Give the people what they want!

�Enough politics and weak ethical ramblings, tell us what it is like in Nairobi!�

I hear you, already!

What is it like? How about I tell you about my journey to work yesterday morning�

There was boiled arrowroot on the table, next to toast and jam. Scola, the �house girl� of my temporary hosts Rosemary and Dan Orlale, prepares traditional and western food for each meal. Dan and I eat some of the arrowroot, which is like most other starchy root crops when boiled� mealy and bland. Terry, Dan�s 12-year-old daughter opted for a piece of toast and the spicy India-derived chai that everyone here consumes throughout the day.

We hear the car horn at the gate when George, the AWC driver, arrives to pick Terry up for her day with her church group. I turn down the lift, to run an errand before work.

Rosemary and Dan�s compound is not as big as some, but the three-story house is generous by North American standards. The garden is small but lush, with climbing jasmine and passionflowers eclipsing the 12-foot-high fence.

Just outside the gate, however, is a great mix of incomes. Kibera is only about 200 meters away. It�s said to be the biggest slum in Africa, with more than 1 million people living on about 630 acres. Kibera is big enough to have distinct neighborhoods within it. A rail line separates it from this new development. Many of the compounds in the area, called Jamuhuri 2, are still under construction. Some are apartment complexes, others are large homes. The vast majority of them are behind high fences and locked gates with security guards.

There are a few permanent shops in the area, mainly cyber-cafes and chemists, but most of the businesses operate out of corrugated tin shacks. They sell fruit, meat, sweets, haircuts... There is a small shop across the road from Rosemary�s house that has only a tin roof and three counters. A woman brings an armload of fresh produce there everyday and sells is piecemeal to the house staff of the surrounding homes.

I jump a sizable ditch to turn off Rosemary�s street onto  Kibera Junction Road. Cars have to carefully navigate to get through the development without breaking an axle. In the downtown core and the older upper crust neighborhoods, the roads are paved. Here the roads aren�t just unpaved or potholed. They are gorged, cratered, cloven. They are epically ragged.

I join the thin stream of pedestrians walking the wide margins on either side of Kibera Junction. A few chickens run out of the way of the occasional passing car. A man rides by on an old one-speed bicycle, a bundle of cilantro tied to the rack. A small dog is up to his muzzle in a yellow bag of garbage on the other side of the road.

Most of the grass on the road verge has been trampled down, but a row of tall ficus trees shades the road. I get a rush of elation when I recognize the ficus by the shape of their dark, glossy leaves. The trees are planted in boxes in North American malls. They struggle along in office complexes and living rooms. I�m used to seeing them scraggly and brown, branches bowed over a carpet of dropped leaves. I confess that I have, myself, murdered a couple ficus. But these trees are huge. Their trunks are fat like a fully-grown White Pine. The smooth grey bark doesn�t look sickly here, against a verdant canopy.

-check back tomorrow for more on the road to work-