Getting into belly of beast that is Nairobi

Nairobi hosts people from all walks of life living in different parts of the city, engaged in different activities, harbouring various dreams and aspirations, each with different thoughts about all kinds of subjects. For the different residents of the city-in-the-sun, living in the capital city means different things, in different places at different times. For some the city is the land of opportunity; for others each day is a nightmare. For some Nairobi is home; for others it is exile. Some enjoy the Nairobi sun; others curse each day the sun rises in the east of the city.

Living in Nairobi today is the subject of a recently published book, Six and the City (Contact Zones and Goethe-Institut, 2014). Six and the City is a collection of six short plays: Billy Kahora’s The Committee; Parselelo Kantai’s I Just Got Back; Andia Kisia’s The 24th Floor; Tony Mochama’s Percy’s Killer Party; Kevin Mwachiro’s Thrashed; and Valentine Njoroge’s Modern African Woman.

The plays offer different stories about living in Nairobi and have characters who represent the various traits of Nairobians in different circumstances, spaces and jobs – politicians, thugs, beggars, university students, NGO professionals, businessmen and women, lawyers, government officers.

The writers show what it really means to live in present day Nairobi and the kind of situations one finds oneself in on an ordinary day in the city. Six and the City addresses the various issues that Nairobians grapple with each day and mocks city residents who pride themselves in living in the capital yet the so-called city-in-the-sun is actually a dark, rotten and soul-destroying place.

Horror of adulthood
Kahora’s The Committee is about the activities of a sub-committee selected by the government to oversee the selection of heroes to be honoured during the 50th anniversary the republic. Dubbed the committee of “Persons in Production of Heroes for Kenya Republic in the Jubilee Year Anniversary”, the committee is a sub-committee of another one called the ‘Intra-County Reflections Committee, Sub-Committee for the 50th Anniversary of Kenya Republic.

What a name! The committee reflects the greed and corruption that ail Kenya where public funds are spent on non-performing and self-serving committees and commissions whose members do not have the interest of the country at heart. The play, in some sense, satirises the much hyped Kenya@50 celebrations which had nothing to show for all the money allocated to the same.

Parselelo’s I Just Got Back tells a story of a young woman who has just got back to Nairobi from Europe and hopes to settle in and possibly start a business. She discovers that Nairobi is not what she imagined it to be when she is conned of all her investments by a friend; her landlord threatens to evict her over rent arrears; the shopkeeper will not extend her credit anymore and she cannot get a reliable supply of water or electricity.

She had hoped to live the kind of life she had been used to in Europe but realises painfully that the life of Bluetooth, Whatsapp, wine, ipod, is not easy to maintain in the face of the deceit and pretensions of Nairobi. You can take it to the bank that this city can kill dreams; it can spit on your strategic plans and turn them into obituaries of what-would-have-been. Inhospitality is a modern disease afflicting cities the world over. It is just that it is an epidemic in Nairobi. For the returnees, better vaccinate yourself before getting the back-home visa.

Mochama’s Percy’s Killer Party tells the story of a young female university student who dies while attending a party hosted by wealthy politicians. The play reveals the dangers young women expose themselves to when they allow themselves to be lured by promises of fun and quick riches by unscrupulous old men. This is the city that will eat its young, feeding them ambition, dreams, drugs, alcohol, turning them into zombies before they can see the horror of adulthood. And then bury them, so young.

Mwachiro’s Thrashed is the story of a female beggar who explains her woes trying to make a living in the city. She is raped, beaten, insulted, loses her children yet she still has to provide for her remaining child. Through her we get to see survival tactics of one section of the city residents including using dolls as babies to hoodwink pedestrians into giving them money. This is the capitalistic, morality-shredding Nairobi; one in which you are not sure if the fellow on the pavement asking you for kobole is a beggar, a cop in disguise or your Buruburu landlord!

Six and the City will show you the different variations to the theme of Nairobiness. The language, concerns, places, experiences and characters are Nairobi-like and the plays leave no doubt that different people indeed experience different smells, tastes and sounds of Nairobi. The plays will darkly and starkly remind you about the precariousness of life in Nairobi.
Dr Muchiri teaches literature at the University of Nairobi.

jennifer.muchiri@uonbi.ac.ke