Hectic time in Nairobi, Kenya

Our 3 short days in Nairobi have not exactly passed by without a few major glitches. When we first arrived on July 2nd, a Friday night, after 22 hours of flights only my luggages showed up in baggage claim. Melody anxiously went the next 2 days without her luggage or any idea from the airlines about where in the world it would be. Her luggages like mine, collectively held 50 lbs of surveys, 55 lbs of crayons, necessary insecticides, and culturally appropriate clothing.

When we went to meet with my Nairobi correspondent about obtaining our PermaNet brand LLINs on Saturday morning, we were surprised to find that they office closed until Monday morning at 8am. The problem is that our van to Shirati is leaving at 6am sharp on Monday so waiting until 8am was not an option. I was able to track down the representative's cell phone and arranged for her to arrive in the Nairobi office. We placed an order for 250 LLINs which had came from the generous donations of our friends and family. Well, at that point, we learned that the cash in USD they had requested also had to have $100 bills no older than 2000. When they counted our money, they would not accept $400 worth of $100 bills since they were old. Funny thing, apparently the entire country of Kenya and Tanzania both do not accept bills older than 2000 or 2003 in some cases. So Melody & I had to trade these "bad old bills" with our personal money to pay for the nets. The next mishap was that the nets were not at the office and we had to meet someone at 8:30pm. Next thing you know, 8:30pm rolls around and the guy does not show up. Of course we are a little nervous that we handed them an insane amount of cash, but confident the company is legit. The delivery guy shows up at 10pm and delivers 250 nets...they were HUGE and so heavy, about 400 lbs. in total. All is perfect except when we open up one of the nets, they are white and we specifically ordered blue. The reason having blue is so important is because research studies have shown that in rural areas, colored nets are used more often and washed less often than white nets which tend to show dirt very readily. After some time the next day, we were finally able to get the blue nets exchanged. Phew.

Melody did finally get her luggage on our last day at this guest house, any later and she might not have luggage in Shirati for 5 weeks, yikes. The last mishap that we still have to deal with is that we looked through our $100 bills that we are essentially living off of since credit cards are not readily accepted in this part of Africa and we have limited amounts of cash. Apparently a large sum of those were older than 2000, rendering them completely useless in Tanzania & Kenya. We might have to try to convince the bank to take them, convert them at terrible rates, borrow someone's money, or hang onto the money until we get back home.

I definitely think these last few days, which thank god in the end worked out pretty nicely, have taught me how to be flexible. Nothing goes exactly as planned but you have to be creative and come up with persistent solutions. I find this true about life and traveling abroad in general. Lets see what our project in Shirati is going to hold! On a more pleasant note, there are giraffes that just freely roam on the side of the highway in Nairobi!! How cool is that since the only ones I have ever seen were at zoos! Also, Nairobi is quite industrial and there are so many Americans and Europeans here it was surprising at first. The next update I'll have will be in Shirati!!