Kenyan Highlights

I have returned from my trip to Kenya safe & sound, but definitely ready for a good night's rest! Before I head to crash though, I'll try to recount a few of the fun stories for everyone...

The main purpose of the trip was for an academic conference held jointly between Makerere University and Kenyatta University, with the meetings being held about 30 miles outside of Nairobi at the Kenyatta campus. The conference was based on improving postgraduate research in East Africa and was apparently the first time an international conference like this had been held in East Africa, at least to any of the planners' knowledge.

It was interesting to see some of the fanfare that went along with this "historic conference" (Africans, I am beginning to learn, love rhetoric). And as the conference played out it became apparent that in addition to the event itself, the planning for a trip like this had little historical precedent either, with several glitches popping up along the way.

The trip began with the Makerere delegation - about 35 individuals in total - climbing onto an old charter bus owned by the university and embarking on what I thought was to be a 12 hour drive to Nairobi. My seat, as fate would have it, was probably the worst in the bus. I was in the second to last row, with two people sitting on a bench that I believe was built with 12-year-olds in mind. Twelve hours into the ride, after being launched into the air several times from the numerous potholes in the road, we were still not close to Nairobi and I was having an optimism/pessism battle in my head. The optimistic side kept saying that it was great that I was getting to experience a truly "African" bus ride while the pessimistic side kept looking across the aisle at the student stretched out, asleep, over 3 open seats and asking "Why...?"

We eventually arrived in Nairobi, only to realize that Kenyatta University was another 30 minutes beyond there. We stopped for a short breakfast and then continued on to the KU of East Africa. We got to KU at approximately 1:00 pm, nearly 24 hours after starting our journey and with everyone having a minimal amount of sleep due to the jarring from the ride. Apparently, the exhaustian wasn't evident to our host, as he promptly started us on a walking tour of the campus (which, by the way, did look very nice). A few of the more vocal members of our group eventually convinced our host that we needed to get to our hotel to rest, so we hopped back on the bus and drove another 30 minutes to the hotel that the KU host committee had arranged for us.

I was given my room key and opened the door to find...actually it would be easier to describe what I did not find: toilet seat, secure room lock, shower stall (the faucet was almost directly over the toilet...so at least the water would go down some drain) and - most troubling - mosquito net. There was one thing that I did find: a strong smell of urine. After taking a few pictures (to be posted later) and laughing at my situation, since that was all that really occurred to me as options at that point, I went out to see the other delegates' room situation. Apparently it wasn't any better, as many of the others had already packed their bags and were refusing to stay in the hotel. My desire to not be high maintenance was outweighed by my desire to have a mosquito net, and I decided to pack up my bags too.

Luckily, after a little searching, our group was able to find a couple hotels fairly close to the location that were much nicer, and we all got a room where, after a quick meal, we promptly crashed for the night.

The next two days were the actual conference. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, it was an interesting topic, but I was more interested in just getting to Kenya, so I'll glaze over the conference proceedings. A couple interesting parts:
(1) Group introductions: We were asked to give our name, university, and degree program along with - and this was new cultural experience for me - our relationship status and religion. There were some very interesting answers given, including "married but looking for a second wife" (joking), "not married but with 8 children" (not joking...), and, my favorite, "single and ready to mingle" (definitely serious). Being asked to include our religion underscores the importance that religion still plays in society over here, but also showed a great deal of tolerance, as about 5-10% of the conference attendees were muslims and no one thought anything of it.
(2) Round two between African food & drink and my digestive system: this time the Immodium wasn't strong enough so I busted out the prescription-strength Xifaxan. We'll call this round a draw...

The third day was spent walking around Nairobi, after a bit of a slow start. We were told "the bus leaves the hotel at 9:00 AM sharp, with or without you." Translation: "the bus driver will show up around 9:30 and then we'll spend the next two hours trying to wire money so we can afford to buy gas."

Nairobi has a much different feel than that of Kampala; it feels like a major international city. There were times when I was walking around and it would really seem like I was in London or any other large European city. And although its crime tendencies precede it (Nairobi is commonly refered to as "Nairobbery"), no one in our group had any problems with theft.

We finally boarded the bus at 4:00 PM to head back to Kampala. Although I still got to enjoy a sound jarring from sitting in the back of the bus, I was able to have a sizeable increase in leg room, which helped substantially. We did still have a few interesting adventures on the way home, including finding ourselves on a road headed to Tanzania instead of Uganda, arriving at the Ugandan border at 1:30 AM only to realize that the customs agent was MIA until 4:00 AM, and driving a little too far down a road that had not yet been completed. When all was said and done, we arrived back in Kampala at 9:00 AM today (Friday) safe and sound (which is a testament to our driver, who drove the entire distance without any breaks!), approximately 13 hours later than originally scheduled in the itinerary.

As I read through this post, it comes off like the trip was just one thing going wrong after another. Although there were a few issues, I need to include that overall, the trip went very well and I'm happy that I went. I got to know some more very fun Makerere students and also got to see some absolutely gorgeous areas of Kenya as we drove through the country (one of the only places in the world where zebras range freely along the highways). True, there were a few problems along the way, but they are already just becoming more fun stories to share! And with that, I'm off to catch up on some sleep!

Cheers!
Chris

P.S. Please cheer extra loud for the 'Clones for me this weekend as I probably won't be able to get live play-by-play!