Nairobbery snobbery

I like Kenya. The locals might be frustrated by the chaos but, for someone like me, from London – such a regimented city, more intent on watching us, not helping us – the ramshackle way of Nairobi suits me just fine.

“Look, Will,” says David, a man nearly the same height as a Nairobi skyscraper, a scorer for Cricinfo. “We’re going to cross the road here, right in front of this police car. He won’t care. Nobody cares!” So we did, and the packed police car, which had clearly been in more scrapes than was healthy, let us go. This was Nairobi’s main trunk road into the city and we parted the traffic like Moses.

“This is Africa. This is what happens. The police don’t care,” he said, gesticulating with his arms at the police on his right. “You could just as well be arrested for doing nothing as you could for killing someone.” Now, hang on. I know Nairobi is a dangerous place but surely it’s no worse than anywhere else? “It’s all Somalia’s fault. You can get a gun for 6000 shillings (about £40UKP). What sort of a country lets people buy guns so cheap?”

I had no answer. £40 for a gun? That doesn’t even cover my mobile phone bill each month. If I sacrificed my phone I could afford an entire armoury. Gun crime in Britain, in London especially, has risen exponentially in the past decade but the vast majority of people are concerned observers rather than victims.

I’d encountered guns earlier in the day, albeit holstered by a soldier outside the Israeli Embassy. Perfectly reasonable. But even inside an office building late this afternoon, an armed soldier, with a gun far too big for comfort, entered on the 7th floor. It was a stark reminder of the tensions which engulf this city.

I asked David whether he would like a beer on Thursday at the Pavement Club, owned by Shai – a man who knows everyone, even if they’re not totally sure if they know him – but he declined. “I don’t go out. Never. I hate it.” Because of the fear of mugging? “Because I’m low-tier. I’m at right at the bottom. If I go out, I can’t afford to stay long; there are no matutu in the early mornings so I would have to leave early.

“The gap between rich and poor is massive, it’s crazy. Some people can’t even afford to eat. Some rich people earn enough in one day to pay for a poor man’s food for a year.”