Hard to believe that it’s been 15 years since I visited Nairobi, the first and last time rolled into one. That trip – ostensibly to research an oral history of the South Asian community of East Africa for my undergraduate dissertation – had a big impact on me, my work and my life. People have already noticed this – I remember far more about Nairobi in 1994 than I do about Tanzania in 1996, for example, and I talk about it a lot more while I’m driving around the city. I feel like the old guy sitting on his porch complaining about how things used to be better in the old days, but they really weren’t.
Nairobi then was my first trip outside Europe. While I was prepared for it by two years of African Studies and an equivalent amount of time spent with people who talked about Africa for a living, nothing really prepares you for your first experience of poverty. More than that, Nairobi felt dreary and depressed, populated by people who had seen their hopes knocked out of them. Politically stagnant, economically challenged, socially tense.
Nairobi now is a different city altogether. All is not well in the powerhouse of East Africa, but it’s a damn sight better than it was. Buildings are taller and newer, roads are wider and busier, communications are easier and people – people are more positive about their future. Lots of urban infrastructure is still in poor condition, and the continued existence of slum towns like Kibera against the gated communities of Westlands show that perhaps these developments are not all to the good.
Yet these are the normal symptoms of economic development in a globalised world, and of the rapid urbanisation of a rural population. Nairobi starts to feel more like Jakarta than Monrovia, and for almost everybody that I’ve spoken to, that’s a good thing.
