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September 26, 2007
Nairobi National Park
It's a national park right in the vicinity of the city centre, which makes it convenient to reach, but also interesting in terms of urban development. The government is now trying to keep the migration corridor for animals open, which evidently is a challenge due to heavy urbanisation.
The reason I was not able to catch a glimpse of lions or other heavy duty predators was mainly because I was too late in the morning doing the game drive, and that there simply aren't many lions left in the NNP.
The park is also next to the Masai people's settlement and there are from time to time land and compensation disputes between the settlers and the local government.
In general the city, with its local and international professionals and the very visible polarisation of social and economical standards, culture, nature, ethnicity, and urban texture makes the city super interesting. What makes it more interesting is the vast amount of humanitarian and development (aid) agencies located in the city. These agencies, I guess, makes Nairobi stand out in the field of "rapidly urbanising" cities in the global south.
More to come later. But this calls for a new paper, a continuation of the New Neutrality proposal.
Posted by hans at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2007
Sunday Images
Some images from Nairobi from Sunday.
Ken, my driver leading me to City Park
Church underneath the trees nearby the City Park
Monkeys and people taking a rest
Billboards en route to Downtown
Cityscape
Posted by hans at 12:04 PM | Comments (2)
September 16, 2007
Expensive City
Paying big dollars to stay near the UN compound and need seriously to move before I use up all my money. For the first time in a long while, I have done nothing on a weekend. Yesterday, I went and see a room where some UN personnel live and on Monday I need to move from this hotel room.
Have seen Nairobi only at night from a car. The nightlife seems to be active. I went with friends to see some of the night clubs. This one night club was filled with megadrunk under-aged Swedish diplomatic brats and off-duty British soldiers. Equally absurd is the Village Market, a Newjersian shopping mall (one of the city's biggest) near my hotel. It's a gated mall near the American Village (gated community only for Americans) and the only thing that differs the mall from a normal American mall is that it lacks the superfat people, and has more international newspapers on its news stands. It also has a food court like a proper mall should have, but lacks escalators and elevators.
The local television seems to be OK. Sunday is filled with gospel and tv-preachers, but other than that, the local tv seems to be importing shows from MTV, CNN, BBC...Al Jazeera is also airing in the hotel I'm staying at. Have been watching that lately and it feels appropriate to get the news from Al J. since they concentrate more on Asia, Middle-East and Africa.
Alright, sorry about the lack of photos. There is a no-photographing-policy at the vicinity of my hotel due to the embassies and stuff. Hopefully I will get some images up and running as soon I get to the city.
Posted by hans at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2007
No Hustle
After having the most expensive breakfast at Schiphol airport, the flight to Nairobi went well. Had a lot of space around me and slept almost the whole flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi.
Arriving at Kenyatta Airport was no hustle. Bags came out and Charlie was there to meet me. During the taxi drive to my temporary lodging place we talked a lot and Charlie explained about life in Nairobi. He showed me the places as we drove through them. Apparently, Indians have bought a lot of land here, doing good business. Koreans are here for the church, and the Americans only hang around with themselves.
Nairobi seems to be a very interesting place to stay in for a while and am taking it slow to get to know the city. The people I've met during the first couple of days are nice, friendly, and helpful. Met some of my co-workers and had a short briefing on my future work. All-in-all, will be busy with interesting stuff.
Details later. Tonight out for some drinks.
Posted by hans at 07:10 AM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2007
Production Floor Group
Production Floor will be a bit refreshed and slimmed down to two blogs and a main page. Works will be presented at thepublicservice.org website and sukupark.com will also be redesigned and slimmed down. These changes will be done most probably over a long period of time and finished for the holiday seasons 2007. We like long processes.
Posted by hans at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2007
Farewell
Yesterday's party was sort of the first physical manifestation of Facebook. Farewell presents included Napa Illustrations, diarrhea medicine, books, sausages, music, games, and strong alcohol. Thank you all!
Posted by hans at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2007
Leaving Home Street
Finally, the moving process from my home street has begun. Today I will move books and other heavy furniture. Also, went this morning to sell our car. The Toyota dealer didn't offer that much, while this secondhand car salesman in a rather dodgy place offered 1000E more than the Toyota dealer. I can feel my carbon footprint getting smaller by the hour... If we don't take into account the around-the-world-ticket I'm going to use from next Wednesday.
Petri helping out
Posted by hans at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2007
Diploma Work Stolen
Today I went to the Sanomatalo graduation work exhibition to show my work to my friend, only to notice that it had been stolen. Why would someone steal my graduation work? I don't know. It wasn't misplaced or anything... Somewhat taken that the thief only stole my graduation work, but kind of sad that it was my only sample.
Posted by hans at 06:37 PM | Comments (2)
September 02, 2007
I'm Moving
It's been a while since I have written on this blog. I'm moving from Helsinki to Nairobi. Will begin writing more often I think. Just finished my Master's Thesis, and am at the moment packing, moving, and throwing away a lot of stuff.
Posted by hans at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)