Settling into Nairobi

After almost 20 hours of flying and 10 more hours lost because of the change in time zones, I finally arrived in Nairobi on Saturday night. I am staying with family friends (actually family of family friends, to be precise) who live a little bit outside the Nairobi city center.

In addition to getting over jetlag, I've had a chance to get somewhat of a sense of the city. Nairobi is actually much more green (in terms of plants and trees, not energy efficiency) and less polluted than I expected it to be. There are, of course, plenty of tall buildings and congested streets, but it is not entirely a concrete jungle. I took a nice walk through the neighborhood this morning. The sights, smells, and sounds were pretty similar to other African cities that I've been to, although it was interesting to see that the residents of the neighborhood that I am staying in are predominantly Indian.

Yesterday, I went to a new shopping mall in town to get a Kenyan cellphone. It was truly a "globalized" experience there. I bought the phone at a "Nakumatt," which is essentially the Kenyan version of Wal-Mart, and walking through the mall felt exactly like walking through any similar place in the US. The only clue that this shopping mall might be in Nairobi instead of San Francisco was that the shoppers were just as likely to speak Swahili or Hindi as English.

I'm off to Kakamega later this week!

Also, I saw this article in The Standard (a local newspaper)about a study by the Kenyan Ministry of Industrialisation that looked at issues that small businesses face. Its interesting to note that the article cites a lack of "relevant information, education, and skills that would enable [the proprietor] to run a business" as common obstacles that can be detrimental to small business owners -- business skills training and education are two of the main focuses of VEF's program.