A few months ago I walked into a kibanda — the makeshift, street-side eateries made of wood beams and aluminum panels — in Uthiru and had my last cup of tea and chapati in Kenya. After eight years of living and working there I had decided to move on.
Just cruising down the Ibadan – Lagos expressway at 120+ km/h when traffic from the other lane of the dual carriageway suddenly joins ours:
Welcome to Nigeria! This bizarre (but somehow functional) experience came to summarize my general feeling about Nigeria when I spent a few days working there last week. It’s something tragically comic, like, “How can this possibly be normal?”
I had intended to write about my experiences — watching Chinese tourists passing wads of US dollars to airport officials, airport security asking for “some Naira” from my pocket during frisking, the unavailability of any coffee except Nescafé, etc — but when I started thinking about it all I realized it was actually just tragic.
There’s hardly a better way to spend a Saturday in Nairobi than touring a 100-year-old tea farm in Limuru. In a city with very few green spaces, Kiambethu tea farm is literally a breath of fresh air — within forty-five minutes you can be away from the hustle and bustle of Nairobi gazing upon a rolling, green sea of tea leaves.
As if an escape from a loud, dirty city wasn’t motivation enough, the excursion is educational and they even cook you lunch!