Traffic, Trafficking and an Unhappy State of the Nation

So, me dears, I’m getting to do a lot of my shopping at the new, luxury Westgate Mall. It’s something like Sandton City times two, but because space here is hardly a problem, there is a lot more room to move. And, surprisingly there are a lot of speciality brand shops. There’s a dedicated Levis store, a Converse store, a Swatch store, and more. A lot of the products in the supermarkets are the same as in SA. This, particularly as far as the multinational brands are concerned. Both Lever Brothers’ brands and Colgate brands have a very strong presence on the household products and toiletries shelves. But it’s not Baker’s, but Proctor & Gamble’s, biscuits that are big, and there are very few biscuit brands here that I know. Kelloggs is huge and there is every brand of cereal we know (and a few we don’t know). But there is very little to be found by way of muesli and so-called ‘health’ cereals. I have searched a few times now but have been unable to find any kind of fish-paste and no Black Cat. Damn. Where I can’t find OMO, I can always rely on Toss (!), the detergent that’s gentle on the hands. Dairy products are, naturally, produced locally. And I mean naturally. A lot of the local natural products are organic and there is an organic market here somewhere that I haven’t got to yet. There’s a lot of pride in local dairy and because of the multicultural tones of Nairobi, there are Indian speciality cheeses, English cheeses, Italian cheeses and other types of cheese whose names I can’t begin to spell or pronounce. Similarly, in the meat deli sections of the supermarkets, there’s an amazingly wide variety of cold cuts. These products all seem to be produced in the vicinity and my current cheesy favourite is called Seriously Cheddar and there’s Bulgarian (of all places!) salami that is kick-ass.

I won’t go into great detail about this, but I had to take a young lady home this morning, to the southern district of Nairobi CBD. Her name is Shamim and she is studying for a commerce degree in Travel and Tourism at Nairobi University. She stays in an apartment block just off campus, on the south side of Nairobi. Getting her there was easy, with her suburb lying just on the outskirts of the city. But, without her guidance, coming back wasn’t as easy. The South (actual name of the suburb) apartment blocks obscure a view of the city buildings and so I took a wrong turn somewhere, finding myself suddenly on a single lane, one-way road to hell. Jammed in by matatus of every shape and size, driving like the proverbial bats outa hell, I was forced to just go with the flow, as it were. As soon as I had a chance to stop and turn, I did so, only to take another wrong turn. Quite quickly, and without any warning, I found myself in the district of Ngara. Now, for those of you who know me reasonably well, you will know that I spent some time in Gugulethu, as well as Khayalitsha, in my not-too-distant past. For a white South African, staying in a ‘black’ township can be a bit unsettling at first, but fine, actually. But let me just say that those two SA townships are heaven in comparison to what I saw in Ngara. To give you some idea, Ngara is one of the townships in Nairobi where the UN does a lot of its work. The people are desperately poor and there is NO drainage or water facilities. That is, there is no running water in Ngara and there are no toilets. Need I say more? And the road I found myself on was near-impassable, being rutted and potholed to the extent of needing to drive slower than walking pace. A little apprehensive maybe, but I didn’t feel scared or threatened. I drove with the window open and was greeted quite frequently, even if a little quizzically, by local folk, with a smile, and a “Jambo mZungu” (get the similarity to our own mLungu). But, despite the pitiful state of our ‘informal’ townships – our shack settlements - we don’t know this level of destitution and desperation. But, again, the people seem happy as they can possibly be and there’s a helluva lot going on in the streets. One thing IS for sure, if I had a guide, this would be the place I would look to buy local goods – particularly kikois. And incidentally, the most popular fabric design – although not strictly a kikoi – features the face of the US President Elect, along with the legend Hongera (Congrats) Barack Obama. With a smile I noted that a few of these fabrics feature the additional legend, in smaller type, Product of Kenya. The Kenyans are very obviously, very proud that the most-powerful-man-in-the-world-to-be is a local boy!

After my little sojourn into Ngara, I eventually found my way onto Moi Avenue and then onto Haile Selassi Drive, starting up the Uhuru Highway that takes one out to Westlands, where I work and presently reside. In the same way that, as a kid on the Durban Beachfront, I used to love the Dodgem cars, hell, I just love driving here. It’s a hoot, if you’ll excuse the pun. Total free-for-all. As I have said before, it’s not for the faint hearted. But then I’ve never exactly been faint hearted myself. But beware, you DO need to drive well. It really is K-R-Azey. But fun. Anyway, there I was screaming up the Uhuru highway and suddenly before me there is this traffic hold-up ahead. From 100kph to 0 in a matter of 3 seconds, traffic converging like uncooked spaghetti going down the hole in the zinc. Screeeeeeech on all sides. Twenty five minutes later, as my ankle is starting to really cramp up from incessant working of the clutch, I arrive at a sign saying Road Works Ahead. Then, in a matter of a few seconds we’re all hell-bent on destruction again, heading up the steep, tropical tree-lined highway. But not before passing through the eye of a needle, in what would normally be the emergency lane (but which is treated like any other unmarked lane in Nairobi) as road workers desperately try and fill a pothole the size of a compact car (but only half as deep). But seriously, I have hit this pothole a few times already this weekend as Shamim and I got to see a bit of the city lights on Thursday and Friday night. At night, when there isn’t the usual traffic jam (or, as Shamim puts it, trufeek jum), you don’t see the hole until it’s too late. So too, for most of the huge potholes in the roads here. Normally, in daytime, you see the matatus’ brake lights (if they have any) to warn you of what they alone know lies ahead. Normally, (if you’re half-way concentrating, that is) you get to brake in time. When not, it seems that you’ve just dropped the entire suspension into the hole. But, again, I have to say, I love driving here. If only for the rush.

Note: A few things you need to know on the roads: If a matatu – or anyone else for that matter - flashes his lights at you, it usually means he’s going to turn directly in front of you. If there’s a hoot from behind it usually means another lane is going to be spontaneously created next to you (when there is clearly only space for one lane!). If a hand is raised in the sky, from a vehicle in a side road, it means “coming through, whatever happens”! Yeah, well, you get used to it quite quickly. You have to.

Another thing: the informal street vendors are very quick to pick up on a trufeek jum. Within minutes of a hold-up, whether by accident or intent, they’re out there with their goods – ranging from a bunch of bananas for 60Kshs (80c) to copies of the latest National Geographic (would you believe!) – at the normal list price of a few dollars.

Yesterday’s goings-on in Nairobi were illuminating, to say the very least. Yesterday (Friday 12th December) was a public holiday – Jamhuri Day – marking Kenya’s 45th year of independence from Colonial rule. A large rally was held in the local stadium (whose name I don’t know) where State President Kibaki held forth on the future of the country. Shamim was flicking through the DStv channels and suddenly stopped. I looked up from my struggles with my new company Blackberry phone (browser?) to see live coverage of the stadium, where five or six security policemen in suits, were battling to extract a man, also dressed in a suit and armed with a bundle of loose papers (with the uniformed policemen behind the securities armed with AK’s - at the ready). The guy they were extricating was shouting something that we couldn’t hear, while the security guys were trying to hustle him out. One of the securities was battling in vain to cover his mouth as he shouted. The camera switched to a picture of the President, wearing a faint, unamused smile, looking on. Then, as the camera tracked around the stadium it was an obvious sight of clear disillusionment and bitterness among the people. It became apparent after a very short while that this was no celebration of festivity and joyous freedom. These people were mainly attending to express their dissatisfaction at the state of the nation. The President started his speech with a question in Swahili (and translated by Shamim) to the effect of “What are we going to do?” Maybe he was referring to the guy being forcibly removed. I’m not sure. But quite quickly the camera focused on a member of the audience with a pink T-Shirt on, advertising a new cellphone tariff structure called Vuka! (Go!) and he was repeatedly flicking at the Vuka logo. Quite quickly, everyone around him started shouting the same… “Vuka…Vuka…Vuka…!” (By way of an aside, the Vuka cellphone tariff is 8 Kenyan Shillings – Kshs – per minute across all networks. Guys, that’s less than 1c a minute!). But back to politics…! The stadium scene presented clear echoes of a time back home where this type of demonstration would not have been out-of-place. And there are two features of the recent political landscape here that underline the bitterness we were seeing on the screen. First is the passage of a recent bill through parliament that allows the State to close any media operator, by decree, for not towing the accepted line. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The second concerns a debate as to whether MP’s should pay tax or not. Obviously, the rank and file population want MP’s to pay tax. MP’s are refusing and are defying a judicial ruling in this regard….. And there are a few journalists languishing in jail this weekend (denied bail for the bail-able offence of Incitement to Public Disorder at the stadium).

The Po-Lease here, by the way, are very much apparatniks and are quite feared. It’s not uncommon to see reports in the press (a very good press, by the way) of suspected robbers being gunned down after having been followed for an hour or two (no actual evidence led!). Jane tells me that it’s often in dispute as to who the robbers actually are – the guys in uniform, or the other guys – and evidence is often planted after the event, so to speak. Don’t fuck widdem ‘cos the Po-Lease carry machine guns! But, don’t get me wrong, there is not a sense of living in a Po-Lease State.

As I’ve been writing this, I have, for some reason unknown even to myself, had the local Kenyan TV station showing on the box (maybe it’s been on this station since we watched the stadium mess yesterday). I obviously haven’t been actually watching but the sound has been quite easy on the ear, featuring music videos of the East African praise music. The last video – watched as I made a cup of coffee – was actually quite hilarious. As is usually the case, the videos feature a bunch of guys – and then, separately, girls – shot on low-band (probably VHS), dancing in someone’s garden, dressed in fancy suits that are probably worn in church, but, more probably, commissioned specifically for the video. This particular one featured this self-same dancing but then it suddenly stops as an intercut appears – from an old black-and-white bible film – showing Jesus being seriously hammered onto the cross. Then the music starts again – and I wish I could say, without missing a beat. But it’s at least a full bar gets lost in the intercut. How the standards of music videos can be said to differ between cultures and musical interests!

And also yesterday, just before seeing the Kibaki debacle on this same station, I watched a short doccie on the rehabilitation of orphaned gorilla babies in Rwanda (a sure sign, I’d say, that I must get to the chimp orphanage in Uganda and the gorilla orphanage in Rwanda when I get to the two countries in March). The doccie had some very graphic footage of what poachers get to do to the parent gorillas (a la Sigourney Weaver/Dianne Fossey’s "Gorillas in the Mist"). It is absolutely brutal and tragic what happens in the jungle but when I saw the babies in their rehabilitation camp, I laughed and cried at the same time. They are SO like human babies it is uncanny. Wearing Pampers in the smallest size, two of the baby gorillas were playing with each other on the arm of one of the camp ‘wardens’. They were pulling each other’s hair and then ducking behind the back of the keeper. Like human babies, as soon as the one was invisible to the other, it was as if he/she didn’t ever exist. Then suddenly they stopped playing the game, looked at each other, leant forward, touching their foreheads together and then, I swear, they kissed and smiled! Priceless charm. I have to get there and play with them a bit – and human contact early on is encouraged! Only later, when they are taught to beat their chests and have a shot at (usually male) dominance, do the keepers start to remove them from the human realm.

My younger son, Ben, asked me for an idea of what it looks like here ‘cos he couldn’t picture where I was… If you know the Natal midlands or areas like Kloof in Kwazulu, you’ll have a good idea. Thick vegetation is everywhere (there’s a forest just next door here), mainly of subtropical varieties. Around every second corner is some or other guy selling potted plants of every shape and size. The climate is such that one doesn’t have to water the plants much. Nairobi is in the ‘highlands’, meaning that you don’t get equatorial heat and humidity but get a morning dew, and a freshness from Mount Kenya, about 100kms away. The days are warm, not particularly hot, but the evenings get pretty cool. Main streets are tarred (with potholes that keep everyone veering from side to side!) but just as you get off the main road, there is often a dirt road of orange soil. Little roads wind up, down and around hillocks, lined by banana palms, ferns and papaya trees. It really is quite beautiful.

I’ve been seeing a lot of coverage on Al Jazeera of Zim, the cholera epidemic and the mounting calls for Mugabe to vuka. Morgan’s on the box now, hiding out in Botswana and obviously denying Mugabe’s claim that there is NO cholera in Zimbabwe. I’m grateful for the coverage here of the Southern African Scene. I’m loving it here, but let’s face it, home is always home and it’s good to be kept in touch (any other news to tell me, guys?)

The really bad news here is that human trafficking – for the sex trade – has been on the rapid increase in Mombasa and numerous girls have already disappeared from Nairobi over the last few weeks (and it happens all the time). As I told you all last time, I’m not being allowed to drive to Mombasa (by the boss, Jane). But I do plan to get there soon – by hook or crook, but probably by train - when the railway line re-opens (when, nobody knows). But from all accounts, with the city dating from no less than the 1100’s it’s got to be a great place to see.

One last bit of news. Shamim and I took the opportunity, amid the relative traffic-ease of the holiday, to have a look at a few of the suburbs nearby, to try find me a place to live. Just around the corner and up the hill is an area, high up, overlooking the city, that is absolutely stunning. Narrow dirt roads and jungle are everywhere, with old colonial houses tucked away behind old fences. The relative isolation of some of the houses necessitates full-time security (Nairobi is also known as Nai-robbery) but I am told, this security luxury comes at a very affordable price – about one US$ a day! I will call some of the agents on Monday to try find a place I can afford. And having driven around a lot over the last few days I realize I must go for an unfurnished place (furnished can cost more than US$1000 a month!). Unfurnished, because there are so many carpenters working on the side of the road, selling beds for $20 or less, and cupboards for much the same (noting that there’s also no shortage of wood around the local jungles). Of course, these guys also make chairs, tables, and pretty much whatever else you might need to furnish a house….

So, that’s all for now.

In the meantime guys, Peace and Love (Amani na Mapenzi) from the land of the incessant trufeek jum!

(Just went to the local (24 Hr!) Nakumatt supermarket to buy some cheap smokes (yes, I’m still smoking – but not at work in the day!). The local hip-hop/R&B station – Kiss FM - was still on the radio. This, after Shamim tuned off the reggae station this morning (she’s strictly a Beyonce type gal). Kiss were playing a set of Swahili hip-hop. The language is so damn poetic it just WORKS for hip hop and rap. I stopped to write the words of the chorus down (for one very well produced song) that sound something like this (with all due apologies to Swahili speaking people, wherever they may be):

Kasawa sasa sena
Mzuri mapenga sana

Fuck it, I don’t know what it means (yet) - and my translator is spending the day studying for a supp of an exam she flunked - but isn’t it just bootiful?)

Once again, peace and love brothers and sisters!

PS, one for the guys: The women here generally have absolutely GREAT legs, and they know it. Need I say any more about the fashions that follow this knowledge of theirs? Guess not. (and may the foot-fetishists know that the pedicure business does well here too – as does the nail varnish business and the Italian high-heeled stiletto business!)The hairstyles are, of course, quite sophisticated too. When I commented to Shamim on one set of extensions she disdainfully told me that they were “not extensions but pretensions”. Anyway, I at least thought the big hair looked pretty cool…. And I told her that jealousy is unbecoming for a lady of her class… Reply: “Hmmmph”

Later!

B