Ohoro, Nyeri!

 What's up, Nyeri!

It's been a week since we moved to Nyeri. It is our base until we are done with our assignment. It's calmer, more relaxed, a lot greener and less dusty than Nairobi. It is also cooler than Nairobi. I feel that I under packed with regards to warmer clothes and over packed with regards with mosquito repellants as they are hardly any bugs with the cold climate here in Nyeri.

It's about 150 km (that's about 93 miles for us, Americans) away from Nairobi, and our clients are based in Nairobi. So with the distance and the horrible traffic in Nairobi city center, we have to leave about 3 hours for a client meeting. A 9 AM meeting with the client means leaving at 5:30 AM. More importantly, Kenyans are not used to conference calls as we (IBMers) are. Conference calls are considered not a real meeting. You have to meet your clients face to face. In order to do interview and data gathering, we have to set our meetings ahead of time and plan accordingly - usually schedule all our meetings in Nairobi in 1 day and, sometimes, we have to split our group so we can attend conflicting meetings.

During our first night in Nyeri (last Wednesday), we shared snacks from the places we are from. I brought candies made from prickly pear to represent Arizona and several snacks from the Philippines - dried mango, fried corn aka "cornic" (which was a surprise hit!) and candied pilinut. (FYI - I also brought Philippines' ginger juice aka "salabat" and coco jam for breakfast.) A standout American snack was the s'mores that Dorine (from Poughkeepsie, NY) brought.

Some of the snacks we shared

Tim Tam from our Aussie friends

One of our Mexican treats

We had to enjoy our snacks with Tusker and White Cap!

Our hotel is located up the hill, so it is a trek to go down the town and coming back up. On our first morning, I ran a little over two miles with three of the girls and explored the town. They drive on the other side of the road, so I'm extra careful to remember what side to check when I cross the street. Unfortunately, during that run, we saw a lady get hit by a car. She got hit as we ran by. I initially thought two cars hit each other because of the bang. Then, we heard a loud cry. When we looked back, they were carrying her by her arms and legs to bring her in the back seat of the car that hit her. That was the last time I ran in Nyeri - not because of the incident but we've been so busy with other things. Anyway, on our next run, we will definitely be running in the other direction away from the town.

Walking to town for lunch and for some exploration

Vivian, Nadia and I in our short ladies' table

There are more traditional food here in Nyeri. I have finally eaten Ugali which is a white dish made of cornmeal. It would be synonymous to rice for Asians or tortilla for Mexicans. You have to eat it with your right hand (which is considered to be the "clean hand"). Eating it is a process - you have to pick a piece of it, roll it with your right hand, put a dimple in the middle, then, pick a piece of your entree with it. Usually, you eat it with choma (it's the way they cook meat).  Besides ugali and choma, they have very good vegetable dishes and fish dishes (it's usually tilapia).

Fried Tilapia with ugali and vegetables

Lamb Choma

Irio - mashed peas and potatoes with corn. Easier to eat since you don't have to roll it like the ugali

Lunch with 1 kilo of lamb choma with a side of ugali and irio that Vivian and I shared. We later learned that we should have only ordered 1/2 a kilo as it is huge. Anyway, it only cost us a total of  about $10 for the whole thing.

Another highlight in Nyeri is the cheap massage. After being sore from our Mt Kenya trek (more on this later), I got a 60 minute Swedish massage for 1000 KSh which is equivalent to $12.50 =)

#ibmcsc kenya 6