Culture shock with a capital C

Our first week in Nairobi is behind us, and it has been a bit of a culture shock. For some of us more so than to others, but what would moving to new exotic places be like without one?

The following have been the main contributors to the shock. Traffic, differences in daily life, school, and moving to our house.

It is amazing how traffic, or how bad it is, can vary from day to day. Typically Monday’s and Friday’s are worse than mid-week. Also beginning of the month is worse than end of the month as everyone gets paid at the end of month, and can afford to fill up the gas tanks unlike towards the end of the month when money starts to run out.

Of course we arrived on Monday morning early August, and the traffic from airport was quite an experience. Our temporary accommodation is less than 20km from the airport, but the trip can take up to two hours or sometimes even more. The highway is packed with cars and Matatu’s that the public transportation largely relies on. A Matatu is a minivan, hiace or similar car, that can take up to 14 passengers. The drivers are notoriously reckless and the cars badly serviced and old. Almost every day you can read about Matatu accidents with lots of casualities. Needless to say, you have to be careful around them. We’ve seen about three Matatu accidents. We got to the house safely about 75 minutes later, but at that point Taru was already ready to judge Nairobi.

On a positive note, our driver Paul came to pick us up in our new car. The car, Pajero/Montero, has a huge trunk and was able to digest all 12 pieces of luggage we had with us. Paul is an excellent driver, and the boys like him a lot. I can drive over the weekends, but for now I think it is best to leave rush hour driving for him.

Nairobi is truly a big city, not necessarily area wise but definitely in terms of population. You will always see large amounts of people walking along the roads, regardless of the time of day or night. You can also see a lot of small shops and enterprises, from old ladies selling corn on the cob to carpenters, iron workers etc. Some roads are also littered with beggars and peddlers and hawkers selling anything from puppies and bunny rabbits to flowers, news papers, bananas, roasted peanuts etc. Seeing a guy carrying a bloody carcass of a goat towards a local city market that looked more like a slum was a real eye opener.

When we came here, we were supposed to be a few days from boys starting school and us moving into our new house. The school started on Wednesday the 10th, but late Tuesday evening we learned that they can not admit Lauri into the school. This was a big shock to us, and it had never crossed our minds that this could happen. Of course we panicked, but luckily there’s another school that follows the American syllabus reasonably close to International School of Kenya. On Monday we learned they accepted Lauri as a student, and he started at Rosslyn Academy on Tuesday and only missed the first 4 days of school.

Our container got stuck in customs for longer than expected, but in the end that was not a bad thing as our house is still a construction zone. The landlord kindly promised to do all kinds of upgrades in the house, and in a true African style the project has taken a bit longer than expected. If all goes well, we should be able to move into our new home this coming weekend.

The boys have been really brave, and see all the positive sides of Nairobi. Taru has been a bit more shocked, and I think it’ll take a while before she starts to appreciate the good things and can harden herself against all the not so nice things. Regardless of the culture shock, we’ve seen some really nice things too but I’ll write about those the next time.