Hujambo! | Page 7 | Living and Working in Nairobi, Kenya

Kenya

Reporting a Theft at the Nairobi Central Police Station

Last weekend I had my phone — an LG Nexus 4 — stolen on a matatu in town (a City Hoppa bus on the Ngong Road → Nairobi route). It must have happened as I was getting off at Kenyatta Ave / Koinange street, as I had it in my hands just before then, but had put it into my bag before alighting. I wanted to go tell Safaricom to block the IMEI so that the phone couldn’t be used on their network, and apparently they won’t do that unless you file a police report.

This is what happened when I went to the Central Police Station to report the theft.

TL;DR: it was an very unpleasant experience; somehow they manage to make you feel like a criminal for being the victim of a crime… (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Books

The Girl in the Picture

I’m reading The Girl in the Picture by Denise Chong. In short, it’s about the life of the girl central to one of the most famous pictures from the Vietnam War. I wasn’t alive when the war was going on (so the history and politics surrounding it are a mystery to me), but I’m pretty sure everyone has seen that picture…

Pictures, Travel

One Day in Doha

A few hours before my flight back to Nairobi, I looked at my itinerary and realized I was scheduled for a twenty-one-hour layover in Doha. Sad panda. I’ve spent a few hours there before, but always with a few episodes of some TV show on my phone and a good book. So I decided to book a hotel and get a visa to enter Doha for the day — at least then I could get some sleep, take a shower, and see something new!

Last Minute Hotel Booking

From a shared computer in the hostel in Bangkok I hurriedly found a hotel in Doha which was on the Embassy of Qatar’s approved list of hotels and made a booking. It turns out that this isn’t as important as I thought, as they don’t do any checking or anything; the immigration lady just asked where I was staying and I said the name and it was enough. For reference, I stayed at the Mövenpick Hotel Doha.