Nairobi 2 of 2

Charle’s house has that characteristic Peace Corps design motif wherein anything you find goes up on the walls. Hanging around the serving window between kitchen and sitting room, there are some pieces of yellow ribbon that came in a package as well as the hand addressed pieces of cardboard that came on the bikes shipped to us. Marching around the room atop the window frames – like a bizarre informal calendar - is a lengthening procession of empty wine bottles. On the desk are a set of British FHMs (the version with nudity). Published in 2004 they must have moved in and out of the Nairobi office repeatedly, the worn covers and taped pages reminding me of paperbacks in a prison library. With our pasta dinner, Charles adds his primary protein source: soy chunks. Their consistency is best described as wet sponge chunks. I kind of like it. I sleep full clothed on couch cushions pushed together with a towel for a blanket.
Awaking in the morning carries with it that strange perspectival adjustment of seeing in daylight a place you arrived at in the dark. Without the lengthening shadows, buildings shrink, distances reduce. Charles lives on the compound of the dispensary with other health workers and their families. The maternity building here has ceased construction just like the one at Patrick’s site. Both are funded by Constituency Development Funds. Essentially Aid money received by the Kenyan government and then dispersed by district, it has been frozen in the presence of the coming elections. This is to prevent it from being used to influence voters. The distinction is slight; you can’t move the money around, but you can still promise to move it once it’s unfrozen. Democracy is complicated enough without massive piles of free money to be waved around like a golden carrot on a stick; given the hundreds of millions of dollars funneled into third world economies, the legacy of poor government, corruption and violence in these countries is unsurprising.
This maternity ward is being paid for by foreign funds earmarked for infant mortality and as a result is, like Patrick’s, bigger than the dispensary itself. Supposing it does get finished (they often don’t, as the budget springs holes that leak into the pockets of enterprising bureaucrats and contractors) it will be essentially obsolete when (and if) they tarmac the road in the next few years. Nairobi and superior facilities are only a half hour away over better roads.
In the early days of international aid, it was given absent any strings. One of the solutions to the astonishing graft that resulted was to earmark money for specific goals dictated by donors (corruption continues but now requires receipts). These C.D.F. funds are for infant mortality, so regardless of future obsolescence (or current needs in this particular location), the maternity ward will be built. Or at least half built: the one at Patrick’s site was supposed to be finished over two and a half years ago. In the afternoon – sitting out front of his house – you can hear a loud and rhythmic metallic thumping as the wind gradually pulls out the nails holding the half finished roof on.
It’s a half hour matatu ride into Nairobi. We check our luggage at the Nakumatt. We will leave our bags here for several hours. We may or may not actually buy anything in the store. There is a bar just down the block with what appears to be a facsimile of the Taco Bell logo; the bar is called ‘Tacos.’ Like so many things in Kenya, it is a half complete reproduction of the original, unclear on the convention they are attempting to mimic. There is no Mexican food, it’s a Kenyan bar and restaurant just like all the others. The sign is just enough to draw us in as we search for a place to watch the Saturday afternoon football match. What appears to be cheap and lazy duplicating of an international trademarked brand reveals itself to be astonishingly effective mzungu marketing: we meet another group of volunteers midway through the game. They ask: “How do you guys know about ‘Tacos?’”
Charles and I, possessing our own pie-in-the-sky ideas about quitting Peace Corps and opening a campsite on the Coast, interrogate Mike, a Small-Enterprise-Development volunteer who is opening a campsite as an income-generating-activity in his community, south of Mombasa. With a scraggly Fu-Man-Chu and unkempt curly mop of dark hair, bronzed blonde at the edges, it becomes clear that Mike is very high. As he ruminates about his work and experience, I can see him enjoying being the older, more experienced purveyor of wisdom. Attaining competency here and being given the opportunity to self righteously educate others is one of the most satisfying aspects of watching the months roll by. It is the ultimate reward for the months of clueless flubbing, heatedly argued misunderstandings and continual asking of stupid questions. I routinely fantasize about bringing family and friends here primarily to watch their eyes fall out of their heads at the site of a bustling market or stage as I quietly, calmly and confidently navigate – lead them through – the chaos. A visit to the restrooms on the way out reveals the same uninventive graffiti here as in America: “Nipo Hapa.” I am here.
The Masai Market moves throughout Nairobi over the course of each week. On Saturdays, it’s very close to the city center occupying the parking lot of a Ministry of Justice building. This parking lot has the advantage of possessing only one entry and exit gate, creating a gauntlet of hawkers along the path between the two and ensuring that visitors must walk through the entire market before they can leave. We join the parade of tourists being herded into the gate and down the processional space. Separating from the stream and moving on my own through the craftsmen and their blankets of carvings, jewelry, paintings and dishes, I find them to be as kind and approachable as any of the other Kenyans I have met. A little humanity, an effort to engage them, is all that’s needed to move past the pushy salesmanship that my skin color naturally draws.
Killing with kindness is certainly something I have had to learn to do. Hawkers and beggars here are pushier than the US: telling them no takes longer. However, they receive ‘No’s much more graciously than salesmen and beggars in the US. It reminds me very much of the requests for child sponsorship I get as I walk through a new village; possibility without entitlement and so refusal without frustration. Charles stays outside the market, the hostility he has encountered at his site, at the stage in Limuru, and on his visits to Nairobi has drastically lowered his tolerance for the kind of pressure that the market exudes. I can’t say I blame him.
We walk through Uhuru Park towards Upper Hill Campsite, where we plan to stay for the night. On my final tour through the East Coast before I departed the states, I spent several days in NYC. I would never have thought that the endlessly forking paths of Central Park were distinctly American, but they are. The park as a journey, as an experience to move through is nothing like the layout of parks here. Uhuru is laid out just like the parks I have seen in Kericho and Kisumu. Wide open spaces, lacking paths, geometrically planted with a single tree equidistant from every other. The effect is of a set of individual plots of land, like a massive farm. Their use mirrors their layout: Kenyans sit in small individual groups under their respective trees. There is no one traveling through, no one using the larger space for a larger purpose, only individual plots used in individual pursuits. People in pursuit of individual space, instead of a larger space to share as a group.
Upper Hill is ideal. The shower – while still a rigid set of rusted pipes in a crumbling concrete cube – is the best hot shower I have had in six months. For 300 bob we get a mattress, sheets, pillows and mosquito net in the loft above the main dormitories. There is a large covered patio area with wood frame couches piled with overstuffed, lumpy pillows, low coffee tables and a wide assortment of card and board games. The bar, while not cheap, is reasonable for Nairobi. After six months of hotelis serving only ugali or rice with stew, the menu has a staggering variety of food. We have some drinks, we play Rummy and eat and go to bed happy.
In the morning, I watch the departing overland tour groups. If I take one thing from my Peace Corps experience, it will be how to pack for a trip. For this three day excursion, my backpack is actually too large. It takes a trip of more than three weeks for this bag to feel too small. The American’s, Aussies and Poles coming out to meet their drivers drag two and three massive rolling carryalls behind them leaving long trails in the gravel of the parking lot. They struggle and negotiate to fit all of their bags into the car, squeezing themselves in wherever they will fit, as though it was the luggage that was taking the trip instead of them. The Masai Mara is about seven hours away. Any upgrade in comfort that a private car might have offered over matatu is lost as they wedge themselves in between dusty hard edged carryalls, digging under eachother for seat belts, each with a backpack of “essentials” on their lap.
We wander down into the city. Javahouse is like an upscale IHOP. The prices are outrageous (at least on our salary) but the variety is astonishing. I typically give up trying to choose what I would like best and just order whatever I see first. Today it’s a bagel with cream cheese. I’m suspicious that it doesn’t taste quite right, but it’s been so long since I had a proper bagel or cream cheese that I can’t tell. I assume that when I finally return to the States and sit down to have a bagel the experience of feeling uncertain of whether I like it will be the same.
One goal of this trip is to familiarize myself enough with Nairobi that I don’t require a guide like Chuck. So we wander all over, following streets and noting landmarks. We wander into the “Nakumatt: Lifestyles” and sit on a couch costing the equivalent of twenty months salary. We see a sign for Heineken and go up for lunch. They don’t have Heineken. The waiter is surprised to find that Heineken is a beer. He thought it was a soccer club. This is tragically unsurprising.
The Peace Corps has three goals: learning about a foreign culture, sharing American culture and assisting development. Ordering ugali and stew, I note that because I spoke American English ordering Kenyan food, I have fulfilled two of the three goals. 66% is technically a passing grade. We pay more than the price of our accomadations for the evening to see “The Bourne Ultimatum.” Prior to the film they splice in an ancient scratched clip of a Kenyan flag waving in the sun as a brass band plays the national anthem. No one stands.
Back at Upper Hill we meet another group of volunteers staying the night. Mary has brought along a friend from her site, another American named Christy. She has saved for the last three years to finance this year long trip through East Africa. She has a chain of teaching jobs taking her through Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Her budget for the year is $30,000. This is 2.1 millions shillings. I mention that she should buy this couch I tried today. We also meet Randy. I don’t like Randy.
He reminds me of the kid at the concert wearing the T-shirt of the band he is seeing. Someone for whom the symbols they have acquired simulate for them the experience they think they should be having. Closing in on forty, Randy is covered in tribal tattoos and has his thinning hair pulled back in a pony-tail. He has been working in various aid jobs for the past eight years. With Randy, everything is a foregone conclusion; he knows what you are going to say and ‘dude…’ He won’t put his shirt on and talks to us about how being in Africa has to be more than an experience, it has to be a chapter of your life. I’m wondering how long it will be until he feels compelled to go smoke pot in the parking lot again.
Another volunteer, Carlos, told me this morning over coffee that two of the three dogs who make their home at Upperhill used to belong to Peace Corps volunteers. There is an overweight, over-furred Golden Retriever mutt. In the same state (I believe) that all whites in the tropics arrive at eventually, he looks genetically predisposed to suffer here, sweating under his thick fur and fat reserves whose only use would be surviving a long, dark winter. His contrasting counterpart is a beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback, reminiscent of a lion with his taut rippling muscle under a fine thin coat. The name comes from the line of hair along the back and neck that stands in opposition to the dog’s foreward motion. Regardless of the physical difficulties they may or may not be suffering living on the equator, they are constantly surrounded by slightly intoxicated tourists whose only desire is to pet them and give them table scraps. They lead as ideal of a life as I could imagine for dogs. I can only guess that shortly after being abandoned by Peace Corps Volunteers - people whose thought process was: “I want to love something!” without conscious consideration of the circumstantial suffix “…for two years!” – they realized that what might have seemed like heaven, was nothing more than a pale imitation.
In the morning, during check-out, I meet Jorge, a Puerto-Rican traveling with his wife. He is on sabbatical from MIT and he and his wife are at the end of year long trip starting in Japan, moving through China, India and here before they head back to Boston. I make a note-to-self to acquire a life similar to Jorge’s.
Charles is planning on coming up north to visit us and wants to see the stage. For the first time, we will guide him through Nairobi so that he knows where the location of the Nakuru stage. We fail almost completely to live up to the remarkable standard he has set. James (the one with a declared knowledge of ‘exactly where the stage is’) has apparently demarcated by it’s proximity to a large red building. This presents two problems: 1) around said ‘red’ building, there are 360 degrees of possible location and 2) most of the buildings around River Road are red.
Wandering back and forth as we attempt to use Jame’s crimson-compass, we see ahead of us a gathering crowd. At the intersection of an alley and River Road, we come upon a dead man on the sidewalk. Struck by a matatu speeding out of the alley onto the street, his head is split open. I manage to combine my first image of a violent death with my first image of a human brain. It has happened recently enough that the police have not arrived. Then again, this is Nairobi. The fact that the police have not come says nothing about how recently it occurred. However, the brilliant red of the blood and its glossy wet surface as it spreads in a pool across the sidewalk is good indication that it has been a recent event. It occurs to me that he is probably like thousands of other young men here in Nairobi: family in Meru or Migore, Kisii or Busia to whom he sends a monthly check. They will wonder why they haven’t heard from him; they will hope that he’s okay. Wandering about, peering intensely at every visible red surface is suddenly very frustrating. I leave the group and ask at three consecutive storefronts for directions. Redundancy comfortably in hand, we finally work our way to the stage.
Sitting next to me in the matatu is Mama Suzanne. She lives in Nairobi but works in Nakuru as a hairdresser. Four times a week she squeezes into a matatu with both of her pre-schoolers for the 3 hour ride. She feels lucky to have work that provides for such a schedule of travel. As the ride goes on, she resembles furniture more than anything else as her children rearrange her arms, her bag, her hair to find a comfortable nook in which to lodge their heads and chests. A cushion against the jarring road and whistling wind.