A letter from Marta Bennett serving in Kenya
March 30, 2015 - Daily Life in Nairobi
The other day someone asked in an email, “What’s it like living in Nairobi?” That’s a hard question to answer, since it’s just normal life these days. Between teaching, administrative meetings, discipleship groups, organizing the kids back and forth to school events, church activities, shopping for food, buying the newspaper, paying bills, dealing with traffic, it’s just daily life. Even this last sentence listing activities could have been written from just about anywhere in the world. But Nairobi, a city of between 3.5 and 4 million people, has a personality and an urban culture unique to itself, though also similar to many other large African cities. It is a mélange of urban and village, skyscrapers, multi-storied concrete apartments, stone houses with gardens, and valleys filled with mud-and-tin-roofed huts squeezed together wall to wall, with internationals and locals bustling about their business morning, noon and night. Buses, cars, matatus (small Nissan public vans), bicycles, motorbikes, goats, cows, and people are on the constant move, and multiple languages with a cacophony of other sounds and smells fill the air.
It got me thinking, and I started noticing everyday experiences, impressions, and interactions, that are part of daily life in the big city here. So I offer you some snapshots, 20+ random impressions from within these last two weeks.
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Preaching in Hawassa, Ethiopia, with ILU student Tesfaye Kamisso translating, January '15
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Looking out at the congregation in Hawassa (photo taken by church member while I was preaching)
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Teaching a leadership seminar for pastors and other church leaders in Kawangware slum, Nairobi, '14
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Marta, Peter Maribei, and Dr. Faith Ngunjiri at International Leadership Association, San Diego, Nov.'14. Peter is an ILU grad, now doing his Ph.D. Leadership at University of San Diego; Faith was a former ministry intern at Nairobi Chapel when I was coordinating the program in '98-'99. We were all presenters at the ILA conference.
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Facilitating a workshop for leadership training for pastors
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Nairobi city center as viewed from Uhuru Park
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Between Nairobi high-rises, the roofs of Kibera slum
Living in Nairobi means:
• Noticeably relaxing when exiting the neighborhood mall, having successfully grocery-shopped for another week, encountering no terrorist activity.
• Watching the bananas ripen on the tree outside my bedroom window.
• Sprinkling one’s American-combined-with-British English with words from several different languages, all in one sentence. E.g., Twende (“Let’s go,” in Kiswahili), cucu (pronounced “shosho,” meaning grandmother in Kikuyu—but it doesn’t need to be your own grandmother; it’s any woman who looks like she might be one) is waiting…” Or at the university, Bonjour (“hello/good day,” in French), mwalimu (“teacher,” in Kiswahili), ça va? (“All is well?” in French). I’ll pick my papers from your pigeon hole (British for unsecured box for mail—and notice the absence of “up” after “pick”) kesho, sawa? (“tomorrow, is that good/ok?” in Kiswahili). [NB: Kiswahili is the name of the language spoken throughout the East African region; Swahili are the people of the ethnic group who live at the coast of Kenya, for whom Kiswahili is their vernacular].
• Feeling a sense of smug victory after successfully navigating through a round-about (traffic circle) intersection, through the aggressive traffic jam.
• Merely sighing and shaking one’s head when learning that all one’s work permit renewal documents, submitted two months ago, are now lost somewhere in Immigration with no record of their submission (except one’s own photocopies of the documents, which don’t help). The work permit expires in one week. The clerk suggests checking again in two weeks.
• Rain is always talked about as a blessing.
• Gathering every evening for a week, with many others, at the home of a bereaved friend so they won’t be alone in their grief and to plan together the funeral arrangements, including raising all needed funds.
• Accepting it without much comment when the power and/or water goes off, except perhaps with a sigh of exasperation. After several days, the neighbor will ask, “Do you have water? Oh, ok, me neither.”
• Waiting for a herd of cows to cross the highway, prodded along by their Maasai herder dressed in his red shuka (traditional cloth wrap), sandals made from old tires, carrying his fimbo (stick) while listening to music on his smart phone.
• Welcoming visitors at any time, when they arrive on one’s doorstep, rarely with previous notice. Tea must be made, and all other plans are set aside for the moment.
• Enjoying delightful weather most of the year, not too hot, not too cold. A lot of sun, with very little humidity.
• Seeing a whole family of baboons scampering across the highway when driving home from church.
• Swerving to avoid hitting a chicken running through the parking lot at the post office, and once out of the car, stepping over a small striped lizard that scurries from the flower bed across the tarmac (pavement).
• Knowing the time of day by the Muslim calls to prayer emanating from the nearby mosque, heard through my office window.
• Seeing people, people everywhere, walking, milling, sitting, talking on mobile phones, hailing each other across the way. Streams of people are on the roads in the early mornings, heading to work, and then again at the end of the day. In between, well, they’re just everywhere.
• Being alert for those who drive like pedestrians: Do you see a friend driving the other direction? Just stop, say hello, catch up. Never mind the queue of cars piling up behind in both directions, horns blaring. Need a newspaper? Scratch card for airtime top-up? Pirated DVD movies? Sugarcane? Green peas? Just stop, look for your wallet, and without pulling over, buy from the vendor walking down the middle of the road, wherever you are.
• Engaging in conversations at public, even governmental, so-called secular events, and hearing statements punctuated with, “And I thank God for that,” “Praise God,” “God is good,” and always opening and closing sessions with prayer.
• Enjoying the mother-tongue interference in spoken English, like the other day when I was introduced to someone, who exclaimed with enthusiasm, “It’s such a pressure to meet you!!” as she pumped my hand with a big smile. I assured her that the pleasure was all mine. Or at church, “Let’s all bow our heads and play.”
• Paying for my bottle of water at the corner kiosk by sending money stored in my phone through MPesa. All utility bills are paid this way, as well as topping up phone air time, lending money to a friend, or buying supplies at a shop.
• Acknowledging the mama with a baby and toddler sitting along the road, wrapped in dirty clothes, hand outstretched, and dropping a coin into her cup as I pass. Or, better, buying a small wrapped paper cone of groundnuts being sold by a child at the intersection and passing it on to the one begging at the next corner.
• For Palm Sunday, many of the public vans and buses in the city display a large palm branch decorating the front of the vehicle, and next Sunday, on Easter, numerous processions of African indigenous churches will be seen along the roadsides, men and women dressed in white robes with red sashes and head scarves, or bright purple, green, red, or blue solid-colored robes, carrying crosses, singing, dancing, and drumming as they publicly celebrate their Easter faith.
I could go on, but this perhaps gives a small taste of life in Nairobi: the life, the bustle, the energy, the needs, frustrations, injustices, despairs and hopes. I can never forget Ray Bakke’s (1997) observations* that though the Bible begins in a garden, it ends in a city, the celestial city, teeming with life and glory. We live in the in-between, where, just as in Scripture times, God is very much at work in the city, at work in people’s lives, seeing with compassion, pushing for justice, and promising the hope of life abundant, through the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, who died and rose again, that we might share new life with him, forever. May Easter joy fill your hearts, souls and minds as we celebrate this season!
As always, it is with deep gratitude for the support, encouragement and prayers of PC(USA) churches and individuals, which make my ministry here in Nairobi possible. Your support and giving make possible the training of many African leaders, who in turn are being used by God to bring training, hope and transformation to many communities. To give financially, you may contribute through my PC(USA) mission account E200312 for individuals (see the link below), or account D506057 for congregations. Every contribution makes a difference as we partner together.
Marta Bennett
* Bakke, Raymond J. (1997), A Theology as Big as the City. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 145
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