Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project

Category: General, Kenya through a windscreen | Date: May 17 2008 | By: Seamus

Here are a few snapshots of my trip back from Nairobi.

Filling up with diesel… and takeaway coffee. From a well-known kenyan coffee shop chain that is NOT putting money into conservation in Kenya (I hope the coffee moguls from JH out there are listening).

This is the main national highway of Kenya, the one from Mombasa to Nairobi. It carries much of the traffic for east africa. It is currently a vehicle-destroying, dusty, chaotic and dangerous track. Apparently the kenyan government is fixing it. They have been doing this for the last few months, and take great delight in sending traffic from the national highway into the bush without warning. The powers also find interesting and different ways of describing these forced misadventures. I posted a pic of a sign that indicated a “deviation” a while ago. On this last trip I found a “diversion”. Still not sure that either of them are appropriate to describe the infomal off-ramps.

I really liked this one. I can kind of imagine some additional writing that might read, “if you are so close that you can actually read this sign then you have lost the national highway completely”. Road workers, its seems, are not only linguistically skilled, but have a sense of humour.

And every now and then someone misjudges the edge of the road. This poor driver will be there for a while. LK if you’re reading, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell your friends at the Kenya Roads Board that we are very much looking forward to them finishing the highway soon.

If you have ever wondered how to transport a matress, but don’t have space inside your matatu (minibus taxi), why not tie it to the rear windscreen wiper using string?

Now… this is the slogan on the side of a bus. Its could be in honour of a children’s home in Arusha, but its more likely a tribute to a South African pop icon named Brenda Fassie, who sang a very popular song by the same name, if my memory serves me correctly. I think it was about beer, and sung partly in Xhosa.

Thats all for the moment… more to come after I’ve done some fieldwork.

Technorati : accidents, kenya, nairobi, roads, south african pop

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