Here's a link to photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/dhoekema/OurHouse?authkey=Gv1sRgCNLg6_rQnrbIUA&feat=directlink
Let me introduce you to our temporary home here at Daystar University. We occupy one of four furnished flats in a sort of row house—a bit like Klaas and Krista’s home in Mount Airy, in north Philadelphia, but on a much larger scale. Unit 1 contains the offices of Daystar’s “Resource Mobilization Department,” which seems to mean “Care and Feeding of Visitors and Donors.” We are in Unit 2, a three-bedroom apartment with well-maintained dark wood floors downstairs, linoleum upstairs. The walls are concrete (making the rooms echo), the ceilings a sort of plasterboard (extensively discolored upstairs from the heavy and unseasonal January rains—repairs are pending). Downstairs is an L-shaped sitting room and dining area, with a couch and several upholstered chairs at one end, a large dining table and chairs at the other. The kitchen and a small toilet room adjoin the dining room, with a small refrigerator, a brand new electric/gas combination cooker (replaced after we arrived because the old one was not working very well), a small microwave oven and a toaster. And quite a bit of counter space, especially after Susan reorganized and moved some unneeded things into the back of the large pantry.
Unit 3, very much like ours, is occupied by Bill and Julisa Rowe, longtime visiting faculty members at Daystar, and their two sons, aged 10 and 5. They are the best neighbors that anyone could possibly wish for. They’ve shared their pots and pans and spices and recipes, taken us shopping, advised on the expectations and habits of Daystar students, fed us dinner, and more. And we’ve been able to return their kindness by babysitting when both parents are occupied and their house help cannot be there. And then there is Unit 4, where I stayed in November—larger than any of the others, with four bedrooms, and reserved for short-term visitors. These were privately owned units adjacent to Daystar’s Nairobi campus, and after they were purchased the campus security perimeter was expanded so that they are now inside it. There is a vehicle gate and a walking gate just in front of our units, attended 24 hours a day by at least two guards. We also have heavy bars on all our windows, and a hinged iron grate protecting both front and back doors. When we are in the house we keep a padlock in place on the grate, and when we leave or go to bed we also set a heavy deadbolt.
Which is confirmation of what you already know, and what worried Calvin administrators and parents of our Interim students: Nairobi is a city with an alarmingly high crime rate, and we have learned to be very careful about where we go and at what time. But longtime residents, both Kenyan and American, have confirmed the impression we have after our first few weeks: living here is like living in any city in South Africa, or in the urban areas of any major US city. You stay off the streets after dark, avoid certain areas even in daytime, and watch for any unusual activity when you are out and about. And then you go about your life as usual. There seem to be waves of crime: two years ago carjackings occurred nearly every day (mostly in the affluent suburbs on the other side of town), but now they are infrequent. Foreigners draw the attention of con men and pickpockets, here and everywhere; but police and security guards are thick on the ground in most of the areas where we shop. We’ve heard sobering tales from a number of Nairobi colleagues and acquaintances about being confronted in their cars or homes by young men with guns who demanded their money, mobile phones, and computers.
This is certainly not as safe an environment as Accra, or Grand Haven. But the habit of noticing your surroundings and staying alert is quickly implanted, and then you stop worrying. Few thefts involve physical injury, and we heard some remarkable tales in our security briefing at the US Embassy of carjackers who gave the car back when they realized its owner needed medical help, of another carjacking team who promised to return the car to a shopping center parking lot in a few hours and did so, of street thieves who made sure their victim still had enough money for a taxi home. And this is the other side of the ledger that has to be considered along with the high crime rate: most of the Kenyans whom we have met in any context—security guards, shopkeepers, fellow customers, church attenders, even those who happen to be walking in our direction on the street—have extended a warm greeting and a handshake, inquired how we are enjoying our stay in Kenya, and asked whether they may be of any assistance. This is a city of three million, in short, where the people we meet behave more like those who welcomed us to Iowa farming towns of five hundred souls when we rolled into town on the RAGBRAI ride last summer. There are too many criminals and too few police in Nairobi, certainly; but there are also about 2,999,000 helpful and hospitable people, black and white and Asian.
A ceramic water filter is provided in each flat, but we have put it away and are using instead the microfiber filter that Susan purchased at a Partners Worldwide conference last fall, which we have inserted into the bottom of a 5-gallon plastic pail. It’s been working beautifully and is much easier to use than the ceramic filter, which requires first boiling the water and has a very low flow. On our trip to Ulungu Village, where we worked on concrete construction projects for two days in unrelenting heat, having that filter along was a lifesaver, since we would have had to drive nearly an hour to find a shop with bottled water to sell. We’re told that Nairobi water is seldom really dangerous—it is chlorinated and treated—but there are lapses now and then. Kenyans and visitors alike stick to bottled or filtered water, to be safe. And although the water from the tap usually runs clear, every once in a while it’s dark with sediment and sludge.
Upstairs is a back bedroom where we sleep, and next to it a toilet room and a bathroom, with a large tub and handheld shower. Water pressure is never very high, but it’s nearly always available—we’ve had only a few water outages, never for more than a few hours. There’s an electric water heater in a closet that we turn on when needed.
And then we have two guest bedrooms, which have served at times as our offices, then housed our guests. We have internet access thanks to Bill and Julisa’s decision to invest in a radio receiver and wireless transmitter, whose range extends into our flat. So we are sharing the cost. My computer’s wireless card is not working, so we’ve strung a long Ethernet cable from bedroom window to bedroom window. And apart from occasional outages the connection is comparatively fast—not as fast as our cable modem at home, but a great deal faster than the campus network seems to be, when it’s working.
All in all this is a lovely place to live. We have two good supermarkets within a mile’s walk, and a variety of small shops (hardware store, Scripture Union bookstore, florist, a rather dingy grocery store that carries the basics) even closer. The lecture hall where I teach my classes is so close that when I give the students a 15-minute break I can go home for a cup of tea.
And the two guest rooms are being put to good use! Beverly Dezan arrived last Tuesday and is spending two weeks exploring Kenya with us. Richard Prins, son of our friends Rick and Connie and frequent visitor to East Africa, came up from Tanzania last week and spent the week with us before going off to a village in western Kenya for a friend’s wedding. Wednesday nights we provide overnight accommodation to the two children of an American couple who live on the Athi River campus, so that they do not need to take that arduous journey after an evening orchestra rehearsal. Next weekend one of the students from our first Ghana program, visiting from his work in Ethiopia, will stay a couple of nights. It’s great to have enough room to extend the sort of hospitality that so many have given to us over the years.Again, the photo link:http://picasaweb.google.com/dhoekema/OurHouse?authkey=Gv1sRgCNLg6_rQnrbIUA&feat=directlink
