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Joburg was only a one-night layover and the start of a work trip that involved traveling to five East African countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda. Once finished with the work trip, I had a vacation planned in Brangelina’s favorite African country, Namibia. I had been to East Africa before, but I was still nervous. Traveling in East Africa requires patience and composure, and if that doesn’t work, it sometimes requires bribes. So, after just under 22 hours in Joburg visiting friends and napping, I took my sorry self back to the airport and was off to Nairobi, Kenya.
Customs in Kenya is much cheerier and happy than the airport in Johannesburg. I heart the Jomo Kenyatta Airport. There is such an exciting bustle in the air, with travelers coming and going to the States, Europe, the Middle East, India ... it feels so alive. And all of the Curios Shops and restaurants are accented with bright yellow signs and there are large windows overlooking the one runway. The terminal has a soft curve so you can never see the end of it, it seems like it goes on forever, but it doesn’t. It stops at the Java House, which serves some of the best coffee I have ever had. Unfortunately, customs is a bit more chaotic than South Africa, although the lines are shorter. I shelled out US dollars for my visa, handed the customs official my paperwork, and with an exchange of “Jambo! You are most welcome!”—the standard Kenyan greeting—I entered Kenya. I was met outside baggage and the green channel by a swarming mass of people holding up signs. I quickly spotted my smiling coworker also from California, Doug, along with the Mads, the thin Danish Security Coordinator, and Julius, a very jolly looking Kenyan who would be our driver. On the way to the hotel, I was all wide-eyed taking in the scenery. There are unfortunately no elephants lining the roads. However I was not to be let down, for lingering near the fences along the road leading out of the airport was a lovely herd of giraffes. This is because the Nairobi National Park is practically in Nairobi.  Lone Giraffe parading around the Airport in the Nairobi National Park I was not disappointed when it came to interesting creatures—massive birds hang out in the Jacaranda trees along the main road into town. The driver, Julius, kept giving me side looks because I was giggling at the large monster birds. I had to explain to him—I had experiences with these birds before during a trip to Tanzania at a resort. I pulled up to the resort with a group of people and I exclaimed how marvelous that the resort had statues of animals on the front lawn. Then I realized the lawn was a golf course, and corrected myself that the statues were only golf bags. But then, I noticed that that the golf bags moved. And finally, someone in the car, while trying to hold back raging laughter because I was in fact saying all of this out loud, explained to me that these were actually really big birds. Julius didn’t seem to understood why I thought they were so funny. In fact, I don’t think he ever did. After some Googling, I found out that these are “Marabou Storks” but I prefer to call them the Golf Bag Birds.  Picture of a large bird on a previous trip in Arusha, Tanzania There are three major cities in Africa that I have heard are 'The most dangerous city in Africa': Johannesburg, Lagos, and you guessed it, Nairobi, or as the locals refer to it, “Nairobbery.” It took us about an hour or so to get the short distance between the airport and the hotel due to a political rally at a park in the center of town. I have never seen so many people in one place in my life. We happened to drive directly into it. The Kenya Elections are taking place in December 2007. I spoke with a few people about this in Nairobi and the consensus was that tourism was down because of the elections and the violence that could occur. The Danish security guy reassured me that it was much safer to go through town, even through the rally, because if you were caught in the outskirts in “the Jam,” bad things will happen, such as losing bodyparts for jewelry and things like that. I tried to tune him out. “The Jam” is a term used to describe the absolutely gridlocked heinous traffic around Nairobi during the morning commute from about 8 to 11 , also from about 11:30 to 2:30 during the lunch hour, and about 3 to about 8, or let's just call it, pretty much all day. Finally, we arrive at the hotel, which was a nice fancy and boring businessmen's hotel in the middle of the city. We pulled up in our Ranger Rover, and guards of the hotel looked under the car with mirrors on sticks. The Dane informed me that they were looking for bombs, but trying to put me at ease scoffed that he thought it was silly to look under the car for bombs, because if he were to hide a bomb in the car, he would place it in the luggage. Ha ha. I am not so sure about this guy’s sense of humor. Do you remember when the US Embassy in Nairobi was bombed back in 1998? The Hotel was nice and I was so happy to finally get to rest for a bit. I needed to save my energy up for all of the work meetings the next day and for my trip to Ethiopia!  Should I be concerned about the can of Raid in my bathroom? I had to switch rooms, and there it was again, a can of raid. In the bathroom. Do I need to worry about this? Is this what you call “Product Placement?”
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