Possibly moving to Kenya from South Africa

donavancaetano wrote:

Hi all
I possibly have a job offer in Kenya Nairobi and I wanted to find out a bit of information regarding living costs, best places to live as an Expat with 5 kids. 3 older kids home schooled abut 4 year old we would like to senfld to school especially for the foundation phase.
What is a good salary that could cover medical insurance housing food for a big family and extras as well a bit of savings. Also anything one should expect that is very different to South Africa. Driving conditions... Are there also alot of power outages and what condition are the roads. Friendliness of people especially locals as we would definitely get to know and embrace the culture.
Thank you

Good day,
Congratulations on your job offer! May I ask what kind of job and do you know the company well?
Are you born South African?

Me and my family have lived in Johannesburg, South Africa for 3 years, we loved it there. Then we moved to Nairobi, Kenya, it was a great opportunity to get to know the culture, the people and we felt safer, walking and cycling around. We are Dutch, my husband has been working for the same elevator company for years, they offered him the jobs in Johannesburg and Nairobi, they arranged nearly everything with a lot of experience in moving people around the world.
Xmas 2019, after 2 years in Nairobi, we moved back to our home country.
I'm telling you our story, to let you know that with all the help from my husbands company, we found it hard to get used to Nairobi. Schools, houses and cars are crazy expensive and corruption is everywhere. Getting things done on your house or for example to get a Kenyan drivers license takes a lot of time, patience and a energy.
Positive is the nature and it's wildlife, it's everywhere and beautiful. For daily payments there's Mpesa, you can pay everything with your phone, everyone does and it's quite safe. I'm sure you know how to be alert for danger, I'm not seeing any problems there.

Back to your questions: roads are bumpy with often a lot of potholes (you thought some roads in SA were bad 😉), you'll need a strong car, best is 4x4, age doesn't matter a lot. Your speed will not often be more then 60km/h, because of the roads and traffic. Moving around takes time. Please choose your house work, school carefully, close to each other. In my opinion power outages are less then the loadshedding in SA, but the electric poles are weak and often come down due to rain etc. We had an invertor in the (rental) house, with batteries which was really great.

People are very friendly and hospitable, I've easily made Kenyan friends, men and women. Downside is that even good friends see you as a rich expat, especially when you're white. They're not shy in asking for money, but I guess that's not very different from SA.
There is a group of South African, helping each other, organising events and coffee mornings, which would be great for you. I as a Dutch lady felt very welcome. Let me know if I can help you with their contacts.
I'm sorry for my negativity, I'm honest and direct, but I hope it helps in making decisions.

You're welcome for asking more questions.
Kind regards, Yess.