Which is the TALLEST BUILDING IN KENYA - BRITAM TOWER or GTC OFFICE TOWER?
I've teamed up with @ernest_nyakundi, a construction expert, to settle this debate.
A Thread🧵
Nairobi, final reflections.
Despite Nairobi being a haven of NGO work, impact funds, climate workshops and every species of grant funded virtue, one hears far less of the heavy socialist sermonising that so often drifts through Southern Africa. Why is that? I didn’t find a Karl Marx road as we did in Maputo….
Perhaps Kenya’s commercial bloodstream is simply too strong. Nairobi may host the NGO cathedral, but outside its stained glass windows the city is hustling: traders, founders, developers, agents, boda boda, financiers, exporters, coders and small businessmen all trying to make a shilling before the next traffic jam. The traffic jams here in the middle of high traffic and rain are extortion writ large. But the uber driver earning thrice the fee wasn’t complaining. Nor should we, but the wait time at a restaurant can stretch up to two hours, with the usual retort of “I’m almost there” serving as a signal to order the next dawa.
The intellectual mood in Nairobi is softened by enterprise. Even the social impact crowd seems more likely to speak the language of scale, platforms, mobile money and market access than nationalisation, redistribution and state led salvation.
Southern Africa, by contrast, still carries a heavier liberation era grammar. Politics there often begins with the state, the party, the struggle and the promise that history owes someone something. Nairobi feels more impatient with that theatre. It has its own dysfunctions, certainly, but its instinct is more transactional, more entrepreneurial, more “where is the opportunity?” than “where is the manifesto?” That may be why, even in a city full of NGOs, capitalism still manages to keep the microphone.
I like it here….
When the sky decides to paint a masterpiece, all you can do is pull over and watch. Tonight’s Mombasa sunset cutting right through the heavy clouds. Nature's drama at its absolute finest! 🌅🔥🇰🇪
Shot on Samsung S24 Ultra 📱✨
@SamsungKE#withGalaxy
Lake Ellis.
Lake Ellis is a stunning, high-altitude glacial lake nestled on the eastern slopes of Mt. Kenya at an elevation of 3,455 meters.
The name Ellis comes from Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis who became the first European to reach the lake in 1927.