Guest Post by Jacob!

This marks my first guest blog post (or post of any kind) from Africa. After an 8-hour flight from London yesterday, I made it to Nairobi and was so excited to finally see Mollie.

It’s now day 2 here in Africa, although I consider this my first real day since I was pretty tired and sick yesterday after my flight. The altitude, pollution, congestion, and overall standard of living takes some getting used to, but I’m working on it.

For someone like me who has never been to a developing country before, it’s difficult to describe what this place is actually like. For me, it’s just a feeling that I got the moment I could see the airport from the window of my plane. It just feels different than any other place I’ve been before. A lot of it has to do with the people and the infrastructure, but even more so from the basic city life that I experienced during just our brief walk through downtown Nairobi.

Within the first few hours since getting off the plane, we took a very crowded bus to downtown (in which Mollie successfully negotiated a 10-cents reduced fare), walked on dirt sidewalks to the nearest matatu stand and found the right route to the giraffe center. It sounds simple enough, but it was a truly remarkable feat. I’ve lived in many big cities in my life that I would describe as being really alive (New York, Los Angeles, London) but none of these compare to the activity of this place. If you close your eyes and just listen to the sounds of the city, you could easily think you were in the middle of Times Square. People are wildy dodging matatus and buses to cross the street while vendors are trying to sell you everything from fruit to handbags. If it wasn’t for Mollie, I would be very lost in this place (in every sense of the word).

After just two days in Nairobi, I am already starting to understand the appeal of this place. In the small journal that Mollie gave me to write down my thoughts, I’ve found myself reflecting a lot on how these surroundings are challenging my perceptions of what it means to live a life in which it’s easy to take for granted the basic living standards and amenities that people don’t enjoy here: clean water to brush your teeth, reliable power sources, quality public infrastructure, and toilet paper. I’m excited to see how these perceptions continue to evolve during the rest of my visit here.

Until next time, thanks for reading (as Mollie says).

Jacob

Me and Mollie holding a giraffe thigh bone