Hakuna matatu

I am starting to think the matatu is the reason that many Africans are more religious than we are in the West. It is because every time they step near any road they come close to one of these small minibus death traps which zoom Nairobians around the city and in doing so take a step closer to their maker.

The bus on the way back from town today (16^th Jan) was essentially a Disney ride without the characters dressed in costumes. We sat at the back, though sitting is a relative term as three times I found myself airborne somewhere above my seat. Countless others I was flung hither and thither and every whichway. It was a bumpy ride.

On the plus side, I’d made a friend on the matatu. A boy sat next to me and looked at me goggle-eyed with a big grin that screamed ‘I’ve just found a mzungu!’.

I had begun to get used to the looks I got as I walked around Nairobi. At Bosco Boys, a foreign visitor, white or otherwise, is no biggie. In some of the posh parts around here, it’s not big deal either as there are plenty of mzungus hanging around. But in many other places seeing a white person is still a novelty and something to raise an eyebrow at. Or, more accurately, stare, nudge your mate and unsubtly whisper ‘look, mzungu’. Pointing is recommended for further clarification of the mzungu’s whereabouts, as if the blazing milk white skin weren’t enough already.

Generally the adults try to play it cool – unless they’re trying to sell you something – but it’s the reaction of some of the younger kids which I love. Sometimes their eyes go wide in amazement that someone should look like I do. Other times they look at me quizzically, as if something must be wrong with me. It’s a sign that I’m settling in that I’m even looking at my hand now and thinking that it is kind of weird. I can see my veins and everything. Gross, man…

Anyway, I greeted this kid on the bus: ‘Mambo,’ I said. ‘Poa,’ he replied. The start of many a great friendship. We were soon separated by the sheer quantity of people that was shoehorned onto the bus. Everytime I thought, ‘right, now this matatu is definitely full’, I was proved corrected. Even so, he managed to catch my eye a couple of times and give me a big ‘hey, you’re a mzungu!’ grin. He waved, grinning, as he got off the bus. I waved back. It was a good moment.

Meanwhile my chaperone for the day, brother Deo (one of those preparing for the pre-noviciate) had conspired to fall asleep despite his head being gently flung from the seat in front to the headrest behind.

Deo had taken me with him to meet some street kids in situu in Nairobi centre. A couple of brothers go there every week to meet the kids, organise some games, talk with them and share some bread. For some, it could be the start of a process which leads to them getting some kind of help, such as into a project like Bosco Boys or a school.

This was real poverty. The contrast with the well-fed, well-looked after boys at Bosco Boys was stark. These boys looked like they had just spent the night sleeping in the dirt. Their clothes looked like their only clothes. We got a big game of football going in which I took part, at one point making a crucial Carragher-esque clearance of the line. One boy played through the whole game in a heavy jacket that seemed to be from a kind of factory. Playing in the midday Kenyan sun, he must have wished he had been picked to play for the ‘skinnies’ team.