Nairobi runs on money. It is the most money centered place I have ever been. It is also corrupt, from the highest to lowest level. Many are out for personal gain alone and the practice has made it inefficient and resistant to change in just about every sector of daily living. People would rather write business transactions out on receipts with carbon papers than have a computerized cashier machine because it might possibly put them out of work.Driving in Nairobi is chaos! Why put up traffic lights or speed limits when they’ll be ignored? So the matatus, taxis and personal vehicles end up in traffic jams that waste 2 hours for a 20 minute trip. An appointment will be honored or not- or you can wait three hours only to be told that you must come back tomorrow. My colleague and I wanted to volunteer to rock and socialize abandoned babies on the maternity floor of a large city hospital that had been begging the public for volunteers. We were ushered to several offices and then, finally, to the Public Relations Officer. He listened to our request and said he would get back with us the next day. It would require one phone call. Three weeks later- when our time was short and we could no longer volunteer- he got back with us. It seemed not to matter that we had written a letter of introduction weeks before we came, which he said he had not seen but which was, in fact, on his desk. And hotels may charge additional costs at will. It made me furious and frustrated. Worse, we were often met with,” I don’t know.” Or just “No.” “May I speak with the manager? Is she in?” “I don’t know.” “Can you call her and see?” “No. I don’t have her number.” “But you work here, correct? And you SHOULD have her number, don’t you think?” “Well, I don’t have it and besides, I can’t call her.” “Why?” "Um, I don’t have any more minutes and the land line is broken…” Which brings us to the phone situation……

    Everyone must have a cell phone in Africa. In downtown Nairobi, there is a kiosk of land line phones that run half a city block. None of them work. Even the cell phones seem to work irregularly. Daily allotments of “minutes” have to be purchased from individuals on the street or at various stores to make the cell phones work. Thus, if you run “out of minutes,” and there is no one close by to sell you a scratch card of minutes, or you have no money, you cannot make an outgoing call, although you can receive a call. In a place where communication is important, this method is iffy, at best.

    Since there are few computers, accessibility is relegated to the “cyber cafés.” For 1-15 ks per minute, you can often e-mail and use the web-except of course, when the provider is “down.” The computers are often slow and will lose e-mails or documents in progress with no warning. It can be too frustrating.

    In 2003, current President Mwai Kibaki ran on a social justice, equality, collaborative government and anti-corruption agenda. He wanted to develop a “rainbow coalition” that included all Kenyans. There were laws made emphasizing integrity and transparency. For example, there are signs and posters in public buildings that reminding citizens that “Bribery is illegal.”
None the less, many in power ignore the signs and ask for money "to make the transaction go more easily.The good news is that an increasing number of citizens are refusing to pay bribes when demanded. It seems that corruption is still widespread, practiced by individuals, businesses and political entities. Nature, it has been said, abhors a vacuum. And although I have some reservations about Christianity imposing itself in other countries, it does offer an alternative ethical structure to challenge the “business as usual” bribery mode. Thus Christianity’s impact on the general public has given people perhaps more courage to report corruption when they experience it.

    Life in Nairobi is time consuming, inefficient and frustrating. An incredible amount of time is spent “waiting” or getting wrong or no information. Everything runs on money. There are unspoken expectations for interacting business or other transactions which slow down or obstruct the simplest tasks. While the literacy rate is supposedly 85%, and there is great emphasis on reading newspapers and publications, there are large gaps in scientific information and folklore is an often accepted as scientific fact. There seems to be great social distance between the rich and the poor with many wealthy Kenyans unconcerned about the plights of others.

    But in Kiambiu, the Leo Community is eager to learn as much as possible, The ladies and I even ignored a hailstorm (the first in 47 years) because we so involved in an HIV training video. They want scientific fact. Their lives depend on it.

    I met, quite accidently, a beautiful young woman who works at Channel 2. I suspect that she comes from a wealthy family. Contrary to what I had heard about the rich, she has devoted herself to philanthropy. She was eager to become a contact for LECDEN and I am hoping that they will be able to collaborate in some fund raising events together.