Giving a Hoot

The mayor of Lima, Peru, has announced that the city will start to impose a $50 fine on anyone honking his or her car horn in downtown Lima. The idea is to reduce unhealthily high decibel levels in the center of the city.

We lived and drove in Lima for more than 3 ½ years. And like the locals, we ended up honking the horn as a regular practice. In Lima, traffic is insane, and honking is a form of language. To drive in the city is to experience the constant chorus of toots and hoots, varying from the polite and concise to the protracted expression of a piece of one’s mind.

There are plenty of traffic laws in Peru, and getting a driver’s license involves not only the written and driving tests but also medical and psychological exams. Yet, you do wonder about the sanity of many LImena drivers. Rules are broken regularly. Though there are traffic cops in Lima, their role seems to be to better snarl traffic at intersections, ignore rule-breakers, or pull people over to collect bribes. The result is a certain degree of automotive anarchy, and the highest per capita death rate from motor vehicle accidents in South America.

I recently discovered a show, produced by the Discovery Channel, which gives a great view of Lima traffic. Called Don’t Drive Here – Lima, it totally captures the craziness associated with driving in Lima. I laughed out loud watching the clips. You can find them here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFRBgLm1WSI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn9QS50sFAo

Now that we live in Nairobi, people ask me how the traffic compares to the insanity of Lima. 

The only answer I can give is that traffic in Nairobi is crazy, too, but in different ways.

Kenyan drivers are less aggressive by far than their Peruvian counterparts (notwithstanding the message received today from the security service about armed motorcycle-riding robbers). You are not as likely to see them get into fisticuffs over a parking space or to be cut off by someone making a left turn from the far right lane.

Kenyan and Peruvian drivers do have in common a wanton disregard for traffic rules and a tendency to pass on blind curves. They share the ability to make two or more lanes out of one and the opinion that traffic signals are mostly decorative. Also similar is the unwritten rule that the bigger car gets the right of way.

Another common feature is in the menace presented by the small buses called “matatus” here in Kenya and “combis” in Peru. In both countries, their drivers maintain a total disregard for the safety of their passengers or anyone else, and their driving records seem to range from accident-prone to deadly.

Nairobi is less than half the size of Lima in terms of population. Lima is a sprawling metropolis of 10 million people and has a much more elaborate infrastructure of roads. Peru does have laws about emissions standards, and you are supposed to get your vehicle inspected once a year. Somehow, that does not prevent the presence of incredibly beat up vehicles, missing lights and other bits and pieces, and belching black exhaust. You encounter the same problem in Kenya, which seems to lack emission rules and other controls altogether.

To be fair to the municipal government of Lima, they have made big efforts to encourage conversion of cars to natural gas, including all the taxis. Plans are underway to eliminate all the pollution-spewing combis and replace them with natural gas-fueled buses, and the city is slowly building a public transit system. There are even some bike trails and roads that are closed to traffic on Sundays, reserved for cyclists and pedestrians. None of that is happening in Kenya.

Traffic can be heavy and slow in Lima, but it doesn’t compare to the snarled jams you encounter in Nairobi, due to the lack of sufficient roads and absence of public transit. It’s particularly acute near the Central Business District (Nairobi’s downtown) or on the road leading towards Mombasa. A trip to the airport can take 35 minutes – or 3 hours.  And it’s not unusual to sit stuck in traffic for an hour without moving at all.

Even though the condition of the roads is not great in Lima, it’s far worse in Nairobi. There’s a remarkable lack of smooth asphalt. Driving in daylight can be challenging due to car-size potholes, invisible speed bumps, and the general absence of pavement markings or street signs. And that's on the paved roads. Driving at night is even more harrowing thanks to an almost universal lack of functioning streetlights.

But as tricky as driving may be here in Nairobi, one thing you are not likely to encounter is the endless blast of noisy horns so ubiquitous in Lima.

People in Nairobi are generally courteous and soft-spoken. They rarely honk their horns.

In fact, they don’t even use the word, honk. Here, one “hoots,” and only when it’s really necessary.

I could make jokes about comparing hooters and honkers, but I’ll restrain myself.

Suffices to say, I wish Mayor Villaran luck in curbing the honking levels in downtown Lima. As for me, I’ll try to refrain from giving a hoot, except when it really matters.

Exposed

We live in a glass house.

It has all the required alarms, bars, and security features expected of a nice house in Nairobi.

But it’s also bright, airy, and modern. It has huge windows, big open spaces, and lots of fun features.

The views looking out are beautiful, with plenty of flowering trees and exotic plants all around.

The problem is that the views looking in are also revealing.

During our first weeks in Nairobi, Britt affixed some sheets across our bedroom windows to offer a modicum of privacy. And before long, I had some plain muslin curtains made for all the bedrooms, and I rigged up various solutions for the bathroom windows.

You won’t be seeing any of them in House Beautiful.  But we can at least sleep, change, shower, and such without feeling like we’re putting on a show.

Nonetheless, and in spite of the fact that our house is pretty tucked away from things, we’ve had to let go of a lot of our old concepts of privacy.

To live as an expat in Nairobi is to be exposed.

At home, we are constantly surrounded by other people. There’s the 24 hour guard service, along with a bevy of gardeners, handymen, the housekeeper, and any number of repairmen called in to take care of endless problems with plumbing, electricity, leaks, and the like.

And then there’s the fact that we stick out due to our accents, origins, skin color, and overall foreign-ness.

Just as I was contemplating this, I noted a blog piece on NPR titled, What’s the Big Deal About Privacy? by Alva Noë. (http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2013/08/16/212546316/whats-the-big-deal-about-privacy

The author points out that privacy is a recent phenomenon and a rare luxury enjoyed by the lucky few who can erect the spaces and seclusion to remain unobserved by others.

If you visit Roman ruins or George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, Virginia, you can observe how using the bathroom was a communal experience. And I don’t just mean the public baths. Even the outhouses were multi-seaters. The concept of a private bed – or bedroom – is a modern one. And it remains out of reach for most of the world’s poor, who live squeezed together in tight spaces.

Privacy, argues the NPR blogger, is neither natural, nor for many, even desirable. Noë points to our desire to share our innermost thoughts, daily routines, and literal maps of every action we take, whether in an old-fashioned diary or through social media posts.

This blog is a clear example of that, I admit. And I have no expectations that anything I post on the great world wide web will remain in the least bit private.

Just this morning, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal about how the National Security Administration surveillance network can reach 75% of all Internet traffic in the US.

God help them. Most of it must be sooooooo uninteresting.

“Media and technology are opening us up the way we have, for most of our history, been open to other people and the world around us,” says Alva Noë.  “No man is an island. And most of us have no desire to be isolated.”

We have to re-adjust our notion of privacy, balancing it with questions such as, “Who really cares?” or “What have I got to hide.”

As a person living continents away from friends and family, I completely appreciate the connections and conveniences of social media. Even if it means giving up precious privacy.

And when it comes to living in a glass house, I think the main thing is not the loss of privacy, but the reminder that when doing so, it’s best not to throw stones.

Life in a Glass House - Radiohead

Once again, I'm in trouble with my only friend
She is papering the window panes
She is putting on a smile
Living in a glass house

Once again, packed like frozen food and battery hens
Think of all the starving millions
Don't talk politics and don't throw stones
Your royal highnesses

Well of course I'd like to sit around and chat
Well of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat
Well of course I'd like to sit around and chat
But someone's listening in.

Once again, we are hungry for a lynching
That's a strange mistake to make
You should turn the other cheek
Living in a glass house

Well of course I'd like to sit around and chat
Well of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat
Well of course I'd like to sit around and chat
But someone's listening in.

Stuck in the Mud

Yesterday, I spent over three hours stuck in the mud. 

I was in the Nairobi National Park, in a secluded spot near the Athi Dam.

I’d gone off on my own, because the sun was out, Britt was on a business trip, and I’d had it with staying inside to nurse a stubborn chest and sinus infection. I’d actually gone to the doctor (rare, for me), taken the prescribed meds, and tried to get well. After a week of this, I was still coughing up a storm and blowing my nose hundreds of times a day.

I figured that I could as easily blow my nose sitting in the car as sitting at home, and that the sight of wild animals would at least revive my spirits if not my immune system.

So, I packed a box of 200 tissues, a big bottle of water, some carrots and a banana, and my telephoto lens-equipped camera. And I took off in my Toyota RAV 4 ready for action.

I had a pleasant morning in the Park. Two different people told me about lion sightings at various places, which I tried to check out but with no luck. Still, I saw lots of great birds, ranging from tiny, colorful bee eaters to two crested eagles and a big secretary bird. I saw plenty of giraffes, zebras, and antelopes of multiple types. There were hippos at the hippo pool and crocs in the river.

It was early afternoon when I decided to head over to Athi Dam, where there’s a small lake that usually attracts lots of different water birds. Reaching the pond, I was somewhat disappointed to see that there wasn’t the usual flurry of bird activity, and that in fact, sightings were slim. Taking a road I’d never tried before, I started to make my way around the pond. It was when I reached the far side, the one you are least apt to see from any road, that I got stuck in the muck.

Now to put things in context, let me just say, this is NOT the rainy season. We’ve had a bit of precipitation, but basically the roads are dry. So it was especially idiotic of me to find a piece of road that was filled with deep mud.

Foolishly, I tried to just drive to the side of the two muddy tracks. But I wasn’t far enough over, and all of a sudden I felt the whole car slide sideways into the mud-filled ruts. Hoping I could just rock my way in and out, like you do in snow, I tried to ease forwards and ease backwards. But all that resulted was spinning wheels and a huge shower of thick mud covering not only the outside of the car, but also half of the inside, as I hadn’t thought to close the sunroof and windows. 

Now, the thing about getting stuck in the mud in the middle of a safari park filled with large carnivores, and their equally - if not more dangerous – large herbivore mates, is that you are NOT supposed to get out of your car.

I had just passed a big group of water buffaloes, which, though not meat eaters are known for their nasty dispositions and ability to trample and gore when roused.

So, I took a good look around.

Then I assessed my situation and the tools I had at hand. Unfortunately, neither was very promising.

I didn’t have a shovel or a tow rope. I didn’t even have my cell phone (left at home recharging).  I had some plastic mats and a sun visor, which I tried to shove under the tires. That did no good.

I did have a sun roof and a car horn. So, I used those. I stood on the drivers seat with my foot honking the horn, my body sticking out the roof, and arms waving. I could occasionally see a car off on a road on a nearby ridge. But they weren’t seeing me.

And then I heard the hopeful sound of a big 4WD coming up behind me. It was filled with a friendly family out for a Sunday drive in the animal park. I asked the kids to keep an eye out for dangerous animals from their sunroof, while the parents and I assessed the situation some more.

They didn’t have a tow rope or cable either. They did have a cell phone, and tried to call the park service number listed on the entry ticket. But there was no answer. They were reluctant to try to push my car with theirs for fear of damaging their front end.

So, I asked them to go off and find some park rangers, tell them that I was stuck and where they could find me. They promised to do so.

Somewhat relieved, I settled in to wait for help. I turned on the radio and tuned in to a BBC broadcast about the 10^th anniversary of the SARS outbreak. It was interesting and long. Then it was done. I moved on to the Radio France International and a story on the crisis in Egypt.

More than two hours had passed, with no sign of help.

The sky darkened. It started to rain.

I turned the engine on from time to time to make sure I wasn’t killing the battery.

I listened to more radio.

And I began to think I might have to spend the night in the park in my car. At least the seats recline. I’d eaten the two carrots and the banana, but I still had some water. And there was the bag of (stale) peanuts that’s always in the glove box.

But, I didn’t really want to wait all night in the park.

So, I went back to the honk and wave method. I couldn’t see any passing cars, but it was something to do.

And lo and behold, what should I see but a park patrol officer, on foot, with his camouflage uniform and regulation rifle, walking and waving in my direction.  He’d seen me from afar and noticed that I hadn’t moved for a while. But people do that, especially if they are watching a lion or looking at birds or such. And it was only when he heard the honking and saw me waving that he thought something was amiss.

He radioed his park service pals, the ones with the big Land Cruiser.

We waited. He joined me in the car to get out of the rain.  

He told me stories of people getting stuck and not found until morning, with a lion on the hood and such. I don’t know how true they were, but they were good stories. He contemplated walking up to the nearest road to look for cars if his pals didn’t come soon.

But then they showed. A big car filled with three strong guys. They had cables and wires – and within minutes they had pulled my car out of the mud.

It was filthy, and so was I. And there was a piece of plastic covering that was pulled from its place and dangling from under the car. We decided it wasn’t going to hurt anything, and they escorted me off the back trail and back to a main one, from which I made my way out.

It was dark by the time I got to the exit at the Main Gate. The rangers there were very kind. They didn’t give me a hard time about overstaying the closing time (6 pm, normally). They tut-tutted upon hearing my tale. One of them said that a family had indeed told her someone was stuck, and that she had called the park patrol to report it. But they had not responded (or found me) for some reason.

Once home, I took a good shower, made myself some food, and tucked myself into a warm bed. By the time I was up and out this morning, the day guard had washed all the layers of mud off the outside and inside of my car.

So, I made up a shopping list and headed to the Nakumatt. The unexpected adventures of Africa are part of the reason we’re here. It’s just that next time, I’ll at least have a tow rope.

Beyond the Big Five

Who can resist the gracefulness of a giraffe walking across the savannah?

If you come to Kenya on safari, you’ll undoubtedly hear about the BIG FIVE.

Originally, this label was used by big game hunters to designate the five large animals that were most difficult to hunt on foot, including the elephant, rhino, lion, leopard, and water buffalo.

Now, it’s mostly a tourist thing that drives people to believe that if they haven’t spotted each of the BIG FIVE, their safari – or visit to Kenya – just isn’t complete.

That’s hooey, of course.

The amazing animal life of Kenya comes in all sorts of sizes and types.

Yes, spotting a lion hiding in the tall grass or family of elephants is exciting and mesmerizing. But, there's so much more.  I’ve  seen an entire safari jeep-load of people stopped in silence to admire a tiny dung beetle pushing a giant ball of poop.  I’ve watched as people totally disinterested in birds have become enchanted by a pair of crowned cranes or tiny red-cheeked cordon bleu. I have yet to see anyone left unfazed by the graceful walk of a passing giraffe or bored by a family of warthogs running with their tales sticking straight up in the air.

Like so many aspects of living or traveling abroad, much of the best stuff comes with patience and happenstance. This is very true for animal sightings. More than once, we’ve seen something memorable only because we’d hit a dead end, taken a wrong road, gone off road with a local, or stayed later than intended. That’s how we encountered a pair of large Tsavo lions, found ourselves in the middle of a herd of more than 150 elephants, and saw our first set of cheetahs chowing down on a freshly killed impala.

And we’ve seen incredible things right at  a campsite or lodge. It was while photographing a group of mongooses by our campfire that I noticed the black cobra they were staring down, with its hood open and ready to strike in defense. We met a genet (with its cat-like body and paws and mongoose-like head and tail) in a hotel lobby, and observed a rare pack of more than 15 wild African dogs from our breakfast table.

I admit that on the spectrum of low to high, I’m well on the high end of enthusiasm for animal viewing. And it's not just the ones you see on safari.

I get excited about the huge variety of birds in our yard, finding a porcupine quill while walking the dog, or coming across a multicolored chameleon in our neighborhood. I put up with the bat that flies around in our house, even though I’m told they can carry rabies. And I tolerate the geckos that drop their poop all over the house but make up for it by eating bugs. I do put my foot down in some cases. The house rule is no monkeys, our dog Bacchus sees to that.  And I take no prisoners when it comes to rats in the attic.

We've been in Kenya less than a year, and already we've encountered a vast array of animals. Yes, we've seen the BIG FIVE, but it's the hundreds of everything else that really make it all a great adventure.

To share photos of all of them would be endless, but here are a few just to give you the idea.

Baby elephant

Warthog family

Young cheetah

Water buffalo with red-billed oxpecker

Migrating zebras and topi

Red-headed agame lizard

White rhino

Superb starling

Thompson's gazelle

Mongooses staring down a cobra

Cobra

Bat-eared foxes at dusk

Leopard

Impala

Hyena

Lilac-breasted roller

Lioness

Female impalas

Female ostrich

Secretary bird

Eland

White-breasted bustard

Jackal

Break-dancing zebra

Migrating wildebeests