Hot Pot!

Success! Walking down the main stretch on Ngong Road we see a sign in Chinese: Little Sheep Hot Pot. After knocking on the door for a few minutes, it is answered by Josephine, a lovely Kenyan worker that ended up befriending us. She leads us into the compound, past a small bar filled with Chinese liquor, and into the main dining room. Immediately Kyla strikes up a conversation in Chinese and we are an instant hit with the owner and his wife. At this point, it is clear we will be staying for lunch, even though it is too early in the day for traditional hot pot. Kyla continues to speak in Chinese and after a few hours (while eating) we discover they are from Jiangsu and have been in Kenya for about 15 years. Their daughter does not speak Chinese very well but is extremely friendly when she finds out we are students. After a slight mishap with some Kenyan soldiers, chicken and the bill, we exchange business cards and head off. Josephine secretly passed us her number as well, and we think it might be interesting to talk to her in the future about how she found employment there. The driveway has many fancy sportscars and several Chinese men entered throughout our time there to eat. It appeared that at least three Kenyan women worked there as well.

We headed back down Ngong Road to look at apartments near the Yaya Center and lo-and-behold: Chinese business men everywhere! By everywhere, I mean 3, but that is still a lot. We spy on a few and hear them discussing frozen fruit transportation. Too bad we did not bring our introduction letters today, as we thought it was going to be a housing-search kind of day. We can re-stalk at another time.

As we keep walking, we pass a young Chinese woman and a Kenyan woman carrying a Chinese baby. This is a surprise as we expected few women and virtually no children to be settled here. We figure they must live close by since they are walking. We pass by a Chinese wedding photo studio, a sign that young people are getting married and settling in Kenya. The workers there told us they had been in business around five years and provided us the phone number of a contact at Huawei. Score!

Argwings-Khodhek Road is filled with a fully-stocked Chinese grocery, four restaurants, and the Chinese Super Garage...the first "industrial" place we've seen. We exchange business cards in each place and feel satisfied with our China hunt for the day.

Unfortunately our sidetracking made the housing search less productive, but overall it was a successful day!

Be sure to check out the slideshow for pictures and the Our Research section to view the map. More places and pictures will be added as we go!