The trip home....

Travel out here is an interesting thing. Nairobi traffic can be very congested at times and I've probably mentioned before that there are times when I can walk faster than the traffic is moving. On a saturday things don't tend to be as busy so its usually a better day to travel. That wasn't the case for me heading to the airport on my way home. My troubles started pretty much from the beginning when the taxi driver didn't show up. When I called him it was clear he had forgotten. I wasn't too worried as he sent someone right away and I knew I had lots of time. The driver arrived and informed me he need to get gas. Again not a problem as we had lots of time however the first gas station didn't have working pumps so off we went to the next place. Unfortunately we didn't get very far as a police officer decided to pull us over and check the taxi's paperwork which wasn't complete so off we went to the police station. What I hoped would be a quick stop turned into over an hour waiting for the driver while he went in to deal with everything. After about an hour I started to get concerned as I knew I still needed to make a stop and and get to the airport in less than 1/2hr so I called the driver's boss to see if there was another taxi I could take. Of course the original driver came out as I made the call so off we went. I was able to make the quicks stop I needed to and the driver got gas. The next thing I knew we were stuck in unexpected traffic. This was a result of a motorcycle getting into some sort of an accident. Out here if you have an accident you leave things exactly where they are until the police are able to review it. So there we all were on the highway going very slowly until we got past that point. At the airport it was a challenge to find where I was suppsed to actually go as my ticket and the internet had 2 different terminals. We started with te one the taxi driver knew about and sure enough there was a sign directing us to the other terminal which was so new the taxi driver didn't know where it was. After asking someone where to go we finally found it and I was off to check in. (by now it was around 12:45 and my flight was scheduled to leave around 2pm). Thankfully I was able to clear the checkin quickly and head over to the seating area to meet with the rest of the group I was traveling with and head home.

One may think that was the end of things but it was not, I still had to get through the airport I was arriving at. This is always interesting as its either empty or jammed pack. This time it was packed as 2-3 flights arrived at the same time. After going through a temperature screen in a UN tent we headed to off to the customs area. This is a 30x50 room where both customs paperwork and baggage check would be completed for all flights. Essentially it was standing room only in a very hot climate. It got smelly fast. It also was a matter of always staying close to the person in front of you or you'd risk losing your spot. While waiting in line I was able to fill out my paperwork and help the others get theirs done too. It was an interesting process since a few didn't have passports as we know them but instead had a few official pages stapled together and I had to dig around in their paperwork to figure out what was needed. Once customs was cleared we had to push (and yes I mean literally "push") through the next crowd to grab our many bags and bring them to an official to do a hand search, regroup with all 5-6 people, and head home. It all went fairly smoothly considering everything but I'm glad this time I didn't try and bring a few flats of eggs through that chaos (yes I've done it in the past to go to Doro where eggs are hard to get).

cleaning time

Back home in Canada I never was one to clean the house much. My logic being if you keep things clean as you go there isn't much else to clean and it worked pretty well. Out here I use the same logic but have to clean more often (every week or two instead of monthly). It is more challenging here as with all the dust and hard water is a nasty and annoying thing to deal with as you can see with my shower.

Before (a year+ of calcium buildup)

After

I'm liking the shiny white color much better. One of the challenges of getting this clean was what to use to clean it. Cleaning solutions out here aren't as good as stuff in Canada so it was a bit of trial and error. One suggestion was to use some battery acid (and be very careful with it) but I wasn't too keen on that as it seemed a little extreme for this. What I found worked was citric acid (thanks T for the suggestion) left to sit on it for a while with some water. I love the sizzling sound it makes as it eats through the buildup. After rinsing away the citric acid I took a flat razor and scrapped it all down. It took a few hours to get it all cleaned up and I still need to do the sides but I'm liking the results so far.

Vinegar is another useful product I've found to be helpful to cut through the calcium buildup. About once a month or so I take down the shower head (or have J do it since I'm too short) and soak it in vinegar for a few hours. Its also useful in keeping the sinks somewhat shiny too.

My next challenge is to get the water stains out of the toilet and off the floor. Both are more of a challenge as they aren't flat surfaces like the shower tiles so I can't use the razor blade to scrape them clean. One of the other people who live here suggested a specific cleaning solution so I'm hoping that will work but for now I'll just ignore the stains. I still have lots of other cleaning solutions to use up and with everything being so expensive, its not worth a closet full of cleaning supplies that may or may not work.