The Emerald City

Awolio eoŋ! I am lost! Life was busy: finishing up collaborations with Term One’s focal schools, writing a grant for US AID Small Project Assistance (accepted!), co-facilitating Peace Corps Life Skills workshops, attending my mid-service conference, and then . . .


“Obi!” The words became concrete as I stirred to life, my body contorted in the uncomfortable “luxury” chair that bound me for fourteen hours, save for passing through customs and waking to find the bus driver asleep at the wheel of our cruiser, in the middle of a sorghum field. “Nairobi. Hapa! Nairobi,” the conductor shouted like an alarm clock.

I quickly found my feet and struggled to unlock my bursting backpack from the overhead rack where I chained it. One cannot be too careful with a suitcase of clothes worth approximately $3000 (all secondhand, of course). Stepping out onto the sidewalk, I turned in a circle to gain my first vision of Nairobi. It looked a lot like Kampala: stucco shops that reach two or three floors max. Immediately, I felt deflated with the familiarity surrounding me; I booked a week in Kenya’s capital city for its reputation: “Manhattan of East Africa.” True, a Eurocentric notion forced upon an African metropolis but I needed a drastic holiday from the bush: a city with substance and order. My shoulders slumped under the weight of my backpack and the defeat of failed expectation. Then, I turned westward.
Soaring up from the usual African shops were crystal skyscrapers. Loads of them; well, at least enough to make a proper skyline. Like a moth drawn to a flame, I started walking towards the city centre, humming “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” the entire way. I crossed River Road, a shady thoroughfare in the old part of the city, headed down Latema until I hit Moi Avenue. I could feel the electricity of the city nearing as I turned left and joined the rapid current of urban dwellers on their morning commute. For a moment, I thought myself in an American city, only with a significantly increased Black population. I was immediately blissful.

There were no greetings, no shouts of muzungu, no beggars on the street, no motorcycles harassing me with “you sit, we go.” Only a crowd of people, individuals turning off sporadically as their journeys differed from the majority. Not paying attention, I collided with a man who stopped suddenly in the middle of the block. He turned around and immediately saw my confusion, “Bus stop.” I smiled, trying to seem like bus stops were a part of my everyday life.

I quickly apologized and continued down the street to the intersection with Mama Ngina. As the first and most exciting stop in Nairobi neared, my blood quickened and my eyes searched the storefronts for a sign. Halfway down the block I turned around to make sure I hadn’t already passed it when a door swung open and released the aroma of freshly ground coffee beans: Nairobi Java House.

I caught the door before it could close and walked in to find a proper coffee shop with café tables and fashion forward bohemians sitting next to businessmen reading the daily news. I ignored feeling awkward in my travel clothes with a huge backpack; instead, I grabbed the last available table. Within five seconds a barista approached, “Morning, something to drink? Maybe a bite to eat?” I quickly ordered a regular coffee, neither cream nor sugar, and a healthy stack of pancakes, already tasting a little slice of heaven. After taking my order the barista turned to walk to the service station but doubled back, “Where are you from?”

“Oh. I’m American but I stay in Uganda,” I answered.

“Really? My mother is from Tororo.”

“Cuti? Ijeni ijo Ateso? Really? You know Ateso?” Automatically, I began speaking Ateso. Even on holiday from my village, I couldn’t help but grasp onto all ties to my African life.

“Eebo. Ai bo iboiei ijo? Yes. Where to do you stay?”

“Buka ŋaren na Soroti. Ejai ocaalo. I’m from near Soroti. It’s in the village.”

“Wonderful! You are a true Itesot, then. I’ll be right back with your coffee. I’m sure you’re looking forward to it. Not a lot of coffee in the village.”

“You have no idea,” I smiled and rubbed my hands together as I looked around at the red wine walls, the cedar wood countertop, people rushing to the register leaving moments later with a cup of energy in hand. I closed my eyes and listened to the fuzzy chatter of coffee beans grinding, steam machines, conversations in English, Swahili and Luo. City living, indeed.

* * *

“Morning, Adam. Going out for the day?” Angela, at the hotel’s front desk, asked as I walked towards the main entrance.

“Mmhmm. I think a little exploration is necessary,” I smiled back as I plugged in my earbuds and pressed the play button on my Ipod, feeling the total invisibility surging forth from the street.

“I can call a taxi for you it you want—“ she began.

“No need. I’ll take the bus.”

“Oh, my. Okay,” she said in disbelief.

I stood at the corner bus stop for ten minutes before my bus came. No. 24 pulled up to the curb and barely stopped as I jumped on and took a seat next to an older gentleman reading Barack Obama’s Dreams of my Father. I giggled to myself and took out my copy of the same book, a last minute decision at the Peace Corps library the day I left for my trip.

“Good read?” I asked the man as I showed him my copy.

“Yeah. Loads better than the rubbish he wrote in his second book, The Audacity of Hope. You can tell which he wrote while a politician.”

“I won’t bother with the sequel, then. I haven’t started this yet.”

“Well, a good place to read it. A whole section of the book takes place in this very city,” the man said as he spread his hands to the window’s view of the cityscape in the distance. “I’d ask if you were on your way home to Karen but white people in Nairobi don’t often take the bus.” Karen is a neighborhood within greater Nairobi that houses most of the white Kenyans who decided to stay after independence, named after Out of Africa’s author Karen Blixen. “Which begs the question, Where are you from?”

“I’m American but I currently live in NE Uganda with the Iteso people,” I gave the standard response even though most don’t have any knowledge of the Iteso people, a tiny population compared to Luo or Kikuyu.

The man digested my response with a furrowed brow and made his next question, “Did you vote in November?”

“By way of post,” I answered.

“I trust by your choice of reading that you made a smart decision. Where are you off to today?”

Just as I was about to answer, the conductor shouted the stop for Hardy, which was my destination. I stood up and quickly answered as I climbed down the stairs, “I’m going to kiss a giraffe. Doing something memorable for my 25th birthday.”

“Well, just remember to wash your face. Happy Birthday,” the elderly man waved from the window as the bus pulled away. “Enjoy the city.”

“I plan to.”

* * *

“So, you been to Masaai Mara?” Andy, my guide for the afternoon, asked as we walked to the car that would take us through Nairobi National Park.

“No. I’m not much of a nature person.” As soon as the words slipped out of my mouth, I felt their dishonesty. Now a year into village life, nature wasn’t as scary as I once thought, just not my cup of coffee. “I thought if I were to go on safari, it would be within the confines of a city.”

“Well, good choice, then. You can see the skyline of Nairobi in the distance. Most strange thing you’ll ever see. Animals running around with skyscrapers in the background. Crazy sight, indeed. You . . .” And so it went for the next five hours. Andy loves to talk about any subject. I learned his mother was from Seychelles and his father was from Uganda but he grew up in Mombasa, hunting warthogs in his boyhood.

Arriving at the vehicle, I laughed at the hybrid before us. Seeing my response, Andy harped in, “Well, as a city person, I thought you’d prefer the greenest vehicle we have. She runs like a bull, swear my life on it.”

“It is perfect. I guess green would do me well. I burn my trash in a rubbish pit. Not sure how eco-friendly that may be. This may forgive some of my Earthly sins. Off we go, then.”


“Damn lions. Making their kill before we arrive. Wish ‘em to hell, I do,” Andy swore as we finished hour four of our adventure. I lost interest after the third hour but Andy was hell-bent on finding a cat. So hell-bent that he off-roaded after passing Leopard Cliff, voyaging through mud for thirty minutes before we met with a buffalo. “This isn’t good. Let me see if I can turn around.”

“Really? The thing can’t be scared off?” I asked quietly.

“Nah, it’ll charge. Worst thing to do is piss it off. Shit, another behind us. What do we do now?”

“Wait it out? What more can we do?” I offered, the words of a true villager. Waiting for things or people is second nature now.

So, we sat in the middle of the park for an hour, waiting for something to scare the buffalos away. Being off the path, nothing came by to assist. Andy became anxious after thirty minutes and when the hour hit, he could take no more. He started to exit the car when the buffalo walked forward. I turned the key in the ignition hoping the sudden noise would startle the beast. Before I could jump the engine, the fan kicked on in a silent roar and the buffalos screeched and started running down the hill towards the ravine.

“Good thinking. Well, you may not have seen a lion, but you came face to face with a pissy buffalo. What now?”

“Take me back to the city. I’m not a nature person,” I said, this time seeing the truth in my words.

* * *

I spent the last day in Nairobi sitting in Uhuru Park, landscaped with flowers, shrubs and trees casting endless shade. I sipped an iced coffee and ate a sandwich bought from a vendor while reading the last of Obama’s book. I felt sad to leave Nairobi, a city that won my heart with its uniquely reclaimed culture, sweet coffee, delicate pastries and its friendly yet not intrusive people; however, I know one day I will return to urban lifestyle and all its cosmopolitan qualities. For now, in my 25th year, living the village life sounds like a good deal.

Lessons Learnt:

In university, my black friends would often complain about having to go hours for a decent hair appointment. I will forever understand this plight. Therefore, I cut my hair with nothing more than a scissors, my fingers, and a hand mirror.

The first time I ran in the village, children threw rocks. I again pick up the pace with reinforcements. Nathan and myself will be running at 5:45 AM four days a week. There go my kneecaps.

Read Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael. Maybe it was science fiction when published in 1992 but, in this day and age, it is spot-on.