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| At Kenton ... |
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| The Stanley |
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| Nairobi |
Back in January I shared, on this blog, my anxieties about going back to Nairobi. ‘Never Go Back,’ was the advice so many people gave me. I grew up in Nairobi you see. I once knew every city street, and shop, and market stall. I was comfortable prattling in Swahili. I felt as if this city was part of my identity; somehow encoded into my very DNA. But fifty years have passed. I’ve lived in England since 1971. It’s a different time now. Hugely different. Someone warned me that the Nairobi I left was a city of half a million people; the Nairobi I was set to visit had five million. ‘Don’t go back was his advice.’
So did I do the right thing?
Memories are curious things aren’t they? If you live in a place
all your life, your recollections of that place evolve along with the landscape
as the years pass. But if instead, one day, you simply get up and leave, your
memories become frozen in time. Going back is like owning a precious vase, but alas,
the paintings on the vase are fading. Someone offers you a brand-new vase with
bright new paintwork. But if you accept it, you have to smash the old one. What
should you do?
Well of course, I went back. I smashed the old vase. (We
took a safari holiday with friends. I will blog about that sometime soon.) And guess
what? I didn’t regret a moment. Yes, it was strange. Embakazi Airport (Now Jomo
Kenyatta International) once the size of a high-school science block and comfortably
out of town, is now a huge complex bristling with dozens of airplanes and now
it is buried in a suburb of high-rise buildings, and the roads into town are
giant freeways and the traffic is terrible. But I found this exciting. Not
depressing. I knew the moment I stepped out of the plane I was going to love
this place. It was still Nairobi. (Perhaps that was the biggest surprise.) Lots
of the city is still absolutely recognisable. But even if it wasn’t, there is something
ineffable about this city, something I can’t quite describe or explain, that
stamps this place and its people with its mark and makes it simply the best and
most exciting city in the world. It’s a noisy, chaotic, colourful, amazing
place. Still. Thank goodness.
We stayed the first three nights at Masai Lodge – a safari
lodge in the National Park (a lovely place about an hour out of town. I’d recommend
it. Say hi to Cedric on the reception desk for me if you go there.) And we
stayed the last few nights at The Stanley. Good choices both. I’ve wanted to
stay at the Stanley all my life and it didn’t disappoint. And I visited my old
school (Kenton College) and had a very warm welcome there. It was emotional. I
watched a mixed-sex and multi-race group of kids doing football practice on the
very field where I once played (in an exclusively-white-male school), and it
brought a lump to my throat. I used my fifty year old memory to navigate
through the streets past the market and the University and the Norfolk Hotel to
the snake park (beware there is a new highway in the way) – and hey presto the
snake park itself is unchanged in almost every way. Even the black mambas are
in the same tank.
It was wonderful. It was cathartic. I left my fellow
travellers at the pool on our final afternoon and I took a walk around the city
centre on my own, and soaked up the magic and replayed my memories, and
relished all that was new and all that was unchanged. So yes – the old vase is
smashed; but I love the new one too. And my advice if you, like me, have been
away for too long, is very very simple. Go back. It’s wonderful.
Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com
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| Unchanged - The Snake Park |
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| Nairobi |
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| Nairobi |
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