I gazed abstractly out the window at Nairobi, large and bustling under the white gold of a setting sun, and all very peaceful. I had flown eight thousand miles from Toronto to Nairobi in seventy-six hours’ flying time. The excitement of flying solo to Kenya to work on an aid project in Africa suddenly seemed less romantic, even mundane—but then I was tired, very tired. I needed sleep. Tomorrow, I thought, would be time to rekindle my spirits, to seek adventure in Africa, and whatever else lay ahead, over the next two years.
IREMEMBER 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 Poorly paid bureaucrats, dispirited and helpless, no longer maintained even the pretence of public service.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,