Thursday 5 May

My routine changes

This week’s been rather busy and in some ways a little strange.  I’ve been a little unwell, but good enough to go to work.  I also feel my daily routine of work-home-blog-dinner changing.  My host mother has taken a job at a holiday resort on the outskirts of Nairobi and is staying there during the week as it’s a bit of a trek back home.  So I’ve been home alone all week.  I miss the company but it’s rather nice to have the place to myself.  The downside is that I now have to make my own dinner which means that keeping up with my blogs is a challenge.  But it’s all good.  

Linking up in Nairobi

Today I’ve been invited to a dinner party by someone I met in London about 8 years ago when working with AFFORD.  I haven’t seen her since or stayed in touch but we’ve linked up through a mutual friend, my boss at the time.  She works with an NGO in Nairobi and lives in Keleleshswa in Nairobi.  I’m excited – I think that this will be my first evening out with people from all walks of life (expats, to be exact).   And it does turn out to be so.  I arrive at the party at 9 instead of 8, as the taxi driver’s 7.30 turned out to be 8.20.  

Now everyone knows, well in the UK anyway, that you do not go to a house party without a drink in hand. So I ask the cab driver to drive me to Nakumatt in Prestige so that I can buy a bottle of wine.  I’m looking forward to this bottle of wine as it will be my first since I’ve been here.  We get to Nakumatt at about 8.40pm and I run in looking for the drinks aisle.  Finally, I find it (this is a big supermarket) but to my surprise there’s no access – instead there’s a counter in front of it and a cashier.  I ask to buy a drink and he looks at me and says ‘sorry, we aren’t selling’. I ask ‘why?’  It turns out that a new law in Kenya means that no shop sells alcohol after 8.30pm.  So, there goes my first bottle of wine.  Instead, I settle for what I can only describe as my first non-alcoholic wine in what seems like two decades!  Thankfully, Mai has proper wine when I get to hers.  

It’s a great dinner party.  Mai has made us a peanut butter sauce with chicken, rice and a Caesar salad, and a delicious pineapple crumble for pudding.  I meet some very interesting people and make some new contacts too, some working with BBC World Service, CAFOD, MSF and some on holiday from London.  

Two days later I am out again with the same group of people from the dinner party (well, most of them).  This time, it’s a birthday party in another part of Nairobi – Spring Valley.  And once again it’s a party full of expats from all walks of life.  Spring Valley is beautiful – it’s very very green and simply stunning.  Best of all, it’s great to hang out with this group of girls and get to know them even better.  Finally, I feel I’m getting to know a few more people here.