I woke up at 5 this morning which was a pleasant surprise. Read my Luke commentary for a couple hours and then went down to breakfast. The hotel breakfast was vast. I got some bread and fruit and would have been happy with that, but then realized that I had overlooked 2/3rds of the buffet. The most interesting item was a ‘pork pudding’ which was a gelatinous purple disk that tasted a little like sausage.
The rest of the morning I worked on my lectures. I had the TV on in the background for a while. It is a Sunday and half of the channels have soccer, rugby or Australian football on. I watched a lot of rugby while I was sick in Nepal and it was a complete mystery. I Wiki’d some of the rules
and can actually follow the games now.
At noon I met with my colleagues and driver for lunch. We crossed town for ~20 minutes to an international food court/banking center and grocery store near the new embassy (to eat, change money and get some water). The African food options did not look promising so Matt and I got Indian. It was a very nice place with a very international crowd, but not very African. Apparently (according to Navy regs) we are not allowed to do any exploring on foot unless it is in pairs, so I will have to convince either Matt or Ken to go out with me. But the drive was sufficient to give me some first impressions of Nairobi.
In general, Nairobi seems to be cleaner, greener and more economically vibrant than I had
expected. The roads are quite good and there are parks, flowers and trees all over. It is actually a very attractive town in many places. Ken, who has been here before, said that he thought that there was a noticeable improvement from a year ago, the last time he was here.
The soil is actually one of the things that is most striking and novel. It is bright red. I remember this was a running theme in the movie Blood Diamond where it was a symbol for Africa’s historical violence. But since, empirically, red means iron it leaves me with the unmistakable impression of a resource rich place.
The rest of the morning I worked on my lectures. I had the TV on in the background for a while. It is a Sunday and half of the channels have soccer, rugby or Australian football on. I watched a lot of rugby while I was sick in Nepal and it was a complete mystery. I Wiki’d some of the rules
and can actually follow the games now.At noon I met with my colleagues and driver for lunch. We crossed town for ~20 minutes to an international food court/banking center and grocery store near the new embassy (to eat, change money and get some water). The African food options did not look promising so Matt and I got Indian. It was a very nice place with a very international crowd, but not very African. Apparently (according to Navy regs) we are not allowed to do any exploring on foot unless it is in pairs, so I will have to convince either Matt or Ken to go out with me. But the drive was sufficient to give me some first impressions of Nairobi.
In general, Nairobi seems to be cleaner, greener and more economically vibrant than I had
expected. The roads are quite good and there are parks, flowers and trees all over. It is actually a very attractive town in many places. Ken, who has been here before, said that he thought that there was a noticeable improvement from a year ago, the last time he was here.The soil is actually one of the things that is most striking and novel. It is bright red. I remember this was a running theme in the movie Blood Diamond where it was a symbol for Africa’s historical violence. But since, empirically, red means iron it leaves me with the unmistakable impression of a resource rich place.
This evening it is more lecture prep and a trip to the gym.
No comments:
Post a Comment