From Grace ...

I grew up with great stories of a great place to live in Nairobi. This place the urban legend had it was the ultimate  place and was a dream for many employed persons. Kile together with Lavi I was told were places to aim for once you got to Nairobi. Maybe thats why it was easy for me to accompany my friend who has managed to cross the 'divide' and now sees Kile as the only next option, for a tour of available properties in the famed address.

Our guide was a very well informed sales agent from regent management company. We go through Othaya road and turn into Mwingi and thats where my shock starts. Maybe I have not been keenly observing the changes but the address doesn't have anything close to what I was expecting. The first thing I notice are very tall buildings. Some at 6 stories tall and the agent tells us these do not even have lifts. I wonder why someone would want that kind of punishment daily when trying to get to his house. He mentions that the rents asked here are anything upwards of 50K going to 60K for a 3 bedroom apartment. Its just a shocking overcrowding of blocks upon blocks. In fact the agent tells me that Kile is the area with the highest number of vacant units in the whole of Nairobi. Which is surprising since I thought Zimmer carried this record. Of course its not yet reached the level of Zimmer in terms of litter and chaotic developments but its clear that the sparkle of yester years is long gone.

Somehow in spite of this, some more apartments are still going up. There is clearly an oversupply but whats more surprising is that prices are still steep at 12 million or more  for these 3 bedroom units.

The agent even though aiming at making a sale still comments that he would rather buy an apartment in Kilimani.

What is worrying is that the infrastructure for this area was intended for single family on 1 or half acres. Now on the same 1 acre its not uncommon to find as many as 14 or more families living on the apartments! I wonder what they are doing about water, sewage and even traffic!

In this crazy world

The media often gives us good laughter from time to time however today I cannot say I was in the least prepared to read this in the good old dailies. I was intrigued by the tittle that a government had incarcerated a witchdoctor. why would anyone in the world do that? But for real according to nation newspapers and yes today is not april first but 1st of October, a certain woman was able to dupe the Mugabe cabinet into believing she could draw refined diesel from an ordinary baren rock. They took photos with her and paid her very handsomely for her great efforts. These are the times you hope that someone would slap you into seeing a poor Photoshop work to make the story untrue.