NIGHT DRIVE NAIROBI

At the Nairobi aiport, as you come out of immigration, there are always a number of casually dressed gentlemen who helpfully offer you a taxi. This is I think it is safe to assume an offer of rape-murder, so I tend to turn them down, helpful though they are.

My booked taxi driver, who may of course also be a raping murderer, is there to collect me, and so at 2am we begin a long drive across an impressively dark and empty Nairobi. Not without first of course almost having been run into in the car park by an idiot: it wouldn’t be Nairobi if there wasn’t the constant threat of automotive carnage.

The quiet sound of Christian radio from the front seat is comforting, and I am just drifting away into my own thoughts when the brakes squeal and I abruptly discover I am not wearing a seat belt. A herd of Zebra is revealed in the headlights, and confusedly staggers off the four lane highway and towards a warehouse. “Never seen that before,” says the driver.

We pass a tree full of sleeping Marabou storks, and then a prostitute, posing very strangely on the side of the road; probably very high, and with good reason, poor lady, to get through the night. There is also a homeless man sitting on the verge and staring at his hands with delight. We get to Kibera, and the driver speeds up: rapist and murderer he may be, but he sure doesn’t want to get carjacked.

We turn into my road at last, and a big car slides in beside us. The taxi driver quickly draws in a breath , but the car, apparently innocent, pulls ahead and out of sight.

Blankets and Wine

This is a monthly live music event held in Nairobi.

It is an outdoor event, held in a field, where you sit on the aforementioned blankets, and drink a good deal of the aforementioned wine.

But don't become confused and feel that you should wear something apropriate to sitting on the ground, such as say, jeans and T-shirt. Oh no. Blankets and Wine is about more than Blankets and Wine: it's about seeing and being seen. You need to look good. I saw a lot of ladies showing us the way forward, in terms of strapless dresses and long skirts, and a couple of gentlemen also showing us the future of modern African chic.

I am afraid I am not entirely sure who all the musicians were. The clue is in the title: it is blankets and wine. This is the main point. And it is a very strong point indeed.

Lots of sun, lots of fun people, lots of happy children getting jiggy with it. Here's the website, which is excellent, though I suggest that maybe they shouldn't, on the about page, tell customers right to their faces that the event exists to "provide numbers for key lifestyle brands."


(Image courtesy Blankets and Wine website)

WALKING THE NGONG FOREST RESERVE

The Ngong Forest Reserve does not have an especially topnotch reputation for safety. Thus, while it is open to the public, public with brains only go with a guide. On the first and third Saturday of every month there are guided walks (more here, and super hardcore version here)and we went on one on April 3.

We were early, so had to wait for our guide, and saw several strangely unafraid hardedars, a large Vervet monkey, and a troop of twenty racehorses, one of whom got away from his guide, greatly to the amusement of the other guides.

Boggling our minds by arriving early, our guide Nicholas proved to be in full uniform and impressively fully informed about the forest. We saw pied kingfishers, divebombing for fish repeatedly, black winged stilts, rednecked widowbirds, cinammon chested bee eaters, and a huge number of plants, harder to identify and harder to remember.

Nicholas was very interesting on the subject of the social uses of the trees. He pointed out a tree called mutanga, known for the medicinal uses of its bark, and told us that where the forest got down to the large slum Kibera the mutanga was dying out. Apparently this is because old men used to take the bark, and knew to use only a small amount, and cover the hole that was left with cow dung, but now young guys apparently just rip entire trees bare, and thus kill them.

Nicholas was accompanied by a man in civies, who carried a thick stick. I asked him if this was in case of theives, and he replied, No, just for walking. This was really very sweet of him, as it was evidently far too short to be a walking stick, and he never used it for walking; but I appreciate the attempt to put the new girl in Nairobi at ease.