I am sitting ant Nick’s desk looking out on a brilliant Kenya morning.  Nairobi was settled here because it is on a high plain with cooler weather and fewer mosquitoes.  I should be out taking photographs but I worry that it might disturb his dogs who would then wake everyone up.  I look out across his green lawn, a border of ti plants, etc. a hedge and then across a ravine to banana trees, maize and the other part of this neighborhood which is one of the five wealthiest in Nairobi.  The minister of health lives across the street behind armed guards from the military.

    Although no one had any record of our reservations in Dar es Salaam and all the planes to Kenya were full we finally did get a flight.  We arrived in Nairobi to find Nick exactly where he said he would be.  Then the adventure began.

    Driving in Nairobi during rush hour surprised even Heidi and I.  Thousands of people hawking peanuts, those triangle shaped emergency reflectors that motorists use after an accident, fruits, power strips, wrenches, etc. walked along the middle of the road.  The latest development according to Nick is women who do this.  Nick and the driver agreed that things really are getting more desperate.

    Perhaps the most alarming part of the experience although that is too strong of a word, irritating might be more appropriate, is the total disregard for rules or order or the other driver.  Driving on the left our car stopped to make a right turn across traffic an stopped at the intersection.  Immediately cars on the right began passing us by driving first on the wrong side of our road and then on the wrong side of the next road.  Since traffic in the lane on the correct side of the street was stopped these cars then blocked traffic moving in the other direction which then simply went up on the curb to go around them.  It was exactly like the Air Kenya Transfer Desk with cars.  If a society cannot figure out how to line up and take turns, how can it fully participate in the global economy?  I’m not going to invest in Kenya or make any predictions about when things might be better here.

    Along with many horrifying stories of being robbed and almost killed, Nick told us a funnier story yesterday.  Nick was driving in traffic that was completely stopped and talking on his cell phone with his right hand (the window side).  A thief grabbed the cell phone and ran off.  Without thinking Nick, left his car running with his computer and dogs in it and chased after him through the lines of stopped cars.  Nick was gaining on him and yelling “Thief!”  In Kenya as in many other African countries mobs can form who basically beat thieves to death.  The man who Nick was chasing thought of this, stopped running and then, very gently set down the cell phone on the center divider curb.  Nick’s eyes met his just before he ran off.  Fortunately, for Nick neither his car, computer, nor dogs were stolen also.  But that is my friend Nick – an inventor of a great tool for measuring region’s food needs, a negotiator who thinks well on his feet and an adventurer who sometimes doesn’t look before he leaps.  Right now Nick is leading the UN’s Somalia Country Team in a retreat.

    The children love Nick’s cottage which is a guest house below a family that owns pharmacies in Kenya.  Their son went to Stanford, worked for JP Morgan and now is at Oxford, no doubt preparing for a brilliant business career.  I wonder what his parents advise him about returning to Kenya.