Daily Life In Kenya
As we settled into life in Nairobi our days started to follow a routine and we stayed comfortably busy.
Rosie and I took tennis lessons almost everyday from about 10:30-12:30; Jordan dabbled a bit in golf lessons but they didn’t stick (he was in it for the golf bag until he realized he wasn’t going to get one) so the boys would usually do a morning walk through the coffee farm or golf course. On Mondays and Wednsdays we had guitar lessons at 3:30. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, Esba, trainer/coach, would arrive on his very fast motorcycle and hang with the kids for about an hour and a half to give Russ and I a break. Both kids are in school Monday through Thursday online in the evenings due to the time difference with the east coast. On Fridays, when there is no school to be home for, we will often do day trips around Nairobi.
Russ and I divide up schooling with Jordan, who requires close supervision lest he re-program our computers in the seconds we step away. I do math and ELA for an hour each on alternating days at 5pm and Russ handles social studies and science at 6:30pm. Jordan completes about an hour of homework each morning, 7 days/week, and Russ and I oversee our respective subjects. If you need to know the ratio of a circle or want to multiply a fraction, I can show you how, but Jordan is so incredibly smart he will do it in his head. Russ has really embraced his teaching role and when it came time to build a model cell, I about fell over when he surprised us with the clay, beads, pipe cleaners and even glitter (rookie move :) that he had acquired for the project!
We did NOT rent a car in Nairobi, so it’s currently the only country in which we haven’t had a minor accident. They drive on the left side of the road and we had been warned that driving could be crazy. I can attest to the fact that in Nairobi, drivers do not believe in karma. Along with most other things, ubers are easy to get and unbelievably inexpensive. Renting a car would have cost several thousand per month, as well as our marriage, so we came out ahead using uber.
An amazing thing about Nairobi is that literally anything can be delivered within a few hours. Water and groceries, sure, but also all sorts of random household items we needed during our stay such as mattress toppers, a boys swimsuit, a yoga mat, and more. UberEats is going strong there and our favorite order was delicious Indian food.
We were lucky to settle in so quickly to Nairobi. It would have been infinitely more challenging without our fairy godmother cultural coaches, Sara and Leeann. I went to college with Sara, and she and Matt lived in Nairobi for 3 years starting in 2015. During our visit with them in Maine this summer, they convinced us to spend the fall in Nairobi and Sara literally held my hand through WhatsApp for the entire time we were there. Sara introduced me to Leeann, who along with her husband, Hamady, have lived in Nairobi for 7 years with their two boys. Leeann, Hamady, Abdou and Samba showed up at our house the first Saturday we were in town with gifts and advice and immediately became our new best friends. I must have WhatsApped with Leeann and Sara hundreds of times per week, and my family loved spending weekend afternoons swimming and hanging out with Hamady and the boys. We truly cannot ever thank all of them enough.
Rosie became great friends with Gaia, whom she played tennis with, and Russ and I enjoyed getting to know her parents, who provided many great referrals. Jordan befriended an adorable 5 year-old in our neighborhood and we loved the time we spent with his family. Kenya was probably the hardest place to get used to in some ways, but thanks to all of the help and the wonderful friends we made there, it was also the most difficult to leave.
