An Elegy for Nairobi
No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark—Warsan Shire
Or Enkare—city of cool waters where molten jobseekers’ dreams clog city drainage and teargas canisters frotteur in the eyes of protestors who weep. Who trample makeshift cardboard tables of hawkers with their revolutionary feet. Where satisfied cumulonimbus clouds burp water to whitewash Tom Mboya’s monument, and his history, and then flow down to Parliament Road to wash the splattered brains of young men who lie stiff, brains blown by the pious president’s snipers who go on to flicker altar candles at cathedrals with stained glass motifs of Joseph of Arimathea, as penniless priests place Sportpesa bets and pray for Manchester United to win. As youth read memes and not-so-funny poems in dank pulpits with teardrops that gather in the tails of eyes and flow into Uhuru Park and bud into seedlings of rebellion sheltered by Wangari Maathai’s green ghost which is a floating baobab shade over lovers who snatch their beloveds’ words with more skill than the blind beggar from Lucky Summer who plucks wallets, opens his eyes to examine his loot— Nairobbery. Elegy for Nairobi. Where jacarandas drop bracts of purple and beheaded dandelions carry empty words and death news to aging parents upcountry. Where unwanted babies made in mutura dens and Sabina Joy strip clubs bawl, float in paper bags, swirl inside overflowing culverts that seep into sewages in Paipu shantytown, get purged into Nairobi River on August afternoons when rain falls on steeples and chandeliers like a soft, silver lovesong. Elegy for Nairobi River which gathers speed, accelerando, bursts dams, washes away homes and cars and former people who’ll appear as false reparation promises on the tongue of a canting president. So no, it is not true that you are more likely to get killed by a vending machine than a shark, not in Nairobi. Nairobi ni home/ na home is the mouth of a shark eddying inside Nairobi River and the shark will circle you and bump you and bite you. And there will be no one to walk you down River Road or sing dirges under looted streetlamps or tell teargas-flavored jokes to policemen pointing water cannon joysticks at you like cupid.
