The neighbourhood

Like any city, Nairobi has different neighbourhoods with differing income levels in each. The area where Jason stayed when he was with Samaritan's Purse is very upper class. Each house has a wall with a security guard at the gate and a large yard. The houses are very nice.

View from Dan's window

Where Dan is staying is what I would consider middle class condos. The complex is divided into several neighbourhoods with a guarded main gate. There are also guarded gates at the entrance to  each neighbourhood.  Most of this area has paved main roads and dirt, I hesitate to call them roads...places a car can pass provided it does so slowly and with a maximum of bumping about. Dan's condo has paved roads and a few people even have cars.

Surrounding neighbourhoods have a mix of security levels. Some are 5-8 story buildings which have a secured main entrance. Others are 2 story duplexes with a small gated yard that have just enough room for 2 cars to park.  Poorer areas have a door leading to a side walk with rooms on each side. I suspect each room is just big enough for a bedroom but I have just caught glimpses of these down open outside doors. The poorest of the poor live in what we would think of as sheet metal slums type houses. It is easy to pull the sheet metal back and steal from them. They may rent for as little as $20 a month. Where the upper class area is in a different part of town these differences in housing are next to each other and are often just separated by a fence. In places you can see where sheet metal walls are being replaced by stone as people have money.

Dan is new to this area, so over the last few days we have gone out exploring and searching for local places to eat. This whole area is very densely populated and most people take buses (more on those later).  When they are not riding about, people walk. There are no side walks for the most part so the sides of the road not covered by stalls (again more on that later too) are bare dirt. Beside the road are almost always ditches. Often any trash gets thrown either into the ditch or next to the road. There are a surprising number of chickens scratching in this trash. The surprise being that they are not stolen outright. Every so often someone sets the more combustible of this trash on fire. While this is a convenient way to deal with the problem it has the result that lots of soot gets into the water supply and the streams run black. In fairness there are probably also other things in the water contributing to it's constitution.


This area of Kenya has a volcanic rock that is fairly easy to quarry. Most things are built with it. Most of the buildings in this area are either 2 story town homes or 5-8 story apartments and condos.

note rebar left for future building on chemist

The basic way to build is have 4 pieces of re-bar in columns and a slab floor. Rock fills in the area between columns. All of the interior walls are also rock. Two story houses use just rock since it is strong enough to be a structural building material. This construction style has the benefit of giving termites a headache. It does make for echoie houses if you have no furnishings like Dan.

The concrete generally gets covered with painted plaster, sometimes the rock does too. The inside walls also get plaster and paint. Be sure you have the picture where you want it because hanging it will require a drill and anchor.  Most of the roofs have tile although this development has green metal tiles.

most look better

There is another harder rock that fractures like flint and doesn't have smooth sides. It comes in shades of green, yellow and pink and most of the time gets put up looking pretty rough although when they take their time it can be cut smooth and looks better than the volcanic rock which is grey like concrete.

All of the scrap rock gets put out into the dirt road or just left laying about. It makes for some gritty sand that tracks everywhere and wears through the surface of ceramic tile in the entrance of stores.