Part 2 - Adventures in Nairobi

So, I’m at the airport & need to find a place to stay for the night. Medair has a base here in Nairobi to support the Southern Sudan teams, so that was the place to start – connections are key! Problem is, my phone is not roaming – it won’t make any calls. With the very few Kenyan shillings I have, I’m able to purchase a sim card & some airtime as all phones in Africa are pay-as-you go. I manage to get the Medair number from my friends in Uganda, but can’t get ahold of anyone. I decide its better to just show up there & see what’s available. So begins a fun adventure with Stephen to find this place in Nairobi based on a street name…we get there about an hour later – the traffic has died down since that morning. The Medair office is found, but is closed, no one’s there today! The teamhouse is supposed to not be far, so we search again & this time it doesn’t take too long to find the place – no one’s there either! Ok – but there is a helpful landskeeper who calls the person in charge to see if they have any room for me. Unfortunately, no, they are all full this week…so I ask if they have any suggestions around the area? They do – and it would cost me about $60 for one night…in Nairobi? Huge sigh, Stephen says he’s knows this Catholic guesthouse nearby that we could try. So we head there & it looks promising, but the lady at the front desk says they are not taking any guests today. Right. Next suggestion is the YMCA downtown – a youth hostel. Well, its still the afternoon, so I decide to take a look and see if it might be ok for one night…I really don’t want to sleep in a dorm-like room and have to worry about my things while I’m sick… It actually ended up being quite nice – for a hostel in Africa. I got my own private room, it was very affordable & they have a restaurant there, an internet café, and a swimming pool. The guy at the front desk even escorted me downtown to get some more money at the ATM – he said it wasn’t a good idea for me to go out alone…I think even if I had felt better that night, I would have spent most of my time locked in my room! So, I went to bed early and planned to get up very early to catch my next flight and hope that the next day would be better than my first…