HELLO! Today I get to open a NEW SECTION on this blog: Sub-Saharan Africa!
For the foreseeable future, Kenya is going to be the only country in this section—which will bother me—but you have to take the wins where you can get them.
Before we get into talking about Kenya, let’s talk about Africa overall for a minute.
I highly recommend that you spend some time playing around on the The True Size Of—this site will change the way you view the world. You see, there’s this unfortunate geographic phenomenon that occurs when you try to transpose the surface area of a sphere (earth) onto a two-dimensional plane (a map): it wildly distorts the relative sizes of shapes at the top of that two-dimensional rendering relative to those that are in the middle. So, countries that are close to the polls look MUCH larger than they are in real life. The True Size Of will let you drag and countries from different latitudinal positions to compare their actual sizes. One thing you will discover pretty quickly is that Africa is A LOT bigger than you thought. And Greenland is way smaller than you thought.
To show you the insane effects of this, check out the following screen shots.
The first has Canada, Australia, and Argentina overlayed onto the African continent.
The second has the US, UK, China, Mexico, India, Turkey, Italy, and Japan overlayed.
The third has Russia and Greenland overlayed.
Yes, the continental United States EASILY fits completely inside of North Africa alone.
Now let’s do this in reverse. Let’s take a few countries in Africa that you’ve probably never thought much about, and transpose them to what they would look like if they occupied a more northerly position on the map. Here you’ll see the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the DRC), and Algeria overlayed onto the United States. These are big countries.
I’ve heard it said that this phenomenon may not actually be a coincidence of geometry, but a more intentional minimization of the “Global South.” Personally, I don’t know if I buy that—I think it genuinely does make the most sense to have the north and south pole on the fringes of the map—but it’s definitely thought-provoking. A lot of geographical perceptions that we take for granted as hard fact, are actually subjective decisions that cartographers (and governments) had to make at some point in the past. And I’m not just talking about all the nonsensical borders that the West has imposed on former colonies (which cover most of the world). If you REALLY want to deconstruct your understanding of maps, watch this video from Map Men called “Why is North Up?” Those guys are hilarious.
Anyway, here’s the point: most of us in the West rarely ever think about Africa in our day-to-day lives, but we should. And soon we’re going to have to. Not only is it f*cking massive, but it also now has the fastest growing population on earth. By 2100, the UN projects that of the 50 largest cities in the world, 26 will be in Africa, with the top 3 in the world projected to be Lagos (Nigeria), Kinshasa (DRC), and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), respectively. So, we should all be very interested in the development of these places.
And if you want to see what the future of Africa might hold, there are few better places to visit than Nairobi.
An Intro to NAIROBI (& Kenya IN GENERAL)
Clocking in at the projected 12th largest city in the world by 2100 (a title that is today held by Lagos, Nigeria), Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya, and by far its largest population center. The most common languages spoken here are Swahili, and then English (Kenya is a former British colony). This pretty much covers “mainstream” Kenya, but like most nations on this vast continent, there are a LOT more languages being spoken here in addition to these main 2. In fact, there are a total of 68 languages spoken in Kenya! I actually track how many languages this blog has covered (you can see the running total on the “About” page, as well as the home page)—and Africa is where this number could start to get really out of control. Before I left Kenya, I confirmed how many languages were spoken in all of the places that I visited—the total was 7. The additional 5 languages that will be covered over the next 4 articles are Maasai, Kikuyu, Kisii, Kalenjin, and Luo. I’d be getting a bit ahead of myself to divulge all the details of the forthcoming articles, but the point I want to make here is that Kenya is not a monolith; far from it. And Nairobi, therefore, is a much more complex and cosmopolitan place than it may seem at first glance. To the rest of Kenya, this is “the big city” and there are a wide variety of cultures and languages swirling around this place before you even start to consider random white dudes like me who are passing through every week.
Another interesting ethnic sub-group of Kenya that you probably wouldn’t expect is Indians! It is estimated that as many as 100,000 Indians live in Kenya—and even more across East Africa more broadly—many of whose family trees go back multiple generations before the immigration event that originally brought them here. Indeed, this Indian community part of the societal fabric at this point, and the members of it are commonly considered “Kenyan” … although I’m sure there are some dissenters to this view, as there always are in matters of immigration.
Finally, let’s talk briefly about economics, since that will be a central focus of this article. When it comes to matters of the economy, Nairobi is something of a shining star in East Africa, and indeed, Africa at large. Although it has a number of good bullet points on its CV, such as playing home to one of Africa’s largest stock exchanges and some of Africa’s largest companies, it’s really become famous for its tech and fintech scene. Nairobi is increasing crowded with start-ups, tech incubators, and investors looking to ride the start-up wave that now accounts for more than 1% of Kenya’s GDP. Nairobi’s level of internet connectivity is high, young people are tech savvy, and smartphone penetration is upwards of 90%. This has earned Nairobi the nickname “The Silicon Savannah” (a play on Silicon Valley, of course). Here’s an article that goes in-depth into a few of Nairobi’s tech success stories if you’re interested to know more.
All that paints a picture of a thriving city, but it’s quite difficult to fit all of this activity into a single camera frame. Nairobi has some serious urban sprawl going on. In the pictures below it will look as if there is a well-defined “downtown” area where all the tall buildings are clusters, but in reality these buildings are quite spread out. There are some really cool things in Nairobi, but they are definitely NOT presented on a silver platter to travelers and photographers. For this, you’ll need to do some digging. Here are a few pictures of Kenya’s business districts, as well as a video from one of my favorite YouTube channels with more info on Kenya.
Arriving In Nairobi
We arrived at night, and after I got through customs I headed over to baggage claim where… my bag was missing. As the crowds cleared, it didn’t take long to form a hypothesis on what had happened. You see, my bag is bright orange. (It was the only color available on the day that I went out to buy a bag.) This makes it pretty easy to spot. Like—how many giant, bright orange bags do you see being dragged around airports? Well, one of the only bags left was ALSO bright orange.
…do you see where I’m going with this?
I was able to confirm with the airport staff that my bag had, indeed, arrived in Nairobi. They called the number (which had a US country code and a Texas area code) and the man who answered the phone was such an asshole that it kind of blew my hair back. They were somehow already 45 minutes away from the airport, and needed to turn back around. So I waited… for actually more than an hour. And the 10-ish people who were on my flight ALSO waited for all of that time, God bless them.
Finally, a disheveled man ran in with my bag. The airport staff asked me to confirm that it was, indeed, mine. And it was. They had this man’s bag locked in a back room only to be released once the exchange had been made. But before they could tell the man where his bag was, he had already started running across baggage claim for another vaguely orange bag that was sitting in a far corner.
A blank, fed-up expression on her face, the airport worker that had been helping me watched him, motionless, and exclaimed, “Look at this man. He is about to take another wrong bag!” The delivery of that line in the Kenyan accent was too good.
30 seconds later I was going through another layer of security. I think I might have been the last traveler of the day for the security team at this point, because they seemed to be ready to clock-out. The man looking at the x-ray of my bag narrated his inspection to me:
“I see…. clothes… computer… camera… shoes… no drugs.”
Kenyans are funny people. 😂
Exploring Nairobi’s Wealthy Side:
Start-Ups, Expats, & Nightlife
This is a unique series in the context of this blog because I did not plan this trip myself. Not even one little bit of it. I was doing a master’s degree that essentially FORCED me to take this trip. It was really a major inconvenience in my life. Like, you’re just going to mandate that I take a trip to freaking Kenya?? You didn’t think I would have any other plans??
In all seriousness, I was very lucky to have had this opportunity. It was an incredibly fun week, although it wasn’t exactly your typical tourist itinerary. Since this was part of my business school curriculum, almost every moment of every day was spent visiting and meeting with the companies that have turned Nairobi into the economic powerhouse it is today. At first I wasn’t sure if it was going to give me anything blog-able, but I quickly realized that this was actually a super interesting and unique experience to be having here… so why not write about it?? My program was forcing me to take notes anyway!
I’ll spare you the pages of in-depth business-school notes, and just give you a few themes that emerged through this.
Every statistic you’ve ever heard about Africa as a whole is probably wrong.
The first talk we heard from from McKinsey’s Nairobi office, and it was great context for what was to come. First, we have terrible data for what’s going on within the African continent, so even if a problem or statistical query is framed correctly, it’s unlikely that the data required to address it is correct, or even exists at all. Second, Africa is not a monolith; every country is completely different, each its own unique patchwork of cultures, histories, and problems. So, speaking to Africa as a whole is almost impossible. If you ever hear it attempted, be skeptical.
Kenya’s start-up scene is attracting expats and entrepreneurs from all over the world
During our time in Nairobi, we met with entrepreneurs who—ethnically—were about evenly split between white, black, and Indian. This obviously is a massive over-representation for white people, and it did make us a bit uneasy at times…. but it’s also a testament to the fact that Nairobi is, increasingly, quite a desirable and opportunity-rich place to live. There is now a thriving community of expats who have chosen to live and do business in Kenya, which should be a big vote confidence for the economics of this place. I would have liked to see more local representation among business leaders, but I don’t think our sample size was large enough to draw any hard conclusions. In the meantime, a rising tide raises all boats!
Kenya is a hotspot for the green transition, especially when it comes to electricity generation and EVs.
When you think of countries who—up to this point—have done a really good job of decarbonizing their power sectors, African countries probably don’t spring to mind. You probably think about Denmark or Sweden… but, in fact, a whopping 90% Kenya’s electricity is derived from renewable sources! And they are aiming to make that 100% by 2030, which is not very long from now. I should note (and I will try to put this in layman’s terms since I work in the energy sector and am predisposed to using jargon to talk about these sorts of things) Kenya’s success in this area is not particularly replicable for other countries, because it is quite heavily a factor of their specific natural environment that they are able to do this, but it’s still very cool! And they also have some really cool progress being made in decarbonizing their transportation sector with a whole home-grown EV (electric vehicle) ecosystem. Some cool EV companies we visited included Arc Ride, Roam, and BasiGo.
Now, circling back to that cushy expat life in Nairobi, here’s a gallery of pictures from the nice hotels and clean office buildings where I spent most of my time in Nairobi. I was very, VERY comfortable here.
But this selection of photographs would not be complete without also providing a glimpse into some of the more up-scale dining and nightlife that we got to experience in Nairobi. These photographs come from Nairobi Street Kitchen, Hero Bar (@Trademark), Bamba, Cultiva, and Angkole Grill, all of which were great.
I was out most nights in Nairobi, and on more than one occasion I ended up at Nairobi Street Kitchen. On my first visit, there was a great jazzy cover band playing. We were enjoying the music when, all of a sudden, the power went out! In that moment, things went almost completely black, but the drummer never stopped playing. He held the beat, and in about a minute, the power came back on and the band picked up right where they had left off. This happened more than once that night. Apparently rolling blackouts like this are not unusual, so nobody was phased in the slightest. It might have been scary the first time it happened if anybody else around us had taken it even remotely seriously. It was the most developing-world thing ever, in such a fun way! This—and all of these cool Kenyan upscale/expat bars—reminded me of my days living in Hanoi. Good times. 🥹
Of course, all of this paints a very rosy picture of Kenya. In reality, there’s lots of poverty here too. This is Subsaharan Africa; it’s not an affluent place. One interesting dimension to our time in Nairobi was the level of security. ALL of the offices, hotels, restaurants, and bars in the gallery above were built like fortresses. They were often surrounded by high walls with barbed wire, patrolled by armed guards who monitored the flow of people coming through the gate in both directions. It was intense. The administrators of our trip were (of course) doing their best to put the fear of God into us about the safety situation in Nairobi (presumably for insurance/liability reasons) as if it was a certainty that we would be mugged if we ever walked down a street alone. I don’t doubt that the stories they told us about this having happened to people on their trips in the past were true… but I was pretty sure I could handle myself. I was mostly traveling in groups of people, but there was one night where I traveled across Nairobi by myself at about 1:45am with my phone on 5%. Not only did I survive, but I when I called an Uber, the driver was female. Ladies, please feel free to correct me here, but I’m pretty sure there are legitimate safety concerns for women who drive for Uber, even in the western/developed world. So this, I think, is a positive indicator for the general level of safety.
Still, this is Africa; you do have to be careful. Much of the security around Nairobi today—I was told during this trip—is due to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi by al-Qaeda. This was linked with a 2nd attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which, combined with the Nairobi attack, killed 220+ people. This happened all the way back in 1998, but East Africa has apparently had an elevated level of security ever since. Or, at least when it comes to protecting westerners like me. When I would eventually leave Nairobi, the security to get back into the airport was intense. I actually had to get out of the car and walk through the perimeter gate to get into the airport at all! And once that was done, I went through multiple other layers of security before I was sitting on the plane. It was a lot, but I felt quite safe by the time I switched into airplane mode for the trip home.
A Glimpse of the rest of Nairobi
So, there’s a lot more to Nairobi than the life of luxury depicted above. Unfortunately, on this trip, I only ever caught glimpses of the rest of Nairobi out the window of a vehicle. However, I stuck my camera out the window a few times and managed to snag a few decent shots. Here’s what Nairobi looks like when it’s whizzing by your car window…
That’s it for Nairobi, but before we move on, I have to show you the best billboard I’ve ever seen in my life…
I love the sense of humor here! It really infused the trip with a fun spirit.
Another fun quirk of Nairobi is the decorations on the public buses. They reminded me of how the vehicles in India or Bangladesh are often decorated with elaborate, colorful patterns. Except that Nairobi’s take on this is much less traditional. Every bus driving around the city seems to be a reflection of the identity of its driver, created from a totally blank canvass. I don’t even know if I could identify any unifying cultural theme beyond that fact that pretty much all of them are quite entertaining. The one that sticks out the most in my memory had a mural on the back with text that read “I feel trapped in all this happiness.” 😂 Like I said, Kenyans are funny people.
Up next, we’re going to be driving just outside the city of Nairobi to visit a tea plantation.
And after that, we’re going on SAFARI!
So I’ll end with an organic, locally-sourced ‘track of the day’. I actually got into a bit of an Afro-pop/Afro-beats phase in looking for these picks. It was a challenge to narrow the scope of my search to solely Kenya when there was an entire continent of music to discover, but luckily Kenya has produced some really cool artists. The tracks I will share with you in this series have been in my regular rotation ever since. 🙏🇰🇪
