A Business Safari

We've had a pretty nuts week so far, an East Africa chapter meeting with ~15 clients, some fun 11pm meetings, two visits to Carnivore (more below) and today's adventure: a twelve hour business safari. Since there are five of us out here right now and the cabs, which are not that cheap, will only take 4 folks, we had our trusty Masai Mara guide break out the pop top safari van and take us around all day. And since we were meeting with people today, everybody was wearing suits (everyone except me since the closest thing I have is an apron from Carnivore) while we cruised through downtown Nairobi hunting for our big business 5: prime minister, permanent secretary, indian witchdoctor, futbol player and illegal dvd peddler (we went 3/5).

Started by fighting the absolutely horrendous Nairobi traffic to get downtown for a launch meeting of a study on Kenya as a BPO center. Honestly the most interesting part of the meeting was watching the formality and protocol of introductions: the facilitator introduced the CEO who introduced the Chairman who introduced the Permanent Secretary (tick: 1/5) who proceeded to acknowledge everyone who had introduced him and all the 'distinguished ladies and gentlemen'. After the introductions there was a break for tea and we hit the road for the next spot.

Continued fighting the absolutely horrendous Nairobi traffic through an industrial part of the city. It was actually fairly interesting (my favorite was a sign for a welding company with a welder wearing sunglasses while the three people watching held proper welding masks) and with the crawling pace, the slum out the window and Jessica's camera it was really tempting to open the roof and start taking pictures. Showing a shocking amount of moral restraint, we did not and got to our meeting after a good hour long game drive (my guess is it was 7 miles away).

The meeting was good and we headed off to lunch. To avoid fighting the absolutely horrendous Nairobi traffic we took a detour on a dirt road that went right next to Nairobi National Park, so we literally had a safari. Then at the restaurant I was greeted by this Indian guy in a turban (not that theres anything wrong with that) who didn't introduce himself, took us to our table, sat down and ordered two bottles of wine. Turns out he was the chairman of this company but for about half the lunch I thought he was just a crazy Indian witchdoctor (tick: 2/5). Also turns out he owns some really nice hotels in Kenya, is involved in some pretty interesting charities/work, and was popping off at 4 for his weekly sauna, massage and bottle of whiskey. Not such a bad guy.

Headed back down to the industrial area (they have tax-free zones there, so the outsourcing companies we were speaking with are located there) and, you guessed it, fought the absolutely horrendous Nairobi traffic. Had another good, though really long, meeting and finally headed back home over 12 hours after we left. Surprisingly, traffic was not that bad.

(tick: 3/5)