So I’ve been home for 2 weeks now and it is amazing how
time flies for someone that doesn’t have a job.
I am busy though as my week is full of activities and as of today I have
started my own health résumé at home, hoping to get in a little bit of shape
before my holiday in September. There
seems to be plenty of gyms around the place and the cost doesn’t seem too bad
either ranging from 6,000KSH-12,000KSH (72-144AUD) a month. To that price I need to add in my taxi cost
and it was just going to be too expensive for me to join a gym, so while I was
in London, I found some fitness DVD’s and I bought a DVD player and a yoga mat
last week on my return to Nairobi and I am going to ‘get fit’ via DVD. I did my first work out this morning for 30
minutes and I just have to say that I knew I was a little un-co when it comes
to aerobics, but I felt like a right old tool this morning and I am glad that I
am actually in the comfort of my own home.
Even I was laughing-at myself!
But it is a start, I know I have to do it for my fitness and I would
also ideally like to be a little lighter for my West Africa trip where it is
going to be a more challenging trip and also humid and I don’t want to fade in
the heat from being unfit. Wish me luck
on my fitness quest.
One thing that did come to my attention before I Ieft for
London was the amount that I am paying for taxis. I was prepared to keep paying for taxis until
I returned from Australia in January, but as my social life comes to ‘life’ and
with my trips to The Nest it is really pushing my need for a car and I’m starting
to think maybe I should get a car now. It
is just a push and I don’t think I will get one before I leave in September,
but the urge is there. The cost of cars
here don’t seem too expensive here and you can get a decent 2004 model for
around 4,000-5,000AUD. Once you have the
papers transferred and paid the once off registration you then only have the
insurance each year to upkeep. The few
things that were putting me off were the stories I was hearing on NES (Nairobi
Expat Social) of people getting pulled up by corrupt police and also not really
knowing where I was going was another obstacle as I am assuming GPS’s would not
work so well here in Nairobi. Not
knowing my way around is just going to be a learning curve and I do try and pay
attention when I am in the car with Steve.
The difficult thing here in Nairobi is that there are 4-5 different ways
to get to one place most of the time, so depending on traffic, Steve can take
me several different ways and I just try and remember landmarks as we drive and
I try and stay ahead of the drive and work out which turn we are going to take
next. Give me a car today and I think I
could get my way to Junction Mall, but what would take normally 45 minutes
(depending in traffic and time of day) I think would take me over an hour
taking into account wrong turns, phone calls to Steve to get directions and
getting lost-well okay maybe it will be a bit longer but it is something I am
going to have to suck up when I finally do get wheels. I am going to try and hold off. If I buy a car now, it will sit idle for 4
months while I am away for the last of the year and I also feel a little guilty
for Steven, who has been my driving companion for the last 5 months and a
regular income for him. I have spoken to
him about me getting a car and told him that it will be in January and he
wasn’t shocked and totally understood.
So he is going to make hay while the sun shines, because come January he
will unfortunately for him to lose his number one client. BUT just to keep on top of any ‘deals’ that
might be floating around I joined a Facebook page that has been set up for the
sale of cars in Nairobi under 500,000KSH, I know it looks like a lot of money
but it is around the 6,000AUD and if a ‘bargain’ was to pop up then that could
push me into buying a deal. We will
see. Is there anything that doesn’t have
a Facebook page these days?
I can’t tell you how much NES (Nairobi Expat Social)
saved my social life when I arrived into Kenya.
I have found all my new found friends through social gatherings that NES
put together and the expat community here in Nairobi is an amazing network of
people who share their experiences, opinions (not always nice things) and
thoughts. It can be from where to buy
fresh olives, to corrupt police experiences, hotel experiences, customs rules,
visa questions and anything else in between.
Other forums that have been set up along the same lines include Nairobi
Expat Walking Group, Nairobi Expat Dating, Nairobi Expat Travel and lastly
Nairobi Expat Marketplace. So I
discovered the last forum, NEM (Nairobi Expat Marketplace) last week and it is
like a ‘furniture’ eBay equivalent. It
is a Facebook group where expats sell items that they are looking for to buy,
items they no longer need, or want and new and used goods. It also happens to be that time of year where
a lot expats who are on 6 month contracts are coming to an end and the Facebook
page is a busy selling site with items that people are trying to offload before
departing the country in the coming 4 weeks.
There seem to be some bargains to be had, especially in the dining table
department and outdoor settings. There
also seems to be some things that don’t look that cheap to me and you wonder
why expats would want to rip off fellow expats, but you just never know what
people will pay for things-especially things that are hard to get here or
expensive to buy here and you can only ask a price I guess. I bought a set of drawers last week and the
guy even delivered them to my apartment (for a small fee) and they are really
cool. I find myself going to the site
more than once a day to see if there is anything else I can snap up. I am a little bit space defined now though,
as I am pretty much furnished up now-but it is still fun to look at the stuff
that comes up. What works against me is
most of the stuff for sale is pickup only and it is on the mzungu part of town,
so I need to add 50AUD to the price of anything if I was to buy something and
that is a great deterrent on how much I will want to buy something. It actually is possible a blessing in
disguise actually! So after this mass
exodus of people leaving and I am assuming there will be an influx also in the
coming weeks the next one will be in December and thankfully I won’t be here
for that, so the temptation will be taken away as I will be in Australia for
the next mass departure from Nairobi.
It is hard to believe that I am back on the road again in
12 weeks. I am looking forward to my
West Africa trip that is going to be 13 weeks long in total and I am also lucky
enough to have a girls weekend away to Mombasa on the cards in mid-July, a trip
to the Masai Mara early August and hopefully see the mass migration of the
African plains and then a visa run to Tanzania in mid-August with Laura as we
both need to reset our visas. It is
really crappy as I am only 2 weeks short of my expiry date which is a real pain
and even though we have heard, well I guess we know that Tanzania does not
count anymore as a visa reset, I think we are just going to try our luck. Our thoughts are that you need a visa to
enter into Tanzania and a visa to get back into Kenya; will they really be that
stringent on checking us thoroughly? I
have even spoken to Katie and Laura who know of people that have overstayed
their 3 months and haven’t had issues, but the thought of that makes me sick to
my stomach and I know that I would have the guts to do something like
that.
My first week at home I found that I was sharing my house
with a mouse! I guess after not being
here for 2 weeks, he thought it was safe enough to camp out and I caught him in
one of my drawers in the spare room 4 days after getting back from London. After ‘thinking’ that I had seen a mouse when
I opened the drawer and shutting it in reflex in snappy speed, I re-opened the
drawer for him to drop down on the floor with me squealing like a little girl
and him running into the lower draw. Yes
I definitely saw a mouse and he’s in my HOUSE!!!! I closed the door of the spare room for 4
days till I had some friends come over and they did a recon of the room and the
little mouse could not be found and has not been seen since. There weren’t any droppings anywhere and I am
just hoping that he has packed his mousy bag, taken his mousy family and moved
in somewhere else besides my place. Some
people suggested that I lay bait, but after he’d eaten it, he could have dies
anywhere in my apartment and then it would smell if I couldn’t find him and he
was only a single, cute looking mouse.
If it was a spider or snake then it would have been a totally different
issue but I have let him slide this time and as cute as he was I hope he doesn’t
return again. I don’t understand how he
got inside in the first place and it wasn’t like he was in the kitchen chasing
food, as I had been away for 2 weeks but here he was and now he isn’t
(hopefully).
I also caught up with Katie on her ‘side’ of town last
week. She has been super busy with work
trips to Geneva and London and when we met on the Friday night, she was flying
out on the Saturday for Malaysia for a week-long conference. So we caught up the freee night we had which
just happened to be the night before she flew out and we had a game plan of
getting to bed by at least 2am. We met
at Junction Mall for dinner and we got the same waiter, Ricky, that we seem to
always get when we are there, and ate dinner and consumed 3 bottles of wine
before calling a taxi and getting back to Katie’s just before midnight. Well-being the ‘winos’ that we are, we also
bought a bottle of wine home and consumed that over the next 4 hours and found
ourselves getting to bed at 4am!! I was
getting picked up at 8.30am and Katie’s airport pickup was booked for 9am. I didn’t feel too bad and with a hug and a wave,
I headed home to let her get ready and I have to say I slept most of Saturday
and it makes sense when we drank 4 bottles of wine between the 2 of us!!!! I would hate to have had to sit on a plane
for 16 hours with a hangover. The great
thing with Katie and I we never run out of things to talk about and the time
just flies by when we are together. I am
so glad to have found a friend like her here in Nairobi and the BEST thing is
that she is a long termer and is planning in making Kenya her home which is
AWESOME!!!!
So it is good to be home and it really does feel like
home now. I just wish sometimes I could
teleport my friends from Australia, but all in all I am living a good life here
and achieving everything that I wanted to do when I moved here.
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