sketches of nairobi

Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. I lived there for the last three months and hated every second of it.

geography
the green city in the slums. fortressed islands of wealth and privilege in a sea of interstitial poverty. 80 percent of the population lives on 20 percent of the land, in accordance with the pareto principle. the slums are among the worst on earth. i've got a lot more to say about this, but it's gonna get its own post.

transit
the primary form of transportation is the traffic jam. in fact that's the only form of transportation. during rush hours it takes 2+ hours to drive 10km to the airport. you'll spend more time driving there then you will on the flight. in a way the city is a victim of its own success: a middle class of sorts has developed, enabling anyone making more than $5000/year to buy a car, but the city's infrastructure hasn't improved since independence. there are all sorts of infrastructure solutions/pipe dreams, but they'll never be implemented as long as corrupt public officials keep looting the treasury.

the vehicles themselves are a motley bunch. most of the cars are used imports from japan, often entire rental fleets. the government wisely banned the importation of vehicles older than six years, but this doesn't really solve the problem: the cars on the road now will still be there in a decade. you've also got various titans of the road: your land rovers and toyota pajeros and whatnot. I saw a tricked out range rover painted road hazard orange with neon and rims; no doubt the biggest boss I've seen thus far.

and then of course the staple of african transportation: the minibus (aka the matatu.) costs 20 shillings, which is the equivalent of 25 us cents. it's the one with the airbrushed portrait of lil wayne on the back, driving on the sidewalk, belching black smoke as it narrowly misses a pedestrian. they trick these out sometimes too, houston-style: plasma flatscreens and big speakers and rims, blasting biggie or ali kiba or bad afro-reggae. these cost extra.

just to spice things up, watch for the maasai tribesman herding his goats and cows across the causeway in the middle of the afternoon.


climate
hot and dry. Nairobi is about 75 km south of the equator, so not much variation. there is a rainy season, but I missed it.


sport
the british premier league, of course, representing about 85% of the athletic mind-share. and everyone only roots for one of three teams: manchester united, arsenal, or liverpool. maybe chelsea, but unlikely. I fucking hate the british premier league, but you better follow it like gospel if you wanna talk to any males around here. bunch of millionaire nancies kicking a ball back and forth, faking injuries and crying like little girls whenever they get tripped up, taking dives in the penalty box, then missing the world's easiest shot as the game grinds to an excruciating 0-0 draw. meanwhile manchester united coasts to their 74th consecutive league title, continuing to follow their brilliant strategy of spending more money than anyone else.

there's also a kenyan premier league, which has a reasonable fan base, but kenyans suck at soccer, and haven't qualified for the world cup in forever.

the other 15% of the athletic mind-share is divided equally between rugby (brutes), cricket (yawn), and marathon running. the kenyans, as everyone knows, are the best marathoners on the planet and have dominated the men's and women's international scene for decades. they mostly come from one tribe, the kalenjin, who are a bunch of fucking unreal genetic mutants. i met a kalenjin dude whose personal best was 2:28, which means he averaged 10.5 mph for 2 and a half hours. try going on a treadmill, kicking it up to 10.5 mph, and running for as long as you can. if you can do it for more than 5 minutes you deserve some kind of medal. that kalenjin dude was the fifth best marathon runner in his high school graduating class.


architecture
a motley collection of charmless 80's crap. the city doesn't even have a discernible skyline.


demographics
there are 42 tribes in kenya and they all hate each other. the big ones are the kikuyu (urban, rich and powerful), the luhya (slum-dwellers), the luo (poor and disenfranchised fishermen, but they've got obama), and the kalenjin (rural marathon mutants). you've also got the maasai, who are like 2% of the population but get all the press because they look cool. those are the big ones, but don't forget about the kamba, the kisii, the ameru, the turkana, the embu and the taita. there'll be a quiz on this later.

also, kenya (and especially nairobi) is a refugee dump for the war-torn hells that surround it, which means you might also meet sudanese, somalians, ethiopians, burundians, rwandans, congolese and even mozambicans. less money, more problems.


fashion
conservative and boring. the women wear long, staid skirts or pantsuits. the men dress in suits and try to look sharp, but since it's all off-brand schmatta they end up resembling dishevled shoe salesmen in some dying mall in dayton ohio. also, there's this bizarre trend of wearing these very short, broad little ties that go down to about the sternum, which makes the wearers look like they are about 3 years old. traditional african dress is hardly ever seen, save the maasai, who are like walking postcards.


government
notorious for its corruption, and utterly tribalized. the mp's here are the sorriest lot of scoundrels i've ever witnessed, reflexively stealing money left and right, refusing to pay taxes, pandering to the basest, most tribal elements of the society, pimping out the slums (many of them are even slum landlords), and censoring the press whenever anyone cries foul.

also don't forget: a dispute over irregularities in the presidential election last year nearly caused a civil war. president kibaki is up for re-election in 2012. look out.


media
this is an unexpected bright spot. the press here is great. both radio and newspapers do good straight run-of-the-mill reporting, as well as hard-hitting investigatives pieces and clever, sometimes brilliant inflammatory editorial attacks on their venal political masters. the kenyan press owns


crime
apocalyptic. it's a climate of fear, and if you want to excite a bunch of ex-pats, get them to tell you their crime stories. you'll hear of purse-snatchings, police shakedowns, high-speed chases with carjackers, wedding rings and cell phones stolen at gunpoint, and, of course, small galaxies of scam artists plying every sort of two-bit hustle known to man. your correspondent was nearly carjacked himself, although that was in rural Naivasha, not urban Nairobi.

this thin slice of life experience, however, is nothing compared to the endless cycle of theft and retributive violence that dominates the informal economy. getting the most press are the mungiki, variously described in the newspapers as a political organization, an organized crime family, or a cult. they run the toilet mafia in the mathare slum, which charges its victims 5 shillings to take a shit in the government-sponsored john (although i think they charge per use, not per turd). they also are the masters of the matatu shakedown, and if the drivers don't pay, off with their heads! literally. the police recently took the constructive step of assassinating the mungiki's political spokesman in broad daylight.

but don't focus just on the mungiki. everyone here is operating some kind of hustle on the poor, from the carjackers to the matchstick men to the police to the slumlords to the toilet mafia to the hubristic ngo workers to the president's wife who fixed the price of maize. its a sorry situation, and as a result, the poor often take the law into their own hands. enter the "lynching", which has a slightly different connotation here than it does in the west. when africans talk of lynching they aren't speaking of stringing people up from trees. in an african lynching, you beat the victim to within an inch of his life, get a tire, soak it in gasoline, and put it around his neck. then you light it on fire.


religion
everyone's christian, and vocal about it. big revival tents all over the city. hallelujah.


chicks
they are hot enough, sure, although they couldn't touch the mozambican mommies with a 12-foot pole. the problem is more the atavistic social attitudes that pervade the whole society (see fashion, and religion), which means everyone's idea of "fun" is the equivalent of a bratty seventh-grader cutting loose at a slumber party. i went out for new year's with my friends amozue and timothy and, after a tepid round of drinking, everybody decided to play truth or dare. TRUTH OR DARE. these were like 30 year olds. and there weren't even any good dares! bullshit.

i thought africans knew how to party, but now i think it might just be the lusophone sphere.


economy
the death of capitalism seems not to have affected this region yet, but maybe we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. i mean, this is supposed to be my area of expertise, but the truth is that i'm at a loss? i work for an international development aid ngo, which is the biggest racket since the scramble for africa, so i have a warped sense of exactly what economic activity is occurring, but this country (and especially this city (and especially the kikuyu tribe)) has a level of entrepreneurial drive that would put even the post-hypercapitalist west to shame. I'll say this: if Kenyans could ever get their political house in order, and maybe get the police on the side of the law, these fuckers would make bank.