time and place for all nationalities. We had a great evening.
After dinner, Wendy was a little nervous about walking back. I wasn’t, perhaps because of the wine I’d had with dinner. In any case, the walk back was uneventful. There was no one else out walking at that time of night. As we walked back to the guardhouse in front of our apartment and through the large security gate, we wondered what the guards must be thinking about the crazy Wazungu (Swahili word for white people, sometimes used to mean crazy white people, so crazy Wazungu could be considered redundant) who went out walking in Nairobi at night. Eventually Wendy forgave me for coercing her, but we did not walk to the Phoenician at night again.
For a while, I was feeling quite comfortable with the issue of personal safety, but then the concerns came back. I heard rumors going around the office about a robbery and a shootout at a bank only a half-mile from our office. The robbers were supposedly linked to some other criminal activity that had taken place only shortly before in another part of Nairobi. The details were unclear and confusing. The next morning’s paper clarified some details but raised more questions than it answered.
Excerpts from an article in the Kenya Times, May 18:
