Why is it important to put fuel in the taxi?

Hello everyone! This is my last night in Nairobi, and then off to Zambia for 9 days before the trip home! And just when I thought you’d have to listen to more boring stuff about peaceful demonstrations and security briefings, we managed to have a little adventure!

On the way back from our meetings today, our taxi dies in the middle of a four-lane road in rush hour traffic. Rush hour traffic is very slow, just like the US, but made far more entertaining by the people, bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles weaving in-between the cars. Add to that a bit of rapid lane changing by most of the drivers, and you’ve got quite a show! All that said, they do follow the lines in the road and the traffic signals much better than what I observed in my previous trip to Africa. People still squeeze by each other very closely. You’d swear you were going to hit the car, pedestrian, bike, etc. you are driving by, but somehow you always squeak by. I did learn the difference yesterday between a close call and a near accident. We frequently have close calls – that’s coming to within 3 inches of whatever is nearest you. A near accident is when you come within less than one inch. We had a near accident yesterday. No seatbelts in the back of the taxi cab, but my knees and shoulders stopped me against the seat just fine. All’s good, but it was a good lesson. I have decided I am never going to drive in Nairobi. Add all that I said above to the fact they drive on the left side of the road, and I’d have guaranteed accident!

OK. Back to the taxi. So the taxi dies in the middle of the four-lane road. The driver spends about 5 minutes cranking the engine to try to restart it. Then he thinks to put on his flashers. Several close calls here as traffic tries to maneuver around us. He then gets out, puts the hood up, and begins to pull off pieces of the car. It is quickly obvious that he and I probably have about the same level of mechanical skill. We can both pull the pieces off and put them back where we found them. Actually, I may have more. As I looked over his shoulder, I observed that the gas needle was pointing squarely at the large “E” on the fuel gauge. He gets back in the car saying over and over “Serious. Oh! This is serious!” We are thinking this is not good. We suggest that it is because he is out of gas. He assures us that the line isn’t really on “E”. It just looks like it.

After about 5 more minutes of cranking the engine, getting out, pulling pieces off, putting them back on, yelling in Swahili on his cell phone, and repeating “Oh, this is serious”, we are approached by a Nairobi police officer. The officer did not think we should be sitting in the middle of a four-lane road in the middle of rush hour with the hood up. Or at least that was my interpretation of the Swahili with the hand gestures. A moment or so later, the driver begins to push us. Unfortunately, that is directly into the next lane of traffic. More honking and close calls. The officer wants us to jump the hard curb, and put the car on the sidewalk, but the driver can’t get enough speed to do it. We finally get to the next intersection (the entrance to the University), jump the curb, get the car on the sidewalk (displacing the pedestrians), and stopped. About 15 minutes later, we finally get the call that the new taxi is here, but unfortunately, can’t get to where we are because of traffic and one way streets, so we grab our things and walk down the main highway to find the new taxi. Imagine the stares!

It then took forever to get to the hotel as we were then stopped by the Parliament building. There was a motorcade leaving as the traffic was stopped out front. The driver told us that was the President of Kenya and Kofi Anan leaving after the completion of the peace talks. I don’t know if it was really them, but there were several cars, all with flags on them.

Good news today about the peace talks. An agreement was signed, so everyone here is very happy about peace being restored. No demonstrations today, and everyone we talked to seems very happy about the way things have turned out.

Except for our entertaining drive home, it was a very quiet day. A few parting thoughts about Nairobi. I think this would be a very interesting city to return to when the political climate settles a bit. The city is incredibly green with beautiful flowers, lots of parks, and the main city is very modern. When you drive a bit outside the main city, you do see slum areas, people living in metal shacks, trash on the roadside, etc. We did see some of this today as the taxi drive to the office involved an off road trip down a barely two lane dirt road. The driver wanted to avoid the traffic jams.

That’s about it for today. Hope to be able to log on from Zambia, but uncertain if the hotel will have internet access. I’ll post again when I can get on line.