Nairobi: 9.09.2001
Landed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport at 5.15 am, 30 mins before time, even before the guy from the hotel who was supposed to meet me had arrived. This was a direct flight from Muscat that left at 1.30 am, so I could get a fair amount of shut-eye on the flight.
.The check-in counter person at Muscat was a sample. I asked him to assign me to a reclinable, non-emergency door seat, if possible with leg-space. He scrutinised the monitor keenly, nodded and booked me a non-reclinable, emergency-door seat with absolutely no leg-space! Luckily, the sort of seat I wanted was free in the row behind, so I quietly shifted there and had a good nap.
.Nairobi has a year-round temperate climate and when I landed in a short-sleeved shirt, the meter read 14 degC! Getting out of the airport in the half-light, I almost expected to see Cyrus and his safari-jeep. It was very nostalgic. Later during the day, our major customer again took us up to the Rift Valley view point.
.
After checking in to Hotel New Stanley at 6.30 am, I slept soundly till 10.00 am. It was a Sunday, so there wouldn't be much work anyway. Easwar was already in the hotel and we breakfasted at 11.00 am (almost like a Friday in Muscat!). Our man Dinkar Patel picked us up and took us to the Premier Club for lunch. The Premier Club is one of the oldest and can even be called 'Patel Club' since practically all the people I met were Patels! A cricket match was in progress, part of a league that runs from May to January every year. In Kenya, all months are cricketable months, except Feb-April, which is the rainy season..
The weather was beautiful. Deep blue sky with white clouds and a green field below with players in white dress -- it was really a peaceful scene. All the onlookers (some fifteen of them) kept on shouting encouragement to the batsmen. The general mood was that of a bunch of kids on an outing. Although all the dialogues were in Gujrati, the energy and volume of it drove home the point. Tusker beer was being consumed in great quantities and my intention of drinking a Coke (or 'soda', as it is called here) caused general consternation. People asked me solicitously if I was all right and, hearing I had given up drinking a month ago, explained that it did not count as 'giving up' till a year had passed -- and one Tusker did not matter anyway. I still got my Coke, after half-an-hour's delay, as they were simply not geared up for such weird demands!
.We had a lunch of rice, vegetables, fish and chicken (all cooked Kenya style, they said) around 3.30 pm. A friend of Dinkar's, Vijay by name, took us to see the Rift Valley from a view point. I had seen it when we came on that Masai Mara package, but this was a different location and we saw the valley from another point of view, so to speak. It was quite chilly and there was a lot of haze, so the volcanic mountains beyond the valley seemed unclear in the distance........
.
On the way out, we had passed the Satya Sai Centre in Nairobi, so we stopped on the way back for a look. Outside India, Kenya is the only country visited by Satya Sai Baba and he seems to have a big following here. The centre was quite spacious.
.
We had dinner with Ashok and his family at a place called 'Open House'. On weekends, all eating joints are packed, crime wave or no crime wave. Ashok carried on his beer-drinking which had started from 11.30 am and which now finished at 9.30 pm, with a small gap in the middle when he had gone home to collect his family!
Nairobi: 10.09.2001
Today was a working day and we hit the auto market after an initial period of Uganda-visa-applying and ticket-reconfirming. The auto market is one of the most dangerous areas in Nairobi. As it is, while inside the car, all windows have to be kept rolled up and the doors locked. On that street, Kirinyaga road, going from one shop to another is also fraught with danger. We deposited all our valuables in the first shop, peeked out, memorised the location of the next target shop and launched ourselves out of the doorway, head down and walking at full speed. Whooooo ..... made it!
One customer (a local black) lost his watch when he was driving with his arm sticking out of the window. Another day, when he had stopped at a signal, a man came up, shoved a lump of shit under his nose and said: "Give Ksh 1000/- (USD 12/-) or I smear your face with this." He had hurriedly paid up.
Because of the bad law-and-order situation and new commercial strictures being imposed, a significant part of the business community is trying to migrate to Canada or USA.
.
We finished our working day with Dinkar at 5.00 pm, after which he took us to see the Swaminarayan temple. Built on the lines of the one in Gandhinagar, it's quite imposing and has beautiful architecture. The yellow sandstone was worked in India, as were the mahagony wood-carvings. The temple also has a one-floor exhibition on Hinduism, which was also quite facinating.
We made a visit to the 'Village Market', which is an extremely hep and upmarket supermarket and plaza spread around a landscaped theme area. We had a game of bowling at an alley (first time) and tied for second place. Not bad for a beginner. The first place was grabbed by another beginner -- Easwar!
We went for dinner to Nakumatt Plaza, one of a chain of department stores with a kebab joint attached. Being Monday, it was a bit deserted. When we left at 9.30 pm, the city seemed to be sleeping already. As a matter of fact, our hosts had been trying to enter some dining joint right from 7.30 pm onward and only on account of our strong objection to "dining at tea-time" did they take us around for an hour, killing time. Throughout dinner, they kept yawning mightily. Apparently their usual bedtime is 8.30 pm.
Nairobi: 11.09.2001
In the morning, we visited one of our customers, Mr Kirit Patel, President of the Premier Claub, and chairman of the Premier School. Would be less than 50, and very smart. However, that day we found him rather agitated. While driving his Merc to work, he had forgotten to lock the doors and, as the car was stuck at a traffic signal, four black youths opened the front doors, roughed him up a little, grabbed his wallet which had 22000 shillings ($300) and two credit cards, his mobile phone and his jacket, and cooly walked off. A hundred people watched this but did not help. He was on the phone to card companies in order to minimise further loss as much as possible.
We had lunch by oursleves (for once) and went to the market for around an hour and returned at 3.30 pm to the room to face the smoking tower of the World Trade Centre after the first plane had hit!! As I watched in horrified facination, the second plane hit the other tower, and my plan of catching a short nap went up in smoke, so to say....
From 6.00 pm onward, we had one visitor after another, with Kiritbhai landing up at 8.30 pm to take us out for dinner. We went to China Plate, an upmarket Chinese joint where at one time people used to wait outside for 30 mins to get a table. Tonight, only two other tables were occupied. The food was superb -- chilly prawn, chicken-in-a-foil, ocra fry, veg rolls, cashew manchurian for starters. In fact, at our earnest request, the main courses were practically scrapped.
Kiritbhai gave us the nasty news that Nairobi airport had closed down due to security reasons and our departure to Mombasa next morning would be a non-starter. Till midnight we could not get a confirmation either way and went to sleep dreaming of flight cancellations and complicated revised schedules.
Mombasa: 12.09.2001
By the grace of God and George Bush, our flight to Mombasa left bang on time. This was critical as we were leaving Mombasa same evening for Entebbe via Nairobi.
Mombasa is an island half-surrounded by the mainland and connected to it in three ways -- a causeway to the airport, a bridge to the north and a ferry-service to the south. Population is just short of a million. It's a peacefule place, not as crime-ridden as Nairobi and with a warmer sea-side climate.
.......
It's such a small place that our work was over by noon. Our customer Shahid took us to Hotel White Sands for a beer, a beautiful beachside property. The sea is the same colour as the sea at Mauritius -- aquamarine blue with greenish shades. The water is very placid as a barrier of reef around a mile from the shore forces the waves to crash apart against its coral walls. This being the start of the hot season (ie off-season), the crowd was thin, but mostly European. Mombasa, although quite far from Europe and as such costly to travel to, is still popular amongst holiday-makers on account of its pristine beaches, good hotels, watersports and the happy-faced English-speaking locals.
We had lunch at Shahid's home, which was a welcome change from the hotel fare. Shahid's father, still active in the business, was a very interesting character. Having grown up in Masai territory (his father was a station-master at some remote railway station in the jungle) he had many stories to tell regarding the Masai, especially about their fortitude and their ability to bear pain. He related an incident as to how on a hunt with his father, they had come across a Masai who had been mauled by a lion. His entrails were exposed and he was sitting by the roadside, cooly holding it all in with his hand. They bundled him onto their jeep and rushed towards the nearest hospital. Suddenly the man shouted to them to stop, hopped off, hobbled to a roadside bar, bought a beer and swigged it and climbed back again. He was out of the hospital after a day, in fact.
After lunch, we went for a round of the city. We saw the Mombasa Port (the new port; the old port is not being used for shipping now). We then drove to the Old Mombasa area, which was the original Mombasa locality before it grew to the current size (a bit like Old Muscat). The small port with an iron gate is still there from which small cargo-boats and 'dhow-cruises' operate. The streets are so narrow that one car can barely pass, so naturally they are all one-way. Old buildings lean towards one another and peddlers sit by the roadside, squeezed by passing cars, selling fruits and vegetables. The oldest and safest quarter in town, they say.
.......
The ferry-crossing at the south side was also something to see from afar. Hordes of people were streaming onto the ferry like ants. It's free for people and 50 shillings per vehicle -- very cheap.
Communication systems are very bad in Kenya. We wanted to fax 10 pages to our office and went hunting for PCOs. It was really funny. The PCO attendant's face would light up at seeing 10 pages but on hearing "Oman", he'd look blank. Comprehension would dawn hearing "Dubai", but then he would sadly shake his head, saying: "Sorry, only up to Tanzania." What was that supposed to mean? Was it a fax or a bus-service? The third PCO added the comment: "No money, man!", which we finally realised referred to his balance on some prepaid system they would be having. The fourth booth, possibly more prosperous, agreed to send at the rate of 250 shillings ($3/-) per page, but in spite of lot of trying, could not connect. So we came back with our communication still unsent.
We left Mombasa at 7.30 pm and landed at Nairobi at 8.30 pm. The next leg would be to Entebbe at 10.00 pm, reaching at 11.00 pm tonight.
.
