Today has been arduously slow and frustrating. I’m slowly running out of money (the hotel’s dinner buffet costs £7 a pop, and there’s no chips!), so I can no longer afford to pay Tony (my guide) to take me around; it’s a shame because I feel as though there is so much of Nairobi I’ve yet to discover. I’m also sad not to spend anymore time with Tony; he has been my best friend for a week now and we have had some cracking banter - discussing jazz, politics, and even my slightly receding hairline (I died a little inside when he pointed that out).
So it looks like I’m stuck in my room for a while. On the plus side I have been upgraded to a slightly nicer room with more than one channel on the TV (I have never craved variety so much) and a kettle! This is also a good chance to send some work back to HQ.
Looking back over my notes its amazing when I think about just how many different characters I have met from varying ends of the social spectrum. I like to think that I have managed to gain a good and balanced insight into Kenyan youth culture; whilst decadence does exist and people dabble in drugs and crime, Kenya is such a conservative country so heavily influenced by religion that this lifestyle is somewhat clandestine, and those who did get involved in such activities are generally shunned. Life for a youth is hard, you are targeted by the local police force and are all cloaked under the same veil as trouble-makers and drug users. Hmmm… sounds familiar doesn’t it?
I have learned that tribalism is huge here; it dictates everything regardless of geography, from which football team you support to who you back in elections, and this binding allegiance is actually kind of frightening. People have lost their lives because of difference in opinion and to an outsider, like myself, it’s terrible but also highly fascinating; its one part of my trip that I will be looking at closer upon my return.
"Life for a youth is hard, you are targeted by the local police force and are all cloaked under the same veil as trouble-makers and drug users. Hmmm… sounds familiar doesn’t it?"
The notes I am writing on this trip are been typed daily on the hotel’s frustratingly slow computers, so not only am I expecting carpal-tunnel but also a reduced sense of patience with technology by the time this trip ends. The internet café is stiflingly hot and located in the hotel’s religious centre, so many a profound conversation has been had with other guests; including a rather heated debate with a South African couple who claimed that the volcano erupting in Iceland was an example of God’s wrath.
On a lighter note, I had an amazing conversation with an old couple from Devon about Vimto… no long explanation, but it kept me intrigued for a while.
Retiring to my room after an expensive dinner of rice and rice swimming in chilli sauce, I changed into my most comfortable ‘lazy boy shorts’ and jumped onto my bed to watch Kenyan TV; which included a soap opera surrounding a magazine which, as far as I could make out, didn’t publish anything, with everyone just shouting about abortions and affairs (a show rather like Judge Judy, but instead of ‘justice’, two women who accused a hotel of having dirty sheets lost their case and their punishment was to strip down to their skivvies and wrestle each other whilst the landlord poured mustard and honey on them…).
True Story.
Words and photos: James Prosho. Written whilst listening to Friendly Fires and watching more crazy Kenyan TV, including a cartoon about talking microphones that I may or may not have dreamed up (must’ve been all that chilli sauce).
