Sunday, September 11, 2011

Nairobi Week 2: officially 2 degrees of separation from Steve Jobs and am now a proud parent of a baby elephant!

This has been a busy week with d.light's senior leadership team in town.  Some highlights:

  • All the Kenyan around me have this amused look when i attempt to speak/learn Swahili
  • I am now officially 2 degree of separation from Steve Jobs as our new head of R&D used to work with him, it was pretty cool to hear about how Apple does innovation
  • Had the best meal in Nairobi so far at this Indian restaurant called Open House...also satisfied my roomali roti craving :)  There is a big Indian population in Kenya because way back, the British brought a lot of engineers from India to Kenya to build rail roads, and these folks stayed afterwards
  • Wrapped up work week with traffic jam to city center, traffic is notorious in Nairobi, and basically it's to the point where you could be just parked on the road for hours unless you make your own road...and in this case, we're driving off the road because the matatus from the other direction decided to make a 2 way lane, 2 one-way lanes and end up riding on our side of the road, so we had to go around, something not uncommon here...it's amazing what you can do with a regular toyota sedan.


 

  • Visited the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust/Elephant Orphanage over the weekend.  We got there just in time for the feeding, these baby elephants literally charged into this ring where the milk is, and downed 2 bottles of special formula in a matter of minutes...then they proceed to be their cute selves and played a bit...The organization find these orphaned elephant all over the place and because they are milk dependent while little, they are brought to the nursery, and raised til they are old enough (12-13years), then released back to Tsavo National Park.  The keeper sleeps with the elephants every day but rotate so the elephants don't get too attached to them.  I immediately fell in love with the youngest elephant in the first group, Naipoki, she was born in Oct 2010, and was found in Namunyak Conservancy in Northwen Kenya.  She got rescued after being found fallen in the well, and her clumsiness and troublemaking nature could totally be observed even in the few minutes she was on the feeding ground.  She is also super affectionate and keeps hugging the keepers with her trunk.



  • Went shopping at "Junction" shopping mall, where there is a Nakumatt (the Kenyan Walmart, sells from electronics, grocery to wedding dresses), KFC (the latest buzz, have heard the wait in line ~ 1hr), and a Planet Yogurt (also a recent hot spot, similar to a Pinkberry), in addition to a list of restaurants and stores, shopping at Junction makes you forget that you're in Kenya since all the shops are super nice...there are a ridiculous amount of shopping malls in Nairobi, and traffic in the parking lot is pretty insane as well, especially at month-end (when people get paid) and on weekends.  I'm convinced that someone must bring Chitpole here since there's no Mexican restaurant, if people are willing to wait 1 hour for chicken, I think chitpole will have even a bigger draw!




  • Sunday was laundry day...I woke up with no electricity, so I had to boil water on the stove to add to my sink so the laundry powder can properly dissolve...good times.


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