Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi

“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats as we approach Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta Airport.”

I’m slightly apprehensive leaving Uganda as I leave behind the familiarity of the Luganda greetings that I’ve been having such fun with over the last nine months. I feel like an outsider again. Will everyone speak English in Kenya?

I’m excited to visit my third African country. The Customs Officer is apologetic that the much-lauded East African Tourist Visa only exists in theory [this was 2009]. My Ugandan work permit should allow me to travel freely throughout East Africa but I still get charged $10 for my transit visa. “Would you like to pay in dollars, pounds or Euros?” he asks me. I get a blank look when I ask to pay in Ugandan Shillings.

Travelling from Uganda to South Africa via Nairobi gently eases me back into the developed world. Smooth roads! Streetlights! Motorbike riders wearing helmets! People wearing jackets and coats! People even wearing shoes! As I watch Nairobi’s pedestrians on their way home from work, I’m struck by how affluent the average Kenyan looks in comparison to the vast majority of Ugandans.

I’m conscious of the world having shifted as Nairobi’s international airport tannoy broadcasts details for flights east to Mumbai and Dubai and onwards into Africa: Lagos, Khartoum and Lusaka. Nairobi is a major transport hub (I’m only stopping here on my way to South Africa) and I’ve never seen such an array of beautiful traditional clothes: African, Islamic and even Latin American.

I’m delighted to be staying with Faith, a Kenyan lady I met at ‘Africa Hash’ in Kampala back in May. ‘Hashing’ as we call it – for ‘drinkers with a running problem’ – is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’ll be staying with another Hasher in Cape Town too.

Faith gives me a great big hug. She offers to share her bed with me which I’m fine with until I meet the Dutch couple also staying with her. The lady is scary. She is of Amazonian build and was a national shotput champion in the 1970s. She doesn’t seem to have changed her hairstyle since then; lank grey plaits hang either side of her face and she looks through me as if I’m not there. I hesitate for one moment: have I unwittingly signed up to a foursome? Will the video be going on sale shortly in downtown Amsterdam?

In Faith’s Nairobi apartment, we sit around and watch TV. It’s strange to be sat on a three-piece sofa; the room has thick curtains and carpets. How positively English it all feels! It’s a far cry from my volunteer accommodation in Kampala.

Early evening we pile into the car and my new friends give me a guided tour of Nairobi. I feel quite safe. The traffic is ridiculous but it’s a nice-looking city, very north European in feel. We drive through Nairobi West, a more Kenyan part of town, where men sit outside one of dozens of small bars selling Guinness. “This is where I want to come next time!” I tell Faith.

Nairobi evening traffic jam — Typical Nairobi street scene: traffic at a standstill

We stop ‘for a quick drink’ but Hashers don’t stop at one and, before we know, it’s one o’clock in the morning and we’re at the club next door.

The Congolese band have gone home for the night but “Creamed Rice” (a well-respected Kenyan lawyer) and I chase each other round the dancefloor. I can’t stop giggling as I plan my return trip to Nairobi. Next stop Johannesburg.