Nairobbery

Ah, Nairobi. I like this place, but I feel you really need to learn how to ‘dance’ in order to survive it well. Maybe ‘dance’ should be ‘crowd surf’ or ‘go with the flow’ (this term really takes on new meaning with the never ending streams of people in the weekdays). I learned the hard way that standing still in one place for too long is not a good idea, even if it is to wait for traffic to clear to cross a street. Just like a man I met with who had half a samosa (African kind- thin and oily pastry, and filled with ground beef rather than the thick-pastry vegetarian variety I see in Canada) liberated from his hand by a swift and wily bird while we dined in an outdoor eatery by Nairobi National Park on Tuesday, I had one of my earrings swiftly removed from my ear while paused at a crosswalk in the middle of rush hour, surrounded by people. Of course in this case it was a skilled street boy, ironically one of the few I saw (where have they all gone? The streets seemed strangely void of both street boys/ people and hawkers). My first impression upon feeling hands up around my ear lobes was ‘Oh- I know what this is, they are distracting me to go for my bag…’. So, I grabbed my bag tight and after a second or two realized I still had it but my ears hurt a bit. After walking to cross the street I felt my ears, and sure enough, one of my small gold coloured hoop earrings was gone, leaving me looking like a lost pirate.

Every time that I return from ‘Nairobbery’ with everything intact, I consider it a small victory, so considering I have spent in total maybe 25 days downtown Nairobi in all my trips, and this was the first time anything was ever stolen, I feel like I have fared okay. My purse was what I was more concerned about, and since that was fine, I didn’t mind relinquishing a small earring. In fact, my first response upon realizing it was gone, was to throw the other one at the fleeing boy too, because what good is one side of a set of earrings? But I restrained, fearing someone might still be lurking to grab my bag if I let go of it. I was a bit shaken up, but there was really nothing I could do, so I just resumed crowd-surfing and relaxed on the bus.

The second casualty of the trip, which I discovered much later, was my small leather elephant keychain. It looks like it was cut off. Well, I hope it makes some kid happy as a toy, because it has always brought me smiles. It was so cute.