The second time I was in Nairobi, I was in love. It was the youthful, puppy kind of love. It coloured everything I touched, heard and saw. I lived with a friend that I had made at an Outward Bound camp [another story for another day]. I think her name was Liz. She is a fiery Kamba lady and was my first experience with the lion heart of Kenya [The tribe thing was a big deal to her. I could not understand it. Coming from a mixed family myself, I was raised not to see the differences amongst people. However, I suspect that there was a boyfriend from another tribe that her family may not have approved of]. There were three of us from Uganda. We had chosen to spend a few days in the city since we were not in a hurry to go back home. I had had a ghastly experience at the camp. I was convinced that my parents were looking for a way to torture and kill me, while making it seem like I had willingly signed up for this trip. In any case, I survived the camp, arrived in Nairobi and was glad for a distraction from how angry I was with my parents.
Poor village child that I was, I was in owe of the orderliness and cleanliness of the Nairobi streets. Things were shiny and pretty. Everyone seemed cooler than the dusty folk back home. The matatus in Nairobi called themselves "Ministries of Sound" where the latest tracks and beats hit the streets. I heard that they now have wifi in the matatus. The conductors had swag and walked with a bounce in their step, very unlike the shadowy characters I was used to in the chaos of Kampala. Nairobi was throbbing with excitement and wonder and a magic I could not describe. I was in love!
Even the Masai market seemed organised, at least compared to our Owino. The proud Masai made me ashamed of the clothes I wore. They would stride up and down their streets, proudly displaying their strong bare chests. They were covered in red, from the bright red of their braided hair, to the marvellously woven sarongs, to the dark red of their skins. This was the first time I heard of how they drink blood and eat raw flesh [although the ones in Nairobi were equally famous for their Nyama Choma]. It seemed like their blood was thicker, darker than mine - real African blood, compared to my dilute imitation. I walked passed their leather work stations in the market, heard them singing and chanting some magnificent, probably ancient, tune. I think Kenya 2001 was the first time I was aware of how un-African I was.
Like I said, I was in love. He was a Kalengin boy, tall, dark, with the most handsome of smiles. I toyed with the idea of his name as my own. Clara Kip..... had such a lovely ring to it. We went to the movies at Fox cinema [I do not remember street names or buildings - like I said I was in love!] Liz took us to her local hair dresser and teased me for trying out a particularly outrageous cornrow pattern. I had chosen to copy one of Alicia Keys' impossible combinations of twists and criss-crosses. It was well known that I am the safe, logical one. She had figured out that I was hoping to use the hairstyle to get him to notice me.
I remember chips from a place with "Kuku" in its name. It was late at night. We were wandering around and Liz introduced us to the staple of chips and chicken served in newspapers, very much like the English fish and chips. I also remember eating Githeri and wondering how the Kenyans had discovered my mother's mberenge. It its true. We are born of the same mother and she feeds us from the same garden and that garden is called Nakumatt!
The love, like all puppy loves, fizzled out after a few strained emails and phone calls. I was in form 3 and barely able to afford the long distance correspondence. I heard, a while later, that my Kalengin prince had moved to Uganda to complete his A levels and later went on to Makerere University. We never met again after that trip. I kept him in my mind for a while. You see, he was the reason I opened my first email account and, for the longest time, his name was the password to that account. He was my almost first kiss, on a cold morning on the slopes on the Kilimanjaro [that really is a whole other story for another day].
The trip back home was long. There was construction on the roads and threats of highway robbery. Thankfully, though, it turned out to be uneventful. We were silent and grateful for whatever sleep we could get. As we got off the Akamba bus at their Kampala terminal, I saw Daddy's knowing smile. At that point I knew that he knew exactly how close to death I had been during that camp. He told me that he, too, had been to Outward Bound as a teenager in high school. He knew what it was like to hang off the edge of a cliff or get lost in the Tanzanian savannah, with the threat of stumbling into a lion, simply because one's instructor thought it was a "good, character-building " exercise. It is rare to have things in common with a man who is 38 years my senior. I smiled back. I was glad to be home.
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