Yes. We are in Kenya’s capital. Site of the terror attacks at the city’s biggest mall last week. I prefer to think it isn’t as brazen as it may seem, from the western side of the Atlantic.

Isn’t it generally safest right after a major attack? And wouldn’t it take a few weeks for a terror group to collect more guns and ammunition and murderers with suicidal tendencies?

Plus, about 61 percent of Kenya’s gross domestic product comes from the service sector, and nearly all of that is tourism, and us bailing on a planned trip would only further damage Kenya, in a small way.

So, here we are. In Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, where “jambo” is, I believe, Swahili for “hello”.

It has been noted on this blog that one of the significant upsides, for Americans working in the UAE, is the proximity it gives for visiting areas of the world that, normally, might be difficult and expensive for a Yank to see. Sri Lanka, Delhi, Istanbul, Beirut. Kenya.

Kenya is a four-and-a-half-hour flight from Abu Dhabi, on Etihad, the national carrier. To get to Nairobi from the U.S. would almost certainly mean two flights, minimum, probably through London or the UAE.

Our nonstop was crowded, and most of the customers seemed to be young, single men, presumably working overseas and sending home money. After a turbulent landing at Jomo Kenyatta Airport, which pretty much burned down a few months ago (that’s me out of focus, above, in front of the welcome sign at the arrivals terminal/shed), we moved quickly through immigration ($50 cash per person to get a colorful visa in your passport, always a key moment for a passport snob) and caught an arranged ride into town in a fairly new Toyota wagon from a company that charged about $18.

And arrived at the Norfolk Hotel, opened in 1904 when Kenya was a British colony, and now run by the Fairmont chain, in what was once the center of Nairobi.

Nairobi is known as a not-particularly-safe place to wander about, and we just hung out here at the Norfolk the rest of the day.

A couple of fun things:

1. While having a drink in the enormous and well-appointed bar, which we already had decided had to have been the scene of all sorts of drama during British rule … four women who work for an international cable news outlet eventually sat near us.

They were discussing the video they had taken inside the ravaged Westgate Mall, site of the terror attack, and just how upset the authorities here would be if their company aired it — which apparently contains comments from merchants convinced that Kenya’s army/police looted shops, during the siege. The latest twist in the story.

Their conversations with editors in far-off lands, and thoughts about how to display their video, made me think of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong, and all the events that had happened in this old (but still tidy) hotel in days past.

2. How mind-boggling it must have been, running the British Empire, for 150 years or so. One little island nation, overseeing the operations of dozens of countries, from a bit of China to Singapore and Malaysia, and the whole of India and Pakistan, and large chunks of Africa and much of the Caribbean. And I was thinking it has to be a little difficult for modern Britons to reflect on their reduced circumstances. Bred to empire for several generations, and now? …

We had dinner on the terrace (shepherd’s pie for me), not far from the uniformed guy with a gun, the hotel security man — or maybe an actual member of the army.

And that was Day 1 on my first trip to Africa. And only my third venture south of the equator, even if by less than 2 degrees.