Afromusing

Random: Enroute to Copenhagen

This week began rather uncharacteristically… On Saturday, I dashed to Eldoret to attend a friends’ wedding. I learned that the airport code for Eldoret is EDL and not ELD. ELD was already taken by Eldorado in the US. I still think ELD is a fitting airport code for Eldoret, who do you renegotiate with? On sunday, I missed the flight back to Nairobi by 5 minutes, because there was a marathon starting around the same time. Making lemonade out of lemons… here are a few pictures of Kenya’s future gold medalists.The start of the race was rather rough, an athlete fell and bruised his knee from all the shoving to get to 1 million Ksh prize at the end of the marathon. My uncle stopped to give him a ride, and luckily I had a portable first aid kit, so he was bandaged up in no time. In the distance, you could see the Sports Minister’s (Hellen Sambili) helicopter which was rather snazzy. I asked the athlete in the backseat whether there was an ambulance, he said there probably is, but he is not sure where it is stationed. I think a better use of the helicopter would be to act as a air-ambulance of sorts for the athletes, rather than a floating spectacle. We also need better roads such that when there is a race, when one road is closed, we have an option to still get into Eldoret town. Not that stopping to enjoy the race is not a good thing… it is. But it should be optional. A girl can dream.

Back in Nairobi, finally boarded the flight to Zurich, which was delayed by more than 45 minutes, meaning I would miss my connection. That is why I am typing this at Zurich airport. The roaming wifi is so slow, I had to use the voucher for free wi-fi. Problem is the voucher is only good for an hour. Enough time to just look through emails, download docs and get berated on twitter about my carbon footprint

So, I will be in Copenhagen later today for some Ushahidi meetings, get caught up on the COP15 talks (which were thrown into disarray last week, and this week, the G77 negotiator walked out of the negotiations with some African countries in tow.) Still hoping that ‘Nopenhagen’ does not become the pun of the week. Denmark has already embraced’Hopenhagen’ (There is a Danish person somewhere grimacing at this chicanery- sorry!). I shall cover what I can on this blog, but do check out the Global Voices aggregator for COP15, which collates posts from GV authors in Copenhagen.

Remember the quote about a lie going around the world before the truth has its pants on? Solana writes about the fake press release that ended up on WSJ about Canada’s allegedly shifting policy to a more positive one that supports a reduction in greenhouse gases and contribution to a fund for poorer nations facing climate change.

PS: I covered the plenary meeting on climate change in 2007 for Global Voices, this was a meeting that led to the Bali talks (nothing much happened there because of GW & US’s throwing a wrench in the talks with a last minute proposal that basically scuttled any movement) The talks here in Copenhagen have an air of hope because Barack Obama has indicated a change in attitude. Problem is the change in attitude also needs to happen in the House and Senate back in the US. All in all, I look forward to seeing what comes of this…

Note to self: Find time to see Bjarke Ingel’s building. Below is his TED talk “3 warp-speed architecture tales”

Update: Arrived safely in Copenhagen. Tired… will blog/tweet tomorrow. Cheers!

Posted in: Africa, Environment, travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Africa, Environment, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.