The Queen of Africa: Goodbye Nairobi

Looking back at the six months in Kenya, this was surely one of my most worthwhile undertakings ever. I had no idea how the experience would be like when I left, and I was really scared because of crime and violent clashes. Yet it all turned out much better than I could ever have imagined. To close my blog with style I'd love to be able to sum up what I learned and how the experience affected me, but I'm afraid there is simply too much to say.

Unfortunately I estimated quite correctly how I would feel after returning to Finland. Finland is rather eventless, very expensive, and so grey that the world here seems like a bad copy of the original which is Africa. Being broke, unemployed and homeless doesn't make readapting too easy. Of course having many dear people around softens the shock considerably.

I think most people here don't understand why I loved living in Kenya so much. Much of the time I felt the place brought out the person I wanted to be, and there was stunning beauty everywhere. Yet there was a very crucial emotional reason to come back to Finland, but that's a whole other (love) story.

Each time settling down abroad has been a very rewarding experience. The influx of impressions and the ease of learning new things is addictive. The best part of learning is not so much about knowing more, it's rather about having a feel of in what way things can be different in another country and to what extent, and finding many more shades to what you've previously known about those places.

All the opinions I've tried to form about Kenya seem really elusive - everything I claim about the people or society seems to be true and false at the same time, because realities are so different in Nairobi and the countryside, amongst uneducated and academic people etc. But at least I know that, if nothing else. I know some Kenyans hardly differ from my Western friends, while with some I ran into significant cultural barriers.

I've browsed through my posts from earlier months, and I still find most of my first impressions accurate, but I have to take back a couple of statements. During the first days my perceptions were different because I lived in the fairly rural Muthaiga North, and heard so many warnings about crime, disease etc. Also the political crisis made the atmosphere more tense. So I think what I wrote about security in the beginning was a bit exaggerated. Nairobi is not the most dangerous city in Africa; there's some petty crime, but generally it's a friendly place. I got much more relaxed with time. The matatus weren't so awfully scary either, and eventually I got used to riding them. I also stopped disinfecting the vegetables, poisoning mosquitoes etc.

Also, after trying to talk to our guard on the second day I wrote it seems I'll have to learn to use simple sentences with the locals, but I must say that was a blatant generalisation. Many Kenyans speak better English than me or at least have a richer vocabulary.

Our trip to Dar and Zanzibar in August gave a new point of comparison to Kenya. When I came back, Nairobi felt like a very modern and big city where people seemed really westernized. It also felt like home.

Finally the last visual pleasures of Africa from July and August:

Zanzibar