28th January - 10th February Days 121-134 Selected short stories from Nairobi, Kenya
When we were not living it up on the ex-pat scene, our time in Nairobi was mostly spent inspecting the different services the city provides.
Nairobi from on high
With us being back in civilization and surrounded by good-looking, well dressed individuals, I seriously started acknowledging the state of my overgrown roots dating from the last time I dyed my hair in August. Hence, I insisted I need a trip to the salon, and to my surprise T decided to join up with nothing more than a mere suggestion from my part. I think he was getting as scared of appearing in any more pictures that his mother would be seeing as I was of hearing about it from his mother that I had not been tending to his hair earlier. So we hunted down a suitable (read: decently priced) place and both sat down to be sliced, and in my case to be dyed too, and came out with alright results – apart from the tiny detail that the next morning I woke up with some nasty scabs all over my scalp. Talk about scratching your head while you're thinking of what to do next!
Luckily my recent efforts at playing Amy Housewine – picked up smoking again two weeks after arriving in Africa and drinking wine and beer at quite a liberal pace, especially with Tom's fridge at our disposal – had been producing their own result around the same time and also my beloved eczema flared up rather badly on the same night. I faced yet another one of those endlessly long nights when all you wanna do is kick and scream until the itching stops, and it still won't and you still won't stop scratching. I ended up doing rounds around Tom's house at 5am forced by T as an extreme measure to get my nails off my skin. The next afternoon we then headed to the Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi to have me checked up to see if it really was the eczema or if I'd picked up something else, like worms, or if my doxy was giving me some rather undesirable side effects. Once in there, I was drugged up hardcore with steroids and anti-histamines through an IV. As I was slightly out of it for the rest of the evening, we had to call Tom to come and collect us back to his place. I left the hospital with a four-week dose of steroid creams and my new shampoo: some super sterile and stinky pink liquid that had to be diluted to one liter of water before each use. Just what the doctor ordered. NOT.
Aside these everyday instances we also got round to some more exotic trips around town, such as to our nearby shopping centre Village Market for multiple visits to our favourite supermarket at least if judged by name: Nakumatt. Just add an 'I' in the end and you're shopping at the Naked Matt in Finnish. We also got to check out the other side when Tom took us to Westlands where we tested out the other supermarket chain called Uchumi. No comedy with the name there though, so we decided to stick to the nude brand.
The fact that I had to find some new trainers to replace my old ones acted as a good excuse to check out downtown Nairobi. We suspect the Merrells got snatched by an unsatisfied tout back in Moyale who put our bags up on the truck and whom we wouldn't tip according to his wishes. As the choice for this category of footwear in Nairobi is found mainly in sports brand stores (Nike, Adidas) with western prices, Bata and the freelance shoe shops found in every corner selling cheap converse-style tennis loafers, women's sandals and stilettos and ridiculous gansta ghetto basketball trainers, we were very happy to find a humanly priced sports warehouse in the centre of the city. I escaped with OK trainers and only Ksh 3000 (27€) damage, and T made a legendary purchase of a 'Long Wei' backpack (Ksh 800 or 6,5€) which he intended to use as part of his plan to lighten up the luggage burden by only taking a small bag for the next leg in Tanzania instead of his standard giant. What makes this purchase legendary is that the main zipper disintegrated within three hours from us leaving the store, rendering the whole bag rather non-usable. I didn't have the heart to advice T to go ask about the shop's return policy.
The Parliament, where dodgy deals are made (probably).
Nairobi Street scene #48473638(a)
Zipping around town for all of the above was done mostly on matatus, the local minibuses. For this part of the service sector I can report that some days are better than others in terms of the price you pay for the rides, but that the music will always be deafeningly loud and your personal space even more limited than the previous time. The latter happens to the point where you get invited for coffee by the guys who cash out the customers. We also heard a dating ad on the radio during one of the rides in which a married woman announced she's seeking a wealthy closer-to-40's man to show her a good time and pamper her. So this is a message to all you single and not so single ladies out there: Nairobi's matatus might come in useful in many ways!
M sits in a matatu and listens carefully. Who ever said some things never change??
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