It is my last day in Kenya, my last day in Africa, and the last day of my great travel adventure. I took the train back from Mombasa to Nairobi last night, and it was even better the second time around. I woke up in the morning and saw an ostrich grazing on the plains outside my window.
Yesterday I toured Kaya Kinondo, a community-based tourism initiative that I had really been looking forward to. Kaya translates to 'home,' and a Kaya is essentially an ancestral forest village for the Mijikenda people; Kaya Kinondo is one of only a few left in the entirety of Africa, and it belongs to the Digo tribe. It is no longer inhabited, but the forest is preserved and has a number of indigenous and rare species, including a 600 year old cycad! I saw a couple of colubus monkeys and a bushback antelope, but the forest itself was by far the most impressive component of the experience. It is a coastal forest, and very obviously was once ocean bed itself, as evidenced by the mass coral formations all across the forest floor. The only downside to the experience was that I was supposed to have been guided around the forest by a tribal elder; instead, I was guided by a 20-something year old horndog named Gabriel who kept getting a little too close for comfort. I know that East Africans are a touchy-feely people, but when I feel your facial stubble in the nook of my neck, I think you've gone too far.
My train arrived in Nairobi shockingly on time this morning at 10, and I didn't really have enough to do to fill my day. (My flight leaves at 11:45 pm this evening and the Nairobi Airport is close to my idea of hell, so I'm trying to kill as much time as possible in the city...and I don't have a hotel room or anything for today so I needed to stay out.) I took a matatu (crampy bus) to the National Museum, which was a great idea. On the ride, I realized that we were passing the slum-I-mean-neighborhood in which I had stayed my first time in Nairobi last summer. It is just as scary and shitty as I remember, which I suppose is reassuring in that it means I wasn't hallucinating last summer.
Anyway, the National Museum was really quite beautiful and far different from what I had expected. It reminded me a bit of the Teylers Museum in Haarlem in the Netherlands, not in that it is also a century and a half old (because it is not) but because it is sort of a mish-mosh of natural history, archeology, and items of general interest to those who like Kenya. There was a lovely, though out of place (this would count under the 'items of interest' category, I suppose), exhibit of photographs taken by children no older than 9 years old. Most of the photos were taken by children either in Kenya or China (it resulted of a partnership with a school in Beijing) but there were several from other parts of Africa, one from Argentina and one from the US as well. They were really sweet and poignant. Most of the photos depicted "my family" or "my market" and it spoke deeply to the cultural and socioeconomic differences worldwide seeing these responses through their eyes. There were also, inexplicably, four photographs of children at the Grandma Obama orphanage near Kisimu.
After the Museum I walked back to town with a nice muzungu I met who had been born in Zimbabwe (though I suspect he had actually been born in Rhodesia...). I then walked to Uhuru Park, which is just this massive, lush park in the middle of the city, and sat there for about an hour. There is a massive tribute to Daniel Arap-Moi in the park...a huge statue that looks sort of like a fist holding a walking stick bursting out of a volcano. I think that's what they were going for, though. I noticed that the Serena Hotel-Nairobi was just behind the park and I still had a lot of time to kill so I thought, let's see what it's like!
The Serena, for those of you who don't know, is a collection of massive and fancy hotels that pop up all throughout East Africa, and I suspect the rest of the world as well, and rooms there start at about $425 a night, which is my month's rent before utilities. I took a seat by the poolside an ordered a gin & tonic, which surprisingly cost less than a week worth of groceries. I spent an hour or so by the pool, and they even treated me to complimentary bar snacks. Then they brought the bill. They had charged me for a double, which I did not order, and somehow an additional shot of gin costs more than the first. I complained, as I am wont to do, and they settled everything for me and I paid only for the shot I ordered. However, during that debate I noticed a shower in the bathroom by the pool. Now, I am not a hobo. But I had not showered since before the Kaya Kinondo excursion, seeing as I had had to check out of my hotel that morning and there are no showers on an overnight train with a squat toilet that opens to the tracks. So I decided to take my revenge on the Serena for their $6 gin and tonic (which is really quite reasonable...I'm just cheap) by using their shower facilities. I thought it quite acceptable; they assumed I was a guest at the hotel because I am white, and I didn't let on to the contrary. So I snagged a bathrobe hanging conveniently on the wall and took a shower for the first time in a day and a half. Boy, the Serena treats their guests right.
I'll be back in New York tomorrow afternoon around 1 local time. Jeez.
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