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In Nairobi

In Nairobi…without luggage. Again! With a baby to boot! Talk about nightmare. So instead of catching up on politics gossip been busy scouting supermarkets for the infrastructure that is part of travel with a baby from bottle brushes to wipes etc. It sucks, especially when you don’t know where to find stuff. Luckily I have a healthy stash of diapers in Nairobi. Nothing worse than walking into Nakumatt and seeing only strange brands with Arabic writing.

Anyway, I did manage to drop by the Hood for some well-deserved chicken. Here’s the latest political gossip from the grapevine.

– PNU campaign strategy is a mess (ok that’s not news but this has been confirmed by an insider). Guys outside Central are not getting chums for campaigns and t-shirts that should be distributed for free are being sold for 20-50kshs to aspirants. Apparently some PNU guys are conceding that the campaign is lost, but say they are planning to rig. The campaign money is said to be tightly controlled by Kibaki’s kids (apparently they are also the ones who brought in t-shirts from China). Nothing moves without their OK. The Kibaki Foundation is said to have been holding about 2.4 bn Kshs for the elections.

– ODM meanwhile is said to be running a very well-oiled machine. They supposedly have moles in PNU hq and Raila gets updates of decisions made within 15 minutes. The campaign is organized and on-point, aspirants have no issues getting support, and the campaign is being admired even by opponents.

– Raila is officially being addressed as Mr. President within his campaign. Word is they are already preparing for the inauguration and refurbishing State House. 24th Dec will be Orange Day where millions of t-shirts will be distributed to wananchi.

– ODM is supposedly promising guys deals for campaign contributions from high rollers.

– Ethnic tension is very high. Guys were beaten up for wearing ODM shirts at Njungunas.

– Steadman polls released today are saying 45% vs 43%, but the real numbers supposedly from the intelligence service say Raila will win with a 60-62% margin.

I can’t remember the rest of the stories, hopefully will get more this evening.

6 comments to In Nairobi

  • Shiroh

    There are so many stories depending on which side you are supporting.

    That’s true – I’m just trying to capture what’s not reflected in the news.

  • Sijui

    keep it up, keep it up especially POST ELECTION breakdown!
    BTW there are a couple of good baby depots in Westlands, one right at the Mall next to Kenchic/Kusters bakery……..
    I thought Nakumatt sold regular diaper brands like Huggies et al……….some of us stuck to the old school cloth nappies and Nakumatt has the best! :)

    Won’t be around long enough post election, but will try. Thanks for the Westlands tip. The problem with brand diapers like Pampers in Nairobi is that the supply is unreliable so you are never sure you can find your size and sometimes you have to do raos. Old school cloth nappies? You are brave! (the environment is grateful).

  • Thanks for the interest take on word on the streets…

    Could you also update us on the campaign adverts? I saw the “domo” and the ODM counter- adverts on youtube, they seem quite interesting….

  • Ngugi

    On the same note, checkout John’s artical on ft at; http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/10daaa88-add3-11dc-9386-0000779fd2ac.html

  • On the diapers, don’t bother with Pampers. For some reason, we could only get cheap knock-offs that were absolutely useless and leaked like a sieve (or maybe something has changed?).

    A good bet is a Chinese brand that Nakumatt carries but the key was to do a change every 4 or 5 hours no matter what since things seemed to go wrong very quickly after that. In the final analysis though, Sijui is right, you can’t go wrong with cloth.

  • Kathem Al Saher

    Hi…Thanks for the nice read, keep up the interesting posts..what a nice Friday