Day 31 and 32

Food poisoning extravaganza. Today was international women's day and I jokingly suggested that our finance controller should take me and the other women staffer - the finance assistant - out to lunch. Instead of going to the vegetarian buffet run by the church across the street, we took the company taxi to a chicken joint. The roasted chicken hacked into pieces was served over oily fries and deep fried boiled eggs and onions. All of the food was cold. Like a true winner, I ate a bit of everything. An hour later I was sweating and several hours later I was in the bathroom where I spent the entire night. The cramping that ensued was incredibly painful and lasted a few days, partially because I was try to cure myself naturally. Yeah, no, I learned that is a waste of time and dumb. Here in East Africa you take the meds.

Day Twenty 29 and 30

You know how sometimes after a weekend at the beach, you feel more exhausted than before you got there? That was where I was at Monday morning struggling to do a market analysis of the other big NGOs operating in Somalia. The goal was to find out the different programmatic approaches other NGOs are doing in Somalia and what if anything could the organization I'm working for try to incorporate into their mandate.Prior to making such a recommendation, it is necessary to know my organization;s capacity to expand to other areas, which I am learning at the moment. To make things more interesting, many of the staff at the Nairobi office are resistant to change - they want to continue doing the same emergency programs that they have been doing for the last few years because for good reason they do them well. I am not suggesting to stop trucking water or digging bore holes - such things are crucial daily needs. Water is life. However, how did the society in Somalia (outside Mogadishu) function before the collapse of the state, the civil war, and now the extended droughts? There was water at one point and there were schools. My question is what is the community's other long term needs and moreover maybe they can direct us to establishing a higher quality of life instead of us showing up in a toyota land cruiser and pointing at sites for the next borehole.

Weekend at the Coast

Thursday night - 5 of us took a night bus to Mombasa. We took Horizon bus - one of higher-end buses - which offers a beverage and has a speed governor. We arrived to Mombasa at 5am and then took a private taxi to Diani beach, about a 30 minute drive south of Mombasa. Since it was was still very early, we relaxed at my roommate's friend's house and then 3 of us girls set-out to find our beach chalet. Originally I was going to stay with my roommate but his on/off again girlfriend was with us and so I decided to avoid more relationship drama and stay on the beach with the other girls. In total there was 6 of us girls at the Diani Beach Chalet. Our chalet was 50 meters from the water and was a beautiful rustic cement block. I chose to room with the other American as she had selected the best room facing the water.

To save money and reap the delicious benefits from the sea we decided to cook all our meals and purchased fish from the fish monger. Actually, we didn't cook much of our food and hired a cook for two days. This was a new experience for me and admittadely I was awkward with this arrangement. Aside from the oily calimari, Hassan's food was amazing and we stuffed our gobs twice a day until exhaustion.My favorite dish of Hassan's was his red snapper curry, this with the mango salsa I made was terribly delicious. The shrimp though on the Indian coast has a very different texture and flavor then shrimps in the Adriatic and Atlantic - it's chewier with a stronger fish flavor. I keep trying the shrimp with the hope of a different taste but I think now I'll put shrimp on hold. The red snapper and king fish in the Indian Ocean are incredible.

Our days at the beach were spent bobbing in the low tide next to white sand beaches and camels trotting back and forth. Between 2 and 5pm we frolicked in the waves. Each morning I set out for a long walk down the beach but the brightness of the sun's reflection off the sand was blinding and I always surrendered to the turquoise clear water. The beach boys on the coast were frustrating at first but I found that by walking suddenly in the opposite direction or asking to be alone (when you were alone) was effective. Beach boys are boys and men who hangout on the beach waiting to pounce on expats - women in particular- in hope of getting something from action, money, anything. You can't blame them because it does work as we saw several pasty white middle-aged Scandinavians and Eastern European women glued to young Kenyan men. Where we saw these hot couples was at 40 Thieves bar and restaurant, the nightlife "spot" in Diani, where we also saw a lot of ex-US Military and young gap year twenty somethings. I preferred our nugget on the beach away from spring break and surrounded by real monkeys.

Day Twenty Five

Today at the office I read the thesis of the 2010 nominated Prime Minister of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. Although a sensational tone is present throughout, the acting Prime Minister's thesis provides an in-depth historical overview of Somalia in relation to the cold war. The thesis points a few fingers at the US as to why Somalia has been lawless for 19 years, but colonialism and imperialism has certainly contributed to enabling the current chaotic landscape.
For those who doubt colonialism is responsible for much of Africa's demise, please take a good look at Somalia. I will be happy to send you material!

After work I met my friend Cynthia at her house after a sweet 30 minute walk trying to stay ahead of the city buses' farting exhausts. For dinner we went to Habesha Restaurant - an Ethiopian restaurant - that is so very good. They don't put teft, a sour/acid grain, into the injera which means the sour taste does not penetrate across the vegetables and meat. Joining us was a nice guy from the International Crisis Group and a woman from Human Rights Watch who immediately grilled my friend and I on what we're doing in Kenya and who we know. To her approach I told her why I did not like interning with HRW which was essentially - I wanted to do more for the world than write reports that are filed in HRW's library. To be honest, I think HRW has been doing a lot of great work in the last few years with raising awareness of human rights abuses in East Africa. It's just I get repelled by this approach of meeting new people. Her friend from the UNHCR who joined us at the end was worse - he didn't even bother addressing me when the introductions identified me as an intern not with an UN agency.

Afterward dinner we went to Brew Bistro to dance salsa with a live band. A diplomat from Venezuela joined us and grabbed the mic to sing a few songs. This made my night.

Day twenty three and four

Today is my first day with the Somalia country team. After the customary meet and greet of all staff, including a regional director who I desperately wanted to inform how this organization screwed me out of a job a few months ago, I sit down to read massive amounts of documents on the organization and Somalia. I am also invited to a meeting but I realize quickly that I must be pro-active in asking to attend various meetings or I will do nothing else but read documents on my computer. Since I am still living in Westland and not at the organization's guesthouse, I have access to the organization's taxi service. Between the hours of 5 and 7pm, the traffic in Nairobi is atrocious. My patience escapes me and road rage is in effect. Typically I can last 30 minutes of drivers creating roadblocks and no I mean zero sense of order. During complete this complete ridiculousness I understand why the driver taking me home says - "If I had the option, I would get out of Nairobi." I am happy to be here - I just know that I will be even happier with a full salaried job and at peace with losing a friend.

Day twenty-four
The sector that I am most knowledgeable on and care most about is education. With the Somalia program that I working is thus far only doing agriculture and livelihood, and water, sanitation, and hygiene or WASH or even worse WATSAN - acronyms that the IGOs and NGOs use. Honestly I find when development workers speak mostly in acronyms they appear far less knowledgeable and sincere. I know very little about either sector, for example the distribution of lactating goats, and I am excited to learn.I arrange to meet with both of the program managers this week to help me build a picture on what this organization is doing in Somalia in comparison to the needs and where if possible can I squeeze in education. I happily find out that part of a European Union grant requires a project involving education. Blurry yes but it can be to the country program's advantage.

Day twenty one and two

I woke early with my roommate to go to Yoga at 9am. I still feel empty from the break-up and yoga can be instant therapy. My roommate and I lay on our mats and wait 20 minutes with the other mat people to be informed that the Washington state faux hippie is sick. She is a great instructor but is filled with a lot of bs. Feeling defeated back at home, I contemplate researching ex lovers on facebook but decide to take a salsa dancing class at a hotel nearby. The class is divided into 3 levels and I start with intermediate and am totally lost. The Kenyan instructors are amazing and the intermediate instructor arranges for me to have my personal instructor. The class is dominated by women so the women give me glares as I happily dance with male partner the entire class. For 2 hours I felt really good constantly moving with a fantastic dance partner.

Day twenty two
Today I had lunch with an old friend who I met in Sarajevo Bosnia. She is incredibly talented and at our age is a regional director for a Canadian/US Christian organization. We went to Art Caffee and then took a long walk to find a women's organization that sells a variety of items made by women who have been sexually or physically abused. It is of course closed on Sundays and we make plans to go next week.

Day nineteen and twenty

I officially accepted the internship with Somalia program of an INGO. It's something and I'm more than ready to work full time. So this is good start.

Today after doing some job research I went and played squash with my roommate at the Impala country club. The country club is beautiful - it looks like an old Italian resort from the 1960's. I say this because I stayed at a few Italian resorts built during WWII in Ethiopia and the Impala's style of green and white buildings with bars tucked in random areas is a mirror image. I played horribly but after half an hour I was able to make my roommate run. Afterwards we went swimming in the outdoor pool. The total cost of this outing was $6. Without a doubt I am living a life of luxury in Nairobi and I am grateful at this opportunity to enjoy such things.

After Impala, I met a woman who is working with my organization's counterpart in Somalia. She offers insight into work opportunities in the region and I enjoy talking with her about life in general. She drops me off at a matatu station and since it's before 5pm I am able to get home in half an hour. Later that night I meet my friend Cynthia at an Italian restaurant whose prices match some Italian places in the East Village. It was worth it as my appetite has recovered from transition into single life again. We then went to the Havana bar as it's the "spot" to go to on Thursday. We had a nice time aside from meeting several creepy expat men who clearly go to Havana seeking fresh meat.

The next day I completed a lot of paperwork for the organization I will be working for and then set out to buy food for dinner. I had a craving for chicken cutlet and I invited my friend cynthia as she has done a lot for me to help me get settled. Aside from the cutlets getting a little burned, they were delicious. Afterwards we went out to a Onami - the Japanese restaurant/bar owned by an Israeli restaurateur. The food is great but the prices do not match the service so when it took an hour for my friend's sashimi salad, I spoke to the manager and got the salad taken off the bill. After working in many restaurants in New York, I have little tolerance for food that costs a lot without the service to back it up. Also I have inherited my father's high expectations for service and lack of patience for poor management. I am however trying to be more patient and less uptight about things that are not worth getting angry over. It's a challenge and patience, as my Kenyan roommate tells me, is a skill that Kenyans have mastered. I will not master it but I will touch it.