Nairobi

I write this on our last morning in Nairobi. The bus to our next destination, Elsamere, departs in about 2 hours time.

We've been very fortunate to enjoy the company of Kevin and Dennis Gichanga during our brief time here. Kevin picked us up from the airport on Monday and took us over to the YMCA hostel in central Nairobi. We were all exhausted from the long journey, so it was a relief to be transported hassle free to our bedrooms! Kevin helped us to buy Kenyan mobile phone sim cards and took us to a pizza place for our dinner. We all crashed into bed by 7pm and slept through until 8am!

Yesterday, Dennis picked us up from the YMCA and showed us round a few sights. The most striking thing about Nairobi is how clean it is. Dennis told us that there is a 'man eat man' culture here in the sense that if you litter the streets it will not be long before somebody has reported it to the authorities, landing you with a very heavy fine. The result is very clean streets facilitated by an excellent waste collection service, run privately, but paid for by the government. Kevin took us to Nairobi national park, which is right on the margin of the city. We went on the 'Safari Walk' which stirred up my usual emotions about caged animals. While understanding the educational value of these places, I never feel that I need to see animals in small, lonely, enclosures to understand the need to conserve them.

Nairobi is very green, there are large areas of natural forest right in the centre of the city inhabited by indigenous flora and fauna and the streets are lined with towering trees (when you can see them past the huge billboards advertising mobile phones, internet providors, perfumes and TVs). Deforestation is, however, a big problem in and around Nairobi, efforts are in place to conserve these forests and Dennis was hopeful that these efforts will be successful. The fact remains however that Nairobi's 3 million plus population is growing every day and the pressure for land grows with it. Nairobians are desperate for better roads, the number of cars has risen dramatically in the last decade, many of them are new japanese and european vehicles causing huge congestion problems and pollution. Road building has not begun in earnest here, but when it does, more areas of wildlife are sure to be divided by concrete and tarmac.

Our penultimate stop on our trip round Nairobi was at the factory of 'Kazura' (meaning small and beautiful). Kazura produce beads and pottery from locally sourced clay. We were shown into the factory where over 300 females work in shifts in excellent conditions to produce these beads for export around the world. We learned that the beads were sold at an outlet in Cambridge in the UK, as well as across Africa, America and Australia. Perhaps one day, we can sell these fair trade goods at Rendezvous in Cheltenham.

Following an excellent and very simple meal, we returned to the YMCA and I sat down with Dennis to discuss events that led him and his family to move to Nairobi from their hometown on Kisumu. I recorded an interview with him which will contribute to the radio documentary I'm putting together. Dennis and his family are from the Kikuyu tribe who were forced out of Kisumu during the post election violence in December 2007. It is an incredibly sad story and his family suffered terribly. With time, it seems, Dennis and his family have been able to put it behind them and he is now very settled in Nairobi and looking forward to a bright future working for Kenyan Airways.