I guess Nairobi has never been the most safe city, but it has apparently gotten a lot better over the years. In the 1970s, when the term ‘Nairobbery’ was coined, the city was notorious for theft and violence, which continued right up to the last decade. The violence after the presidential election in 2008 is still fresh in people's minds and extensive coverage is given in the news to the international criminal court case on the post-election violence.
Don't get me wrong. There's still a lot of crime in Nairobi, like in any other city. Everyone has a story to tell or at least knows someone who´s been a victim of crime. Street mugging and petty theft (e.g. pick-pocketing) is common and more serious crimes like car jackings and armed robberies daily. Often you are taken as a hostage and forced to go to an ATM machine to withdraw the daily maximum from your account, as the time resets at midnight you may be kept until you can withdraw another daily maximum and then released. The key is that do as you are told and do not resist the hijackers. If you comply, there is every chance that you will be released unharmed.
If you kept alert, stayed away from the less common areas and avoided driving around late in the evening chances are you'll not become a victim.
Yesterday things took a turn to the worse when 2 separate grenade attacks took place in downtown Nairobi, only about 100m apart from one another. In both cases a hand grenade was thrown into the public resulting in a few casualties and large amount of injuries. Although no one has been arrested yet, there´s speculation that it is the works of Al Shabaab, a terrorist group of militants fighting to overthrow the government of Somalia and with ties to Al Qaeda. The attacks are suspected to be in response to Kenya joining forces with the Somali Trasitional Federal Government to help flush Al Shabaab militants out of their strongholds in Somalia and Kenyan army attacking Al Shabaab on Somalian soil. The background for this was the abductions of a British tourist, a disabled French woman who has since died in captivity and two Spanish aid workers near the Somalian border, but on Kenyan side. The impact of these abductions to Kenyan economy that is heavily dependent on tourism is understandably serious.
The US embassy in Nairobi warned a few days back of an "imminent threat" of attacks possibly targeting foreigners, one week after Kenyan forces crossed into Somalia. The embassy cited "credible information of an imminent threat of terrorist attacks directed at prominent Kenyan facilities and areas where foreigners are known to congregate, such as malls and night clubs." Right on the money, except the areas were not frequently visited by foreigners.
We can only hope that yesterdays unfortunate attacks were the last of it, but we have to be on the look out for retaliations. The security is visibly tighter in shopping malls and other public areas, cars are throughly checked against bombs and people are checked with metal detectors before admitting entry. All this is good, but only make traffic worse and is quite an inconvenience.
Let´s hope things get better soon and no futher incidents happen.
A fault line splits Kenya into two separating eastern and western parts of the country from one another. This is called Rift Valley, and it is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Great Rift Valley is continuous geographic trench, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique. In some places in Kenya Rift Valley is up to 100 km wide, while it reaches its narrowest point just north of Nairobi at 45 km wide. Just when we though we escaped earthquakes and volcano's of the Pacific Northwest, we find Rift Valley is home to thirty active and semi-active volcanoes and countless hot springs along its length.
Crater Lake is right next to Lake Naivasha, some 110km from our home. The trip there was nice, except for the traffic. The road was in good condition, and seeing the Rift Valley from high up as we descended on escarpment was truly magnificent. Too bad really slow trucks everywhere resulted in constant overtaking and Matatu's and buses driving all over the road.
On the way back we stopped on the shore of Lake Naivasha and saw millions of Flamingos. Lake Naivasha is famous for them, and for a reason. The lake is huge, but it looked pretty pink.
A fault line splits Kenya into two separating eastern and western parts of the country from one another. This is called Rift Valley, and it is part of the Great Rift Valley. The Great Rift Valley is continuous geographic trench, approximately 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) in length, that runs from northern Syria in Southwest Asia to central Mozambique. In some places in Kenya Rift Valley is up to 100 km wide, while it reaches its narrowest point just north of Nairobi at 45 km wide. Just when we though we escaped earthquakes and volcano's of the Pacific Northwest, we find Rift Valley is home to thirty active and semi-active volcanoes and countless hot springs along its length.
Crater Lake is right next to Lake Naivasha, some 110km from our home. The trip there was nice, except for the traffic. The road was in good condition, and seeing the Rift Valley from high up as we descended on escarpment was truly magnificent. Too bad really slow trucks everywhere resulted in constant overtaking and Matatu's and buses driving all over the road.
On the way back we stopped on the shore of Lake Naivasha and saw millions of Flamingos. Lake Naivasha is famous for them, and for a reason. The lake is huge, but it looked pretty pink.
