Fun, but not too splashy 4 January, 2009

Time was when Splash was the cutting edge place to take your kids, certainly in the southern end of Nairobi.  With a paddle pool and three gentle slides for littlies, and a rock-sculpted deep pool plus flumes for teens, it was a guaranteed good time for a warm afternoon.

Don't forget to floss! 70KSh gets you one of these at Splash

It’s been quite a time since we’ve been there – and that tells you something already – so we went today.  The magical combination of kids and water, added to the fact that it’s relatively cheap in comparison with many Nairobi entertainments, means it’s still fun.  But the standards of family entertainment have moved on in Nairobi, while those at Splash haven’t much, so it’s a low-key pleasure these days – pleasant rather than thrilling.

For the ingenious implementation of aquatic fun, you can’t compare it to the water park at Village Market. That is not surprising, considering the VM is largely funded out of the UN and embassy salaries and allowances of the population around it.  The food is not as good as that found at the neighbouring Carnivore restaurant (Splash’s parent company), though the waiting staff are plentiful.  The surroundings are a bit tired – not as spookily sad as British 1950s holiday camps, but getting there, with roofed wooden benches and cheap plastic chairs.

These days you can take your own picnic into Splash, but smuggling drinks in is forbidden. The mark-up on drinks in Nairobi restaurants is considerable.  Having said that, Jane did bring a flask of tea in and flaunted it at the waiter without incident.  Try it with a crate of soft drinks and the result might be different.

There is a small track for battery-powered rides, at extra cost. Likewise, a large, spidery, aerial roundabout that Joel and I rode once. That, frankly, was terrifying – not simply because of the height and speed at which it zooms around, but because of the apparent mechanical frailty, the fact you were flying around over a scrap-heap of broken metal and old wood, and unworthy thoughts about the implementation of health and safety legislation in a corrupt bureaucracy.

It’s a good half-day out with the children and won’t empty your wallet; but the place is overdue an overhaul.

A Marshtales review of a thing to do - Splash

New Year, resolutions and water 2 January, 2009

We celebrated the New Year on the roof with many of our friends, and followed up by hosting a few more on New Year’s Day. It’s been a highly social holiday season. Jane, an introvert, will now relax quietly for a few days!
I spoke in church last week about getting ready for new resolutions (with a trapeze theme, letting go of one bar to grab hold of another, Philippians 3:10-14) but, truth be told, no-one in the family has made any resolutions yet. We plan to do so at the end of the weekend; I’ll let you know how that turns out!
As the year starts we are a little concerned about the long dry spell we have endured here in Nairobi. The level of our moat is now 10cms down from its top high-tide mark.
At the same time, we haven’t had more than a dribble of water in the pipes that supply our house for almost a month. We normally get about four hours a week, so I’ve had to hire two bowsers of water already to keep our fortunately-copious roof tanks full.
I went to see the city council water people the other day. They were apologetic and the station manager Job seemed concerned. But, stuck with 50-year-old infrastructure and little investment, they simply don’t have water in their reservoirs to be able to provide pressure to outlying areas like ours.
They are supposed to send bowsers out to us in those circumstances, but two of their three tankers had broken down and the third was out of fuel (yes, there’s been a fuel shortage over the season, too).
One result of these increasing and more prolonged droughts is that more and more householders are digging boreholes to get water. The water table is falling as more people sink pipes to suck the groundwater up. Old boreholes have to be dug again, and deeper. The calamity that Nairobi is storing up for itself is obvious. The city is already far above its population carrying capacity and new housing developments come on the market on a weekly basis.
As I write the sky is pure blue, not a cloud to be seen and a gentle breeze holds no scent of rain. Indeed, on past evidence, it may be March before we get substantial rain.

Holiday in Switzerland (3): Water 26 July, 2008

Our elemental holiday in Geneva continues on day three with a focus on water. Specifically, the Aquapark at Le Bouveret, on the mouth of the Rhone at the southern end of Lake Geneva.

It’s a high-tech experience going in; everyone gets a little Swiss watch that is actually a magnetic gate opener and controller for the locker, and which may have money charged to it to buy food inside. (Some of the most expensive burgers-and-chips you can buy, at a guess.)

Once inside, it’s all wave pools, water chutes, children’s play areas with giant buckets of water tipping over them from time to time. There’s a spiral chute that empties out into a flattish dish-shaped area on which participants whoosh round three or four times before tumbling into the hole in the middle – an experience more like being flushed down the toilet than anything else.

Needless to say, everyone has a good time for many hours.  Joel manages to lose his ‘watch’, but Dad smuggles him out with a two-in-one trick at the exit barrier.