Jambo,
Hello from Nairobi where it is cool and not a grain of airborne
sand... all the sand and small stones are in the bread, beans, and rice
I've been eating here. You really do need to chew very carefully.
Apparently Africans are not too careful as one sees lots of smiles
sporting missing teeth.
I arrived here at 07:00 in the morning 9 May (the day before my 67th
birthday!) after an all night flight from Cairo via a brief stop at
Khartoum Sudan (So! I got to the Sudan after all!). Naturally taxi touts
were anxiously awaiting my arrival. When I insisted that I wanted the
public bus into town they competed with one another for the most sincere
protestation that buses were not safe at this time of day and that a
taxi would only cost about $5 and in any case the public buses didn't
like people with bags and were hard to find.
I found the bus anyway, paid my 27 cents fare and immediately fell
into an interesting conversation with a trio of other passengers who
also had just arrived at the airport themselves, each with several bags
that made mine look like a small handbag. Soon, the bus nearly burst
with packed riders and to make things even more interesting, the driver
spent most of the time rolling over an unbroken series of bathtub holes
(You know, extra large potholes). Thankfully, the ride took only about
ten minutes and I had no trouble at all finding the center of town from
the downtown bus station this time.
With little sleep for the past 36 hours, but high on adrenalin I
started my door-to-door search for an excellent value hotel. The five
star establishments offered me their accommodations for room rates in
the $150 to $300 range... which I graciously declined. But as
expected, the receptionists in the first class hotels I checked politely
pointed me to places free of sticker
shock. With multiple recommendations I climbed the hill outside of town
to the 3 star Hotel Panafric at $62/night and hunkered down for some
serious unwinding. After the big nap, out I went looking for a better
hotel deal and soon found the Hotel 680 (they have 680 beds in the
house). I managed to finesse a $42 per night rate. It is an excellent
hotel right in the middle of town (two blocks from the Hilton which I
used on my last trip here in 1978).
Next, I searched for and found several cyber cafes then dashed back
up the hill to the Panafric Hotel just as the sun disappeared and I
began to turn back into a pumpkin. Nairobi is house arrest time again.
There is a street-smart curfew from about 18:00 to 05:00. EVERYONE warns
me not to venture out after dusk. The danger mostly comes; I am told, in
the form of small gangs of street kids who prey on unwary pedestrians.
I've seen many such kids; according to news reports as many as 20,000 of
them live on the streets here. From my current downtown hotel balcony I
can watch them congregating for the night in the parking strips running
down the streets on either side of the hotel.
Up close I distinguish at least three categories of urchins:
scroungers, beggars and predators. The scroungers seem to quietly
disappear into the back streets; the beggars are often aggressive and
in-your-face with a "won't take no for an answer" attitude. I
get the feeling this is just a training interval for the next step,
which is angry opportunism.
I've passed on the streets small clutches of 6 to 12 youths aged 10
to 15, scruffy, dirty, resentful, conspiring as they display predatory
body language. One on one they would pose little threat to me, but in
bunches they can and do overwhelm even the most burley Goliath.
I've seen two boys glue sniffing, one with glassy eyes nose in a Coke
can, another rolling his head to appreciate the disorienting effect of
the glue solvent. They all make me feel strangely wary and I have made a
point of avoiding their congregations.
Two nights ago the police made a sweep of the city and arrested 180
"gangsters," which I assume include some of the tougher kids.
Last night and this morning I see the city is nearly free of the most
obnoxious and threatening bands. Aside from the sweep, the police appear
to be rather ineffectual. A couple days ago I witnessed a policeman,
swagger stick in hand up-braiding the driver of a matatu. After a few
seconds the driver made a quick rubber-burning U-turn and zipped off leaving a fuming
policeman jumping up and down, hollering at the retreating van and
finally running after it in an obviously futile attempt to catch it.
Amused bystanders cheered for the driver. The whole thing looked right
out of an old Three Stooges movie.
In addition to the rag-a-muffin boys, there are the pathetic mothers
with their tiny babies and other small children, pitiful and persistent.
The beggars here make me feel creepy, ashamed, angry. I wonder why
someone in the government doesn't consider the effect they have on
foreign tourists? After all, we bring millions in foreign currency into
the country. Surely programs could be created to make provisions for
these homeless throngs so they don't feel the desperation, which leads
them to pester, harass, and even attack anyone with white skin.
From the balcony of my hotel I often watch dramas evolve. White skin
walks out onto the sidewalk and for a block around; scatterings of
beggars make a beeline toward them. After they have been rebuffed by
Whitey and slink off, the serious hustlers who have been hanging back
navigate a course, which leads to an "accidental" intercept
further down the street. From repeated personal experiences I know the
casual conversation that ensues: "Jambo. Your first time in
Nairobi?" or "Interested in a safari?" or "Hello.
Remember me? I work at your hotel. Don't you remember?" or
"Want a watch? Very cheap." or ... Near all the first class
hotels these people are as thick as the mosquitoes around my ankles as I
write this.
The hustling is not confined to the streets. As I sat in a Wimpy's
munching my French fries, three guys wandered around from table to table
trying to interest diners in their watches. Later, as I retrieved my
room key that evening around 19:30 a mid-thirties woman talking to the
male receptionist at the counter turns to me and asks: "Would you
like to invite me to come up to your room?" Uncertain what she had
said in her quiet, conspiratorial voice I said I had not understood her
question. This time the message came across loud and clear. I gave her
one of my most contrived surprised looks, then frowned, turned and
rushed away toward the elevators mumbling something about being a
Buddhist munk.
Speaking of mosquitoes, there are plenty of them here. I have killed
several myself, and without much trouble. Kenyan mosquitoes are
lethargic compared to the quick, aggressive beasts of Aswan Egypt.
There, they were like soldiers waging guerrilla warfare: quick dives to
the meat and an even quicker retreat once discovered and threatened.
Here, I haven't even been bitten that I know of. At least I've found
none of the characteristic itchy welts that spread out around the point
of dining.
Considering insect bites: I have distinguished three kinds of
reactions by my skin: the spreading itchy plateau of a mosquito, a
pimple-like eruption and the hard little bump like some alien creature
has just planted a seed under my skin. So far, all the souvenirs left by
visiting insects have eventually resolved themselves, sometimes leaving
behind little red marks which persist for weeks as reminders of my
nutritional hospitality.
With the threat of Malaria
not far away, my days always begin with a
dose of doxycycline. I keep it with my contact lens preparations,
each capsule numbered with the date it is to be taken. This particular
Malaria prophylactic has the added benefits of protecting me from other
medical threats like Lime disease, vaginal yeast infections, GI and
urinary tract infections, and traveler's diarrhea among other things. If
I miss my dose any day and one of those pesky buzzers with a proboscis
coated in malarial goop decides to sample my blood on that day, I could
be in for a lifetime of aggravation or worse.
So, I'm paying close attention to the daily pill. I now better
appreciate what women go through when using a daily contraceptive pill.
All guys could benefit from a trip to Africa just to better appreciate
the burden we have placed on our ladies. The pharmacists around here
mostly dispense Larium (mefloquine), but that one occasionally has some
neurological side effects in some people and might be antagonistic to my
delicate constitution, burdened as it is with peripheral neuropathy.
Malaria is one threat, but then there is the reality that somewhere
between 2 and 6 out of every 10 Kenyans on the street carry HIV. That is
a sobering statistic! My habitual behavior does not put me at great risk
under ordinary circumstances, but who knows when a barber or a fellow
passenger in a matatu during a minor collision might inadvertently
donate a drop of their blood to my personal supply. I don't walk around
avoiding every potential threat, but the danger is not far from my
awareness. Today I had my beard trimmed and watched my barber's every
move! Nice guy who got very interested in my tiny PenCam, so I took his
picture - as much to practice the photographic techniques needed to get
good pictures of black faces as to record a reminder of the event. After
dusk black faces loose a lot of their distinctive features, sometimes
morphing into nothing more than two white dots and a smile.
Railroad connections out of Nairobi are pathetic: three overnight
trains per week to Mombassa at a fare of about $40. The tracks at the
station seem to go both West and East, but the stationmaster insists no
trains go west. Buses are another matter. There are lots of them... even
one they call the Royal Coach to Kampala Uganda, complete with air
conditioning at a fare of $25. It leaves at the un-godly time of 07:00,
but arrives at a decent time (17:00) at the other end.
The music I hear on the street and in restaurants is American style
angry rap. The TV programs are mostly American, featuring black actors
like Bill Cosby and include many with which I have been familiar. The
English spoken in this former British colony is strange and difficult to
understand, partly due to my declining hearing no doubt, but also
because it is clipped and carries a heavy accent to my ears.
For the past four months I have been secretly gloating over my
cleverness in hiding four one hundred dollar bills under the inner soles
of my shoes. Recently, it occurred to me that carrying a lot of cash
might not be a good idea, so I spent my other supply and finally pulled
out the shoe bills and discovered all that walking friction had just
about worn them out!
I first tried to use them to pay for my Kenyan visa when I arrived in
Nairobi. "No way!" says the immigration guy. Later, I tried to
pass them off on a currency exchange teller. Same response. Some years
ago I read how the Secret Service maintained personnel in the Embassies
to deal with counterfeit currency. I recall the article saying these
Treasury guys also helped citizens with problems like mine.
So, I jumped in a matatu, paid my 20 Shillings (27 cents) and road
the 10 miles out of town to where the embassy is temporarily housed
since the original one became the target of a bomb attack a couple years
ago. I happened to make the trip on a Saturday and the facility was
closed, but the guard responded to my question about getting damaged
U.S. currency replaced with a long explanation: "No. We get people
in here every day with that problem, and I am certain there is nothing
we can do to help you. You'll have to send them back to the states for
replacement. Just the other day two kids came in with some nearly
unidentifiable bills they had been keeping in their boots. Ha, ha."
I tried to appear as amused as possible, thanked him and high tailed it
out of there before he caught a whiff of my embarrassment.
Women use some gawd awful fragrances around here. Coupled with a
unique body odor it is sometimes overwhelming in close quarters like a
packed matatu. Of course, I must stink to high heaven considering what
is surely an alien smell to them... despite the fact I shower everyday,
frequently more than once on hot days.
I've taken some pictures while here. A lot of them are of the
colorfully painted mini-buses. Take a look at the Nairobi album.
I'm off West toward the Great Lakes region and Uganda in a day or
two. Hope I'll be able to find Internet support as I move further and
further from civilization. Should be interesting. I'll write more when I
can.
Peace,
Fred Bellomy 14 May 2001
