Ethiopiagain: North

Ethiopia is unique among sub-Saharan African countries in offering the kind of good wholesome tourism I was raised on in my family vacations in Europe: old stone churches and castles. The typical tourist circuit takes you around the Northern historical sites of Axum, Lalibela, Gonder, and Bahir Dar. I didn't have time to make it to Axum, but I took some consolation from the fact that I'd already seen its famous obelisk when it was in captivity in Rome.

My trip started in Bahir Dar, a town that started booming fairly recently and is now Ethiopia's fifth biggest city. It's right on the shores of Lake Tana, which provides a nice setting in this landlocked country. I stayed at the charming Ghion hotel, with a nice outdoor restaurant overlooking the lake and serving all the Ethiopian beers - perhaps the subject of a future post. Here's a view from my table:


The town itself is pleasant enough, with lots of good pastry shops and restaurants and a good market. Some of the more interesting vendors include the guy chopping up old tires to make shoes and other items, and the guys carrying around big poles with a string of live chickens tied up. At least they're cage-free. One of my favorite ways to spend time in African markets is looking at all the random American clothes for sale - it's better than any thrift store in the US, though the items are often even dirtier. My favorite this time was one of those t-shirts from a school in America where everyone in the class had signed their name in marker. And here are some guys playing the popular game of bottle cap checkers:


The main tourist attraction around Bahir Dar is a series of island monasteries in Lake Tana, many founded in the 14th century. My first morning I took a boat with an Australian who just left a job on a cruise ship and had been traveling down through Sudan, and a couple from Spain. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has been around since the early days of Christianity, and is still going strong. Its isolation has made it pretty distinct from other Christian traditions - I'm sure there's a Wikipedia article that can tell you more about it. The monasteries are still active, and many don't allow women. The priests don't want to be tempted. Here's a typical church:


Inside are old crosses, illustrated books, and lots of paintings. Here's a typical priest with a cross:

Here's a typical church painting of a devil or something:
Here's a less typical painting of what appears to be a dude taking a dump in front of the king:
We also got to try some of the priests' bread. It's pretty hard, though it does have a bit of a spiced kick to it. Here's our captain with a hunk of it:


The other major site in the area is the Blue Nile Falls, Ethiopia's largest waterfall. A few years ago they built a dam upstream and apparently the waterfall is effectively turned off much of the time these days. It was in operation while I was there, though:

The short hike up to the falls is pretty scenic too. I have a thing for old stone bridges:

The vivid green mountainous terrain is pretty impressive. I'm not sure I've been anywhere with a similar landscape, though I'm told it's reminiscent of New Zealand.


After Bahir Dar, I took a four-hour bus ride up to Gonder, one of the old capitals and home to some old castles. We arrived on graduation day for the University of Gonder, and all the decent-looking hotels were booked up. Luckily, the Australian fellow I was traveling with had passed through previously and been shown a little hotel/truck stop on the edge of town by a local. Very shabby, but friendly and safe and - like everywhere in the country - serves great espresso-style coffee. For $2 a night, you can't argue.

The next day, I checked out the castles. It was kind of nice seeing old stone castles again - you don't get many in Africa - or America, for that matter. Though I've seen more impressive castles.

Gonder is also notable for the large number of tourists you see from the Ethiopian diaspora. Apparently, this area was hit particularly hard by the feudal system under Emperor Haile Selassie, and lots of people emigrated. Many of the Ethiopians living in DC, it turns out, are from the Gonder area.

Bahir Dar and Gonder are about equidistant from my next stop, Lalibela. But after asking around, I gathered that, for whatever reason, buses leaving from Bahir Dar are more likely to complete the trip in one day. So I headed back and spent another night at the pleasant Ghion hotel, sitting in the covered outside area, sipping good beer under the torrential rain. I talked to the manager about the boat he was trying to buy in Baltimore and ship to Bahir Dar. He offered to let me stay another night for free, but alas, Lalibela called.

The bus ride was fairly pleasant, despite the 5:30 am arrival at the pandemonium of the opening of the bus station. We got delayed for about half an hour behind another bus that got stuck in the mud - this stretch of road isn't paved. At one point a young guy across the aisle from me had his bottle of coke explode all over him when he opened it. I, of course, chuckled at this along with my neighbors. Which provided great amusement for the other passengers, who burst out laughing and exclaiming something to the effect of "the faranji thought that was funny!".

Lalibela is the "must-see" tourist destination in Ethiopia. The draw is a series of 11 rock-hewn churches, built around 800 years ago. They are pretty impressive, though the scaffolding surrounding some of the bigger ones doesn't add much to the effect. Here's St. George's church, probably the most attractive:

This is a shot from down in the alleys connecting the churches:


Lalibela is also set against a mountainous backdrop that is magnificent even by the high standards of the region:


I also took a walk to another church an hour or so out of town, whose cliff-face setting at least, is in some ways more impressive than those in Lalibela:


Besides the churches, there's not a whole lot to do in Lalibela. It's overpriced compared to the other towns. They charge, like, over $2 for a nice Western meal. And it's pretty touristy, and difficult to take a walk more than 100 feet without being pestered by a kid offering a shoe-shine or a tour. I did stop in to look at the fancy hotel in town, and caught a whirlwind visit by a Czech delegation - someone it was the Prime Minister, though I didn't confirm that.

I'll try to write something tomorrow on Addis.

Ethiopia

My Kenyan visa ran out in late July and, having already extended once, I needed to leave the East African Community before I could come in again, which provided an excellent excuse for a vacation in Ethiopia.

The hour-and-a-half flight to Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airlines is a breeze. And the airport has got to be one of the prettiest I've ever approached, with the city popping up in the middle of a sea of bright green hills.

I only stayed one night in Addis before heading off at 4:30 am for the town of Bahir Dar. Due to the risk of bandits, inter-city buses don't run after dark, and most start at ungodly hours of the morning to cover as much ground as possible before nightfall. The Italian-built road was a pleasant change from the pothole-scarred highways of Kenya. The only unpaved stretch of road was crossing the steep Blue Nile Gorge, which apparently rivals the Grand Canyon in size. A Japanese (I think) company is working on that stretch. And I was relieved to learn that the groups of men riding around in pickups with rifles and no uniforms were just security for the project.

Driving in northern Ethiopia provides a mesmerizing series of green (some of the year), mountainous vistas, punctuated by the round thatched huts of the Agaw people - the kind of hut you might see emulated at a beach town eco-lodge and that you do see emulated in touristy Lalibela - and by the corrugated iron of the occasional town, which, while probably not any poorer than the huts, certainly look less pleasant. You also pass lots of skinny men with walking sticks and umbrellas and the occasional rifle; and skinny women usually carrying heavy things, like bundles of sticks, or jars of water, or occasionally, straight-up rocks. Most of them are wrapped to some degree in a white cloak/shawl/scarf. You also pass lots of old-fashioned cattle-herding and field-plowing.

These pictures, aren't from this particular drive, but the provide a bit of a sense of the northern Ethiopian landscape:
...More Ethiopia soon....

Lamu

I'm off to Ethiopia for a couple of weeks tomorrow, so before I get too backlogged, let me put up a few pictures from a trip I took a few weeks back to Lamu, an island just off the coast, near the border with Somalia. Everybody loves Lamu. One of the guidebooks calls it Kenya's "best worst-kept secret". And I'm afraid I have to concede that it's probably the place I've enjoyed most here.

Lamu is far and away the best place in Kenya I've been to for strolling. Strolling is probably the thing I miss most about being here (after flavorful beer). You can take walks on the beach near Mombasa, or go on hikes in parks, or wade through the dirty bustle of Nairobi or smaller towns, but Lamu is the first place I've found that offers pleasant, leisurely, charming, strolling. I've heard a few people express security concerns about Lamu's proximity to Somalia, which is funny because it has the safest and friendliest feel of anywhere I've been in Kenya. You can walk through town in the middle of the night, a real treat coming from Nairobi.

In fact, you have to walk, since there aren't any cars. The town is a jumble of old Swahili architecture navigated by a maze of narrow alleyways. Here's the main thoroughfare, for example:


The major arteries are crowded and teeming with little shops selling colorful fabric and restaurants offering fish or all sorts of fried snacks. The fish is pretty tasty, but here's me contemplating a standard Kenyan meal: beans, rice, chapati, and sukuma.


Lamu is heavily Islamic, and the intellectual hub for Islam in the region. The Saudi government pours a lot of money into mosques and other projects in the town, and there's a major festival every year celebrating Mohamed's birth - apparently some say two trips there is worth one to Mecca. The main drawback of all this, of course, is that there are only one or two places in town that serve beer, especially unfortunate since the waterfront restaurants would be perfect for enjoying a cold Tusker. But they do their best to compensate by offering pint-glasses of cheap and delicious fresh squeezed juices of all sorts.

We did go to the main bar in town, which was an interesting and seedy experience. I guess when you're the only game in town you're bound to attract all the sinful lowlife. We listened to a "captain" try to convince us to take a boat trip with him, hoping for our sympathy by describing how another tourist tried to get him in trouble after they capsized. There were a couple women in the black full-body covering that is the fashion here, one of whom would lift up her veil to sip her beer. And I learned a very vulgar beer toast.

Once you wonder a couple minutes off the main drag, you can have the alleyways virtually to yourself. Eventually, Islamic architecture gives way to more traditional village.


Lamu is also full of donkeys...

After a night in Lamu, we headed a couple miles down the coast to Shela beach. Shela is an interesting mix of coastal village and rich-person getaway. In the dusty alleyways, shabby old buildings rub shoulders with fancy new vacation homes. The Prince of Monaco has a place there (or several), and Kofi Annan. And someone said Bon Jovi, but I don't know about that. Here's the view from our hotel balcony.

Shela beach is long and sandy and empty. It's also extremely windy, especially this time of year, so good for walking, but not so good for sunbathing. We did the standard thing and took a dhow trip through the mangroves to Manda island. Dhows are those boats in the picture above. Here's our captain, and his fantastic hat...

Manda island...
Some Swahili ruins...

Mitumba

A couple of weeks into my time here, I saw a Reuters story in the local Nation newspaper on slum tourism in Nairobi - which had just experienced a sharp rise with the World Social Forum in town - with many slum residents expressing irritation at the growing number of wazungu passing through to see the sites. I don't generally have much interest in checking out the slums without a purpose. And the feel of being in one slum can pretty well extend to others (unless you're willing to spend the time to get a real feel for a community).

But the other day I went to one with Caitlin, whose UN work takes her to slums fairly often. Mitumba is smaller than the more-famous Kibera (which is thought to house up to a third of Nairobi's population), or Mathare (site of much of the recent Mungiki violence), but a similar idea. We accompanied a few other UN interns who had been working with a couple of schools. After passing through a maze of narrow streets - which bears some resemblance to a lower-rising medieval district of a European town, if you can ignore the smell of sewage and the corrugated iron walls and the shoeless children - we were treated to lots of smiling kids screaming "mzungu, how are you!" and grabbing at our white hands. The kids got a meal and were in pretty high spirits.


But in general, these slums aren't pleasant places. They may not be "poorer" than rural villages, but the poverty can feel more oppressive. It's pretty easy to feel a little helpless when you're faced with the enormity of these settlements, but I'm impressed with people who spend time working in these places. And more impressed with the people who live there and turn the places into mostly-functioning communities.

It's good to be aware that this is how 60 percent of the population in Nairobi - and a sixth of the world's population - lives. I don't have much particular insight on slums, though I'd like to get more. There are a couple new books that look at the global rise of slums - Mike Davis' Planet of Slums and Robert Neuwirth's Shadow Cities. UN-HABITAT's The Challenge of Slums is, as far as I know, the most prominent report on the issue. The BBC's Andrew Harding did a series of reports on Kibera in 2002, and you can find tons of other things by googling Kibera.

Tusker Safari Sevens

Despite having watched it on TV in France and even played it in PE classes growing up, I know very little about rugby. I'm not utterly perplexed when I watch it, the way I am with cricket, but I never really bothered to learn the rules. Nonetheless, I decided to check out the Tusker Safari Sevens tournament in Nairobi a few weeks ago.

Normally, I'm not a fan of including the corporate brand name that frivolously precedes the name of college bowl games and other sporting events, but in this case it seems necessary. The well-manicured fields and endless Tusker signs created an entrancing sea of green and yellow. That weekend, it was apparently the place to be for the young and prosperous of Nairobi, for whom the actual rugby seemed to take a backseat to consuming large amounts of Tusker. The only beverage for sale in the immediate vicinity of the pitch was Tusker cans, also available in six pack form, and I saw at least one guy buy a case from a vendor taking it over to his cart. There was also a guy who took it upon himself to fire up the crowd by pulling people out to stand in front of the bleachers and chug a beer (see below).


The rugby itself, was quite enjoyable, despite sitting behind a group of white locals (from Karen, if that means anything), some of whom apparently share a fashion sense with the Late Night Shots crowd. It didn't take long to figure out how many points you get for making it to the endzone, or when you get to kick the extra points (or whatever they're called) from right in front of the post, as opposed to from a sharp angle. I still don't understand why you sometimes kick the ball to yourself as you're running, but I like it, and I'm sure there's a reason. The short games suited my attention span perfectly. We got to see Kenyan club Shujaa shut out Uganda; Tunisia lose a heartbreaker to South Africa's Mpumalanga Pumas (pumas don't live in Africa, if you were wondering); Kenya destroy Morocco; Japan ("land of the rising sun", as the announcer was want to remind us) edge out Zambia; Cote d'Ivoire beat another Kenyan club; and maybe a couple more, I can't quite recall. We didn't come back for the final the next day, in which South Africa's Emerging Boks beat Zimbabwe.

The spirit of the event was well put by a guy I befriended in line for the bathroom after I told him, to his surprise, that I was rooting for Kenya. After bemoaning the fact that Kenya wasn't doing that well in the tournament, he looked at me and slurred, "but it's ok, as long as everybody gets wasted."

Morning commute, etc

The subject of this morning's drive-time radio discussion was whether 99.9% of women lie about everything to do with their personal lives and marriages, or whether they don't. When a woman would call in outraged about how people could suggest that, the (male) co-host would respond that they're angry because it's true. Hard to argue with that.

Also, there's a big truck loaded with pipes sitting broken down in the middle of the highway, that's been there since yesterday morning.

In other news, this group called the Mungiki sect has been beheading people around town. The group, whose members belong mainly to the Kikuyu tribe and which murky allegations link to certain politicians, has some religious angle, involving praying to Mt. Kenya. It also extorts money from matatu drivers, and in recent weeks has launched a series of attacks on matatus, stealing money and killing (often cutting off the heads of) operators. They've also killed some other people, who were supposedly trying to leave the sect. The police launched a big crackdown last week on a Nairobi slum where many members are thought to be living. They killed around 30 people, some of whom might have been Mungiki members.

Also, on Monday a bomb went off by a hotel downtown. It killed one person and injured a lot of people on the street. There have been all sorts of rumors, from suicide bombing, to grenade, to Mungiki, to gas leak...haven't heard much reliable, though it seems that it was an intentional attack.

But my comfortable existence goes on, unperturbed by such unpleasantness. In fact, it's gotten quite a bit more pleasant with Caitlin's arrival a couple of weeks ago. Recent activities have included a free Hugh Masekela concert, Ocean's 13, and a rugby tournament. More on that soon, maybe.

Hell's Gate

This weekend got off to a quiet start. Saturday I checked out opening night of the European Film Festival at the Alliance Francaise, featuring a pretty crappy Belgian movie, Quand la mer monte (When the tide comes in). This is the kind of film that gives European movies a bad name.

Sunday I ventured out to Hell's Gate, a national park northwest of Nairobi with a couple friends. The weather was a decidedly unhellish gray and foggy. Hell's Gate is smaller than most parks here, but its attraction is that one, it's half the price of other parks and two, they let you walk around or ride bikes, instead of staying in your safari van. We rented some beaten-up mountain bikes and headed in. The map below provides a helpful reference. You can't read it, but under the elephant at the bottom there is a boast that elephants have been seen "at least 3 times in the Hell's Gate area." Wow. Didn't come across the devil either.


Despite the drizzle, the fire rating was extreme.

The bike ride in is fairly pleasant, past your standard herds of zebras and impala/waterbuck/deerish animals. There was also a nice group of ostriches and a couple giraffes. The real attraction is the hike down the gorge, which reminded me a bit of a miniature Death Valley.

Also, though they try, they don't actually make you take a guide on your hike. We declined the official guide, and the guide that tried to latch on to us a few minutes in, though we did pick up a local kid who took us to some hot springs past the edge of the park.

Tiwi Beach

When you're an ex-pat working somewhere in East Africa that's not Nairobi, they send you here for a break every once in a while. But after several weeks straight, there's a need to escape even Nairobi.

This weekend I decided it was about time I check out the coast. Indian food and beer, while delicious, is not the best meal to have before getting on a bumpy 8 hour overnight bus ride, but I did it anyway. The Coastline bus is supposedly top-of-the-line for the trip to the coast, and for $15 I decided to splurge. It's not as nice as those luxury three-seats-to-a-row buses, but it's about as good as say, the Chinatown buses, though after three months of matatus it felt much better. The road to Mombasa is mostly decent, though the last hour or so is terrible. Having waited until the last minute to by my ticket, I was stuck in back, ensuring that I was tossed around anyway.

I arrived in Mombasa at dawn. Mombasa itself is crowded and bustling, without the manicured downtown of Nairobi. On sleepless autopilot, I took a matatu to a ferry to another matatu to a taxi to the beach. I installed myself in front of the ocean, ordered a full breakfast, and gazed over the water, thinking, "shit...I forgot my camera." But thanks to Google Images, we can just pretend I took this picture.

Tiwi Beach was deserted. It's 'low season', but with constantly blue skies and no rain, I'm not quite sure why. The next beach down, Diani, is apparently the rowdier, package-friendly spot. "Diani is like Europe, Tiwi is still Africa", as my cab driver put it. Proving its Africa credentials, the main entertainment on Tiwi consists of a tide pool in the shape of Africa, complete with underwater passage to a tide pool Madagascar.

Beyond the standard beach lazing, I ran across some interesting travelers. There was a Peace Corps volunteer who works with prostitutes in Narok (Western Kenya) many of whom ran away from impending genital mutilation. Apparently the older prostitutes do ok, but the younger ones make about 70 cents a client (either that or some ugali). Given that their "lodging" can cost over $4 a night, you can do the math.

Then there was a South African who's spent the past eight months working his way up to Kenya on a motorcycle - I mean, motorbike. [GOAL! AC Milan 1, Man United 0]. Anyway, he said he hadn't come across many fellow bikers, but he had seen some long-distance cyclists, who he thought were insane. I mentioned that I knew some folks biking up South America, and that they're nuts too. He reckoned that beer was consuming about a third of his budget. (Team CP, what fraction of your budget goes to booze?)

And then there was the traveling duo of an old, portly, balding, Santa Clause-bearded man from Arkansas with a a skinny Englishman born and raised in Africa (I'm not sure what his citizenship is). It turns out they were not lovers, but rather gemstone traders ("they're not conflict stones"). The English guy makes his living buying stones in Kenya and Tanzania and selling them in Britain for 10 times the price, and he was showing the American fellow the ropes.

The Englishman was also one of the most cynical and bitter people I've ever encountered, as I discovered over the course of a two-hour conversation. Conversation's not the right word, I suppose, monologue, or tirade, would be better. He spent most of it trashing corrupt African leaders, lazy African culture, and Western aid efforts. Clearly very smart, he made some intelligent points, though the face and voice he'd do when loudly impersonating an African didn't help his cause. [GOAL! 2-0]. I started gathering up my things when he started singing the praises of British colonialism, and started getting up when he started going off on how the Somalis and Nigerians are ruining British communities. (While I do agree that many young male refugees from Somalia are probably thugs that powered their way out of the county, I work with a Somali who got asylum in Canada and who's got to be one of the friendliest people I know.) When he declared that "one man, one vote" is the stupidest idea ever, I decided it was time for bed. This decision was reinforced when he started talking about how we should drop a nuke on mogadishu. As he bid the Peace Corps guy and I good night, he left us with the inspiring advice to always look out for yourself first, and to vote conservative.

The long trek back to Nairobi, this time through the afternoon heat, was almost enough to dispel the relaxation built up over the weekend, but thankfully not quite.

Ultimate

We've reached the rainy season in Nairobi, with heavy downpours coming for at least a little bit almost every day. But between the rains, the weather returns to perfect. Today was such a day, with high 70s and largely cloudless sky.

And a perfect day to check out the Nairobi ultimate frisbee scene. The scene, today at least, consisted of a dozen or so expats - American, Canadian, French, Belgian, British (though only the first 2 knew how to play). With dogs, babies and non-playing significant others on the sidelines. The game was at the ridiculously nice campus of the International School of Kenya. The ultimate was pretty standard laid-back play, except that with the high altitude you lose your breath even faster than usual.

I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I do plan to write something about the elections that took place this weekend in Nigeria and France. With Nigeria, I'm not sure where to start, except that it looks like a big mess. The ruling party is in the lead, but the elections haven't met international standards, and the opposition is calling for a do-over. As for France, in the unscientific poll of 1 French voter I conducted today, Bayrou got 100%. However, it looks like it will be the other two in the runoff. Until I write more, there are some stories on my Reading List to the right.

Have you seen my stapler?

Some days at work are intellectually stimulating, some less so. Today I learned that, while it's difficult, you can buy an electric stapler in Nairobi ("it's like a regular stapler, but you plug it into the wall...no, not a staple gun...no, not a box of thumb tacks..."). But, it will set you back about $200. I decided to hold off and see if an "impotent stapler", as my colleague calls it, will do the trick.

Kill the Malaysian Prime Minister

This week, I've had to don coat and tie and go downtown for meetings with a couple of SPLM (former rebels) officials. Today, when we arrived at the Intercontinental hotel, the place was swarming with cops and a red carpet was laid out. Eventually, the Malaysian Prime Minister walked by, with entourage. Apparently he's doing a regional trip - he was in Sudan last week, saying the UN shouldn't impose sanctions on the government over Darfur. But all I could think of was "Relax...don't do it...when you wanna go to it...do as you are trained...and kill the Malaysian Prime Minister!".

As far as I know, the PM's OK. I don't think there are too many international male models in Nairobi. There is fashion though. Like the Safari boot, from Bata, the ubiquitous shoe company here. One of the SPLM folks was the latest of many people to express their love of the Safari boot to me. In fact, as you're taking the highway from downtown to the Westlands area, where I live, you pass a giant billboard Safari boot.

There hasn't been a whole lot of excitement the last couple weeks, besides being busy with work and the occasional Nairobi nightlife. A couple weeks ago I went to an Ethiopian restaurant with a band playing 90s American RnB songs, where my friend and I were the only white folks. This past weekend, I stopped by a "Cuban" bar (they serve mojitos) directly underneath the Ethiopian place, that was maybe 90 percent whites. Just like U St!

It's also started raining a lot. And, listening to the radio in the gym the other day, I found out that Akon has 2 songs currently in the top 10, though he's no longer number 1.

Go-karting, etc

While it's fresh in my head, I just want to relate that while I was at the gym downstairs today, there was this skinny young Indian kid running on the treadmill. After a while he left and ordered a plate of fries and ice cream outside. When he was done he came back and continued his workout.

The last couple of weeks have been fairly low-key. I've moved to a new flat in the apartment complex. This one is higher up and faces the street, so I get a good view of trees (nice) and the mall (less nice).

Last Friday I did have the good fortune to go go-karting. My friend's boss organized the event for a charity she works with that builds fences around the Aberdares National Park, or something. There were several expat NGO types, mostly from IRC, and a bunch of Kenyans from Barclays bank, the main sponsor.

It's been a while since I've driven at all, let alone a go-kart. While I did spin out a couple of times, I didn't embarrass myself or crash, as several drivers did on the poorly lit course, but I didn't make it to the final round either. I kept positioning myself to launch a shell at the driver in front of me or drop a banana peel behind me, but sadly no such features on these karts. But they do give you sweet suits...




On Saturday I went to a bar to watch British Premier League soccer, Kenya's national sport. During the Man United game, we were joined by, supposedly, Tom Morello's half-brother, whose name, ironically enough, is Bush. After a stop at the always-pleasant Maxland, we sampled the pretentious side of Nairobi's nightlife. The Mercury Lounge feels like it could be in downtown DC, which is not a good thing. Bar Code is small, and has no good ambiance to make up for it.

Other than that, the highlight of the past couple of weeks has been listening to the new Panda Bear album. It more than made up for the underwhelming new Ted Leo, though I still love the guy.

Be aware of hippos

Another weekend in Naivasha, another weekend without seeing hippos.

My last couple of weeks at work have been busy, with such intellectual tasks as going downtown to buy eight megaphones and calling all the supermarkets to see how many C batteries they have in stock. So I welcomed the opportunity to get out of town. I headed up with Wilson, who works at the gym in my apartment, and several of his friends, a group 100 percent more African than my companions for the last trip to Naivasha.

After stopping for beers at Maxland restaurant/car wash/barber (a popular combination here) we were on our way, until we stopped a few miles out of town when the car following us ran out of gas. We stopped on the side of the road, I well aware that this was the same road where some Americans had been shot a few weeks ago when they pulled over to the side of the road. But we successfully refueled and were soon on our way again.

Naivasha was pleasant as usual. This time we stayed at the hopping Crayfish camp. Beers, billiards, barbecued beef. The occasional meat I've been having has posed no problems for my stomach, but it has for my jaw, which is not used to chewing so hard. At midnight we headed over to the disco. When we got there, the DJ was blasting Akon's "AK Gunshot", and it was all downhill from there.

I gained some interesting views on Kenyan perceptions of the US (at least of educated Kenyan youth). Apparently they see the Tupac-Biggie rivalry as the main reference point when comparing East Coast and West Coast. They may claim that they know the difference between Washington, DC and Washington state, but they don't really. They know Hillary and Obama (they guess Hillary will win), but they don't know who John Edwards is. McCain's the only one they've heard of on the other side. (Actually, this probably isn't much different from Americans).

When I asked who was going to win the Kenyan elections this year, the reply was swift: "Man, I motherfucking hate the politicians", etc. etc. I did find out that Raila Odinga, one of the main contenders for the nomination from the opposition Orange Democratic Movement coalition recently acquired the first Hummer in Kenya.

Mwangi, Wilson, and myself, overlooking the Rift Valley...

Lake Naivasha...

A horse visits us...

The group...

I was seriously thinking about hiding the receiver...

A sampling of topics discussed recently on the rush-hour radio shows I hear in the car:

-This woman went to her priest, and he got her to sleep with him. What should she do?
-This guy is intimately involved with his cousin. Have you or someone you know had similar experiences?
-This guy came home to find his wife in bed with her best friend, also a women, and they were very busy. Is the wife a psycho? Or did the husband drive her to do it by staying out late and coming home drunk?
-This guy is sick with cancer and can't work to send his kids to school. He found out that his wife slept with someone for money. Is this acceptable?
-Do women deserve an International Women's Day, or would women just invest state funds in a 'pyramid scheme' if they were in power.

Feel free to chime in on any of these questions.

Whenever possible I try to listen to the reggae station. Chances are I'll hear Alpha Blondy. And they speak in Swahili, so the banter may not be better, but at least I don't really understand it. Although the other day they played this song called "Abortion is a Crime". Maybe I'm biased, but I do think reggae is better suited to simplistic pleas for revolution or passing the herb than simplistic pleas for the sanctity of fetuses.

Nobody want to see us together

Akon's "Don't Matter" appears to have displaced that Beyonce song as the number 1 hit single here. Does it bother anyone else that the melody for "Don't Matter" totally rips off R. Kelley's "Ignition"? Because it bothers me.

Naivasha

This weekend's destination is Naivasha, site of the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended (we hope) the 20+ year war between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Sudanese Government. Its lake is also a prime weekend destination for Nairobi wazungu (white folks).

I headed up on Saturday with several folks mostly on the Sudan circuit. James - an engineer shuttling between Nairobi and Juba - was kind enough to provide a lift in his Pajero. The ride was a step up from the matatus I'm used to, and was made more pleasant when the Tusker started flowing.

We stopped at the campsite to pitch our tent, and then headed to the Yacht Club, where we said we were members, to have some beers on the pier and paddle around the lake on sail-less windsurfing boards.

Here's the view from the campsite. Apparently hippos emerged from the clearing at 4 am, but I missed them...
Drinking Tuskers on the Yacht Club pier...L-R: myself, Imram (enjoying a well-earned vacation on his way back to Bangladesh from Juba), Adrian (building a rock-climbing gym in Nairobi), and Page from IRI, NDI's Republican-affiliated counterpart - though their work in some places can get into the sketchy messianic type of democracy promotion, they seem to do good work in Sudan.


The view from the pier...

Jake...


Sufficiently soggy and gross from the water, we headed back for a drink at the popular Fisherman's campsite next door to ours, then back to our camp for some more beers, some billiards, some dinner at the campsite bar (this can only loosely be called a camping trip), and hung around the campfire waiting in vain for the hippos to come.

While instant oatmeal is a fine breakfast food, I gladly shelled out the $3.50 for a full breakfast of juice, coffee, eggs, toast, fruit, tomato, bacon/sausage. We then headed for a short hike on Crescent Island, which as far as I can tell is not an island but a peninsula. While not as grand as the national parks, it's cheaper, and you get to walk around among the zebras and gazelles. And there was a baby giraffes. Unlike buffalo and water buck, and even zebras, the coolness of giraffes has not yet worn off.