Limuru (Road)

Today’s adventure began innocently enough with a matatu ride to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to register for the Climate Change Convention Conference that will take place in Nairobi over the next two weeks. Matatus are van-sized busses that serve as the primary mode of transportation for most Nairobians. They seat about 14 plus driver and ticket lackey, and are notoriously dangerous as they careen around town barely avoiding pedestrians, bikers, and other vehicles. So we headed into the commercial part of the Westlands neighborhood, passing the “California Kiosk” (above) along the one-mile walk, and searched for the right numbered matatu. Unbelievably to these two New Yorkers, there’s no official map of the different lines through town. There’s also no way to travel to the UN compound directly, even though it’s about 10 minutes by taxi, so we jumped onto a matatu traveling into the city centre and then transferred to the No. 115 line to Limuru Road, where UNEP is located. The problem was we got on the matatu heading to the town of Limuru, which is about 40 km from Nairobi. So, what would have been a 10 minute cab ride turned into a 2+ hour adventure into the countryside, past ramshackle shantytowns as far as the eye could see. It was the first time it really felt like I (Dave) was in Africa. We eventually arrived in Limuru at a matatu depot and switched to the 114 line, which took us back to Nairobi and dropped us just down the road from UNEP.

Speaking of UNEP, and many of the other international organizations for that matter, the disconnect between the way many of their staff live and that of the people they’re trying to help is shockingly stark. Big, shiny SUVs seem to be the vehicle of choice. At least one UNEP official has even gotten his hands on a sporty BMW. No doubt that some of the separation in lifestyle is to be expected, as many of these professionals are highly accomplished people who are accustomed to a certain quality of life. We’re certainly guilty of this type of duplicity ourselves. Just look at the guarded apartment complex we’re living in, complete with pool, health-club, sauna, and steam.

But why would one of the foremost environmental organizations in the world - whose mission it is to promote sustainable development - be supplying its staff with some of the worst gas guzzlers and polluters around? There’s certainly nothing sustainable about everyone driving an SUV. This reminds me of the time I saw a Nissan Pathfinder ad in the pages of Sierra magazine and was so outraged that I wrote a letter to Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one because those types of ads stopped soon thereafter. We need to start writing some letters to UNEP.

I wonder what the Kenyan woman walking past the “Red Hill Super Hotel” just outside of Limuru would say.