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Ju-Ju in a matatu
It was approaching nightfall. I worked my way through the usual hubbub of humans and found a half-filled matatu that was going the same way as me. I took a seat at the back and was blessed with a window that opened halfway. As dusk descended, the small, single-bulb ceiling-light illuminated a dim interior. People climbed in and took their seats. The matatu filled quickly, as usually happens at this time of the evening.
There I was, just chilling out, pondering the congested street next to me and not noticing much else, when the matatu took off. The makanga (conductor) fluttered in the wind for a few seconds before swinging himself inside and sliding the door closed.
With everyone settled inside and his makanga safely indoors, the driver proceeded to set the scene for the rest of the trip. The ceiling light went off and, with the blip-blip of fluorescent technology, a light mounted on the interior side panel came on. Just then, Bob Marley’s “Stir It Up” started up on the powerful sound system.
The blip-blip turned out to be what they call a ‘black-light’ or an ‘ultra-violet’ light. And, lo and behold, stenciled everywhere on the bare paint of the matatu interior, in day-glow paint, were little shining motifs of cannabis sativa leaves – you know, the five-pointed star that signifies Jamaican Ju-Ju.
Amongst the black bodies in the matatu you couldn’t see a thing but for an occasional square of white collar sticking out of a jacket top. There was that usual ‘haze’ that ultra-violet seems to bring with it. With the cannabis plantation in front of me, Bob Marley piped at high volume, and a haze that could have been mistaken for what used to be called a ‘hot-box’ (of ganja smoke), the illusion was entirely convincing.
Images came flooding back to me: of nights at a reggae club called Scratch, in Cape Town in the late seventies. When the Wailers were fresh, and Chris Blackwell’s Island Records (the ‘Island’ being Jamaica) was just starting to boom with Bob’s new boogey …
The scene was complete. A stony (stoned?) silence descended on the matatu’s entranced travelers. The makanga just rocked in his seat, happpppeeeeee. The driver proud he had stage-managed an effect that would have had any seventies student skanking slowly. But, it seems, something was still missing…
The driver leaned imperceptibly forward and with a little twiddle of this left hand he almost blew the entire rear of the matatu onto the road. Clearly, Aston 'Familyman' Barrett’s four-string figures weren’t big enough in the boom of the bass bin in the back. Forgive me for thinking something HAD just been blown onto the road because the rush of air at my legs would have fooled anyone. Shite, he’s not serious, I thought.
Everything slowed to a low frequency trance. When I signaled the conductor that I wanted to alight, it must have taken another fifteen seconds for him to register. He eventually gave the usual smacks to the side of the matatu, signaling the driver. Nothing happened. The makanga had to repeat the action. The message eventually reached the driver’s brain and we slurred to a stop.
I had to walk a kilometer back to where I should have been dropped….
I was still suffering from subwoofer shock when another memory seeped out from the mists of my disorientation: Driving and listening to reggae. Preparing myself properly for a visit with some Rasta brethren in Khayalitsha, Cape Town. Neglecting to turn off at Vanguard Drive on the M2 freeway. Landing up in Bellville, some twenty kilometers further on. And wondering: “was I on the right road in the first place ……….?!”
Sheesh.
Mambo mbaye! …………………….. Sana.
I have a dream …
Like a few other cities on the continent, Nairobi is aspiring to become a world-class African city. But Nairobi, unlike the others, is only hoping to achieve this by 2030! Maybe it IS a realistic timeline but what I find strange is that, to my knowledge, there is no Vision Committee, or similar, that has set any milestones to be reached along the way. Maybe it is hoped that The Vision will somehow miraculously appear. And like other miraculous visions, it will probably take a Vatican investigation – or serious investigation, at least - to establish whether it did in fact happen!
I think the powers that be are hoping that by fixing a few roads (that should have been fixed decades ago) and promoting the growth of the IT sector, it’s going to be spontaneous combustion. Never mind that unemployment is so rampant that the government doesn’t actually measure the statistic, or that the Kenya Power and Lighting Company can only provide power on two or three days a week, or that the roads in Industrial Area are still so bad that it is costing millions a month just in vehicle repair and upkeep for those that ply the route. Never mind all of that, the Vision is coming!
A very good piece of airbrush art I saw on the back of a bus the other day expressed the Vision perfectly and succinctly: Just like you say that someone has “20:20 vision”, the legend at the top of the picture said “Vision 20:30”. And below it was a depiction of one very cross-eyed cat staring blankly out. Pole, mwananchi, (sorry, citizens) but I had to laugh at the aptness of the image.
Anyway, it seems to me that the vision is just another obfuscation of the REAL facts that need to be looked at in the city, and in the country as a whole. Forget becoming a world-class African city … Just give the people jobs. But I’ll probably never get to see Vision 2030 anyway. But then I suspect a lot of others won’t either!
(Talking of 20:30 vision, I have been wondering whether it is just my imagination or do I see more Luo wearing spectacles than any other of the Kenyan peoples? Is there something in the Nilotic eye structure that predisposes the Luo more towards eye problems? It’s a small and totally insignificant observation but I’d still be interested to know if there’s anything in it. Perhaps one of the numerous Kenyan opticians that read this blog can answer my query…?)
Baton charged
Still talking of sight, a hilarious one in town is watching what the policemen get up to sometimes – particularly in the pursuit of orderly traffic flow … Firstly, though, I tend to think that half the traffic problems experienced in this city arise from the fact that none of the policemen have ever driven a car, and probably never will. The result is that they do not understand the sheer frustration that arises from sitting completely stationery in traffic for fifteen minutes before being given the go-ahead to move. Secondly, they also don’t understand that when you allow too great a flow of traffic in one direction you ‘clog the artery’ and actually CREATE a traffic jam rather than alleviate it.
This ineptitude of some aside, what is really funny is what you sometimes see following an obvious contravention of a policeman’s directions …
Policemen on the traffic beat carry wooden or rubber batons. When I first got here I wondered how come the wooden ones were so worn out at the end. The human head is generally soft enough not to inflict damage upon a baton, so I was left wondering. Some of the rubber batons too, I noticed, are actually ‘frayed’ at the ends. It took a little downtown observation, on Moi Avenue particularly, to see the reasons behind the degenerated condition of the Nairobi policeman’s baton.
Imagine the scene: A matatu driver doesn’t see the figure of a policeman behind the bulk of a bus in front of him. He drives a little too far over the intersection and blocks the path of vehicles now coming from his right side. The policeman, nerves shot from directing the completely reckless procession of public service vehicles (PSV’s) and private vehicles alike, blows his top.
The policeman strides with obvious malicious intent towards the driver of the matatu. He raises his baton. He serves two or three firm blows – not to the driver - but to the side of the matatu! The driver sees it coming and lunges to his left in mock avoidance of the blows - blows that will obviously not strike him.
This little pantomime done, everything returns to normal: The policeman has vented his (usually justifiable) frustration and returns to his post somewhere amidst the congested throng. And the driver has accepted his punishment with enough feigned fear to appease the policeman. Peace has been restored at the cost of a dent and a sliver of wood.
Thus, Nairobi policemens' batons become as frayed as the nerves of the policemen who wield them!
A brush with death
This little piece of levity aside, some mention has to be made of more serious traffic contraventions on the part of matatu drivers. Heading out of town on Thika Road the other evening, around 8pm, traffic was as thick as usual for that time – maybe a little more so. In the first half hour of our journey we traveled roughly 200 meters - from the taxi rank to the first traffic roundabout heading out of town – amidst the compressed convergence of competing cars. Anyone can imagine what this does to the psychological state of a driver, particularly seeing as he is now driving in a haze of exhaust fumes that looks like The Moors in a Hammer Films horror flick.
Coming to the first part of Thika Road itself, the driver sees a steady stream of tail lights dotted from here to eternity. Patience blown completely, and with a will to get home before midnight, the matatu driver decides that everyone’s life is worth as little as his makanga values his own life (he who willingly risks his life and limb a great many times a day.) So what does the driver do?
Instead of going AROUND the roundabout and joining the traffic at the far end, he chooses instead to make a sharp right turn (what we sometimes call a hairpin turn), directly into the face of the oncoming traffic circling the roundabout. With reggae blasting through the sound system, the one-drop rhythm is now punctuated with the sound of car hooters and screeching tyres, plus the gasps and exclamations of the passengers.
I now go into replay mode: my childhood experience of driving ‘Dodge-em’ cars on the Durban beachfront! Who will yield first?
The matatu driver is doing the macho thing and calling everyone’s bluff, driving sans deviation in the left lane (the lane that is actually the RIGHT lane for vehicles coming towards us!) He’s going like the blazes and clearly intends to intrude into the gap he sees forming between a bus and another matatu, roughly a kilometer up the road …
I can make light of it now but it wasn’t a comfortable experience. Cars swerving right and left, hooters sounding, passengers praying. And the matatu making a straight line – the shortest possible distance – between the gap and the impending demise of us all!
A kilometer up the road, he hardly touches his brakes before mounting the paving stones of the island that separates the two left hand lanes from the right. The island itself is not actually an island but is more an unremitting collection of dongas, each one big enough to fit a prostate cow. He proceeds to bounce us all mercilessly across the divide. I smack my head on the metal ridge above me.
Apart from my cry of pain, there was an audible exhalation of relief from us all as the bus calmly gives way to the intruder from outside. Our driver carries on as if nothing has happened.
But he puts a gospel CD on the player.
The downtown shopaholic
Shopping on the streets of downtown Nairobi never ceases to amaze me. Not only are there some great little shops tucked away in the strangest of places but the strangest of things are sold in tucked away places.
Firstly, you can buy the most amazing selection of Chinese DVD’s for Ksh150 a time (R18). Whether you want the complete works of Arnie the Terminator, or every Charlie Chaplin movie ever made, you will find it on Tom Mboya Street. Especially interesting are the collections that no-one else wants. The complete collection of Bond movies features every movie, from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” to “Quantum of Solace”. Every one! What I hope to find again is the complete collection of Viet Nam movies that includes “Apocalypse Now”, “Full Metal Jacket”, and even “Forrest Gump”!
On the downtown streets, the most common shop is a little kiosk, not much bigger than a broom cupboard that sells anything from cellphones to ‘bling’ watches. Increasingly, the cellphones are Chinese knock-offs of Nokias and Blackberry’s and, by all accounts, they work fine. They just break down easily! The best bling watch I saw had a dollar sign so big on the face that you couldn’t see the hands! And every fourth kiosk is an M-Pesa agent, as I have noted before.
Slightly more uptown there are the ‘tourist’ shops that sell Maasai blankets, kikois, kangas and kitengis, and the perfunctory array of wooden wildlife sculptures. But if you want to see the most amazing array of African fabrics you have to go to the Mombasa Rest House (a name from former times) and climb the thirty steps to the first floor. At the top of the stairs you will find two rooms, 3m X 3m, where every inch of the walls and the floor too, is covered by the most colourful array of fabrics you will ever see. On the few tables set in front of the fabrics you will find contemporary ‘inyangas’ (herbalists) who will mix up a concoction of cosmetics for a woman’s every need. The prices of everything are half of what you’ll spend uptown.
The wares of pavement hawkers have been mentioned here before but what I neglected to say last time is that the sidewalk newspaper sellers have the best books and magazines you will find in Nairobi. Of course, the novels of Danielle Steele and Jackie Collins are bought quickly by the schoolgirls. But those of D.H Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, and Ernie the Hemingway, among many others, seem to lie there forever. Many of these ‘hawkers’ have licenses to sell newspapers of the sidewalk. But they don’t really do that any more. They sell books aplenty. Many of them obtain their stocks from the ‘car boot sale’ that is held at the Village Market every month (bought from departing U.N. employees). And their magazines include back-issues of the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Mojo and ID (all available for Ksh50-Ksh100 – R7-R12)!
Last, but not least among the shops, are the ‘local’ restaurants you find downtown. As opposed to the Ksh100 you’ll pay for a plate of chips uptown, you’ll get one here for Ksh35. Coffee costs Ksh25 as opposed to Ksh100 plus. But be careful how you order. Coffee is most often consumed black in Kenya (white coffee might cost extra). Tea – or ‘chai’ as it is known here - is often so light in colour you’ll think they forgot the teabag. And, if you’re new to East Africa, avoid the meat dishes! You DON’T want to get what we call ‘stomach’ in Nairobi…
Tragedy in the making?
For the last part of this blog I am taking a suitably grave tone. It’s a little note of alarm:
The entire expanse of land that constitutes the northern reaches of Kenya (perhaps a third of the country’s total land mass) is experiencing an unprecedented drought. Cattle and zebra, in particular, are dying rapidly while the vultures and hyenas are getting fat!
There is already a major food shortage in Kenya and it is estimated that up to 10 million Kenyans in the north face starvation if things don’t get better soon. The food shortage is also not being helped by the hundreds of thousands Somali refugees that are streaming steadily across the border. Cattle are being allowed to die because humans come first. But still, neither cattle nor humans are doing too well.
It has happened before that there has been drought, of course. But this time there seems to be gravity to the situation that is scary. Even camels, the favoured form of transport in the region (after old Series III Land Rovers), are battling under the extreme dry conditions.
As seems to be something of an African malaise, survival after the last drought did not bring any planning with it, and whatever survival plan the government might be putting in place now, I fear it’s going to be too little, too late.
I suspect that Kenya is going to face starvation on an unparalleled level if the coming season of ‘short rains’ don’t bring more than what their name portends …. But I really hope I’m wrong.
With that sober thought it is, as always, peace and love to you all.
Amani na mapenzi.
B-)
Showing posts with label blackberry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blackberry. Show all posts
Some More Regular Stuff
There are very few Internet services here with any kind of ‘cap’. Internet here is ubiquitous. You go to a mall (and there are a few!) and you usually find there’s two or three unlimited wireless access points. If the wireless signal is hosted by the coffee shop, all you have to do is get their access key and away you go! (Thereafter, the access key gets remembered by your computer and you don’t need to re-enter it). And just like the popularity of the Internet, is the popularity of the Blackberry or similar, with lots of people sipping coffee and surfing the net from wherever they are sitting.
Because of the lack of an Internet cap, I’ve been listening to BBC 1Xtra – the BBC’s so-called ‘black’ music station - all day long. The live stream is 90% reliable and in the morning I listen to the morning drive show, which is hilarious (11.00am here is 8.00am there). And there’s not an ad within earshot! If you don’t want to listen live, you can listen to all of yesterday’s programming – whether it’s soul, R&B, dancehall, garage, UK hard core, or whatever else they offer.
One of BBC 1Xtra’s best is the Africa offering which covers Africa East, West and South and at least keeps me in touch with what the boys back home are doing. I just heard a Shaggy remix of one of the kwaito tracks I was hearing coming down the Rockey road from the taxis (that Cajun-type number featuring the accordion, if any of you know it). There’s some very cool stuff coming out of Tanzania tho’ – going by the name of Bongo Flava. There’s a Bongo Flava track that Shamim translated for me after I heard the mention of South Africa (Souze Ufreeeeka) in the lyric. It’s about a girl who goes to South Africa and gets rich but when she comes back to East Africa, she’s poor again (end of story!). As we know, our homeland has a special place in the hearts of Africans - as the place where you can make money (if you survive the xenophobia, of course). And I have already mentioned that Swahili rap-hop thing I heard the other day (which is being played more and more on the local airwaves).
I went clubbing downtown last night with Elizabeth, the promotions lady from Nakumatt. First I had to pick her up from the district of Karen (named not after Karen Blixen herself but evidently after her niece – or something like that – of Out of Africa fame - “I vunce hat a farm on de Serengeti”). This is the ‘suburb’ of Nairobi (although it’s quite far out to the West) where the giraffe roam free. Coming back to town, after collecting her, we got stopped at a roadblock. I had failed to bring my International Driver’s Permit and she wasn’t wearing her seat belt (while I was, would you believe!) The cop flashed me in the eyes and started talking to me in Swahili (probably seeing the corporate logo on the side of the car and thinking I was that much local). Elizabeth took over and it was at least ten minutes of haggling about the size of the bribe before we were out of there (there’s only ONE Africa, folks, and it’s the same). He was telling her that I was mZungu so I must have money. There was a further assumption, Elizabeth told me, that she was a prostitute – so even more so that there was money available.
Anyway, she handled it nicely, if just a little petulantly, and we got away with Kshs500 (and not the Kshs3000/R400 he was initially asking). Her attitude did worry me a bit and she railed me for the next ten minutes about how much she hates this bribery thing. I just had to assure her that it was the African way – one that I already knew quite well. The difference is that our guys go for high turnover rather than high margin. In the ten minutes this cop took to get R200 off me, our guys would have stopped 5 cars at R100 each. Ode to the differences in business practices!
Once we got to town, Elizabeth and I club-hopped, with Elizabeth very intent on showing me the local club scene. Well, we wouldn’t call them clubs as much as pubs. Not a dancefloor in sight – and the DJ hidden behind some glass-paneled booth in the corner. But there are lots of people in attendance (probably 300-400 on average) sitting and drinking – and undeniably having a very good time. A popular track comes on, and everyone is immediately on their feet and dancing next to the table, in between the chairs, bumpin’ an’ grindin’, and constantly being hustled out the way by waiters and ‘snack’ salesmen (selling samoosas, kebabs and hot dog sausages). But tolerance is very much in evidence. The kebabs go by the name of nyama choma (as opposed to nyama shisa) and are also cooked outside on the pavement, just like at home.
Excuse the pun, but downtown Nairobi (on Moi Avenue) positively cooks. Here I’m talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of guys and girls on the streets – they too going from club to club to find the hottest spot for the night. And very few of these clubs charge entrance. If they do, you get a drink poured into the bargain. Lots of prostitutes walking the streets too. The clubs are often called quite exotic names like Ibiza (pronounced with a “z” rather than the Greek “th” sound) or St.Tropez (pronounced, again, with a “z” on the end, rather than being silent). But, hey, this is Nairobi, not Monaco, and we can forgive the slightly lesser global literacy!
Eventually we settled down at Maagi’s which was playing a mix of my favourite hard-core ragga and dancehall tracks. I was a bit self-conscious at first, being the only mZungu there, but what the hell, I too got up and danced. No-one noticed a thing I’m pleased to say. At about 1.00am I dropped Elizabeth and her friend Mary at the matatu rank where they caught a No.46 home. I offered to take them home in the car but Mary assured me I would get highjacked where they were going (no further details supplied).
Talking of matatus, before coming here I read on the Internet that the government had cracked down on them, requiring all to conform to white, with luminous stripes. Not a chance, folks! Watching from the balcony of one club last night, I have never seen such a garish display of taxis and buses this side of Bombay (not that I’ve ever been to Mumbai, but you know what I mean). Purple, orange, green and red, some with a chequerboard of flashing disco lights, paraded the street below. Some are like the taxis we know from Jozi. Others are like big, decorated American school buses. And many of them carry names like Obama, or Fabulous, or even Dangerous, emblazoned on the sides and windscreens!
And for the first time, last night I made it back from downtown Nairobi to Westlands without a single wrong turn! I wasn’t so lucky yesterday though (ironically, in the day time). Coming back from dropping Shamim, I again got horribly lost – this time in the lush green Embassy suburbs – and must have driven something like 60kms trying to find my way out. I knew I wasn’t far from home because Westlands, like the areas I was driving in, rests well above the city. But with the trees and forests surrounding me, and the occasional office block, I sure as hell wasn’t able to see where I was supposed to be. Eventually I found the Uhuru Highway and saw the new Safaricom (MTN) building, realizing I was now about 10Kms north of where I was supposed to be. But the highway got me home safely! But there was the usual truf eek jum in Westlands and it took me twenty minutes or so to cover the 200m from the highway to the apartments where I stay,
It’s getting quite hazardous walking down to the mall these days. The street urchins now recognize me and as soon as I head out, I’ve got two-or-three six-or-seven year olds following me, all saying “Meestah, meestah, a few shillings meestah”. I don’t mind at all but for the fact that I seldom have coins on me: They’re worth so little I prefer not to carry them. I’ll have to make a special place in my pocket for coins (spaah kush) when I walk down to Westgate. And walking is way better because, for instance, right now there’s a truf eek jum all the way from here to Nairobi central (about 10 kms). And, as I’ve said a jum is a jum like we never see in Mzansi. The radio stations cover the traffic situation quite closely and as soon as there’s a jum in one area, everyone diverts to create another jum somewhere else!
And while we’re talking about jums, after a client meeting I attended with one my of my team on Thursday, we stopped for some good Kenyan coffee at an Italian Ristorante in town, waiting to be collected by our driver. We were talking about the concept of work, and jobs, in general. Suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, she seemingly changed the subject and asked me if I’d ever been sucked! I had to refrain from answering, thinking she might be about to make some kind of indecent proposal. I just wasn’t sure what to say! Eventually, she said: “at least if you work for government you’ll never get sucked”. OK, I get it; you mean “fired”… “sacked”… “dismissed”….! I had to tell her that I had only been sucked once. More on the beautiful Kenyan accent some other time!
And as for Kenyan coffee, it took me a few days to work out why the hell I couldn’t sleep at night – even when dead tired. It was Mueni who asked, quite simply, how much coffee I drink. After telling her I’ve cut down to four or five cups, day or night, she simply laughed, saying “and you want to know why you can’t sleep?!” Quite simply, Kenyan coffee is so kick-ass strong even I can’t have more than one small teaspoon per cup. And you can’t get ANY coffee here that is mixed with chicory (like Ricoffy). So now it’s no more coffee for me after 6pm! Bring on the Chai Tea rather!
Coffee used to be the leading export crop here but it has been overtaken by horticulture at number one (remember me telling you about the flowers from Lake Naivasha), tea at number two, with coffee in third place. The Ugandans have made big inroads to the international coffee market and have stolen quite a bit of Kenya’s trade in that area.
From coffee, to two-wheeled transportation….
There are a lot of locals who ride bicycles around. And every bicycle has a little ‘platform’ welded on the back so that the rider can (precariously) transport his nearest and dearest to wherever they are going. And it’s not unusual to see a whole household being transported on a bicycle (including the kitchen sink!). Sometimes you get a major horticultural display coming towards you – looking like a camouflaged army unit on exercises - with the rider and consort both totally obscured by bouncing leaves and branches.
I hear, but haven’t seen, that the Chinese have sponsored a whole wing at Nairobi’s biggest hospital – the Aga Khan Hospital - for the benefit of those unlucky souls who have bought a Chinese motorbike and have had the lack of sense to take it on the roads here during the day (and, of course, having a license doesn’t seem to be much of a requirement here). There is evidently also something of a large informal steel sculpture outside the new wing – comprising the wrecked bikes themselves! The Westgate Nakumatt has quite a bit of floor space devoted to Chinese motor cycles and you can get a moped-style one for Kshs15 000 – that’s about R2000! Must say that I am tempted, despite my own little mishap in June (and the shoulder is STILL hurting me at times). Riding a bike here would be the ultimate rush. But, actually, the jums are so bad I’d probably be fine most times (apart from the drivers who take to the dusty sidewalks at a moment’s notice). And, of course, the jums are the motivation behind finding an alternative means of daytime transport.
Just briefly some more about driving here: traffic lights mean absolutely nothing! I am being completely serious about this. Only if there is a traffic cop at a roundabout (traffic circle) do the drivers pay the remotest heed to the traffic light. And occasionally, in town, drivers seem to pay some attention. I haven’t yet got the discreet, informal code as to which ones you obey and which you disregard completely but I suspect it has something to do with the perceived danger inherent in your negligence, or otherwise. You just GO, GO, GO and hope like hell that the oncoming traffic has seen you (which invariably, and Thank God, it usually has).
Friday night was Rachel’s party, and I’m proud to say I found my way over there (almost entirely by accident but) without a single wrong turn! And, yes, as I suspected, it was almost entirely attended by expatriates, with a small smattering of black faces in the 30-strong group. (I mean, the white mentality here is such that the folk call their townhouse ‘complexes’ compounds – like they’re there to keep the restless natives out. Anyway.) And here I learnt that Chantal is actually Charlene, and like the other Charlene we know, this one is also from South Africa – as were many of the guests. Charlene, the wispy blonde … bimbo. But, I’ll say that Rachel can cook. What a spread – all created in her own kitchen with the help of the staff. Exotic Moroccan fare (her dad is Moroccan), with lots of South African wines. I did meet two people who were great. The one – Shakila (“if there was an ‘r’ in it I would be a singer”) – and the other, Dion Gaigher from Tshwane/Pretoria.
Shakila works for Barclays in Kenya now, but has worked – would you believe - with the bass player from my Geezer band (the one I had with Dax) who has been working for an agency in Uganda for some time. A very perceptive woman she is, immediately asking if Nick didn’t perhaps have a slight obsessive-compulsive disorder! Boy, was she on the money with that one! I just had to correct the word slight. Somehow, she knocked over his alphabetized CD collection and got into a lot of trouble.
And Dion is hilarious. A self-confessed (Catholic!) boereseun, from “Woester”, he is involved with training Kenyans to install mobile telephone base-stations. He loves the country as much as I am learning to, and spends much of his time in far-flung areas. Nyeri is the latest area to get cellular and you must just see the ad for Orange Telecom in the paper… It features a full-page colour photograph of a snow-capped Mount Kenya (the view from Nyeri), and simply says “Hello, Nyeri” with the corporate logo at the bottom. Gawd, what a sight it is. I should be able to get to see Nyeri soon enough.
Note that cellular telephony is HUGE in this part of the world. My major client, Zain Telecoms, has operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mauritius, Malawi, Zambia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gabon and a few other places besides. And incidentally, my company does work in all those places, with moi responsible for ‘Anglophone’ – mainly East – Africa, and another team in charge of ‘Francophone’ – mainly West - Africa. My only problem with Zain is their choice a corporate colour – a garish cherise/purple – that is emblazoned on every shack that sells pre-paid airtime (that’s roughly every third shack), from here to Somalia. It stands out horribly and is so un-African. But I believe Zain are headquartered in the Middle East, so that might explain some of it!
And, yes, I managed to escape the party, intact, at 1.00am.
(I also met Loren Bosch (and his very pregnant wife), who is setting up iBurst Africa, and who tells me that iBurst back home is in quite big shit, what with network overload and huge billing problems. So don’t move just yet, guys!)
I’m coming to the end of this little missive, battling as I am to concentrate, what with the generator throbbing a few meters away from me. Once again we are victim to the lack of maintenance by Kenya Power. The good news is that my unhealthy provisions have come to an end, and when my salary cheque clears on Monday or Tuesday I’m gonna buy me a whole lot of fruit! This, in honour of the ever-expanding waistline!
Zapiro was just on Al Jazeera, with footage from the 702 interview where he confronted our President-to-Be (or not-to-be?) on the impending court case regarding the Rape of Freedoms. The ANC’s assault on press freedom is very similar to what is happening here right now too. But, thankfully, there seems to be some backing down by President Kibaki – encouraged, I hear, by the words of a far more reasonable Prime Minister Odinga. And it’s interesting to note that the Prime Minister gets referred to in the press often by his first name – Raila – as opposed to the President, who is simply Kibaki. Something like Madiba versus Mbeki….
Till next time.
Amani na mapenzi folks.
B
Because of the lack of an Internet cap, I’ve been listening to BBC 1Xtra – the BBC’s so-called ‘black’ music station - all day long. The live stream is 90% reliable and in the morning I listen to the morning drive show, which is hilarious (11.00am here is 8.00am there). And there’s not an ad within earshot! If you don’t want to listen live, you can listen to all of yesterday’s programming – whether it’s soul, R&B, dancehall, garage, UK hard core, or whatever else they offer.
One of BBC 1Xtra’s best is the Africa offering which covers Africa East, West and South and at least keeps me in touch with what the boys back home are doing. I just heard a Shaggy remix of one of the kwaito tracks I was hearing coming down the Rockey road from the taxis (that Cajun-type number featuring the accordion, if any of you know it). There’s some very cool stuff coming out of Tanzania tho’ – going by the name of Bongo Flava. There’s a Bongo Flava track that Shamim translated for me after I heard the mention of South Africa (Souze Ufreeeeka) in the lyric. It’s about a girl who goes to South Africa and gets rich but when she comes back to East Africa, she’s poor again (end of story!). As we know, our homeland has a special place in the hearts of Africans - as the place where you can make money (if you survive the xenophobia, of course). And I have already mentioned that Swahili rap-hop thing I heard the other day (which is being played more and more on the local airwaves).
I went clubbing downtown last night with Elizabeth, the promotions lady from Nakumatt. First I had to pick her up from the district of Karen (named not after Karen Blixen herself but evidently after her niece – or something like that – of Out of Africa fame - “I vunce hat a farm on de Serengeti”). This is the ‘suburb’ of Nairobi (although it’s quite far out to the West) where the giraffe roam free. Coming back to town, after collecting her, we got stopped at a roadblock. I had failed to bring my International Driver’s Permit and she wasn’t wearing her seat belt (while I was, would you believe!) The cop flashed me in the eyes and started talking to me in Swahili (probably seeing the corporate logo on the side of the car and thinking I was that much local). Elizabeth took over and it was at least ten minutes of haggling about the size of the bribe before we were out of there (there’s only ONE Africa, folks, and it’s the same). He was telling her that I was mZungu so I must have money. There was a further assumption, Elizabeth told me, that she was a prostitute – so even more so that there was money available.
Anyway, she handled it nicely, if just a little petulantly, and we got away with Kshs500 (and not the Kshs3000/R400 he was initially asking). Her attitude did worry me a bit and she railed me for the next ten minutes about how much she hates this bribery thing. I just had to assure her that it was the African way – one that I already knew quite well. The difference is that our guys go for high turnover rather than high margin. In the ten minutes this cop took to get R200 off me, our guys would have stopped 5 cars at R100 each. Ode to the differences in business practices!
Once we got to town, Elizabeth and I club-hopped, with Elizabeth very intent on showing me the local club scene. Well, we wouldn’t call them clubs as much as pubs. Not a dancefloor in sight – and the DJ hidden behind some glass-paneled booth in the corner. But there are lots of people in attendance (probably 300-400 on average) sitting and drinking – and undeniably having a very good time. A popular track comes on, and everyone is immediately on their feet and dancing next to the table, in between the chairs, bumpin’ an’ grindin’, and constantly being hustled out the way by waiters and ‘snack’ salesmen (selling samoosas, kebabs and hot dog sausages). But tolerance is very much in evidence. The kebabs go by the name of nyama choma (as opposed to nyama shisa) and are also cooked outside on the pavement, just like at home.
Excuse the pun, but downtown Nairobi (on Moi Avenue) positively cooks. Here I’m talking about hundreds, if not thousands, of guys and girls on the streets – they too going from club to club to find the hottest spot for the night. And very few of these clubs charge entrance. If they do, you get a drink poured into the bargain. Lots of prostitutes walking the streets too. The clubs are often called quite exotic names like Ibiza (pronounced with a “z” rather than the Greek “th” sound) or St.Tropez (pronounced, again, with a “z” on the end, rather than being silent). But, hey, this is Nairobi, not Monaco, and we can forgive the slightly lesser global literacy!
Eventually we settled down at Maagi’s which was playing a mix of my favourite hard-core ragga and dancehall tracks. I was a bit self-conscious at first, being the only mZungu there, but what the hell, I too got up and danced. No-one noticed a thing I’m pleased to say. At about 1.00am I dropped Elizabeth and her friend Mary at the matatu rank where they caught a No.46 home. I offered to take them home in the car but Mary assured me I would get highjacked where they were going (no further details supplied).
Talking of matatus, before coming here I read on the Internet that the government had cracked down on them, requiring all to conform to white, with luminous stripes. Not a chance, folks! Watching from the balcony of one club last night, I have never seen such a garish display of taxis and buses this side of Bombay (not that I’ve ever been to Mumbai, but you know what I mean). Purple, orange, green and red, some with a chequerboard of flashing disco lights, paraded the street below. Some are like the taxis we know from Jozi. Others are like big, decorated American school buses. And many of them carry names like Obama, or Fabulous, or even Dangerous, emblazoned on the sides and windscreens!
And for the first time, last night I made it back from downtown Nairobi to Westlands without a single wrong turn! I wasn’t so lucky yesterday though (ironically, in the day time). Coming back from dropping Shamim, I again got horribly lost – this time in the lush green Embassy suburbs – and must have driven something like 60kms trying to find my way out. I knew I wasn’t far from home because Westlands, like the areas I was driving in, rests well above the city. But with the trees and forests surrounding me, and the occasional office block, I sure as hell wasn’t able to see where I was supposed to be. Eventually I found the Uhuru Highway and saw the new Safaricom (MTN) building, realizing I was now about 10Kms north of where I was supposed to be. But the highway got me home safely! But there was the usual truf eek jum in Westlands and it took me twenty minutes or so to cover the 200m from the highway to the apartments where I stay,
It’s getting quite hazardous walking down to the mall these days. The street urchins now recognize me and as soon as I head out, I’ve got two-or-three six-or-seven year olds following me, all saying “Meestah, meestah, a few shillings meestah”. I don’t mind at all but for the fact that I seldom have coins on me: They’re worth so little I prefer not to carry them. I’ll have to make a special place in my pocket for coins (spaah kush) when I walk down to Westgate. And walking is way better because, for instance, right now there’s a truf eek jum all the way from here to Nairobi central (about 10 kms). And, as I’ve said a jum is a jum like we never see in Mzansi. The radio stations cover the traffic situation quite closely and as soon as there’s a jum in one area, everyone diverts to create another jum somewhere else!
And while we’re talking about jums, after a client meeting I attended with one my of my team on Thursday, we stopped for some good Kenyan coffee at an Italian Ristorante in town, waiting to be collected by our driver. We were talking about the concept of work, and jobs, in general. Suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, she seemingly changed the subject and asked me if I’d ever been sucked! I had to refrain from answering, thinking she might be about to make some kind of indecent proposal. I just wasn’t sure what to say! Eventually, she said: “at least if you work for government you’ll never get sucked”. OK, I get it; you mean “fired”… “sacked”… “dismissed”….! I had to tell her that I had only been sucked once. More on the beautiful Kenyan accent some other time!
And as for Kenyan coffee, it took me a few days to work out why the hell I couldn’t sleep at night – even when dead tired. It was Mueni who asked, quite simply, how much coffee I drink. After telling her I’ve cut down to four or five cups, day or night, she simply laughed, saying “and you want to know why you can’t sleep?!” Quite simply, Kenyan coffee is so kick-ass strong even I can’t have more than one small teaspoon per cup. And you can’t get ANY coffee here that is mixed with chicory (like Ricoffy). So now it’s no more coffee for me after 6pm! Bring on the Chai Tea rather!
Coffee used to be the leading export crop here but it has been overtaken by horticulture at number one (remember me telling you about the flowers from Lake Naivasha), tea at number two, with coffee in third place. The Ugandans have made big inroads to the international coffee market and have stolen quite a bit of Kenya’s trade in that area.
From coffee, to two-wheeled transportation….
There are a lot of locals who ride bicycles around. And every bicycle has a little ‘platform’ welded on the back so that the rider can (precariously) transport his nearest and dearest to wherever they are going. And it’s not unusual to see a whole household being transported on a bicycle (including the kitchen sink!). Sometimes you get a major horticultural display coming towards you – looking like a camouflaged army unit on exercises - with the rider and consort both totally obscured by bouncing leaves and branches.
I hear, but haven’t seen, that the Chinese have sponsored a whole wing at Nairobi’s biggest hospital – the Aga Khan Hospital - for the benefit of those unlucky souls who have bought a Chinese motorbike and have had the lack of sense to take it on the roads here during the day (and, of course, having a license doesn’t seem to be much of a requirement here). There is evidently also something of a large informal steel sculpture outside the new wing – comprising the wrecked bikes themselves! The Westgate Nakumatt has quite a bit of floor space devoted to Chinese motor cycles and you can get a moped-style one for Kshs15 000 – that’s about R2000! Must say that I am tempted, despite my own little mishap in June (and the shoulder is STILL hurting me at times). Riding a bike here would be the ultimate rush. But, actually, the jums are so bad I’d probably be fine most times (apart from the drivers who take to the dusty sidewalks at a moment’s notice). And, of course, the jums are the motivation behind finding an alternative means of daytime transport.
Just briefly some more about driving here: traffic lights mean absolutely nothing! I am being completely serious about this. Only if there is a traffic cop at a roundabout (traffic circle) do the drivers pay the remotest heed to the traffic light. And occasionally, in town, drivers seem to pay some attention. I haven’t yet got the discreet, informal code as to which ones you obey and which you disregard completely but I suspect it has something to do with the perceived danger inherent in your negligence, or otherwise. You just GO, GO, GO and hope like hell that the oncoming traffic has seen you (which invariably, and Thank God, it usually has).
Friday night was Rachel’s party, and I’m proud to say I found my way over there (almost entirely by accident but) without a single wrong turn! And, yes, as I suspected, it was almost entirely attended by expatriates, with a small smattering of black faces in the 30-strong group. (I mean, the white mentality here is such that the folk call their townhouse ‘complexes’ compounds – like they’re there to keep the restless natives out. Anyway.) And here I learnt that Chantal is actually Charlene, and like the other Charlene we know, this one is also from South Africa – as were many of the guests. Charlene, the wispy blonde … bimbo. But, I’ll say that Rachel can cook. What a spread – all created in her own kitchen with the help of the staff. Exotic Moroccan fare (her dad is Moroccan), with lots of South African wines. I did meet two people who were great. The one – Shakila (“if there was an ‘r’ in it I would be a singer”) – and the other, Dion Gaigher from Tshwane/Pretoria.
Shakila works for Barclays in Kenya now, but has worked – would you believe - with the bass player from my Geezer band (the one I had with Dax) who has been working for an agency in Uganda for some time. A very perceptive woman she is, immediately asking if Nick didn’t perhaps have a slight obsessive-compulsive disorder! Boy, was she on the money with that one! I just had to correct the word slight. Somehow, she knocked over his alphabetized CD collection and got into a lot of trouble.
And Dion is hilarious. A self-confessed (Catholic!) boereseun, from “Woester”, he is involved with training Kenyans to install mobile telephone base-stations. He loves the country as much as I am learning to, and spends much of his time in far-flung areas. Nyeri is the latest area to get cellular and you must just see the ad for Orange Telecom in the paper… It features a full-page colour photograph of a snow-capped Mount Kenya (the view from Nyeri), and simply says “Hello, Nyeri” with the corporate logo at the bottom. Gawd, what a sight it is. I should be able to get to see Nyeri soon enough.
Note that cellular telephony is HUGE in this part of the world. My major client, Zain Telecoms, has operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mauritius, Malawi, Zambia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Gabon and a few other places besides. And incidentally, my company does work in all those places, with moi responsible for ‘Anglophone’ – mainly East – Africa, and another team in charge of ‘Francophone’ – mainly West - Africa. My only problem with Zain is their choice a corporate colour – a garish cherise/purple – that is emblazoned on every shack that sells pre-paid airtime (that’s roughly every third shack), from here to Somalia. It stands out horribly and is so un-African. But I believe Zain are headquartered in the Middle East, so that might explain some of it!
And, yes, I managed to escape the party, intact, at 1.00am.
(I also met Loren Bosch (and his very pregnant wife), who is setting up iBurst Africa, and who tells me that iBurst back home is in quite big shit, what with network overload and huge billing problems. So don’t move just yet, guys!)
I’m coming to the end of this little missive, battling as I am to concentrate, what with the generator throbbing a few meters away from me. Once again we are victim to the lack of maintenance by Kenya Power. The good news is that my unhealthy provisions have come to an end, and when my salary cheque clears on Monday or Tuesday I’m gonna buy me a whole lot of fruit! This, in honour of the ever-expanding waistline!
Zapiro was just on Al Jazeera, with footage from the 702 interview where he confronted our President-to-Be (or not-to-be?) on the impending court case regarding the Rape of Freedoms. The ANC’s assault on press freedom is very similar to what is happening here right now too. But, thankfully, there seems to be some backing down by President Kibaki – encouraged, I hear, by the words of a far more reasonable Prime Minister Odinga. And it’s interesting to note that the Prime Minister gets referred to in the press often by his first name – Raila – as opposed to the President, who is simply Kibaki. Something like Madiba versus Mbeki….
Till next time.
Amani na mapenzi folks.
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