Nairobi Moves

1st January 2009

Happy New Year!

Nairobi’s streets are almost deserted and, funnily, the shops are closing earlier today than they did on Christmas. New Year’s Day seems to be the bigger holiday although just about every store - other than sole proprietorships – was open. But now, at five ‘o clock, every store – even Nakumatt! – is closing its doors.

The last of my kush got spent last night at Club Casablanca, where I spent a relatively sedate (but extremely expensive) New Year’s Eve with Rachel, Charlene, Estelle, and two American ladies (who joined us a bit later). Casablanca had put a rather heavy entrance fee on the door (Ksh1000 / R120) and they suffered accordingly. The club, which on any normal night is jum-pucked, was about three-quarters full, with the last of the night’s guests arriving just shortly before midnight. And almost no-one was smoking the usual shisha pipes that one sees dotted around the place on any normal night.

So today, with no kush on hand I have to find a Bureau de Change to change 100 dollars (from my Dar es Salaam funds!) – to get me through the next few days (it’s been a very expensive time and I have eventually honed my currency conversion skills enough to realize exactly how much it costs to live in Nairobi! Guys, this is one expensive city!) And I have only surfaced now, round 5pm, to find the banks and the bureaus closed. Shami is with me and I ask her what I should do.

“You can always change at a casino”, she says.
“Right, hadn’t thought of that”.

So we head to midtown Nairobi, on deserted streets, and on to the casino, situated in one of the big ‘International’ hotels. The casino is on the ground floor, basically at the entrance to the hotel. I go in and walk to the cashier. Exchange rates are prominently displayed next to the cash desk on a freshly computer-printed piece of A4 paper. They are offering a rate of Ksh75 to the dollar. The best rate I could get from Stanbic was Ksh77.5. I am quite astounded that the casino rate is so good. I hand the cashier a $100 bill without saying a word. She simply prints out a little slip for me and hands me Ksh7 500.

"Asante sana"
"Karibu"

And I'm outa there in less than 2 minutes!

Shami said she will be at “Simmer’s”, over the road, when I’m done.

With the stop at the mall, the drive down here, and parking, it’s now just before 6pm. I go directly over the road and enter what looks like a large open veranda. Some of the area is covered with a huge yellow tarpaulin, giving the place a nice warm glow in the fading sunlight. At the centre of the open cement floor is a large circular bar and facing me is a bandstand, where a band has just finished setting up. Shami explains that this is a ‘local’ bar/pub, where Kenyans come and drink (and eat) and that I should find the prices refreshing (if not the warm Tusker she has waiting for me).

Within a minute, the band starts to play. I notice the big banner, in French, behind them. Shami says, as far as she knows, they are from Zaire (that is, DRCB or Congo Brazzaville). The sound is ‘soukous’: - a kind of shuffling beat, punctuated by sporadic basslines and a steady plucking guitar. It’s a jumble of different rhythms that, together, work perfectly but each part, on its own, is entirely different. It’s the kind of sound that few musicians outside of the Congo (I would imagine) can master. The drummer alone is doing stuff that I could only hope to do in my dreams. The guitarist is playing a cross rhythm that is entirely different, while the bass player (taken on his own) looks and sounds like he’s playing for another band entirely. There’s a percussionist who somehow seems to be holding the whole thing together.

The band plays for over an hour without a break, and by time we leave (more than an hour later), they are still going strong. What is so amazing about these guys is that they are playing material that is VERY difficult but are the epitome of relaxed musicianship. They are hardly even looking at each other and, by the time one song ends, the next one has already been started by one of the band members. They don’t announce anything. They just go from song to song in an endless flow of repertoire. And then the singer comes on.

Wow. With a voice that is very reminiscent of Salif Keita, he starts to belt out extremely high Franco vocal lines, with almost the whole band behind him in effortless three- or (sometimes) four-part harmony. There is a notable increase in the applause afforded the band. They start beaming, just a little. The best thing about their performance is that they are so entirely relaxed, producing music on stage that would not be out of place at any major music festival around the world. They are certainly appreciated, but the applause is not such that they are being taken as anything particularly special. This is clearly the level of professionalism that is expected of bands that play here. And what an introduction to live music in Kenya (it’s taken a while to get to live music but it has been worth the wait)!

As they play, just about everyone in the place (about 100 people) starts a personal ‘groove’ of some kind, whether by tapping their feet, moving their shoulders, or getting up next to their tables to dance a little. Once again, Kenyans are having serious fun out on the town. There are quite a few (obviously local) white faces in the gathering crowd. Most of them look like jaded journalists, a little pissed, and very tired from a full day of writing and copy-editing. The crowd is very ‘mixed’ and there is no delineation on racial or gender lines at all. Men and women, black, white, brown, and some even slightly yellow (yellow fever perhaps?).

I go to buy some airtime: my phone went completely on the blink on New Years Eve and for some reason I am no longer on contract (what they call ‘post-paid’ here). I have been unable to get through to Safaricom’s help line to sort it out and so am limited to buying small amounts of pre-paid (of Safaricom’s help facility Shami says “try at midnight and you might get through”).

When I return to the bar (where we have taken a seat so as to be able to see the band), I find Shami arguing with a guy who has taken my seat without (Shami tells me) asking if anyone is sitting there. Standing next to her, she whispers in my ear that the guy was trying to chat her up while I was away, despite her saying that the seat was taken. After noticing my arrival, and stopping his argument briefly, he starts up again with “oh, so he’s white, and that’s why he’s got special privileges” and immediately I notice the Nigerian accent. Shami simply replies, “no, he’s my boyfriend and I think you should fuck off back to your own miserable country”. I laugh out loud, and with that Shami simply picks up her bottle of Smirnoff Ice and ‘nods’ me over to a table just behind the bar. She’s obviously pissed off and just mutters under her breath “Nigerians!”

We have been sitting at the table for about ten minutes when a friend of Shami’s arrives. Estelle (not the one from Casablanca) is wearing one of the craziest hairstyles I have yet to see in Kenya: plaited ‘cornrows’ on either side of her head but with a large ‘sheath’ of straightened hair coming down the middle, from the back of her head and parted to the side, partially covering the left side of her forehead and face. Estelle is a big-bum gal but has fine-boned shoulders and (I have to say) a very fine pair of breasts (that she is obviously proud of, if you know what I mean?). She also has a very beautiful face, with these HUGE doe-like eyes and a fine roman nose.

Now for the clincher of the day: Shami says to me that Estelle likes to dance and I should have a dance with her. I decline, what with it being daytime and me not having warmed up my Nairobi dancing moves yet. Estelle shrugs at my refusal and gets up to dance next to the table, on her own. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…. I have NEVER seen anything like it. Estelle starts a bum-wiggling, traditional-type dance that adds masses of gravity to every male jaw in the place but which, itself, defies gravity entirely. Heads turn, drinks are frozen, mid-movement, as she moves and gyrates her hips in a display of physical dexterity that was absolutely phenomenal.

I notice that she has, very quickly, moved into ‘another space’. She is almost trance-like now. Her movements are still ‘snappy’ and absolutely ‘hip’ to the music (if I can put it that way), but her face is downcast, almost expressionless. She is clearly not noticing another soul in the place. Yet the whole place has noticed her. The song ends. She stops suddenly, hip frozen to one side, almost touching her elbow. She sits down nonchalantly, looks at me, smiles, and then winks at Shami. I just couldn’t help laughing out loud at the sheer abandon and obvious intimate pleasure she had just experienced (entirely on her own!).

Shortly after Estelle’s phenomenal display, we leave. The sun has set, it’s getting dark and the Nairobi cool is settling in on the night. Time to get home and have something to eat.

We get back to the apartment in ten minutes. Shami settles on the bed, TV remote in hand, and I start to prepare a quick vegetarian bolognaise in the adjoining kitchenette (yes folks, I’m going veg again ‘cos my stomach definitely can’t handle meat any more). Flicking through the channels, Shami settles down to watching a Bollywood movie starring Whats-her-face Rai: Shami understands Hindi perfectly, as do a great many Kenyans (and the local satellite TV offering features about four or five Hindi or Urdu channels).

I finish cooking, we eat and I start some of the more important work I have to do before going to Dar es Salaam on Sunday. I’m typing away on the laptop till about midnight, to the accompaniment of Hindi song, and kitsch dance. Ocassionally looking over the top of the laptop to the TV, I can’t help but think of Estelle’s moves versus the plastic conformity of dance in Hindi pop culture. I get into bed at around 1am and have to force Shami to switch the TV off. She has, by now, watched about three Bollywood movies in a row, giving me sporadic translations (like that’s what I want?!), and interjecting, here and there, with “watch out”, or “he’s playing you, baby”, spoken only to the TV.

She says she likes the mindlessness of watching Bollywood movies.

I’ll say!

The holidays are over and tomorrow it’s down to more serious work (and NO play).

Amani na mapenzi folks.