Читать книгу My Heart is Africa - Scott Griffin - Страница 16
ОглавлениеIREMEMBER the jacaranda trees. They formed my first impression of Nairobi—dotting the hills like puffs of blue smoke, presaging the rainy season—delicate blossoms, like fallen tanzanites sprinkling the blood-red earth every morning. The city sits five degrees south of the equator, a mile above sea level, basking under a brilliant sun by day, blanketed in liquid coolness at night. How can I ever forget those early-morning sunrises, the magnificent variegations of an African sky, spilling light across the city, or the majestic wash of violet when the sun falls into the Rift Valley at the close of day?
Nairobi must have been a beautiful city in its time. By the time I arrived, sadly, everything about Kenya’s capital required patience and charity. The city’s infrastructure had crumbled; roads, telephones, and government services had become unreliable, subject to sudden breakdown. Giant potholes pockmarked the crowded and dangerous roads. Poorly paid bureaucrats, dispirited and helpless, no longer maintained even the pretence of public service. Civil responsibility seemed a thing of the past, long forgotten. At night the downtown streets remained unlit; an invitation to loiterers, shifting gangs of hoodlums, prostitutes, and the homeless. Mounting heaps of refuse lay uncollected, a permanent part of the landscape. It was depressing to see this once-lovely city fallen into such neglect and decay.
Michael, my taxi-driver friend, had suggested I stay at the Nairobi Club the first night, and not having anywhere else in mind, I simply followed his lead. We pulled up to a large, rambling, grey, stone, white-pillared building sitting on ten acres of beautiful grounds on one of the seven hills of Nairobi. The club had been founded and built in 1921 by tradesmen, in opposition to the exclusive up-country white settlers’ Muthaiga Club on the other side of town. The two clubs represented separate classes during colonial rule, a strictly observed division that gave rise to much sneering and disapproval from both sides.
As I would discover, the Muthaiga Club was always the more chic of the two, with its golf course, squash courts, croquet lawns, pools, and ballroom. Built by Indian artisans from large blocks of stone, and with small Doric columns, it possessed a façade of grandeur. Polished floors and deep, soft armchairs covered in flowered chintz provided an air of English gentility that disguised the prejudices, scandals, and internecine squabbles of its members over some eighty years. Sunday lunches of curry and roast beef remained an enduring tradition. Members still behaved as if the British Empire existed and nothing was ever likely to change.
The Nairobi Club, in contrast, was worn and shabby. Its membership was 95 per cent black African, many of whom were associated with Kenya’s ruling party. The high-ceilinged rooms of the club were in need of a coat of paint, the carpets threadbare. Members were notoriously lax about the payment of bills; the staff, routinely cursed and cajoled, provided mediocre service in return. While the Nairobi Club had squash and tennis courts (no golf ) and many of the same facilities as the Muthaiga Club, it remained the poor cousin. Only the Nairobi Club’s cricket field was superior; lovingly cared for by groundsmen who devoted their lives to a perfect crease and the resounding thwack of a willow bat on a leather-covered ball.
I was struck by the informality of the Nairobi Club and the fact that its members had long ago shunned the expatriate European community. The room I selected had windows looking out onto the cricket pitch. It was simple, furnished with a double bed, armchair, and small desk. The only luxury was a small bathroom with a six-foot bath, the hot water supplied by a wood-fired furnace located in a shed next to the club.
My first day at sundown, I watched as the flags overlooking the terrace were ceremoniously lowered, a signal that the tea room and the dining room required proper evening dress: jacket and tie for men and dresses for women. The club’s flag, with a yellow sun and the words “Light and Liberty” (taken from the crest of the Imperial British East Africa Company), was treated with regimental pride. Payment for food and drink was transacted on various coloured chits, an antiquated inheritance from the British, whose customs remained unquestioned by Africans long after these traditions had disappeared from Britain.
At the top of the grand, wood-panelled staircase I found a musty old library, a treasure house of seven thousand books, including African titles, many of which were long out of print. The library listed 170 members; however, not more than ten members seemed to make use of it during our two-year stay there. The full-time African librarian, Stephen Mukuna, whose love and knowledge of books on Africa was remarkable, sat reading under the lead-framed windows behind his desk. Day after day, like an aging prophet, imprisoned in shafts of sunlight and the motes of ancient dust, he devoured the written word.
The perimeter of the Nairobi Club was patrolled by askaris, or guards, who were on duty all night. These poor souls were paid less than KS 1,300 per month (approximately $250) for remaining outside shivering in the cold and the rain. The askaris were forbidden to light fires for warmth, and their clothing consisted of rags, layers of cotton or wool discards they found or stole. It gave them a wraithlike appearance in the dark.
Michael, the taxi driver, was my first friend in Nairobi. On reflection, I realize he probably adopted me as his friend. A newly arrived muzungu, or white man, in this part of the world spelled opportunity. That was fine by me. I knew few people in Nairobi, and without Krystyne I welcomed the attention. During my first week in Nairobi I agreed to employ Michael as a personal chauffeur. He was expensive by African standards at $20 a day—but for me it was a bargain.
Michael’s cab was in pretty bad shape, but, at the age of twenty-two, owning his own taxi made him a star among his envious friends. The cost of running a car with only a few customers left him chronically short of cash. His standard greeting, “Hello, Scott. Give me something,” was outrageous; however, his unabashed delight at receiving a pen or a cheap pair of sunglasses was endearing—at first. It wore thin over time. However, we remained loyal friends long after I bought my own car and no longer needed his services.
My first day in Nairobi was a Sunday and most of the Flying Doctors Service staff had the day off. I had decided to walk downtown and meet Michael in the afternoon at the Stanley Hotel, half expecting him not to show up. But Michael was there, slouching against the newsstand at the corner of the hotel, a large grin on his face. He swung his arm in a wide arc culminating in an African handshake—a clasp of hands, the holding of thumbs, followed by a second handshake. His boyish round face under a New York Yankees baseball cap advertised a warm and gentle disposition. Michael was a Kikuyu, the largest of the forty-eight tribes of Kenya. He was easygoing, perennially on the lookout for an extra shilling, particularly if it required little or no effort on his part.
“Ah, man, where you been?” he inquired with an indolent shrug.
Nairobi was teeming with people like Michael who came in from the country desperate for work. Over 55 per cent of Nairobi’s population lived in slums that occupied less than 16 per cent of the city. These slums were truly appalling, crowded, filthy, and unsanitary. Michael had a brother, Isaiah, who lived in Kibera, the largest slum, not far from Wilson Airport. Michael offered to take me there and introduce me to his brother since it was unwise for a muzungu to go unaccompanied. I wanted to see for myself what constituted an African slum, so I agreed to go.
Kibera held almost a million people, packed into tiny mud hovels. The press of humanity was suffocating to the outsider. Open sewage ran along narrow passageways with hardly enough space for people to pass. Rank smells of burning dung, garbage, and rot permeated the fetid air. We left the car and I found myself holding on to Michael’s jacket, fighting claustrophobia, pushing through the jostling throng, wading through rivers of muck and feces.
Isaiah lived with five other men, all of whom shared a hut furnished with two cots and a chair in a space no larger than a walk-in closet. Half the occupants worked the night shift, which allowed the others to rotate every two hours between a chair and two cots—four hours sleeping, one hour sitting. Isaiah made a great fuss over our arrival.
“Come in, come in, you are welcome to my home,” he said, enthusiastically. The smoke-filled hut was completely devoid of light. The smell of stale sweat and dirty feet was overpowering. Isaiah unceremoniously roused his roommates from their cots and ushered them, dazed and shuffling, out the doorway to provide space for us to sit.
“Get out, get out. Can’t you see I have guests?” he said, as they slouched uncomplaining into the blinding light of day. He then set about serving us a syrupy sweet tea in tin mugs.
“You shouldn’t have disturbed your mates,” I interjected, embarrassed at the fuss he made over our visit.
“Don’t worry about them,” Isaiah said quickly. “It’s not every day we have a muzungu visit us in Kibera.” Isaiah and Michael laughed and immediately switched to speaking Kikuyu. Michael did most of the talking, while Isaiah repeated, “Ahaa, ahaa” every few seconds.
I cast my eyes around the room, slowly adjusting to the lack of light. The mud walls were bare except for a cracked, unframed mirror and a calendar featuring a girl pulling on a pair of stockings.
I speculated absent-mindedly that Michael and Isaiah were discussing whether or not I had money. I decided it didn’t matter. I simply sat there drinking tea, trying to imagine how six full-grown men could live month after month in such restricted quarters.
Eventually, I interrupted their conversation. “What do you do for work, Isaiah?” I asked. Both brothers turned, as if surprised that I was still present.
“Oh, I’m not working at the moment, bwana. Between jobs,” Isaiah volunteered. Michael quickly added that it was very hard to find work living in Kibera. I could see the conversation was heading towards a request for money so I ignored Michael’s remark and addressed Isaiah again.
“Do you have a family?”
“Oh yes, he has a family living in Nakuru,” said Michael, determined to steer the conversation back to himself. “It’s very hard for my brother. He must send money to his family every month.”
A loud whistle from the train travelling from western Kenya to Mombasa interrupted our conversation. The train passed right through the middle of Kibera between the press of people and the racks of cheap clothes hanging from poles on either side of the tracks.
Resigned now to the inevitable request for money, I asked Isaiah how it was possible to send money to his family if he had no job. Unfazed, Michael rose to the occasion, while Isaiah sat silently, anticipating rejection.
“Isaiah lost his job from Asian boss in Biashara. He closed his shop and refused to pay last week’s wages. Now my brother can’t pay his rent. It’s a very bad situation, you understand, Scott.” Michael’s persistence was relentless.
“How much is rent?” I said, incredulous that rent could be collected for such a place. That was it; the trap was sprung.
Triumphant, Michael announced, “Rent is 1,800 Kenyan shillings a month. Isaiah must pay his share, 300 Kenyan shillings, by this evening. Only 300 Kenyan shillings, Scott. Can you help him?”
I pulled out my wallet and passed the money to Isaiah who appeared stunned at this miraculous event. He accepted the money without saying a word. Michael quickly added, “God bless you and your family, Scott.” Turning to his brother, he added something in Kikuyu that sounded like a rebuke. Isaiah remained silent. The business over, it was time to go. Isaiah’s roommates had gathered round the doorway, anxious to return to their sleeping quarters. We made our way out into the press of people, towards the eastern end of the slum, where Michael had left his car.
There was something impressive about Kibera. In spite of the dirt, poverty, and unsanitary conditions, there was a social order that I found extraordinary. The intensity and vibrancy of close quarters, shared hardships, and the mix of generations gave Kibera a sense of community. This enormous congregation of people, mired in pollution, without police or government, had a commonality of purpose which focused on day-to-day survival. It was unlike anything else I witnessed in Nairobi during my two-year stay there.
Sometime later, I learned from friends in Westlands, a well-to-do suburb, that their African staff, living in separate quarters palatial by comparison to Kibera, became lonely, missing the life in Kibera, depressed by the material comforts of Westlands but devoid of human contact. Similarly, aid agencies such as the Flying Doctors Service spoke of refugees who were loath to abandon the intense social life of the massive refugee camps, no matter how bad the conditions, for the less human prospects of resettlement.
Michael and I made our way along the railway tracks that bordered the slum. Mounds of rotting garbage piled several stories high redefined the landscape. I could see first one, then two, and soon over half a dozen children, picking and sorting their way through the slime, in search of anything of value they might possibly turn to a shilling. Their eyes darting, alert to danger and opportunity, the scavengers were totally unaware of our presence.
Monday morning, November 18, 1996, I walked up the laterite path that led in from the main road to Wilson Airport, to an area where a collection of attractive bungalow-style buildings butted up against a nondescript office block. A large nandi flame tree had dropped its gold-laced, reddish flowers on the dark earth. There, under the leafy shade of a parking lot, dappled in sunlight, I found the main reception of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) headquarters. I was pleasantly surprised. Inside, the atmosphere was professional and efficient. The corridors buzzed with activity; doctors, nurses, secretaries, and messengers were striding purposefully from office to office, sheaves of paper in hand, intent on AMREF business. A small group of Africans waited patiently for news about a sick relative or a job application. The phones never stopped ringing. On closer examination, the buildings required minor repairs and a lick of new paint but, for an NGO (non-governmental organization), dependent on private funding, headquartered in Africa, the place scored high on first impression.
The African Medical and Research Foundation was the brainchild of plastic surgeon Sir Michael Wood, who was knighted for his work in Africa. He was born in 1919, educated at Winchester, and interned at the Middlesex Hospital in England. He and his wife, Susan, immigrated to East Africa after the Second World War. Two other plastic surgeons, Sir Archibald McIndoe, a New Zealander, and Dr. Thomas Rees, an American, arrived in Nairobi in 1957. All three met and together founded AMREF; however, it was Sir Michael Wood as director general who continued to be the driving force of AMREF until his premature death in 1987.
Sir Michael Wood, a man of charismatic charm and imagination, was also a pilot and larger than life. He realized that in Africa it was impossible for the sick to reach the large hospitals in major centres such as Nairobi and that medical help should be delivered to the outlying areas where people lived—a concept later endorsed by the Declaration of Alma Ata at a World Health Conference in Kazakhstan in 1977. He initially organized AMREF with trucks equipped with an operating theatre, dispensary, and radios, but he quickly discovered that these vehicles were cumbersome and impractical given the impassable roads in Africa, particularly during the rainy season.
Small planes were the answer: planes equipped with HF radios that could fly in and out of dirt strips. And so, the Flying Doctors Service was formed as a division of AMREF. Michael Wood’s personal plane, a Cherokee 180, and a twin-engine Piper Aztec donated by Arthur Godfrey (the 1950s host of The Arthur Godfrey Show on ABC television) formed the Flying Doctors Service’s first fleet of airplanes.
Years of hard, selfless work followed, building countless dirt airstrips, installing an expansive HF long-distance radio network, constructing outreach clinics, and raising donations from Europe and North America. Forty years later, the Flying Doctors Service had become a critical part of Kenya’s medical infrastructure.
I knocked on Dr. Michael Gerber’s door. His second-floor office was a large room, nicely appointed with black-and-white photos of doctors and nurses dispensing aid to black women and their children—typical NGO advertising, designed to tug at the donor’s purse strings. I found Michael Gerber at his desk, hunched over a computer from which he directed a seven-hundred-employee organization, responsible for training and operating clinical outreach programs for the whole of Kenya and much of East Africa as well as the Flying Doctors, who provided medical evacuation services.
Right from the start, Gerber made me his confidant, unloading his private thoughts and frustrations without seeming to worry about the political consequences of such indiscretion. Over the next two years, our regular weekly meetings would cover subjects that went far beyond my assignment to reorganize the Flying Doctors Service. Gerber’s concerns included the composition of the AMREF board, governance, and personnel issues—all political minefields that were driving him to distraction.
That first day, though, we spoke only of my assignment. He launched into it almost before I had a chance to sit down.
“Scott, I’ve got a hell of a problem with the Flying Doctors Service. It’s badly run, losing money, and draining resources from the organization. My board members are upset. They insist I do something about it.”
Gerber had inherited an awkward corporate structure that complicated the reorganization of the Flying Doctors Service, which was legally owned and operated by AMREF. The Flying Doctors Service’s revenue came from funds raised by the Flying Doctors Society, referred to as the “Society,” a separate legal organization whose sole purpose was to raise money for the Flying Doctors Service.
The Society was made up of volunteer ladies, most of whom were well meaning but completely out of touch with the operating requirements of the Flying Doctors. The Society’s constitutional mandate was to raise money for the Flying Doctors Service by selling annual memberships to the Society for KS 30,500 or $65 per member. Membership entitled a member to a free emergency medical evacuation from any swamp, mountain, or desert in East Africa, by the Flying Doctors Service. It was an excellent fundraising idea, popular with travel agents and tourists visiting the game parks. The only problem was that the Society jealously guarded the funds it raised and had no legal obligation to hand the money over immediately to the Flying Doctors Service. The Society’s board believed their first obligation was to Society members to ensure that monies raised were properly spent.
The Society had lost confidence in Mike Gerber, and because they felt that the Flying Doctors Service was poorly run, the Society’s board felt justified in withholding funds. While there was some justification for their complaints, no one on the board had a clue about the operations of an emergency medical flight evacuation unit, and this led to ferocious arguments and much bitterness.
Since the Society had few expenses and no obligations, it had accumulated substantial amounts of cash. Its board met infrequently to review its bank account and members debated whether or not to make a “donation” to the Flying Doctors Service, usually amounts that were pitifully small and bore no relationship to the actual costs of operation. To make matters worse, the Society did a lamentable job selling memberships; they had little incentive with so much cash in their bank account. Meanwhile, the Flying Doctors Service, carrying all the expenses of running the medical-evacuation service, was cash-starved and hounded by outraged creditors who threatened to close them down.
Gerber’s frustration over this impossible situation and his uneasy relationship with his own board had him pacing the room. Part of his problem lay in the fact that AMREF was still living under the shadow of his predecessors, Sir Michael Wood, whose reputation had taken on mythical proportions, and his younger brother, Christopher Wood. Sir Michael’s charismatic personality had been universally attractive to all those connected with AMREF, making him a tough act for Mike to follow.
Mike Gerber was an American who had grown up in New York City, received his doctorate in Asian studies from New York University, and then became a professional aid worker. He had spent a number of years in the Philippines and India before joining AMREF’S national US office in New York. Tall, warm, and gregarious, he seemed nevertheless out of place at AMREF. It was generally agreed that he was the complete opposite of the legendary Sir Michael Wood.
Over the years the Flying Doctors Service focused on emergency medical evacuations, employing professional pilots and nurses, sometimes accompanied by doctors. Seriously ill patients were flown from outlying areas to Nairobi to be treated by doctors at one of the major hospitals. Since most emergency evacuations involved Africans who had no money, the Flying Doctors Service division, without access to the Society’s cash, eventually became a financial drain on its parent, AMREF—a drain that AMREF could ill afford. My assignment was to free Gerber to concentrate on AMREF and to reorganize the Flying Doctors Service, making it more efficient, providing it with a renewed sense of purpose, and, more important, reversing its financial losses.
Mike Gerber and I quickly agreed that I should spend a few weeks at the Flying Doctors Service hangar to assess the operation, produce an initial set of recommendations, discuss and agree on a business plan, and then submit it to the board for approval.
“Well, that’s fine, Scott,” he said. “It’s wonderful to have you with us. I really need your help and I look forward to your recommendations.”
Suddenly, he seemed to realize that he hadn’t made the proper polite inquiries about how and when I had arrived in Nairobi and whether I had a suitable place to stay. We took another few minutes on the subject, following which he insisted that I join him and his wife for dinner. By the end of the evening, I realized that I could be of real help to Mike. His daily routine had become a struggle, made difficult by a political board and a recalcitrant Society. I sensed he was looking forward to early retirement.
The next day, I bought a second-hand Nissan sedan, and soon discovered that driving in Nairobi is a blood sport. It is not so much that drivers drive too fast, which they do, but that virtually all cars on the road are unsafe, wrecks held together by a grotesque patchwork of metal and body filler. No matter how old or damaged cars appear, however, they remain a potential target for thieves. The manufacture of security devices ranges from enormous links of chain to bars inserted through the steering wheel and red-blinking lights that warn of electronic sirens—mostly non-operational. The sale of security systems was and still is a thriving industry in Nairobi. Popular bumper stickers read “This car is protected by the blood of Jesus.” Expensive Land Cruisers and Mercedes-Benzes usually carry the added protection of a chauffeur armed with a billy club or a pistol, the use of which is never really in question.
The roads in and around Nairobi when I was there were a disaster. Potholes were so numerous they served as speed bumps or what some called “sleeping policemen.” On occasion, I would bring my Nissan to an abrupt stop as the frame rested on the edge of a hole, leaving a front wheel hanging suspended in mid-air. Extrication from one of these craters entailed commandeering a gang of youths to lift the car bodily out of the hole, and then enduring the inevitable haggle over payment.
Driving at night with no streetlights, behind billowing clouds of black exhaust and defective headlights was nerve-racking. Rules of the road were simply guidelines. Assuming safe passage through a green light could be as dangerous as running a red light. High beams were used as a weapon and passing was considered a competition.
Matatus, or privately operated small buses, are now regulated, but during our stay in Africa they were not, and merely added to the confusion. Matatu drivers—usually young men in their twenties— were paid by the number of passengers they transported over a ten-hour day. Passengers were packed like sardines inside a matatu by “touts,” or encouraged to hang from the sides, roof, windows, and bumpers—wherever a hand- or foot-hold could be found. Once passengers were on board the matatu, the driver and the “tout boy” assumed no responsibility for safety.
Matatus, although fast and frequent compared to the lumbering, unreliable public buses, were dangerous. They competed for riders by using moronic-sounding horns, neon lights, psychedelic paint jobs, and trendy names: Muscat Candy, The Undertaker, Shaggy by Nature, The Smasher, Brown Baby, Bad Manners, Fly Baby Fly.
Matatu accidents were frequent and horrific. A typical Monday-morning article in the Kenyan newspaper The Nation reported that a matatu, with a legal limit of sixteen passengers, had broken through the barrier of a bridge and plunged into the Athi River, killing the driver and all forty-three passengers.
My poor old Nissan sedan took incredible punishment over the two years in Nairobi. Aggressive driving seemed mandatory and I entered the fray with unabashed enthusiasm. On one occasion, I was trapped in a full-scale downtown riot caused by the political tensions over the 1997 elections. Surrounded by an angry mob throwing stones and bottles, I realized I might have to abandon the car. Tear gas and policemen wielding clubs had worked the crowd into a frenzy. The street was blocked at both ends. Drivers had deserted their cars and were running for cover. I swung the steering wheel hard over, drove up onto the curb, and, with a fearful bang to the under pan, drove over a flower bed between the trees bordering Uhuru Park, and raced across the grass to the Haile Selassie intersection. I escaped with only a slow, thin leak of oil that traced my whereabouts in and around Nairobi for the next thirteen months.
By November, the rainy season had ended, leaving Nairobi caparisoned in fresh flowers. Krystyne was still in Canada and I anxiously awaited her arrival. I had negotiated a long-term rental of our room in the Nairobi Club, and made a few exploratory forays beyond Nairobi to the districts of Thika and Karen. I was beginning to get the feel of things, know my way around Nairobi, make a few friends, and assess the size and extent of my assignment at the Flying Doctors Service.
David Huntington, an Englishman in his late forties, attractive and intelligent, had become a special friend. He was in Kenya on a three-year assignment with the United Nations. He loved Africa and was hoping to stay on indefinitely, perhaps even to settle permanently in Kenya. His young wife, Amanda, however, found life in Nairobi difficult. She was clearly homesick for England. It had become an issue between them. David and I had met at a United Nations–sponsored conference in Nairobi on aid. He took me under his wing and helped me learn the ropes in and around the city.
David had developed a healthy disdain for those in the aid business who he felt profited from Africa’s misery. Nairobi served as a base for a proliferation of aid agencies, most with headquarters in Europe and the United States. The United Nations had its own private, fenced-in compound situated in northwest Nairobi, with its own modern supermarkets, theatres, sports facilities, and schools. A large expatriate community lived there in relative comfort, with tax free salaries, free housing and schools, expensive four-wheel-drive vehicles, and special discounts at designated expatriate stores beyond the reach of Africans. One had to question whether these agencies were organized for the benefit of the aid receivers or the aid givers. David had strong views on the subject and over time he struck a sympathetic, though less cynical, chord in me on the complicated business of providing aid to underdeveloped countries. David would become a close friend to whom I could turn for advice concerning the restructuring of the Flying Doctors Service.
The evening of Krystyne’s arrival, December 10, I was stuck in rush-hour traffic on my way to meet her at Kenyatta International Airport. The length of Kenyatta Avenue was blocked solid. Waves of pedestrians streamed between my Nissan and the line of cars stalled in traffic. A haze of suffocating exhaust hung over Kenyatta Avenue like a dirty blanket. Stoplights in Nairobi took forever to change, causing frustration for drivers who sat immobile, staring grim-faced in the heat and pollution.
Without warning a loud bang interrupted my daydreaming as a beaten-up Ford Opel sedan struck me from behind. Both my tail lights were smashed and the trunk acquired an ugly hump. The driver of the Opel, an older African, and his terrified wife were shouting excitedly in Kikuyu, while he waved his arms and pointed to the empty space in front of my car. Apparently, he felt I was to blame for not having advanced quickly enough. It was a hopeless argument. I re-entered my car and resumed the frustrating crawl towards the roundabout, cursing.
A small boy in rags ran in front of the car and around to the driver’s-side window, “Please, Mister, give me something,” he held out his hand pleading. I kept a bag of sweets in the glove compartment for such occasions; within seconds the car was surrounded by a band of urchins, brown eyes imploring, fingers tapping the window, eager for treasure.
Begging in Nairobi is an art form. Mothers supervise their daughters from a distance as they work the street. Six-year-old girls dressed in rags with totos (small babies) on their backs are trained to run into the thick of traffic to secure a shilling from white female drivers waiting at a stoplight. The boys are more aggressive, working in packs, waiting for an open car window so that they can grab whatever is lying on the back seat or snatch a watch off a wrist, or earrings, sunglasses, or even necklaces from unsuspecting drivers. The older ones ply the traffic lanes, selling newspapers, magazines, and articles ranging from full-length mirrors to cosmetics, toasters, hammers, and toilet paper, most of which have been stolen during the previous night’s escapade. The jumble of traffic and frenetic market activity along the street provides an exciting sense of energy; everyone is hustling, hands and eyes active, never missing a trick.
Finally breaking free of the jam, I circled the roundabout and bounced along the Valley Road to the Mombasa Highway against the piercing headlights of oncoming traffic. My excitement mounted as I turned into a parking space and headed for the international terminal building to meet Krystyne.
Krystyne, tall and regal (a shade under six feet), stood apart from the bustle of tourists and Africans scrambling to extract their bags from the luggage belt. She looked lovely, dressed in linen, standing under the garish neon light of the arrivals terminal. I slipped past the guard into the baggage claim area. We met over a pile of luggage— our first embrace in Africa.
Night fell with a thud over the Nairobi plateau. We emerged from the glare of the airport into the unlit parking lot. The crumpled trunk of my Nissan refused to open. I loaded Krystyne’s bags into the back seat and we headed into the chaotic rumble of traffic towards Nairobi. Krystyne gripped the armrest, bracing herself against potential accidents as cars careened towards us like alien meteorites off a video screen. The drive had her guarded and nervous as she related home news. It was only when we entered the Nairobi Club that I realized how incredibly shabby the place looked, paint peeling from the ceilings, leather chairs disgorging parts of their interior, carpets threadbare and unable to hide the creaking, wax-caked wooden floors.
We made our way up to our small room and squeezed into the small space available between the bed, the chintz-covered armchair, and the small writing table. For Krystyne it was a stark change from the comforts of Toronto, where the luxury of space and a garden were taken for granted.
“Think of it as a cabin on board ship,” I said enthusiastically. “You’ll see, space is relative,” I added optimistically. “Did you know that Nelson, after a year of chasing the French back and forth across the Atlantic, refused to disembark in Toulon, preferring to remain in his small cabin?” Krystyne let this pass without comment. Sure enough, our little room soon became a real home. In a curious way, it drew us closer together; closer than we ever could have imagined that evening, her first in Africa.
