Nairobi National Park

As the girls’ break was coming to an end, they had inquired about one last little adventure to Nairobi National Park (NNP). We hadn’t been for a while and it’s amazingly accessible from where we live. I’m not sure why we don’t go more often. Anyway, it was an easy yes.

Our drill is to load up thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate, throw some snacks in a bag with binoculars, our wildlife handbook and a camera and get an early start.

shiny, colorful starling

NNP is a mix of tourists and locals (including foreign residents). Given its location, some travelers in transit in Nairobi can squeeze in a quick 2-3-hr. safari in between flights if they are well organized. I would.

You would think that, with its location adjacent to a major city, there wouldn’t be a lot to see – sort of like a massive zoo. While it’s small compared to the other national parks, it’s larger than you might think with lots to see. One big difference is that it doesn’t have elephants, unfortunately.

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I’ve mentioned before that it’s a mixed blessing being your own guide. The big challenge is that you don’t have a VHF radio where you can communicate with other guides about animal sightings. This is particularly important in larger parks where the distances are greater. In this place you can get by with a combination of instincts and watching for other vehicles, particularly those with guides. The ideal is to happen upon interesting or exciting things on your own. But there are times when you see a grouping of vehicles and you have not choice but to go check it out.

Our day was a combination of the two. Frankly, it was just nice to be out in the park, away from the dramas of our daily lives and enjoy the scenery. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Thankfully, my family enjoys it as well.

The weather was cool and mostly cloudy. There hadn’t been much rain so the roads were dry. Mud can be an issue on some of the lesser traveled roads (which I am drawn to for some reason) where you can either get stuck or it can force you to turn around in tight places or reverse for long distances. I’ve never been stuck on safari but I have experienced the other two.

Fairly early on we came upon a pride of lions on the side of the road. It was a group of females with one cub. We stayed with them as they slowly made their way up a hill to a picnic area. We’ve been to this area many times and there are almost always baboons hanging around. It made it interesting when the baboons saw the lions coming. They were making loud noises which, I assume, was a combination of warning their peers and threatening the lions. 

hoping the little one catches up to the rest

It was quite the scene as the baboons can be quite aggressive. One would start to approach a lion who would slowly turn around as if daring the baboon to approach further. The baboon would then back off. This repeated several times.

stare down; we've had them jump inside the vehicle so I'm keeping my window up

We pulled into the picnic area at the top of the hill and parked, watching the events unfold. A baboon jumped on a dumpster next to me scanning the container for something edible, all the while tracking the movement of the lions. We’ve had them jump in our vehicle windows before so I promptly rolled mine up.

they sort of look like they need a good meal

As the lions moved their way into the brush, we moved on. After a few minutes we saw a group of vehicles on the horizon. We turned on a side road and headed in their direction. As we approached, we saw that it was three rhinos. That’s one of the great things about NNP is that there are more rhinos relative to its size than in most other parks.Weird looking, rare animals but wonderful to see.

After about three or four hours, we were ready to move on. To be honest, I could spend all day there, but duty called.

Drama

I’ve always liked the month of October. In many parts of the world, and where I grew up, it’s the changing of the seasons. It’s the onset of winter which, unlike most people, for me was exciting. I’ve never disliked cold weather and I was always excited for the autumn colors and the first snow. It was always an active time of sports with (American) football, the baseball World Series, and the anticipation of basketball and ski season. There was of course the drudgery of the long school year ahead which never appealed to me (something I regret now), but overall it was an enjoyable time of year.

I was listening to a history podcast the other day (yes, I like cold weather and history podcasts) and historians were talking about the origin of some of these autumn holidays and festivities. In addition to the more obvious fusion of religious and/or harvest influences, apparently in some northern societies there were more somber connections to the often-tragic implications of the impending severe cold. Suffering, loss of livestock and, in many cases loss of human life, were inevitable each winter and some festivals and traditions were meant to appease the gods in hopes of allowing people to survive the upcoming harsh conditions. That would certainly put a damper on one’s view of the season.

I'm going to assume those bottles are empty...

As the earth heats up, we may need to reinstate some of these festivals, move them to spring, and seek the gods’ favor in helping us survive the often-tragic implications of extreme heat.

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Here it is spring. As I have mentioned previously, I am one of the few people in the world who has the distinction of living in the southern hemisphere and working in the northern hemisphere – though both locations are admittedly not far from the equator. Technically I'm flipping back and forth from spring and fall during any given week. Somalia is hot and sort of just stays that way. Nairobi is getting warmer, with intermittent rains, but remains blissfully without extreme temperatures. I say blissful but I do miss the cold.

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Nairobi may have blissful weather, but it’s not bliss. This past Sunday morning at about 1:30am we were awoken by the sound of loud gunfire. I’m used to gunfire in Mogadishu, and we hear it from time to time in Nairobi, but never this loud or close. This was directly outside our window on the street below.

Standard procedure is to stay away from the window in situations like this, but Priya and I allowed curiosity to get the best of us as we peered out trying to figure out what was going on. Eventually the gunfire ceased but you could still see silhouettes of people moving around on the street. Though there were some tree branches partially blocking the view, it appeared that there was at least one body on the ground. No one was attending to the person so my assumption was that he was dead. Eventually, as calm seemed to be restored, we returned to bed and decided that we would learn more the next morning.

Sometimes when things like this happen, you never learn anything. It’s as if nothing happened. Maybe it’s because things like this happen so frequently that it’s not noteworthy. In any case, we did find out, at least the official version of what happened.

Apparently, there were three men who were on an armed robbery spree. They had successfully robbed some people several blocks away and had moved towards our neighborhood. The police were allegedly tracking them and had followed them to our street. They were supposedly in the process of robbing some pedestrians near our compound when the police unloaded on them. Two were killed on the spot and the third, injured in the shooting, was able to flee on foot.

Most of this checks out with what we observed, as well as the observation of our neighbor a floor above us who saw someone running away from the scene on a side street. But I’m always a bit suspicious of police accounts that make them sound so effective, including the part where they were able to return stolen items to both sets of victims. It’s not necessarily a slam against the police, it’s just that Nairobi is a messy place, particularly at night, and I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to do that job. If the account is true, it’s pretty impressive.

The next morning, I was due to go for a run. It was a cool morning, about 6am. As I walked out of our compound, I couldn’t resist the temptation to head in the opposite direction that I normally would go to see if there was any evidence of the drama a few hours earlier. Just a few steps from our gate there was a standing pool of blood. There was another stain on the sidewalk a couple meters away. It’s a sobering sight, regardless of what happened. As I carried on with my run, I passed a homeless family with two small children huddled under blankets sleeping. Soon after than I passed the same paralyzed beggar that I see nearly every day with his head down and his cup extended.

I’ve never liked living in a city and yet it has been the reality of most of my adult life. Living somewhere else, I wouldn’t see these things, but it wouldn’t make them go away. But I admit that I have grown weary of being exposed to so much hardship, not only in Nairobi but even more so in Somalia. Nairobi used to be a place I would retreat to from some of the things that I’m exposed to doing humanitarian work. Our neighborhood has deteriorated so much in the past few years that it’s not much of a retreat anymore.

And then there’s the fact that I have two children who are being raised in this environment. I don’t mind them being exposed to poverty. It’s a reality and I want them to be aware of difficult things just as I want them to experience wonderful things like walking the streets of Paris and backpacking in Idaho. It’s just that we seem to be inching closer to erring on the side of too much exposure. One of the main reasons we left Bujumbura was due to the nightly gunfire, instability and the thought that it was no place for small children. They were oblivious but we weren’t. Now that they are older, they are more aware of their environment and it requires some intentional parenting to help them sort out all that they are seeing. I don’t anticipate radical changes on the near horizon but time will tell if/when we need to pull the plug on this life as we know it.

Diani Beach

Every year, the girls have a two-week holiday in October. You feel like school is just getting going and then there’s a break. You return from that break and you begin to sense that Christmas break is on the horizon. I realize that, as a child, these periods seem much longer. For parents, it definitely keeps you on your toes to make sure that your kids are occupied during this time. And since families always have at least one parent who is working, it’s not possible that we have vacation time for all of these breaks.

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It's autumn for the northern hemisphere. For us, just below the equator, it’s spring. Whatever that means. If I’m honest, all the seasons seem to blend together here. For me, it’s either wet or not wet.

Typically October falls in the wet category. Except that it’s not that wet, at least so far. We opted on going to the coast for their break rather than on safari since rain is less of a nuisance on the beach. As it worked out, we had almost no rain anyway.

The last time we were in Diani was in February. If we had more money, I wouldn’t mind going more often (a lot of people I know do) but twice a year is not bad. As I have admitted before on this blog, I am much more of a mountain (or safari) person than a beach person and, after three or four days on the coast I start to feel like I’ve had enough. On this break we would be there for four days.

I would need to work for about half of the time that we were there. I’ve done this several times before, including during the pandemic. It’s not bad in that there are worse places to work. On the other hand, it can be annoying to be churning out emails on a laptop, taking calls, etc. while the world around you sucks down copious amounts of alcohol and allows the sun’s rays to turn their skin to a deep red color.

I should say that this particular hotel where we often stay caters to Germans. They probably make up about half of the guests. Most of the signage is in English and German. The other half of the guests are mostly from other parts of Europe. Rarely any Americans or Asians and only a few Kenyans.

The clientele have nothing to do with why we stay there. We like it partly because they have such a nice, clean beach. The food is good and the rooms are decent. There’s a nice game area for the kids. Of late, the Wi-Fi has been great – an important detail when taking video calls. Their partner hotel, which has similar clientele, has a waterslide which was huge when the girls were younger. We have ventured out and tried a few other places, including sharing a villa, but, for now at least, we sort of migrate back to this one given that it’s easy (we don’t need to prepare out own meals), we’ve become familiar with it, and we have even gotten to know some of the staff.  

red-headed agama

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On the first morning, I watched everyone lube up with sunscreen, don their sunglasses and head to the pool. I, on the other hand, found a corner of the thatched clubhouse where there was a functioning wall socket and set up shop. I did have a small ocean view, plenty of coffee, and it was relatively quiet so I wasn’t complaining. I did have an occasional vervet monkey come snooping around looking to steal a snack but otherwise, I was left alone.

When the girls were younger, it was more of a challenge. They would find out where I was working and pop over frequently to ask me to come watch some sort of new skill or trick they learned in the pool. I do miss those days sometimes. Nowadays they seem content to occupy themselves in the pool, play in the waves on the beach, or lounge for long periods of time absorbed in a book (they aren’t allowed phones yet). They do prefer when it’s the four of us (for now), but they’re also very happy doing their own thing.

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On Friday afternoon, we had an opportunity to take a boat to go snorkeling. We hadn’t brought our snorkeling gear but we were able to borrow some and off we went. We headed out to a reef only a couple of kilometers from the hotel. We hadn’t previously been to this particular location, but it turned out to be quite nice. Many of the boats have a glass bottom so you can track the scenery beneath you as well as around you as you head out to the reef.

We shared the boat with another dozen people. I was itching to jump in and as soon as the anchor was dropped, I was the first one in. The water is clear and beautiful, offering fantastic visibility. There were so many colorful fish of various kinds including a moray eel. The guy driving the boat gave me some bread to feed the fish so they came to me in large numbers to eat out of my hand. In fact, there were so many fish that Kinaya was a bit uncomfortable. She returned to the boat at one point but courageously decided to jump back in not too long afterwards.

glass bottom boats often leak, as did ours; it's cool though

We eventually made our way to a sandbar which was just a couple feet below the surface of the water (due to the low tide) even though we were about a kilometer out to sea. The whole trip lasted for about four hours and soon we were heading back at the hotel. We definitely need to do more snorkeling. It’s a relatively inexpensive and fun way to spend an afternoon. 

starfish and urchins

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Another thing we like to do in the evening after dinner is hang out on the beach. Near the equator, and without unnecessary things such as daylight savings time, sunset comes between 6 and 7pm all year round. It’s relatively safe so long as you stay within the vicinity of your hotel and under the watchful eye of the guards. I haven’t heard of people being robbed on the beach here but it probably does happen on occasion, particularly in the areas that are not under surveillance.

We’ve never had any issues and it’s such a wonderful way to cap off the evening. The stars are amazing, all the way to the horizon. There are the distant lights of the occasional passing ship. Small crabs dart back and forth on the beach. We often make some sort of modest sand sculpture.

Hotels on the coast typically offer some sort of entertainment every evening (traditional dancing, acrobatics, karaoke, DJ, etc.). When the girls were little, it was a thrill for them to be out at night and they would often get pulled into the entertainment when there was a call for volunteers. Nowadays they’re less interested. As good as the entertainment is (particularly some incredible acrobats which we did watch this time), it hasn’t varied significantly over the years.

colobus monkey surveying the hotel

On Sunday morning, we would have time for a short swim before heading to the tiny local airport. It’s notorious for not having air conditioning nor enough seating. Thankfully we weren’t there long and our flight back to Nairobi was on time. For the girls, they had another week of vacation to go. For me, I would return to the airport at 4am the next morning to fly back to Mogadishu. Ugh.