Category Archives: Kenya

5 Big Lessons Learned by Living in West and East Africa

Jambo! mambo! Waka waka! hakuna matata!

You might have heard one of the above. I was quite naive to have had a typical image of Africa before my arrival, and after having lived in the West and East Africa for 2+ years, I am confident to say this:

Africa is big and diverse!

Just like any learning, the more I knew about a tiny part of Africa, the more I realized that Africa is too big, diverse and complex to generalize, and I believe everyone has their own “My Africa”. So acknowledging that I can by no means speak for whole Africa, let me share some learnings from my Africa.

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Kenya 6ー Learning from COVID-19 charter flight to leave Africa

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Since ever I made a critical life decision to leave Kenya, I have been waiting for an opportunity to leave Kenya for a long time when the airport has been closed due to COVID-19, just like many other countries (in fact it was just 1-2 month, but it psychologically it felt like much longer).

Some governments/embassies made efforts to arrange a chartered flight to send their citizens back home, but the announcement comes with very short notice (e.g. 3 days – 1 week, which is hard for someone like me without a willingness to come back).

Although I have taken the UN humanitarian flight for my work, I have never taken a one-shot emergency flight before. Given that not many people have a chance to take a chartered flight, I would like to share some learning from taking emergency chartered flight in the context of COVID-19.

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Kenya 5 ー How to make a difficult life decision

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When was the last time you made a difficult decision? I am not talking about deciding what to wear or what to eat today, but the one which could change your life.

Recently, I had one. The difficult part was that I had several choices, each of which was totally different. It was like comparing and mango, pineapple, and banana, and choose only one (I love them all).

I believe everyone has to make a difficult life decision some times, so I will share some lessons and tips, hoping this will be helpful for others. In a nutshell, it is only you who makes the final call, but there are many different factors and processes that can facilitate the decision-making.

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Kenya 4 ー 15 Lessons Learnt by Reading The Alchemist in Portuguese

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(1) Do you like reading? (2) Do you actually read? (3) Do you read fiction, non-fiction, or both?

These three questions are quite good to learn about yourself.

As for myself, (1) I like reading because I am passionate about learning new things (otherwise, you will live only in your limited world). (2) As much as I would like to read, I haven’t been able to catch up with my book lists (although I read around 30 articles per week), because I use the limited time for other things. (3) I usually like non-fiction to gain more knowledge and life lessons from the real world.

But this time, I learned important life lessons when I went beyond my styleーreading a fiction book “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho in its original language (Portuguese). As I believe some of the learning, if not all, can be beneficial for others, let me share in this post.

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Kenya 3 ー 5 things I learned from going out on the street 6 times during COVID-19 pandemic

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It’s been almost 2 months since I started tele-working in Nairobi, Kenya where there is a curfew between 7pm-5am (semi-lockdown). During this time, I had to go out on the street.

Honestly I didn’t want to, but I had to. So I did it, not once but six days in a row.

As not many people (even residences in Nariobi, let alone people outside Africa) can see what is going on on the street of Narirobi, let me share my experience and learning in this entry.

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Kenya 2 ー What to do during COVID-19 in Africa

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No more surprise when you see the big number of confirmed case and death toll, as well as airport shutdown and lockdown. Yes, this became a part of our life.

Some people said this COVID-19 is not so active in hot environment (true) thus it might not come to Africa (not true). Here I am in Kenya, where there is no international flight with curfew.

As not so many people can see the taste of what is happening in part of Africa, let me share some snapshots, and how I am coping, which can apply to anyone in the world now.

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Kenya 1 ー 7 learnings from another life turning point in Africa

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Life is full of new encounter and departure, be it with people, items, jobs or places to live.

The reason I said good-bye to Mauritania (Nouakchott) was to say Hello to the new destination, Kenya (Nairobi). This is quite a big move, mentally (change of my work) and physically (west to east of this big African continent).

Since then, more than a month has passed and I already learned some important life lessons, which I would like to share hoping they can be informative and applicable to other situation.