How the Other Half Lives

In case anyone is wondering, I am way behind with my entries and have not caught up to the present time yet. I'm trying to keep my comments in chronological order, so don't be confused if I am mentioning things J-F spoke about three weeks ago!

So, while the foreigners are off galavanting on their fancy safaris and going to the beach, what are the locals doing? Well, we had the chance to see for ourselves.
The day after we returned from our safari, we were invited to a someone's house for an afternoon visit. In fact, he is the gardener here at the hostel where we're staying. I had been chatting to him about all of the things in the garden, bananas (several types), avocados, oranges, lettuce for the tourists (africains can't understand why we eat this stuff) etc. and I said I hadn't eaten ugali yet (a local specialty, corn meal mush, nothing too amazing) and he spontaneously invited us to his house. This of course thrilled me completely because the point of our trip is to meet locals and see how they live, and it's not always that easy when you're staying in a hostel with a bunch of tourists. So, he took the bus with us, (we were the only white people on the bus, tourists tend to take taxis) and then we walked about 15 minutes through his neighborhood before reaching his house. I wasn't expecting anything fancy bit I figured that since he seemed to have a pretty good steady job, his living conditions would be O.K. Frankly, it was a shock. His entire house is smaller than our kitchen, in other words, about five square meters. On one side of the room there's a bed, on the other side a couch and a charcoal stove in the corner for cooking. He has electricity but no running water. The bathrooms are communal for the entire neighborhood. I don't think there is any shower to speak of. The houses are so close together, basically there are just dirt allyways between them. And garbage everywhere. The smell is overwhelming. You can't get away from it, even when you're inside. And the amazing thing is they don't complain, and they invited us! (We had hot chocolate and sweet potatoes) A very humbling experience. How does he go to work every day, see these rich tourists sitting around in these beautiful gardens, with seemingly endless funds, and not be raging? This is every day life for, not only half, like my title suggests, but probably 90% of Kenyans. Work as they might, it is just not possible to improve their living conditions. Needless to say, Evelyne, Noemi and Julien were equally as impressed as I was. I think they will remember this visit for a very long time.
The next day we went to another family's house, this time in a much wealthier neighborhood. Here we were treated to a typical african meal: beef stew, chicken, several types of vegetables, rice, ugali and chapatis. We could hardly get out of our seats when it was time to go. The house was fairly modest, but this family has a big SUV and his children study in the States. A big contrast from the day before.