Where we live

We live in one of the central neighborhoods of Nairobi - five-to-20 minutes from downtown depending on traffic. It's a nice safe neighborhood that we chose because we're walking distance to the school Jalena has been attending and we didn't want to change her school given everything else that's changing. About one-half mile away (easy walk unless you're carrying a lot back) there is a shopping center with a supermarket and lots of boutiques for anything we might need. About two miles away is a bigger, fancier shopping center with a nicer supermarket, movie theater, etc.

While walking to Jalena's school, you walk past the South African and Nigerian embassies.

We live on this road. Our complex consists of three buildings + parking lot + pool. The blue building on the left is one of the buildings in our complex.
This is the view in the other direction down the road. The South African embassy is at the end of the road (the cross road is paved), as is New Life.

This is the view as you enter the gate. We're pretty sure that Katie and I are the only people who aren't working during the day. Our apartment is the ground floor on the left. The other buildings are left and right outside the frame, and the pool is to the right as well.


We haven't purposely taken photos of the interior, but this is our kitchen. Katie's happy about the stove because it has six burners (two electric and four connected to a gas can we keep in the laundry room). The hood above the stove does a great job of venting cooking smells almost 18 inches higher to the ceiling... Josh is making breakfast in this photo. Pretty much our most common refrain with David is for him to get away from the stove when we're cooking. But now he's started mimicking back "Danger, danger!" so we need to find a new way to convince him not to come near it.

You can get a feel for some of the other rooms where we've posted some other photos of stuff happening inside the apartment. Overall, we have a wonderful place - we're renting it furnished and selling the furniture Katie bought while living here last year. Wireless internet; the kitchen sink and two bathroom showers have hot water, and we have a refrigerator, range and washing machine. We have good airflow with the windows open day and night, and Nairobi is a lot like Denver - very few mosquitoes or crazy bugs. We wish Katie and kids could come home a lot sooner, but we've got a great life here.