It is Sunday... Time to Relax a Bit

The cell phone charles gave us worked quite well last night. Despite having no credit or ability to call out, we were able to receive a call with no problem. You only pay on your outgoing calls here in Kenya. Celtel is the originating company that began offering cell service here in Kenya and Safaricom is providing competition now, apparently just recently approved as a public IPO deal. (see this blogger's comments and here is another article about safaricom)

Tomorrow we head off on a dream, once in a lifetime safari with Kicheche. We will be staying at the Mara camp if you wish to get a feel for our locale and it supposedly 'the great migration' time - wildebeast migration! We leave in the morning to take a small airplane to the Masai Mara reserve where we will be transported to our tent facilities and go on our first exploration. We will take our cell phone and hear that we should have service of some type. Blogging will probably be minimal, however, as we won't have the modem with us that we have been using here at the farm. We stay for 3 nights and return to the farm on thursday.

Yesterday was an extreme polarity reverse from visiting Eastleigh and Mathare valley on Friday. After making some excellent progress in getting two distant centers to 'talk' to each other, we went to town with the Coulston's. Darlene kept assuring us that the 'shortcut' we were taking (i don't know how it can be called a road) in their Toyota Land Cruiser (80's model) was ONLY a kilometer and a half and was very well worth it. Needless to say, we soon found ourselves driving on well paved roads, passing extrodinarily extravagant embassy housing and pulling into the 'Java House', a coffee/internet/restaurant. While the internet was actually slower than the farm when we were there, we enjoyed wonderful food, great coffee and some traditional chai tea. Following the Java House, we visited a lavish market center with a WalMart'esque store called Nakumat. We bought groceries, Darlene picked out some paint for the new house and we roused Charles about his recent application for medicare. :)

The gap between where we were in the slums the day before and what we experienced yesterday is too big to describe, but amazingly enough, Eastleigh was simply just down the hill from the main embassy road - literally less than a kilometer away.

Cell Phone Service in Nairobi and Kenya: Traveling and Tourist Advice

Ok, my original plan turns out to be quite good. Charles had a spare phone so we didn't need to buy one, but you can buy a phone for around $30. Pre pay service is the standard, you pay by the second, and you do not pay to receive calls.

This means it is easier for people in the states to get calling cards and call your temporary cell phone number. $100kshil (kenyan shillings -about $1.50 US) got me a little over a minute of talk time from here to the US. I'm out of credit and waiting to see if I can receive a call (which I am told I will be able to)

We'll buy some more credit before going on safari Monday, but are stuck with none for the evening. Our number until we leave Kenya is: 011-254738423834 (the 011 is the country code)

We will have this cell phone on us until then. We did find out that some calling cards do not list Kenya on them so you would want to be sure to get cards in the US that allow calling to Kenya.

Hope this helps out some future travellers!!

Figuring Out Communications

So, one of the things that I have been trying to 'research' is how to best communicate while in Kenya for almost a month. There isn't a whole lot that I've found, so I'll be sure to post exactly how we go about it when we get there.

The above statement assumes internet connection and it looks like internet cafe's are running about $1 and hour. The unknown is in the connection speed, if we'll be able to connect our Eee PC to wireless and use it (to upload photos and use the webcam) or if we'll be able to use the assumed dial-up connection at the facility. We'll find all that out in just a few days...

Here is our plan for now:

* Take a low-profile, flash drive based computer with Windows XP and 802.11x wireless capabilities. If we can get online with this device (wireless hotspots) we will be able to IM, use the webcam and post entries to the blog. The plan is to use MSN messenger and SKYPE to communicate with folks back home as much as possible.

* Purchase a CelTel cell phone when we get to Nairobi and put some prepaid minute on it (probably $60 worth). I expect the phone to cost about $30 and $60 worth of minutes (with an international calling card) should give us enough for emergency purposes. CelTel has the best coverage in Kenya. I'll also locate a number for the police in Nairobi to have on hand. Having a cell phone will additionally give folks back home a way to call us directly in case of any emergencies.

* Our last means of communication will be through the MITS facility. Located outside of Nairobi, we should have phone access and possible low-speed internet. While we may not be able to post as many pictures as we would like, we should at the very least be able to write.