You might think sleeping while standing is the most difficult thing but you will be wrong. Each passing day, someone somewhere is also facing some other tough grind. Welcome to the Limuru area, the home to St Paul’s University—your university of choice, where the residents have embraced the tough weather condition of the area. The temperatures at this place can go up to as low as 7 degrees Celsius.
Growing up I never imagined that one day I will also be facing this kind of adversity in my life. You all know Nairobi, and its cool temperature—this is where I grew up until the time that I completed my fourth form and secured a chance at St Paul’s University. Where is it located? In Limuru. What about the weather? Cold—extremely cold. The first semester on the campus was neither a walk in the park nor rosy, it was extremely hard. It needed a lot of endurance with much fortitude.
To begin with, I was a victim of hypothermia. This is whereby the body loses a lot of heat to the surrounding at a faster rate than the rate at which it gets produced. The low body temperature did not even spare my lungs since I was diagnosed with lung-related illnesses. They say, it’s either you spend money maintaining your health or spend the money treating yourself, but for me, I think the latter forced its way to me.
Cold weather surpasses a nuisance, for a lack of a better word. You need to be prepared both psychologically and physically so as to survive this extreme weather. So after my hardship in my first months in Limuru, I decided to diligently research more on how to survive in Limuru. I sampled some of the most asked, or rather frequently asked questions and did my best to come up with comprehensive answers to help anyone planning to come to this other part of Kenya either to reside, to pursue his or her education, explore or work. My hope is that my reader grasps one or two survival tactics-not necessarily for Limuru’s preparation but for any other cold place that he/she might travel to and get some of the life-saving points.
Firstly, to survive in a cold place you must learn to put on very heavy, layered clothes. Putting on this way will aid in maintaining your body’s core heat and protect your body from the cold. For the layering, a three-layered type of dressing will keep you warm: the first layer (the base layer) is for removing moisture from your body, the middle layer of clothing is for maintaining your body’s warmth and finally, the purpose of the outer layer is to protect you from the other elements that might be experienced.
On to the next thing that most of you are not into so much. And that is eating warm food and taking hot beverages. How on earth do you even come to a cold region and still want to keep on taking cold foods and drinks as if you do not care about your health? The good thing with taking warm foods and hot beverages is that they modulate the body’s temperature as it tries to respond to the cold climate. The heat generated is from the warm foods and hot drinks consumed.
The other means of surviving in Limuru or any other cold region is always maintaining indoors as much as possible. When you are indoors you actually prevent yourself from engaging in activities that may cause accidents. Take for example Limuru, during the winter-like days, first, the road is usually slippery meaning one could easily slide or even vehicles have a hard time moving. Furthermore, during such days, the vision is not usually clear meaning that drivers can hardly see vividly while driving making it easier for them to get involved in road accidents.
When in a cold place, you can also survive by keeping your shelter always warm and properly insulated. In a warm house, you will be physically active, you will not suffer from cold-related illnesses, it makes it easier for you to sleep well, a warm environment is also good for your memory, and last but not least, a warm house, or rather environment, minimizes chances of you contracting respiratory diseases and allergic conditions.
All in all, life in Limuru is awesome. The place is cool and it has a lot of beautiful and unexplored sites that you need to come and visit, regardless of the weather condition in this other part of our beautiful country.
(Lucky Oluoch is an accredited freelance journalist from Kenya; EMAIL: oneolwoch@gmail.com; TWITTER: @LuckyOluoch)
