Kenya -- Parting Thoughts

Right now, I am on my way back from Kenya. Kenya turned to be a beautiful country: beautiful nature, beautiful wildlife, and I believe beautiful people.

I didn't come across signs of extreme poverty or wide spread pendemics. This is in part because i stayed relatively close to Nairobi, and also because Kenya is more fortunate than many other afAfrican countries. Nevertheless Kenya is the center of NGO's and favorite destination for Expats. The striking problems are the lack of security - the wide spread of crime, and the poor infrastructure.

Yesterday i realized this wasn't my first visit to an African country as much as my first visit to a developing country other than Egypt.

I would definitely try to come back on a longer vacation insha'allah. But for the sake of engaging with struggling Africa, I might choose a different destination.

Jum'a in Nairobi

Yesterday I thought I have to pray Jum'a in Kenya before I leave. This time I didn't go to the nearby mosque but I went to Nairobi's biggest mosque in the city center, Jamai Mosque.

It is a big mosque and it was full with people, at least 3000. It wasn't exactly similar to the Jum'a i would go to in an Egyptian Mosque.

At started with the normal call for prayer "Athan". It was a beautiful voice he gave the athan. Then an Imam started the "Khutba", Jum'a Speach. It was in Swahili with occasionaly Arabic references from the Qur'an or Suna. The imam had a calm voice and seemed quite fluent.

After he finished another man started another speech. It didn't seem like a relegious one. The man was speaking in a loud voice as if he's calling people to join a fight. People seemed more attentive. There was what seemed to be artificial cheering after some of his statements. He made some statements in English that made me realize he was some sort of politician. Statements like "democracy is not the rule of the majority but the respect of the minority", "Our power is still not reckoned", and "I have 10 million people backing me".

After that there was another "Athan" and the Imam came back and repeated his first speach but in Arabic this time. That was when a non-swahili speaker, like me, would typically come :). The Imam's Arabic was quite impressive, very similar to Saudi Imam's, and so was the arabic of the Mu'athen. Probably they are either Saudi's or have been trained there.

On the way home I asked Simon about that politician who made a speach. He said Muslim's in Kenya are supporting the oppositon lead by "Rayla". The muslims being 30% of the population are definitely a considerable mass. They are angry at Kebabki's goveronment because it didn't bring welfare to the Muslims as it promised, and because it arrests muslim suspects and hands them to the Americans who take them to Ethiopia to be unhumanly interrogated.

Ramadan at a Different Place!

I never felt in greater need for Ramadan as I am feeling this year. I am burdened with sins that can only forgiven by God, and I have so burning questions that need God's guidance.

Like last year, I miss the overwhelming spiritual atmosphere that hangs over Egypt at this time. However, Nairobi over exceeded my expectations for venues for practicing Islam. Despite its relatively small Muslim population there is no shortage of open mosques.

On the first day of Ramadan, as i was walking up to my room after "Sehour" I heard the Fajr call. Without much thought, i followed the sound and headed outside the hotel. This is quite unspoken of for a foreigner in Nairobi. To walking in streets you don't know at 5 am in Nairobi would not be advisable. It was about a 20 minute away. I took a wrong route at the beginning but found a watchman who redirected me to where the mosque is. The streets that lead to the mosque were quite deserted, not much on its sides. There were several people walking down the street who seemed to be workers hurrying in there long daily journey to work. It was so dark, i could hear the footsteps of anyone coming before seeing their face. I made it to the mosque. It was great. That was the first time i pray fajr in a mosque in over a year.

Later that day, i said maybe they do tarawee7 prayer too. This time i went to a different mosque. Simon, my taxi driver, showed me where it is earlier in the day. He told me the walk i did earlier this morning is very unsafe, and this new mosque is closer and the walk is much safer because it is along the side of a Military Base. I went there and I was very happy to find them praying tarawee7. It was a smaller mosque but it was full. It probably had a couple of hundred people there.

This morning i returned to that same mosque again to pray Fajr. There were less people, but still more than those in the far away mosque. Again, it felt soo good, I had missed that spiritual experience. I also didn't pray tarawee7 last year when i was in the US - there is something there that doesn't make me fully relate to Muslims' practice there as i do in Egypt or even in Nairobi.

Anyways, i have another week and I'll be in the US, so i will probably give it another try when i go back. Meanwhile, i'll keep enjoying my daily adventure to the mosques of Nairobi :). May God accept my fasting, my prayer, and good deeds, and May God forgive my sins, those that were commited and those that are yet to come, those that i know of and those that i am unaware of.

In the Masai Mara!!!

I finally made it to the Masai Mara. The most renowned Safari destination in Kenya. The home of the new 7th wonder of the world - The Great Migration.

A lion honey mooning with his beautiful lioness, little spiky cheetah having a gazelle for breakfast with its mom, Zebras chasing and kicking each other, a Warthog family enjoying their small muddy pool, and hundreds of Wildebeests crossing the masai river some being eaten by hungry crocodiles. That's not to mention the elephants, girafs, topis, hipos, crocs, and a leapord spotted from over 100 meters before it went hiding in the bushes.

It is still not what you would see on animal planet. The many cars you can spot take away from the experience. If there is an interesting scene, like a lioness eating a wildebeest or three male cheetahs having a rest on a bush, you will find at least 10 cars surrounding them to get photos. But it is still very wild, and it is far closer than any animal encounter I had before.

I stayed for two nights and three days. It was 6 of us; a young Irish Lawyer whose doing volunteer teaching in some rural area, a lady from Bangladesh working for the UN in Congo, a Japanese couple on vacation, and a Turkish student working on a summer internships in Nairobi slums. And ofcourse our Kekouo driver, Captain Jackson. (If you r going on Safari do your best to get a GOOD Driver.)

My next dream now is to go on a Animal Planet like expedition, were you spend more time following animals and have no people within 10s or maybe 100s of miles. An experience where you don't spend all your time safely inside a car, where you sleep in real camps sites not on comfortable beds with hot water and electricity. I am not sure if this is possible!

A glimpse of Mombasa

It started with a 16 hour overnight train trip from Nairobi to Mombasa. Despite the long time ti took, i enjoyed it. It was a sleeping train where we had a nice dinner and enjoyed breakfast overlooking nice scenary. I was with Abby and Shu my GSB classmates, and Kweeven - a nice Irish gentelemen who works for an NGO in Sudan with whome i shared my cabin. He had the most equisite Irish accent i ever heard that i hardly understand half what he said.

The first couple of hours after arriving weren't the most recreational. We hadn't arranged for our return so we had to take care of this before fun starts. We couldn't spend another 16 hours in the train on the way back, so we thought flying would be a good option. Unfourtnatly we couldn't make it to the airline office on time. A bus is now our best option, but the challenge was to find the booking office. We wondered for around two hours in the non touristic part of mombasa to know that all first class buses were fully booked. Taking a standard bus was too big a safety risk. So we ended renting a car from Sister Samia at Glory Car Agency. Sister Samia is half Kenyan and half Yemeny and is not a very pleasant person to do business with. It was around 4pm and now we had less than 24 hours in mombasa.

After a quick lunch and some clean-up in the hotel we headed to the old town in Mombasa. A blend of different cultural influences. The arabs influence was apparent in the architecture and nicely built mosques. The proteguese/european influence can also be seen through the many churches and in the standing remains of the the slave trade. Besides some indian temples, Indias' greatest signs is in the Indians that you run into in mombasa. We didn't stay long in the old town, by eight we were heading to Tamarid where we had a very nice dinner.

5:30 am we were heading to Tiwi Beach. I can't describe how spectacular the pacific ocean was by the time we arrived and how tempting a canno trip into the tiwi river would have been if we had the time! We walked by the beach and then decided to visit Shimba - an animal preservation. Now that I've gone to Masai Mara, I don't think that was a good idea.

After driving around the park for a couple of hours and pissing one of the parks elephants we headed to Diana beach. Another spectacular white sand beach. Now that the tide has cleared away it was even much nicer than when we went to Tiwi. The only caveat was that it isn't really swimmable because it's very shallow and full of reefs.

Time was running, we had to head back. By 4 pm we were on the road to Nairobi after some fighting with sister Samia over the time of returning the car. We were stopped for speeding and guess what, our driver - Rafael - didn't have a driver license. What an easy catch? So Rafeal had to got himself off the hock for 400 Ksh (~$40) and we were back on the road. Rafael wasn't a very convincing driver, especially on a one lane road that forces you to go in opposite direction to by pass slow trucks. It was even more worrying when night started. There was no street illumniation and the roads started getting worse and worse until we ended in a choas of buses, trucks, and cars jumping in unpaved roads with clouds of dust surronding them and no clear seperation between vehicales coming in opposite directions.

Additionally the fear of possible hijacking was at the back of our mind. The stories that are spread everywhere about similar incidents made this a constant concern. It didn't help to know that Rafael, our professoional driver, knew nothing about Nairobi, not even how and where to enter the city. Surprisingly, and thankfully, we managed to find our way into Nairobi at around 12am and were at our hotels by around 1am! Again, one of my hard learnt lessens.

If you go to Mombasa the train is good if you have time. If not, take a flight and book in advance. And don't waste your time away from the beach.

First Week in Nairobi

Or should i say "Nairobory" - as one guy in Mombasa called it. Every expat has security alarms, car security locks, and tracers. Each has a phone number of one or two trusted taxi drivers because you can't risk riding with a driver you don't know. This makes sense because almost everyone has a story involving themselves or someone they know whose car has been hijaked or house has been broken in.

I can't speak to the toursistic part yet since i didn't explore that, but it seems that most of the touristic action happens outside the city.

Despite bad traffic an pollution, I liked the city. You can find various forms of green spaces everywhere and there are some beautiful residential areas. The city center has buildings with different styles that are well layed out. I had a nice lunch with GSBer's a couple of times at the Thorne Tree restaurant. There isn't so many fancy places to shop, but we've been to the Village market which had a nice variety of small shops and a big grocery store. Everyone speaks English, even all the street billboards are in English, which makes your life easier.

One of the week's highlights was going with Sam - a nice guy from Kickstart - to the Moutain Club of Kenya. This is one of expats typical gatherings. Serious mountain climbers/hikers meet every thursday to share their experiences and plan expeditions/trips. There was a big group of at least fifty people. After casual chats and food, they discussed the calendar of upcoming activities and one person gave a presentation about his recent attempts to climb some mountain. These are not typical hiking trips where you follow a given trail, but they could involve exploration of some virgin routes.

As for politics, the county is expecting elections at the end of this year. It seems they are a little ahead of Egypt when it comes to democracy. The former president who had been in power for more than 20 years stepped down a few years ago, and there is a more fair contention over the presidency seat. Some people are not very happy with the current president and think he will get changed.

Dry Creek not that Dry!!

My friend Dave and his fellow ward members are continuing to amaze me. This weekend i went with them to a place called Arroyo Seco - Spanish for dry creek. It was anything but dry.

I was still suffering from my knee injury from the Half Dome hike with that same group three weeks earlier, but again the pain wasn't for nothing. It was very different and a lot of fun.

We spent around 5 hours on the hike. It was mostly wading through shallow waters over a rocky bed. When it got deeper we had to swim for as long as 40 or 50 meters - not being a good swimmer this was tiring. Everything gets wet.

The most beautiful parts where when we had to swim through very narrow passages less than 2 meters wide and there were those amazing reflections from the river on the rocky sides of the mountain.

Independence Day @ San Francisco

Two Greek guys, a Mexican, and myself headed to San Francisco today to see how American's celebrate their Independence Day. We arrived at around 1pm, and unlike what we expected, the streets downtown weren't as lively as they usually are - not so many people, and the no side street performers which adds the charm to the city. We wondered around, and at about 5pm headed to Pier 37. It's were the days action takes place: the fireworks.

By the time the sun was down tens of thousands of people were waiting by the pier side for the action to start. Besides those, there were 100s of boats around Alcatraz also waiting for the fireworks. At the end the fireworks started at around 9:30 but to my disappointment they weren't that fascinating - not what u would expect the Americans to do on their independence day.

Going home it was very similar to leaving Cairo Stadium after an important game for the Egyptian Football team - very crowded and extremely hard to get a cab.

I took two lessons with me: (1) to enjoy 4th of July fireworks at San Francisco make sure to be among those in the sea, and (2) if u want to experience an American holiday better have an American on board.

Catching up with Outdoor Action before my Thirties

[This is a long one]

The trip started with 5-hrs on the road, half of which going up a curved mountain, no wonder i felt car sickness at the end. We arrived a little after midnight, luckly the car sickness went away after a few minutes from getting out of the car. We were all set - headlights, water, power bars, and a Full Moon in a clear sky.

We joined the rest of the group. Ah, i forgot to mention the group, it was predominantly members of the Palo Alto ward of the Mormon Church, this was part of the wards social activity and i was invited by one of my MBA classmates to join - probably this will deserve a separate post.

We started the hike, the first section wasn't much different than any other hike i guess, u just follow a trail thru the mountain under thick trees - some times its was a little steep, but its not that hard. It was only harder when i had to carry someone's else backpack.

We kept going and going .. and going and going .. dreaming of the cables, not knowing exactly what they are, but I knew they were the last stage in the hike. Finally by 5am we were out of the thick trees and had two more stages. The first of these stages was going up a big rock, mostly thru big steps and sometimes by walking on its surface. That's a little harder than the previous section specially that we were dead by now.

Finally, we reached the final step, The Cables. This is were we turn into ants climbing an 80 degree flat surface of granite for a distance of about 100 meters holding on to 2 think cables. If u lose grip of these cables, u die. That was scary. But after 5 hrs on the road and more than 6 hrs up the mountain, there was no way i would have gone back without finishing this.

By around 7am we were there. Dead but we were there :). Many other people where there too at least a 100. Boys. Girls. Men. Women. Kids. Adults. Anywhere from 12 to 60 years old.

We stayed there for an hour, had some photos, rested for a while and then headed back. Going down the cables was as much "fun" as going up. Remember its flat rock surface 80 degrees steep, hands tight on two thick cables. Lose ur grip and u r toast. But surprisingly everyone makes it

We then hiked down through the woods - no rocks and less steepness. The first part of that wasn't any special except for coming across a pair of dears :).

The nicest part was the water falls. Although i was told they are not as gushing as they are in the spring they were beautiful. I saw rainbow coming out of the waterfall bed. The peak of the trip was when i climbed down to a rock that was close to one of the waterfalls bed and stood there with the water flashing into my face.

By the time we came down to the valley, i guess it was around 3pm, that is after at least 13 hours of hiking, my brain was exploding and i could hardly move my right knee. Nevertheless, i was happy with the stretch.

We couldn't do much after that, so i napped for an our, we went and ate something, and then went to the camp site where we slept till the morning.

No much activity the following day. We drove around a little to some special spots in the valley. We then went to a place that was full of those huge trees called Sequoia Trees - claimed to be the largest trees on earth. After that my friends went to their Sunday service, and by 2:30pm we were heading home.

This is probably the most interesting recreational activity I did since i came to the US.

The place we went to was Yosemite National Park, the mountain we hiked was Half Dome. The waterfalls we came across were Vernal and Nevada falls, and the giant sequoias were at Mariposa Grove. And the people i was with were very nice, friendly, and ...... hardcore hikers.

Following the crowds into a baseball game

I arrived at San Francisco at 4pm. It was a little early for my 6pm dinner. I had in mind going downtown, usually it is very lively on weekends so i thought i would hang out there until dinner time. When i was getting off the train a voice came from the train's speakers telling everyone to enjoy the game, then there were crowds of ppl moving together towards the AT&T park - the baseball arena. I knew it was just a few blocks away from the train station, i had a couple of hours before my dinner, so i followed the crowd, bought a ticket, and went into the game. My first baseball game.

I couldn't stay for the whole game, but i stayed enough to learn some of the rules from Fred, an american guy who sat next to me. The game might not be the most exciting thing, but the atmosphere was the nice thing, it's more of a social festival. U r more likely to run into families, groups of friends, and couples, than u will run into hardcore fans. A very pleasant place to hang out on a Sunday afternoon.

As usual the American's make the best out of anything. The event touches on patriotic feelings as well as broad human emotions, and ofcourse has a considerable amount of promotional aspects.

Visiting Seattle

I am finishing a quick visit to Seattle. I didn't c much of the city as i only had one day to go around. But from the little i saw it seemed a nice and clean one.

Downtown is very beautiful. Nice shops and buildings. People playing music at almost every corner.

The most exciting was a guy doing an African dance show at pioneer square. He invited the audience to join and dance and it was such a nice show. It seemed like a lot of fun. I wished i had someone to hand my stuff to and join in.

I also passed by pike market. The food and especially the fish looked very fresh and was displayed in a very attractive way.

I think it's a nice place to live in.