Baraza

Things aren’t quite back to normal, we’re all affected differently by the continued violence rocking Kenya after the disputed elections on December 27th. I’m Kenyan and for the first time in my life, I’m suddenly aware that my surname reveals my tribe and that this simple fact could put me in danger if I go to certain places! It’s Crazy!

Like many I’ve been safe only because of where I live and work. Those in the lowest income levels were affected as riots were restricted to the slums …. until last week. Two days ago, my brother fled our dairy farm in one of the violence hit areas after his neighbors and friends of 30 years tried to burn it down! My other brother, his wife and children have refused to leave, they believe they can defend the farm. We are all feeling quite helpless and a rescue mission has been mounted to ‘get them out’. To find out more Dipesh has started a blog to raise awareness and funds for those affected in the worst hit town, Kisumu. I hope you’ll visit to read more about how this affects him and those around him.

Some time ago I posted a cartoon of part of out ream by Kevin, an intern artist, and nobody knew who we were! I thought it only fair that I introduce us and tell you what it’s like in the day in the life of the staff at WildlifeDirect in Nairobi.

Its a daily adventure starting with getting to work – we all come from different directions – but the traffic is the same, bumper to bumper, and the public transport ‘matatu’s’ behave badly wherever you are in the city. I’m going to apologise for a stupid gap that appears randomly in this post – I think it’s a poltergeist, because every time I move it, it just appears somewhere else.

Most drivers wait patiently in queues, but not matatu’s (which translates to three – it used to cost 30 cents a ride), they overtake causing traffic jams, cut in to lines, drive off road, and frequently cause accidents (I saw 2 on my way in yesterday). Why do they behave this way? Simple, because they can! Colorful, like so much in Kenya, matatu owners often adorn their vehicles with provoking statements or names and art work on the back. And because the customers don’t stop them, other drivers are scared of them, and sad but true, the police are often easily persuaded to overlook dangerous driving with a small cash incentive called ‘chai’ which means tea (it’s even said that some matatu’s are owned by influential policemen). They often push pedestrians and cyclists into gutters, spraying mud or dust on them, and often putting them in line of danger.

Here’s an overloaded cyclist trying to balance produce for shops –battling for road space with a matatu bearing down on him. Though bicycles are common, Bicycle lanes do not exist.

My first stop is to get the newspapers from a friendly corner to and read on the 45 minute drive in (20 minutes if I leave at 6 am). It’s hard to ignore the bizarre, bazaars along the highways – you can buy or rent practically anything from a lawnmower, water, house furniture, to garden flowers and flower pots, a pet rabbit or puppy.

or a life sized scrap metal giraffe, crocodile or elephant!

We call this road side craft ‘Jua Kali’ which literally means ‘Hot Sun’ as the crafts men and women work in the sun (not in factories or offices).

I digress here into a Kiswahili lesson because as I write this I realise that Swahili is an odd but fun eclectic language – Jua Kali literally translates to Sun hot not Hot sun, because jua =sun, kali=hot or aggressive. Kali can be used in other contexts too like hot food (chakula kali) or something expensive (bei ghali) and aggressive dog (mbwa mkali). When I’m upset with my my son I get really kali and he always retorts ’stop getting so whisky’! I have no idea what that means but it always diffuses the situation (which come to think of it, is what our politicians need right now). Some English words have no translation in Kiswahili for example bicycle is bisikeli and motorbike is piki piki which literally is the sound that motorbikes make. I could go on and on …..

We start the day officially at 9 am but the truth is that most of us start the day from as early as early as 5am and we work in teams on different things – apart from supporting all our bloggers and website visitors, we’re developing major themes to stop wildlife poisoning, saving the Maasai Mara, stopping illegal trade in wildlife in Africa, and stopping the charcoal trade in Congo. Everyone is busy with plans to make these campaigns work. We will soon be telling you how you can help us create a campaign around these important issues.

Here’s Dipesh and Amir who is based in Congo but visits Nairobi from time to time.

….and Jonathan, on his way into the office on a matatu!

Emmanuel, Will and David were skyping with Australian social networking guru’s as we develop new tools for Wildlifedirect supporters.

We visited the Lusaka Task Force, Africa’s interpol for wildlife trade, to talk about the alarming scale of trade in gorillas, parrots, and chimpanzees in Africa (we’ve been bringing you some news in the gorilla protection blog as well as Limbe). We met with Clement and Bonaventure (from right Clement, Emmanuel, Ephrem (our Country officer in Congo) and Bonaventure. We were told impressive stories about seizing ivory and tracking traders and dealers, we were very impressed with what they are doing and felt it needed to be brought to global attention. So watch this space, we’ll be bringing you their news regularly.

Back at the office, though it may not look like it from this shot, Joy really is the heart and soul of the office, she handles everything and looks after everyone – she’s working on logistics and administrative issues and though she has a beautiful smile, this photo captures her normal expression….serious!

Masumi, every cheerful, brings the party to the office and provides bloggers support and much much more.

And here’s the most critical person to work productivity – John – he brings laughter and piping hot coffee

After work we sometimes get together especially if we have visitors from our Congo team.

Here’s Diddy and Will during his an Innocents visit last month.

Here’s Kevin and Maya (office mascot and Dipesh’s daughter) – Kevin is back at art school now after completing designs for our shop (check out the incredible T-shirt designs), he spent a month on internship with us and became a very popular member of the team. Here’s one of my favourite sketches he did – it’s called ‘Urban Samurai Heroes’ and represents Kevin, Josh (my son) and a friend of theirs on a quest to save the world. Apart from the aggressive expressions and blood thirsty weapons, the idea of urban heroes reminds me of what we’re trying to do for wildlife.

At the end of the day we join the endless snake of traffic back to our homes.

So…. does anyone feel they can identify who’s who in this cartoon now?