On my first weekend in Kenya, Wenna and myself decided to go to Nairobi (Kenya’s capitol city) and explore what it had to offer. We met up with the other WHE intern Trevor, on Saturday and went to downtown Nairobi! Trevor, who is living in Nairobi, acted as our guide of sorts and we had our first street market meal consisting of Kenyan tea, chapati and fried eggs. It was amazing, and it cost us 80 shillings ($1.02 CAD). Our first stop that day was the Maasai Market, where hundreds of vendors set up stalls and sell traditional Kenyan goods. I originally didn’t want to buy anything as it was my first weekend of 13 here in Kenya, but those market salesman are persuasive and I ended up paying the mzungu (white person) price for all my goods. I left the market a little rattled with how much I spent for how little I got, but you live and you learn and I made it my mission for my trip to return and not get ripped off again (I’ll keep you updated on how this goes for me).
We spent the rest of the day (May 19th) touring some parks in downtown Nairobi, going to the National Gallery, and National Museum. Nairobi is like any other major city I’ve been too, very crowded and busy, except in Nairobi there are few traffic lights and crosswalks so that adds an element of adrenaline to your strolls downtown. That night we went to an Indian restaurant called Hashmi’s and I had my first real Indian food experience.
The next day me and Wenna went to the David Sheldrick’s Wildlife Trust Elephant and Rhino Orphanage. They are only open to the public from 11am-12pm, and you get the opportunity to get up close and personal with all of their rescued elephants while they are being fed. It was an amazing experience as I got to pet the elephants and dodge them from stepping on my toes. The Orphanage rescues and rehabilitates younger elephants and rhino’s and releases them back to conservations once they are healthy again. The organization is focused on preserving, conserving and protecting endangered wildlife in East Africa, and you can read more about them here https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org. After that we went to the Africa Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW) Giraffe centre, and there you get to personally feed the giraffe’s and get up close with them as well. This centre focuses on the rebuilding of the Rothschild giraffe population and you can read more about what they do here https://giraffecenter.org.
The next day Bob Gough and Jessica Cordes, the WHE coordinators from Western came to visit us back in Juja. We had an official meeting with our supervisor Arnold, as well as other faculty members of food science and nutrition at JKUAT. I’d say the meeting went well and everyone is on board to see the Fiti Probiotic Yoghurt kitchen on campus become a success. That night Wenna and myself met up with Bob and Jessica at their hotel, had a couple Tusker beers and talked about our visions for the project here in Kenya. The next day Bob and Jessica had to leave for Nairobi, but before they left we all went with Arnold to the botanical gardens on campus. It was so nice of them to visit us and help us get started on our projects here in Juja and we were so grateful to have them see what we’ve been up to!
As for that night, Westgate Mall in Nairobi has a deal on Tuesdays where it’s 750 ksh ($9.60 CAD), and you can get dinner and watch a movie. So we went with 4 of the Ivey interns and the other Dutch masters student and enjoyed Indian food and a Bollywood fillm (another first!). I’ve been really dabbling in many cultures on my trip so far. That night I realized why I normally don’t eat Indian food and why I should probably hold off for a while.
Our last day out was on Thursday the 24th, to Nairobi again to tackle the market. Since 2 of the Ivey students were born in India, and there is a large Indian population in Nairobi, they’ve convinced many salesman that they are Kenyan. So going with them to the market ensured I would not get ripped off again with the mzungu price! This worked out in my favour, as I bought what I wanted at reasonable prices this time. So thank you Raunak and Saurav you are both angels. We also enjoyed an amazing lunch at an Italian Restaurant in Nairobi and the day was perfect.
Sadly, the next day 4 of our new Ivey friends headed back to Canada, and the rest will be leaving soon so it’s really going to be lonely without them. I’ll miss you all and thank you for making my first 2 weeks here in Kenya so enjoyable.
Emily Sandelli - Western Heads East 