Category: EAKenya

home sweet home (in Embu)

1 EUR ==> ~ 90 Kshs.

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1 new bed (made from cheaper materials, Embu price): 1650 /= Kshs.
1 new high density mattress 6,7 x 4 ft.: 3550 /= Kshs.
1 high density foam 20″ x 22″ (to fit in the remaining frame the mattress doesn’t cover – hey, I am tall!): 230 /= Kshs.
1 really huge (72 x 90″) blanket: 675 /= Kshs.
2 pillows (27 x 18″): 398 /= Kshs.
4 pc bed & pillow sheets: 799 /= Kshs.
1 Kikoi to cover the window: 300 /= Kshs.
1 “PermaNet” pre-treated mosquito net: 800 /= Kshs.

A wonderful colleague by the name of Zakayo who organised the bed at this price, had it delivered to the room, kicked the landlord to have the room repainted in time and just stood in front of the building when I arrived: priceless .

Zakayo – thengiu muno!

We rushed to Maguna Andu (“helping people”) supermarket here in Embu to buy the mattress etc before the shops closed and rewarded us with the obligatory Tusker and some mbuzi choma.

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2 kgs of Mbuzi for 4 people

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preparing the meat for the grill…

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(pole for the weak picture quality)

Mbuzi (goat), Kachumbari (tomatoes, onions), Ugali (maize), Salt, Tusker (beer) and coke. YEAH!

When I woke up next day, I still smelled like a goat. Thx god it’s a holiday.

My room is approx. 20m away from a bar/restaurant…meaning: I smell fried chips and the meat grill while writing these lines, am killing cockroaches who want to make their way from the bathroom to my bed, there is no water in the “kitchen” and I have meanwhile gotten used to the noises coming from the bar (which opens @ 7 a.m. and closes long after I’ve gone to bed)…but it’s a safe (?) place somewhere downtown in Embu, relatively cheap, on a tarmacked (sp?) road (less mud during rainy season) and right now they are playing Daudi Kabaka’s “Safari Tanganyika”. Could I ask for more?

YES! An internet café would be nice… *gg*

twin luck??!

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“TWIN LUCK” insecticide chalk…..this stuff actually WORKS!

I was cleaning the bathroom when a really huge cockroach climbed my leg in panic. I think it didn’t like the DETTOL I poured on its homebase. Well, bad luck, Mr Cockroach.

After the water dried up, I applied this chalk and just after a few minutes, I saw a middle-sized cockroach running through the drawn chalk lines and instantly falling on its back and dying. An amazingly effective poison.

(Insects kama ants are ok for me, lakini these cockroaches come from the sewage tank and THEN walk over my food & dishes. Not nice…).

RIONBAI?

I came home at 10.30 pm, listened to the daily dose of wisdom by my dear friend Njuguna from Ruaka and switched on his tv to see Martha K. answer nasty questions on corruption issues. Martha sure is someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. I somehow like her though.

Being scared off her P.Muiteesque eyes (same scary eyebooools) and very clear line of reasoning against any allegations, we switched channels and tuned into KBC which presented us with this:

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(sorry for the poor sreenshot – I took this occasion to try out my new analog/digital tv pcmcia/pc card and still haven’t found a proper antenna)

One of these typical “dial in” shows where people are supposed to solve very difficult riddles and waste a lot of money on telephone charges. In other words: whoever calls the displayed number will most likely waste his hard earned money.

The other annoying side of it is that the presenters in these shows have no other job but to keep on animating people to pick up the phone and dial that number. Which means that they keep on talking BS and make a fool out of themselves. I wonder how this show is accepted among the public. Do they like it?

You know, in Germany there are about 5 to 7 tv channels at the moment who show such programms starting from around 10 pm every night until morning hours. Some of these presenters even strip naked (breasts) to attract (male) viewers – which of course is very embarrassing in front of those visitors that come from (much) more restriced countries.

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(a screenshot from DSF – sports channel on German tv earlier this year)

Yeah…that’s our world in 2006….

Fellow blogger Majonzi asked me about a possible culture shock in rural Embu. I never expected any luxury in Embu and will of course have to adopt to the rural lifestyle (although of course the place I am staying is still very much urban).
WHAT shocks me though is this KBC programme that doesn’t differ in any ways from what they showing to the masses over in Europe. Same stupidity and tacky way of luring dumb viewers in spending their hard earned money on unsuccesful phone calls.

HAPPY KENYATTA DAY!

Minni Inn Ltd., Embu

There was this management workshop for a gazettable paper which made us book rooms @ Embu’s Minni Inn. The place itself is very basic, but compared to my new flat in Embu downtown it is pure luxury. Things are a little bit different over here. Whereas Nairobi ppl would be spoilt enough to expect certain things, Embu standards are orientated on the rural comfort, meaning: anything that exceeds fetching water from the river is considered luxury.

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A perfect example for the typical kenyanesque overstatement is that they’ve put huge tv sets in each room – despite the fact that there’s really poor reception of tv signals (at least) in this part of Embu. “Please do not try to adjust tv channels” it says on the room information.

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In the very same room you’ll find a broken toilet seat and one of those italian water heaters (!!) installed on the shower which – of course – is out of order. A brand new tv set and poor sanitational facilities? Now how does that match?

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And the best part was this array of nails on a piece of wood – nailed to the middle of the wall BEHIND the bed which was supposed to be some sort of coat hooks. Aterere….

The first night all guest were woken up at 1 am and 3 am but loud noises coming from the Bar area. Since the Bar officially closes down at 11 pm, it was obvious that the watchman would be the one to be blamed: an old askari who doesn’t speak English and who turned up the volume of the installed tv set (+ poor signal reception!) in order to stay awake and get some entertainment.
The first night we prayed for a power failure and things eventually settled at 3.30 am, the second night the noises came back and so I went to the Bar at 4 am and found this old askari sitting there like a dumb sheep. “Kelele…..mbaya….na hakuna maji”. When I woke up at 4, there was no water in the whole place. How come? The hotel has 4 huge containers and a ferrocement tank but the pump is a little bit faulty and needs to be continously switched on and off in order to work. The guy in charge of that (who??) apparently forgot to take care of it.

“Station under new management” – one often reads this marketing slogan on petrol stations. I wish this could be applied on Minni Inn as well. With the right management and some more diligence / speed by the employees, this place could rock. But instead they prefer to let themselves go. Ok ok, they have never been to places like The Grand Regency, Serena, Hemingway’s (the toilets!), etc etc to see what’s possible, and no one expects a middle class hotel to offer the same luxury as a 4 star Hotel. However, there are a few things that just require little amounts of money and some time in order to make guest feel very welcome.

Minni Inn Ltd., Embu

single room 250/= Kshs.
single room (self contained) 500/= Kshs.
double room (self contained) 1.000/= Kshs.

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One of the few moments when people are brought together in unity (watching soccer :-).

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Ugali, fried potatoes and nyama, nyama, nyama…..

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…you eat nyama all day long and end up longing for such a plate full of vegetabooools na fruits.

My wonderful colleagues have found a nice flat/room for me in Embu for 3.500/= /month. Very secure, with a nice view on Embu. The previous tenant has been a Somali who slept on the floor and who left the place covered with rubbish when he moved out. Did he get his deposit back? If you do this in Germany, your landlord will track you down and kick your butt until it really hurts. Since the place is so popular with Embu folks, the landlord wouldn’t have probs renting it out so cleaning is a matter left to the next tenant. Which would be me.

rural internet

Holadiho! I was just abooool to read my email via the phone’s internal wap browser (Nokia 6230i). Right here in Embu, Kenya. Now that’s cool.

Next task will be to find a decent internet café. In the meantime I am dreaming of free WLAN networks/hotspots all over the country.

Speaking of Productivity issues: I spent about 5 hrs last Sunday morning moving from one inet café to the next just to download my emails and trying to blog some stuff. At around 4 pm, I was so pissed that my blogdesk uploading tool didn’t work (due to inet connection issues) and that I had actually wasted the best part of the day on such a dumb task. Am I stupid? I guess so…and all of that while still in NAIROBI!

So….Nairobi or Embu, going online works as long as you stick to your mobile phone. As soon as you dial Safaricom’s #951, the trouble starts as you’re charged per minute while nothing happens. Being online doesn’t imply that one can be productive (~ downloading informations). THAT’s a real pain. Who wants to pay for a service that doesn’t work the way it is supposed to be?

KJT Datsun

While working on the Suzuki, I came across this KJT (~ 1976?) Datsun station wagon which was completely worn out.

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The owner of the car told me that it had been involved in an accident and was parked under a tree at a local police station for some time. He wants to invest the sum of 20.000 Kshs to have it repaired and then intends to sell it for 120.000 Kshs. The bench was covered with exterior spare parts…

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“Yes, the motor, no problem – when I put a battery here, it just takes one kick and it can start.” – “Aterere….”

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“Come back on Tuesday”, the owner told me, “…and you’ll see this car like new.”

Yeah, sure…. (==> KENYA believe it??! :-)