Granny. That’s the name my little troop has bestowed on me.
For real? I may be the oldest one in the group, but I don’t think I’m THAT old
yet. But apparently my love of trip planning and my penchant for cooking up a
storm of food to make sure all my little chickies are full has been interpreted
as maternal, even so far as to be GRANDmaternal. I suppose that’s better
than my new Dholuo name which means “she who knows how to eat fish”. We really
need to work on these nicknames!
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
A Walk in the Woods: Kakamega Forest
Kakamega Forest used to be part of a larger forest that
stretched across the continent of Africa. Unfortunately, due to human
encroachment, all that remains of this once magnificent forest are small
patches of forest reserves in Kenya (Kakamega), Uganda (Bwindi), DRC, etc.
Nonetheless, the forest is incredible.
The forest houses 9 different species of monkeys. We saw at
least four and I got to spend a lazy hour watching a troop of black and white
colobus monkeys in the trees above me. I think they were just as interested in
me and I was in them. A couple brave souls kept peaking their little black and
white faces out from behind the leaves to stare at me, slowly inching closer and
closer, and then getting scared and scurrying back up the tree. I gently
clutched my car keys, hoping they would realize that I didn’t have any food and
we could stay in this mutual standoff of “look but don’t touch”.
The forest also houses 35 species of snakes. Eek! But don’t
worry, only 18 of them are poisonous. Our guide then proceeds to inform us (I
think he was trying to reassure us) that there are snakes everywhere, we just
don’t see them because they run away from our vibrations. There are even snakes
living in the tree house that we are sleeping in. In fact, if you don’t have
rats in your home, you most certainly have a snake. Never before did I think
that I’d be wishing for rats in my home!
And the butterflies. I can’t even remember how many different
species there are here, but they are everyone and they are beautiful! From
spotted brown ones that really do look just like leaves to scarlet red ones to
tiny white ones… they swirl around the air, gently landing on you and then
fluttering away. I love them. My grandfather used to say that when you see a
butterfly, it is a loved one who has passed away coming to visit you. So
whenever I see these beautiful creatures, I always feel like I’m in good
company.
Of course there are patches of forest with less pleasant
insect encounters. Like the row of guava trees that have dropped their
now-fermenting fruit, creating both a putrid-sweet aroma and swarms of fruit
flies. And the safari ants…. We are lazily walking through the forest, looking
up at the trees, chatting away, when suddenly our guide yells out “RUN!!”
What?!?!? That’s not what you want to hear emanating from the mouth of your
calm, soft-spoken forest guide. After a few minutes of frantically running
through the forest, we stop and he tells us to check for ants in our pants. He
reaches over and plucks an ant off my shoe. I find another one in my trousers.
Tony finds two all the way up in his shirt. Safari ants. Swarms will quickly
crawl up your trousers, bite and hold on, forcing you to drop your drawers to
remove the little biters. Nasty little critters.
And naturally, every forest must have it’s token Viagra tree
and breast-enhancing bugs. I suppose there are a few universal motivators in
life – things that cross cultures and generations. Our guide kindly warned us
not to place the bugs on our breasts because when they bite (causing the
breasts to swell), it hurts like hell and you’re likely to start crying. Why do
we do this to ourselves?
Happy Hiking!
Road Trip!
Road Trip!!!! Taking Mbuzi out for his first camping trip –
let’s see how he handles it!
Of course first we’ve gotta prep. Planning and packing food
and water, picking up a charcoal stove and a couple bags of charcoal, throwing
a couple tents and blankets in the trunk, grabbing a machete and a shovel (for
bushwacking and digging the car out of the mud, not for any more sinister
activities!). Running around Mbita Town, grabbing all our supplies, I’m totally
in the zone. I may look like a frantic flurry of activity to outsiders but I’m
calm, focused, and absolutely loving life when planning a trip. Perhaps I
should have been a safari guide, not a doctor. It’s not too late…
With the car stuffed to the brim with supplies and
passengers, we head out. One hour ferry ride, 90 minute drive, and then
navigating the insane traffic in Kisumu. Somehow we made it to the Nakumatt
(giant shopping center) where we attempt to buy a more detailed road map. No
such luck. But we were able to pick up a few ‘drinks’. So off we head, with a
rough Lonely Planet map to guide us and a prayer.
The next few hours are tense. I’m not accustomed to the
highway driving in Africa – the one lane that is supposed to accommodate two
lanes of traffic, the insane passing on these narrow winding mountain roads…. I
find myself in perpetual conflict: am I brave enough to try to overtake this
slow moving lorry or do I sit behind it, breathing in it’s horrible exhaust and
run the risk of not making it to camp before dark? Oh, and the speed bumps!
Seriously, they come out of nowhere and are in the most inopportune places –
oftentimes at the bottom of a steep hill – and they are rarely painted so you
don’t see them until you are just about to bounce over them. I may have bruised
the tops of my passengers heads a few times on unexpected speed bumps. Pole sana (So sorry)!
After a harrowing ride, we finally make it to Kakamega
Forest and try to find our hostel. It’s just grown dark as well pull into the
forest. We see a man on the side of the road. Probably just an ordinary farmer,
but we’re utterly convinced that he’s sketchy and refuse to stop and ask him
for directions. Which means we proceed on to what appears to be a ghost town.
Dozens of seemingly abandoned houses scattered through the forest. No lights.
No sounds. No welcoming committee to the hostel. Sketch! We’re sure this place
in haunted now. We retrace our path and try another road. This time we find a
hoard of children and a father who seems less sketchy, so we have him squish
into the car and he escorts us back through the haunted village, through the
sketchy gate that we avoided last time, and finally to the hostel – with
people!! Phew. Made it.
Friday, November 23, 2012
An Athlete
The measure of an
athlete is not how fast or how far she can go. The measure of an athlete is how
strong she is, how much she can endure… when she is not winning, when she is
hurting, when she keeps hurting... and when she keeps fighting… for no one but herself.
I was injured almost three years ago. I went from training
for triathlons and playing any sport I could find to having difficulty getting
through the workday. Over the last few years I have struggled with this injury,
physically and psychologically. One of the more difficult elements of this
injury was that I felt like I was loosing an important piece of my identity.
For years I have clung to my identity as an athlete. It was
something I could always come back to, something that made me feel like
everything was going to be ok. I could always count my legs and a pair of
tennis shoes to take me away. I could go fast and I could go far. And then suddenly
I couldn’t.
The last few years have been a roller coaster. At points I
have pushed and pushed, demanding that I get better, insisting that I will one
day run fast and far again. At other points I have throw my hands in the air,
finally accepting that not everything can be fixed, that sometimes you need to
recognize what you cannot do and then refocus on what you can do. Trapped in my
black and white thinking, I felt like there were only two possible answers:
either cling to this shadow of my former athletic self or accept that I was no
longer an athlete.
I felt cheated. Why did I, an athlete, have to have
athletics taken away from me? Why not someone who didn’t care about running and
biking and climbing all over? Why not someone who identified themselves by
their art or their music? Why me? Oh yes, I went down that road.
And then I learned a new word: reframing. Rather than be
angry that this happened to ME because I was an athlete, I reframed the
argument as “Thank goodness I was an athlete because at least I know what is a
training hurt and what is a bad hurt, I know how to exercise, I know my body.”
I told myself that as bad as it might seem, if I hadn’t been an athlete, it
would have been even worse.
But I was still thinking that my identity as an athlete was
a thing of the past. It taught me what I needed to help me through this, but it
was no longer a part of me. That doesn’t
mean that I gave up trying to heal as much as possible; I was still committed
to following up with my doctor, to trying new approaches, to doing my physical
therapy exercises, to doing whatever little athletic things I could do. I just
released the hold on my identity as an athlete. And it was liberating. I felt
at peace.
And then one day it snuck back in. I’m not sure exactly when
or how. Perhaps it was in the middle of my physical therapy routine; more
likely it was in the shower (that seems to be when I get most of my
inspiration). But one day not so long ago, I realized that I still AM an
athlete. I cannot run for even five minutes without causing pain that will last
for days. I hurt doing many routine activities like driving or dancing. I don’t
like going to the gym and seeing all the machines that I cannot use. I haven’t used my tennis shoes in years and
struggle with a few laps at the pool. I cannot play recreational sports much
less compete. I cannot run fast or far. I cannot run at all. And I may never
run, bike, play volleyball or rock climb again. But I AM AN ATHLETE.
You see, I realized that I didn’t really know what an
athlete was. I thought an athlete was someone who could run, bike, and swim
fast and far, dive for a volleyball, jump for a frisbee, train until their
shirts were drenched in sweat and their muscles ached, outmaneuver an opponent,
get a personal record, win a race. I
thought ‘grit’ was about waking up early to pound the pavement until you nearly
collapsed, then finding the strength the bust out a few dozen pushups and
crunches, and waking up the next day to do it all over again.
I didn’t know that what really made an athlete were the
in-between moments. The moments of defeat… of injury. The discipline of knowing
when to push and when to rest. The wisdom of seeing the race not in terms of
minutes, hours, days, weeks, or months, but in terms of years and decades. The
patience. The perseverance. The struggle, not for the personal record of a lifetime,
but the personal record of today – be that a 2 hour marathon or a walk around
the block. I didn’t know that ‘grit’ was about trying and failing and failing
again, about finding your own measure of success and pursing it with focused
determination.
I finally realized…
The measure of an
athlete is not how fast or how far she can go. The measure of an athlete is how
strong she is, how much she can endure… when she is not winning, when she is
hurting, when she keeps hurting... and when she keeps fighting… for no one but
herself.
I finally realized that
I am an athlete.
(Well, I never said I was a stylish athlete.)
Thanksgiving: Mbita Style
Thanksgiving is hands down my favorite holiday. It’s one of
the few holidays we have left that is not overly commercialized. I actually
thank Christmas for overshadowing Thanksgiving because while all the marketeers
are focusing on Christmas starting November 1st, its little brother
gets to slip by without all the glitz and glamour. Sure, you can think of it at
the stereotypical American holiday: a day when we stuff our gullets with overly
rich food and celebrate a day when the native people saved the white man from
starvation only to be brutally run off their land. But I like to think of what
it most currently represents: a day to come together with your family and
friends to give thanks for all your blessings.
This Thanksgiving was a bit untraditional for me. No family
around. No other Americans even. No days off work. No free turkeys in the
grocery store if you buy a certain amount of groceries. But that didn’t stop
this little American from recreating her favorite holiday in her little
hide-away-town in Kenya. Oh no, she did it up right. With a crowd of over 30
people: Kenyans, a couple Brits, a couple Dutchman, a Swede, and my favorite
little German roommate.
After starting off with a 7-hour work day, I ran home to
start peeling and mashing potatoes, layering sweet potatoes with butter and
cinnamon, rolling out pie crust, etc. We
had the works: turkey, homemade gravy, stuffing, pumpkin pie,
pecan-turned-walnut pie. A can of cranberry sauce even made a surprise guest
appearance compliments of a new British arrival!
Yummm.... gravy.
Everything was a bit “thrown together”. Pies were baked in
pots; several precious minutes were spent running back and forth between my
house and a neighboring house that harbored a small oven, things like
evaporated milk were replaced by whatever milk could be found, and dishes were
borrowed from half a dozen friends and neighbors. Friends also chipped in by
bringing a couple chickens, a precious pumpkin, and of course ugali (a traditional Kenyan dish of
maize meal that no Kenyan in his right mind could go to bed without eating). In
just under 7 hours, we had a traditional Thanksgiving feast adorning our dining
room table.
There's no room! People are spilling out the door!
And then the guests starting trickling in…. 2….4…. 10… 20…
25…. 30! I stopped counting at 30. Our little living room was packed with
people. And what better to do with a couple dozen people who don’t know each
other and have come together to celebrate a foreign holiday? ICEBREAKERS! Uh
huh oh yeah Big Booty! That’s right, after a quick round of introductions, we
broke the ice with the one and only icebreaker that I remember from my college
days: Big Booty.
Big Booty 101: All participants stand in a circle; one
person is designated as “Big Booty” and the others count off. The “Big Booty”
song is sang to start off the round and then people have to call out their
number and the number of another person who in turn then repeats their number
and calls on another number and so on and so forth. The key is you have to
remember your number and keep with the rhythm of the song…. Otherwise YOU
become the “Big Booty”.
So at some point we had nearly 30 people, embarrassed out of
their minds, clapping and singing out…
Ahhhhh Big Booty, Big
Booty, Big Booty
Uh huh, oh yeah, Big
Booty
Big Booty – Number 7
Number 7 – Number 12
Number 12 – Number 4….
Once our guests were thoroughly convinced they had wandered
into a nut house, we again went around the circle and gave our thanks and
started stuffing our gullets. And just as people began to think they were safe
again… the dance lessons returned.
Sabina insisted on showing off the box waltz that I had
taught her, followed by a bit of limbo, a congo line, and a touch of salsa.
Then came my lesson in “Kiuno” compliments of Lindah.
Lindah: “Kiuno means ‘waist’, so this dance is all about your
waist. You gotta warm up your kiuno first,
then you have to show me the force of your kiuno.”
I’m sure you can just visualize Lindah, smoothly showing off
the force of her kiuno, as the little
white American girl awkwardly pretends she has a kiuno to show off!
Me showing off the pie that will hopefully add to my African "kiuno"
Fortunately, the Kenyan Cowboy, Craig, came to the rescue
with yet another dance to teach me: the Mbita Shuffle. Finally with a dance
that acknowledges that these two white dancers don’t really have a kiuno or a “Big Booty” to flaunt, we
kick and spin our way through the Mbita Shuffle.
When the laughter and dancing finally starts dying down,
when the pies are demolished, when the eyelids start to droop, when the guests
start trickling out, I finally sit down for what I think might be the first
time all day. And I am eternally thankful.
The German, the American, and the Dutchman
I am thankful for having the opportunity to be in this
beautiful place, learning from another culture and sharing my own. I am
thankful for silly dance lessons and for fresh pumpkin. I am thankful that even
when my family is far far away, I am surrounded by loving, laughing people. I am thankful for my dear roommate, Eva. Am thankful
for you.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Flight Security - What?
With food poisoning symptoms just beginning to subside an 8
hour bus ride back to Nairobi was not on the order for the day. So we flew…
We wrote our names on a piece of paper, paid in cash, got
our tickets and entered the airport. We walked through security. We walked onto
the plane. Not once was I asked to show
my ID. Not once.
I had a wine bottle opener in my carryon luggage which I had
forgotten about. The security opened my bagged, helped up the corkscrew and
ask, “Is this for the captain?” What? He then imitated jabbing the corkscrew
into his throat to demonstrate how I might kill the captain. He laughed and
returned the corkscrew to me saying, “Next time just put it in your checked
bag.”
Is this place for real? I just got on a plane, paying cash,
without showing any identification, with a deadly weapon in my backpack. Wha??
Food Poisoning – Be Serious!
Oh Be Serious! You can’t be food
poisoning from RICE! Oh yes you can… it’s a little bacteria called B.
ceres.
Any med student how dutifully read through their “First Aid
for Step 1” book while studying for their board exams knows this little saying
to help them remember a sneaky little cause of food poisoning. I was just
(un)lucky enough to get to experience it in practice.
I won’t regale you with stories of projectile vomiting for
hours on end (well I guess I just did), but rather with the kindness that I was
shown. Michael, the receptionist at the hotel noticed that I didn’t seem well
when I checked in. When I didn’t come back downstairs after a few hours, he
called up and started asking me about my symptoms. He then came to my room and
gently said, “I’m not a doctor, but I think it was something you ate and I
think I have something that may help.” He then made me a cup of lemon and honey
tea and said he’d check back in an hour. The tea just provided fodder for the
exotoxin but the kindness was greatly appreciated. When I wasn’t any better later
in the evening, he went out and somehow found an open pharmacy to be me
medicine. Again, not something that stayed down, but the kindness was greatly
appreciated.
There isn’t really much treatment for food poisoning except
time and trying to minimize dehydration. But when you feel like crap, are lying
in a foreign hotel, and just want a hug from your mommy, a cup of kindness from
a stranger means the world.
Unless of course it’s
not actually food poisoning… five days in…. I think it might actually be a
really bad case of giardia…. Hmmm.
Train Ride – Ode to Grandma Ivy
My Grandma Ivy is
what one might call a social butterfly. She makes friends wherever she
goes, whether it be a trip half way around the world or a trip to the grocery
store. She talks to people, she charms people, she befriends EVERYONE.
In line at a movie
theater: “Oh, what beautiful hair you have.”
Walking through a
restaurant: “Oh, that dish looks delicious. Which was is it?”
Sitting on a bus: “It
sure is cold outside. Where are you headed?”
She finds a reason to talk to anyone and everyone and in
turn manages to coax the wildest stories out of even the most staunch hermits.
She emanates warmth and thus receives it back.
Some people say my grandmother and I are twins. We look
alike (if you could stretch your mind across the decades that divide us). We
act alike. We are certainly both social creatures. And I must say that I
learned a lot from her growing up. When
I was a child I was fortunately enough to be her travel companion on several
occasions. We went to New Hampshire, Boston, and Alaska together.
I watched her make friends everywhere we went. I watched how
people warmed to her simple friendly chatter. And I loved her and thought the
world of her. So it’s probably no surprise that a bit of her rubbed off on me.
I noticed the Grandma Ivy coming out in me on the train ride
to Mombasa. I love trains – rolling through the landscape, walking back and
forth through the cars, sitting in the dining car, feeling the wind in your
hair as you stick your head out the window, meeting all sorts of people… The
train to Mombasa is supposed to be an overnight train, arriving in Mombasa
around 10AM. But as the train stood perfectly still from around 1am to 4am
while I lay in my sleeper, it became more and more apparent that we would not
be arriving on time. Sure enough, at breakfast we were informed that the train
would be about 8 hours late. Time to get to work.
With nothing to do but stay on the train, I wandered the
halls looking for stories. I met an Australian builder traveling around Africa
for a year, a Finnish couple who just graduated high school and are volunteering
in Kenya, and a handful of Indian guys working on reconstructing the rundown
railroad we currently rode on. I chatted with an elderly British couple who
have lived all over southern Africa for the last 20 years and who were great at
spotting the elephants in the distance as we rolled through the national parks.
I had a long conversation about cervical and prostate cancers with a couple
middle-aged Kenyan men. I met a few Kenyan University student – one an aspiring
analytical chemist, the other an aspiring musician/businessman. I hung out with
a couple Red Cross volunteers and a few of the dining car staff. I debated
global health strategies with a Guinea Worm consultant in Southern Sudan. I got
a history lesson about the railroad from a retired Kenyan couple and sat down
with a Dutch couple visiting their daughter for a few weeks.
And of course, I stuck my head out the window, looking over
the rows upon rows of sisal plantations, the dry savannah spotted with acacia
trees, the dilapidated train stations with little kids running and waving, the
piles of burning trash littered with tin shacks an people presumably suffering
with all sorts of respiratory problems.
But mostly, I channeled my inner Grandma Ivy. I didn’t
notice just how much until I got off the train and started waving good-bye to
people at the train station My travel companion just looked as me and asked,
“Um, do you know EVERYONE on this train?” Well, maybe not EVERYONE. I can’t in
any way claim to be the elegant social butterfly that my Grandma Ivy is, but as
Joelle Ivy I guess I took a bit more than just her name.
Mombasa
While waiting for all this car nonsense to get sorted, I decided I needed to get away from Nairobi for the weekend. So off I went to Mombasa... the next three posts are about this trip.
Buying a Car in Kenya: Part 3
But of course I skipped a few details. Like registration.
Like insurance. Like repairs. Like the stories that people come up with of how
I’m likely to be swindled in ways that I never could have conceived.
Registration:
In order to make sure your car is not stolen or in some
other way illegal and that all the import duty has been paid (usually worth
about the value of the car), you must go to the Kenya Revenue Authority to
check the registration against the Log Book (your little piece of paper that
gives you ownership). I have this checked out by Jimmy, my car guy, and it
checks out fine.
Insert story of
swindling: But how do you know
that it checked out? Do you trust this car guy? He could have a deal on the
side. Don’t trust anyone. (OMG! Even when I think I’m going through all the nit
picky little steps to make sure everything checks out I’m potentially being
swindled! Jeez!). So of course I spend another day getting an independent
lawyer to help me check out the car registration again – again, it checks out
fine.
Insurance:
In Kenya, your annual insurance rate is based almost
entirely on the value of your car. I was worried about making sure all medical
expenses are covered for anyone potentially involved, etc. But here, the big
expense of a collision is not medical bills but car damage. Of course. So it’s
roughly 7.5% the value of your car. To ensure that people don’t overestimate
the value of their cars and then total them or underestimate the value of their
cars (which apparently never happens), your car has to be valued by the
insurance company.
So we make all the insurance arrangements and then it comes
time to purchasing the actually insurance. As you can guess based on the
difficulties faced when paying for the car, this is not a straight forward
story, but I’ll spare you the details this time.
More interesting story
of insurance issues: As I’m
making sure that the insurance covers all medical costs, I’m informed that the
insurance doesn’t cover someone who is sick if they die in my car. Huh? I
initially ignore this comment but later come to discover that this is actually
a big deal in Kenya. If you pick up a sick or injured person to take them to
the hospital, then you become responsible for them. You have to pay a deposit
on their hospital bill and may be responsible for all their medical bills. And
if someone dies in your car, oh man, is that bad. You have a big mess on your
hands trying to prove that you didn’t kill them. No “Good Samaritan” laws here,
just disincentives for picking up anyone in need. I think the moral of the
story is “don’t help anyone”. So sad.
Repairs:
Naturally any used car will need a few repairs and Mbuzi is
no exception. I want to take the car to a mechanic and have it all done but my
bartering with the car salesman ends up with an agreement that his guys will do
the repairs as part of the purchasing price. Never do this! All the repairs
were supposedly going to happen over the weekend. Monday arrives and nothing is
done. Over the next week (while waiting for the money stuff to get sorted to
it’s not really a huge deal as much as an annoyance), I visit periodically and
find bits and pieces slowly being done. Eventually the shocks and exhaust are
done. I’m told the headlight will be repaired “tomorrow”, I’ll get a spare key,
etc. Fine.
Oh, and I’d like to practice changing a tire…
Good thing I practiced is all I can say cuz this would have
been bad news out in the field. I find an old jack in the back of the car and
labor trying to crank it up. Just as the back wheel is coming an inch off the
ground, the car comes crashing down. Holy ****! Um… may I have a new jack,
please? This one is completely shredded. I get a slightly newer jack and repeat
the process – this time it at least cranks with a little less animosity. Oops… I
forget to loosen the lug nuts first. Down it comes again. I loosen the lugnuts
and discover a few are missing (actually, exactly one on each tire is missing)
and jack it up a third time. Wait a minute – those nuts aren’t missing – they
are just different. And no, they can’t be removed with the crank that I have.
So how would I ever change a tire in the field with these on? Not sure. And of
course the tool to remove these “different nuts” is not to be found. And it’s getting late and starting to rain.
Thus I leave with a promise that the lugnuts will be changed “tomorrow”. I
write out a list of things to be done by Friday: fix the headlight, make a
spare key, replace the lugnuts. Sigh.
Morning of Take Off:
I thought I’d be in Nairobi for one or two days buying this
car. Two and a half weeks later, I am finally ready to leave. The car has been
picked and checked out by two mechanics, the registration has been checked (and
double-checked), the payment has been made, the insurance as been bought, the
repairs haven been done, and I have mentally passed from frustration to
resignation.
So I show up early on the morning of take off (still sick to
my stomach - read the post on Food
Poisoning for details). The headlight is still out and now I notice that
the fog light on the opposite side isn’t working either. The lugnuts have not
been changed. There is no spare key. And the car has not been serviced in way
too long (this was also supposed to be done… shucks). We take the lugnuts off
another car, scrap the headlight repairs and the spare key and plan to service
the car in Kisumu. Now onto the insurance issue that I discovered the night
before…
Remember that little thing I mentioned about needing to have
a “valuation” of the car for the insurance? Well, I was told that the insurance
valuer would come out to the car lot over a week ago to the make the
assessment. I assumed (how stupid of me) that this was done. The night before
we hope to leave, I think to ask, “Hey what happened with the valuation of the
car?” Oh, we need to do that before we head out of town. Right. So off we go to
the valuation place… discover that the hazard lights aren’t working properly
and that my insurance is actually only temporary insurance for a month until
the valuation has been filed and any price discrepancies are remedied. So I
have to return to Nairobi within a month to get my “real” insurance.
Jimmy (who will be driving me out to Kisumu with Mbuzi) and
I swing by the store to grab a few car tools, with plans to get the remainder
in Kisumu. Around 1pm, we finally leave Nairobi. I wonder what other little
details I didn’t catch.
Buying a Car in Kenya: Part 2
Oh wait… picking out the car is only half of the story…
Question Three: How do I actually buy the car?
Answer: Funny you should ask… it starts with abandoning all
plans of ever making it back to Suba and settling in to residing in Nairobi for
an indefinite period of time (read: 2.5 weeks).
I thought I could simply make a bank transfer at Barcley’s
bank, a sister bank of Bank of America. Not so. Plan B: Wire money from my
account in the U.S. to the car company’s account in Kenya. This plan was all
hunky dorey until I mentioned it to a British guy who has been working in
Nairobi for the last five years. His eyes popped open wide and he looked at me
with this mixture of terror and shock as if I was a green alien and not someone
who suggested a money wire to an African bank account. Jeez. Call my dad,
cancel the transfer, try to figure out another solution.
So now I’m on a hunt for a bank account so that I can wire
the money to my own bank account in Kenya and then do a transfer domestically.
In theory a safer bet I’m told. Of course that raises the new question: how
does one open a bank account in Kenya?
The answer to most questions in Africa is of course “It
depends”.
Expat Banking in Kenya 101:
As a resident (with proof of a valid work permit), you can
open several different types of accounts. You can open a Kenya shillings
account, and U.S. dollars account, a U.K. pounds account, or even a Euro
account. At some banks you can even do this for free. If you don’t have proof
of residency, most banks will turn you away; however, if you explain that you
are travelling around Africa for awhile and would like easy access to your
money, Barcley’s Bank (and possibly others) will allow you to open an account.
You need to be “introduced” by a friend who has an account with Barcley’s or
“pay a lawyer” a few bucks. However, at Barcley’s, you pay about $10 a month to
keep the account open or keep about $2,000 in the account to keep it open for
free.
Other ways to get large sums of money from the U.S. to
Kenya: you can increase the limit on your debit card temporarily and take out
cash from the ATM or bank, but this is limited by the local bank’s willingness
to let you take out that much at once, the limited supply of cash at the ATM,
and the size of your suitcase (when the largest bill is worth about $10, taking
out thousands of dollars gets a bit bulky).
Final strategy: Money wire.
Back to our story… After much ado about nothing, I returned
to the money wire idea. I checked out the account at the bank to ensure that
the account was a valid business account in the company’s name and had regular
activity going on in it. I also verified the other wire details with the bank.
You would think that would be adequate, yes? Of course not. When my father
tried (for a second time) to wire the money, it was discovered that the Swift
code for the bank of incorrect. Seriously? Seriously. So alas I had to return
to the bank once more to verify what we determined was likely to correct Swift
code (Didn’t I just ask you to confirm this for me yesterday?).
Side note: I’d just
like to point out that all of this running around in Nairobi is no small task.
The traffic in this city is the worst I’ve seen in my entire life – and I grew
up in Los Angeles! It takes about two hours to get into downtown from where I’m
staying. Another hour or two to the car place. And I like to get home before
dark. So 4-6 hours of daylight are often spent sitting in buses. Transportation
seems to be my primary issue here in Kenya.
So the wire is finally sent. Tracking numbers obtained.
Tracking numbers show receipt into the Kenyan bank account on Friday afternoon.
Call car salesman. No answer. Text car salesman. No answer. No answer until
Monday afternoon after multiple harassing phone calls and finally a
confirmation that the money was received and I can pick up the car. Hallelujah!
Buying a Car in Kenya: Part 1
Where do I start? I don’t know. Let’s ask. Hey, do you have
any idea how to buy a car in Kenya? Sure, I know a guy… you should talk to
“insert name here, almost always James or John”. Thus began my search for a
lil’ four-wheel drive to carry me across the rough dirt roads of Suba.
The first question is of course: Do you really need a car?
The answer: Yes. Yes. Yes.
The explanation: I live in a place called Suba which is a
pretty remote area (three hours of bus, then 1 hour by ferry from the nearest
city, Kisumu). The roads are almost all sprawling rugged dirt roads. I think
there are only about six cars in this place and about 100 motorcycles (I
exaggerate, but only slightly). My work sites are spread out all over this
area, several are about a 3-hour drive away. But the 3-hour drive isn’t so bad.
What is challenging is that those three hours take 8-hours. The project
vehicles have their routes each day and whoever needs to stop on that route
jumps aboard. Which means that we have to stop and wait all along the way for
everyone to finish their business - things like dropping off and picking up
labs & medicines, training staff, etc. So I leave my house at 7am and get
to my site for the day somewhere between 11am and 3pm. I get somewhere between
30 min to two hours at the site (usually after all the women have left), then
head back (stopping again), and reach home around 7pm. Twelve hours of
transport for 30min-2hrs of work at the site. Hmmmm. I’m pretty understanding
about waiting in Africa. That’s just part of working here. But there are limits
to my waiting abilities. So the choice arises: to buy a car or a motorcycle? At
first, I figured I’d just learn how to ride a motorcycle, put another team
member on the back, and head off to our rural clinics. Then I thought a little
bit longer about potential consequences of riding a motorcycle over bad roads,
6 hours a day, for 7 months. Hmmmm. I’m pretty adventurous, but again I have my
limits and I’ve seen the results of motorcycle accidents – not nice. Thus I am
left with the option of purchasing a car.
The next questions are: What do you want and what is your
budget?
The answer: I want something that will not leave me stranded
in the middle of the bush and will not break the bank.
The realization: It’s difficult to find both. See, cars here
tend to be about twice as expensive as cars in the U.S. because of importation
taxes (literally doubling the price of the car!). My initial budget literally
doubled after I spend several days looking at cars in my budget range… all of
which looked like they would either die suddenly in a burst of exhaust and duct
tape or slow to a crawl and simply refuse to move another inch.
So how do you buy a car in Africa? Well, I think I should
start by asking, “How do you buy a car anywhere?” I literally have no idea what
I’m doing. I’ve never bought a car anywhere… in the U.S., in Africa, on Mars.
And I know nothing – read NOTHING – about cars. I wonder how much I can fake
this one…
Fortunately, I was linked up with a great Kenyan mechanic
who knew how to find, insure, register, fix, etc a car. And then I turned to my
two favorite resources: my dad and the internet. Between the two, I figured out
a few of the things I’m supposed to look at and looked at them in earnest!
You should see the looks on these care salesmen’s faces when
this little white girl plops on the dirt to look under the car, opens up the
hood and questions the repairs (it’s hard to miss green metallic slime seeping
out of a radiator or duct take holding EVERY WIRE together). I can’t tell you
much, but I can rate the tire tred, feel the lack of any shocks, guess that the
suspension is off, and get worried that an engine is going to die going up a
hill. I can now tell you something about the engine based on the color smoke
spitting from the exhaust (granted it’s about a two word diagnosis for each
color, parroting what my father told me to look for over the phone), and can
tell you three different ways to raise the car a couple inches to get better
ground clearance. Probably just enough to throw a bit of vocabulary around and
look like I know nothing about what I’m talking about to anyone who knows
anything about cars. But I’m as proud as can be.
And I found a car. A 2002 Toyota Rav4 with 4WD that I’m
praying will get me to and from the bush for the next several months. His name
is Mbuzi. So I’ve been telling my friends back in Suba “Nilienda Nairobi
kununua Mbuzi” (“I went to Nairobi to buy a goat”) which baffles them all. He’s
my sleek, sliver, little goat.
Let the driving adventures begin!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)