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My African Adventure - Part 2

Submitted by editor_en on Wed, 04/02/2008 - 12:15.

DAY 2, 31ST MARCH 2008

Went to bed dog-tired last night. Diligently wrote my blog, shut off the light and fell asleep. Only to be woken 11 minutes later by a mosquito buzzing around my ear. Now I might be a vegetarian, but I'm sorry to say that I have no compunction when it comes to killing those pesky little mites. Out came the mosquito spray... and thankfully, after that there was peace and quiet. How can such a tiny little creature make such a racket... and why is it always buzzing directly in your ear - what's wrong with hanging around at the end of the bed? Unfortunately, although I'd got rid of the mosquito, sleep eluded me for the rest of the night, and when I got up this morning... I was even more dog-tired than when I'd gone to bed!

Today was a round of meetings unfortunately... no fabulous youth groups to sit down with and be inspired by and give me energy. And much of the day was spent sitting in the infamous Nairobi traffic. So I spent my time looking out for the 'Matatus' (apologies if I've misspelt it) - which are the local bus services shuttling everyone around the city. These aren't any old buses though - young people spend their weekend on the Matatus as part of their social life. But it's got to be the 'right' Matatu. They're all painted in wildly different colours, and most of them have got slogans painted on the front and sides of the buses... so you need to be on the coolest Matatu, if you want to be part of the 'in-crowd'. Which one's the coolest? Take your pick: there's "God have mercy" painted on one; "Barca" on another (for those of you not footie-mad, this particular Matatu supported Barcelona FC... and I also saw ones for Manchester United, and Chelsea too, and even ones championing individual footballers)... but my favourite one was the last one of the day I saw: which had "Pinch my Ride", beautifully etched on the front of the bus, in the style of MTV's "Pimp my Ride" logo - if I was a young Nairobian, that would naturally be my coolest Matatu of choice.

Traffic's so bad in Nairobi because the economy of Kenya over the last few years has been so strong, and everyone has been spending their money buying 2nd hand cars. But the roads are just not up to it: the pot-holes are plentiful and enormous, and there's a particular type of road-etiquette that I noticed: it's pretty much "pick a lane, any lane, and if you don't like it, move into the one next to you, without worrying about indicating". It was an experience!! But there's no way that I could ever successfully drive in Nairobi - I would be the person causing all the crashes!

Now we're on Ethiopian Airways on our way to Addis Ababa - which, as Sara has just told me, means "New Flower". I should introduce Sara - any of you reading this who know the Staying Alive Foundation well, will already know her, but for those of you who don't, she's the Foundation's Grant Manager, who works with our grantees around the world (at yesterday's visit with 'Positive Youth Initiative', they were very surprised to find that a) I was a woman, and not a man; and b) that Sara wasn't a "strict old lady", which was how they had imagined her!!)

Some hours later...

I landed in Abbis (with a thump... not the smoothest landing ever) only 4 hours ago, but I feel like I've been here a whole week already. We went for dinner with Peter Piot, the Executive Director of UNAIDS, and also a Staying Alive Foundation Board Member. I insisted that we ate Ethiopian, and so we ended up in this crazy Abisinian Cultural Restaurant... perhaps a tiny bit touristy, but there were a lot of locals there too. There was live music - by the end of the evening, I figured that the basic beat of Ethiopian music is pretty much the same, whatever the song - with incredible singers to accompany the same-beat music. But the stars of the evening were the dancers. Now it has to be said that I didn't join in with the dancing (many did - I did say it was a bit touristy)... but who could truly dance like these INCREDIBLE dancers. It's hard to describe... it's a mixture of shrugging your shoulders to the beat - which in itself would be challenging enough for me... but you also had to spin around while throwing your neck (and therefore your head), around and around and around. I have truly never seen anything like it - it looked as if their heads could easily fall off at the end of the dance. But as the music slowed down, the dancers stopped spinning... shrugged their shoulders a little bit more gently... and then danced off the stage. I was impressed!

Off we went to the hotel. Because we were travelling with Peter Piot, we got a police escort (sirens and all) accompanying us back. Now I know that I should be much more grown up than to get SUCH a kick out of travelling with a police escort - but I loved it! It was just a shame that Covi, my 9 year old son, wasn't with me to experience it too - but wait until I tell him: he'll be SO impressed!

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