Nairobi back in the day

It would be interesting to create some kind of Nai database of 80s vocab, games, TV, music, foodstuffs, crazes, so please send me the following and I will compile them into a list for this site

-80s popular slang vocab (with translation or description)- most current slang words like kobole, bakes, nyake, came out then
-Names/brief descriptions of 80s games
-Names/brief descriptions or web links of 80s TV programmes & adverts
-Names of 80s hit songs (esp. Kienyeji ones)
-Names and brief descriptions of 80s snacks, foods (remember scones/ ‘thigoji’), drinks, sweets
-Funny shrubs
-Crazes e.g. dance moves, hairstyles, clothes (mnakumbuka high-tops!! And those woolly sweaters)
-Anything else, even things like old bus numbers/routes

Just email me at nairobimemories@yahoo.com (or leave a comment here); all contributions will be credited, so if you don’t want your name attributed to a contribution just let me know or you can use a pseudonym.

I seem to remember Nairobi being obsessed – and I mean obsessed – with sausage & chips (“Ask for Farmer’s Choice sausages and win x”) & soda. Some people liked Coca cola, some people liked Fanta (but never both), personally I was a Fanta kinda person. There were kids at school who didn’t eat in the dining hall or bring packed lunch, instead they bought chips & sausage or samosa. Everyday! Those people must have had Kwashiokor. Those were the days before wide-scale pizza. When pizza tokead, I was among the first few to eat it at Pizza garden, Westlands. It was a ham and cheese and mushroom pizza, but the cheese wasn’t well melted, nor were the mushrooms cooked beyond being warm (in short I didn’t like it) but I ate it all. As for lasagne, cannelloni, and other such Italian staples for me now, those were unknowns. There were few Chinese restaurants either; people only really went there on special occasions unless they had loadsamoney.

In Nai now, there are so many Oriental restaurants – Vietnamese, Thai, maybe Japanese, and people go there for lunch like they’d go to Wimpy. Speaking of Wimpy, I remember their delicate French fries, their coleslaw, their strawberry milkshake, and now Wimpy has gone McDonalds style – yes the food is okey (in a formulaic, laboratory kind of way) but where is the slight char on the burger bread, the excess but welcome fruit in the shake, the extra serving of fries thrown in my friendly Mr/Ms Proprietor? People no longer eat at small, unknown food houses (having said that, Nairobians eat out in town so much that hardly any food house can go bust). I came across a cafeteria in tao recently, it’s near Grand Regency (which, by the way, totally lost its grandeur) but it’s a really down-to-earth cafeteria with a unique menu: ugali & sukuma, chaps & stew, rice & ndengu, irio, githeri, etc. – in other words the kind of food that Kenyans eat at home. I was pleasantly surprised, and they sell like ‘hot cakes’, the place was packed, and the prices were fair (I think 100 for a meal and soda). Yes there are wonders like that, and the prices of the previously ubiquitous chips & sausage are cheap in places like Jeevanjee or other small shops (Ksh 20 for chipos if I remember correctly).

But at the same time, a new brand of food house has appeared, the kind that has become unpopular in Europe. McDonalds never caught on in Kenya (there was a branch in Industrial Area which was closed in the early ‘80’s) but there is Steers, which is global. I hate such places; they are over-priced, they charge European prices in “developing” countries, so obviously someone is making a hefty profit. Surprise, surprise, Kenyans flock to Steers like it gave them Kamuti. In that league is a chain of cafés selling overpriced coffee (espresso, cappuccino, lattes, etc), overpriced cakes (but I must admit that the quality of coffee and cakes is excellent) in Starbucks fashion. People flock there to buy into a concept, an illusion, but which illusion? I’d rather sip coffee in a non-chain coffeehouse than in an industrial-type chain, the kind that I avoid anyway in Europe.

I remember when chapos were delicacies, when chicken curry was a festive dish, and when meals were balanced. That woman ‘Mke Nyumbani’ (Oh what a faux pax programme title) used to cook and ladle nice balanced meals. I loved and still love rice. Rice and stew was a staple – when I say stew I mean that Kenyan version which included, by law, cubed beef, cubed carrots, peas, maybe potato cubes, and which was cooked a certain way that any Kenyan worth their salt should be familiar with. It was served with every starch – from rice, chapati, to ugali, mashed potatoes and spaghetti. Urgh I hated spaghetti, I guess I now realise it was because pasta just doesn’t work with a curry-like stew. Living in Europe has taught me about food, but who is to say that the Kienyeji meals were not gourmet in their own right?

A good thing now is that people in Nairobi can eat just about any cuisine, but I hope that people wont forget the good old staples that we were raised on. For a long time I couldn’t stand ugali, but after my tastes matured I realised the concept of it (ugali with sukuma wiki is a combination not to be tampered with). I miss millet porridge – fermented with lemon juice and milk added to serve (yum yum).

But no one can deny that ‘back in the day’ consisted of dubious foodstuffs like roiko, juice-squash (“orange” squash was actually orange in colour but not in composition), sweets with chemicals that make me shudder, oil, oil, and more oil, in the form of kasuku, ghee, lard, kimbo – eurrgh cholesterol alert!!! Even so, most meals consisted of natural stuff, so we didn’t eat E180, E3435, Locust bean gum, Xanthylic acid, etc (check the ingredient list of the next ready meal you buy). Bread was bread (ah remember Eliot, sliced). Well, speaking of food, I’m off to make dinner.

Some politician recently said that the internet was corrupting kids, and that kids in rural areas are now accessing all manner of filth on the internet. ‘Back in the day’ (the ‘80’s) the only filth we could access was in movies borrowed from “video libraries” – these were full of nothing but pirated copies of tapes. Usually, the pirates would add a couple of episodes of Top of the Pops for good measure after the movie. There was a section in the video library with “adult” movies which, in actual fact were just often harmless 18Certificate movies that were on general release. So I guess we didn’t access any filth. Having said that, I was once off school and I trawled around my Esto (it was largely quiet during weekdays) to find one mboch being fondled in open air by a watchie, and another Esto woman was being snogged by her mano. If it was Sato they would have been behaving like Mother Theresa, so I guess Kenyans have just become less hypocritical and they are open about snogging, fondling, etc, in public.

Although, living in Europe, I am accustomed to seeing nudity in posters, on TV, and such salacious stuff is “normal,” I was checking out the East African Standard’s magazine – PULSE – and there was some chick (she looks like kid-sister material) wearing hot pants, posing with one leg up like in a porn shoot. Recently, also, there was an article in a Kenyan paper about plastic surgery and they showed a woman’s breasts. I was outraged! But why should I be? I don’t like the nudity stuff in Europe, but to see it in the Kenyan media is like aargh why are they going down that road? On the one hand, its great, it is every woman’s right to wear what she wants, even to walk naked, but on the other hand, it is just another example of how Kenya tries to be like a Western nation (it is NOT).

Of course ‘back in the day’ we had our curiosity, but I was shocked to learn that majority of high schoolers are bed rumping, drug-taking, alcohol-swigging, smocking so and so’s. Personally I didn’t taste alcohol till I was nearly 21 and as for snogging I was a grown woman before I experienced that. What is it with Nairobi kids nowadays?? The whole “nimechill” campaign (where there was I think a two-finger sign to symbolise that someone had decided to abstain) just shows that majority of teenies nowadays are at it like rabbits. Mpaka even many party all night long. I know what it was like to be ‘locked up’ (hmmph- even speaking to boys was adventurous) so I can sympathise with these kiddos who want to party and experiment with stuff, but if it was my kiddo I don’t think I would hesitate to lock him/her up. Actually I think it would be afadhali to lea a Kenyan mwana in the rural areas (hata akishrub as a result, sawa tu).

It’s one thing having a teen cultural liberation, but where will it take young Kenyans – other than to rehab or VD clinic?? In our day, to even have a boyfriend/girlfriend was like woah! Such relationships consisted entirely of walking up and down the Esto (chick would wear her Sunday best), holding hands in an alley, the chali buying the chick a “treat” (kumbuku ice-cream on closing day or chipos or soda), and the exchange of occasional notes or cards. That was it.

Ah the ‘80’s. The age of the close of innocence in Nairobi?

There cannot, surely be teachers more sadistic than the ones who taught us. They were the most violent, irrational, uncompromising, puritanical, unpredictable entities in the history of the Kenyan classroom. The fact that beating in schools has now been outlawed is and still is a shock to many in my generation. Watacope aje hao violent teachers, si they are still the same ones au? I can’t imagine some of them now, faced with naughty kids (watoto ni watoto, yenyewe they shouldn’t have been so harsh). To this day I still have that respect for teachers and figures of authority which is not necessarily due to them.

And teachers in those days walikuwa na weird mannerisms. I remember one teacher used to have one hand stuck inside her bra (for real!!) She would be holding chalk with one hand na ile ingine would be inside her bra. She would be marking exercise books with one hand na with the other she is exploring the contents of her bra as if kulikuwa na precious stones hapo ndani.

Another teacher used to be, like, standing and shaking her hips at the same time like she was undergoing an electric shock. We’d be at assembly and she would be standing there shaking her hips. Mwingine alikuwa na permanent scowl. Another one used to wear eye shadow. Okey I know that eye shadow isn’t a big deal now (most women wear it some time or other), but in the ‘80’s there was the mentality that “women with eye-shadow ni malaya tu.” Those street women who used to parade in tao after dark would all be wearing eye-shadow, so with that teachay wearing the stuff it was like mambo gani haya? Na mwingine alidribble saliva constantly. She had a tissue glued to her hand to wipe it, and it wouldn’t have been so euurggh if she hadn’t been a bitch. Yes a bitch, totally, hao hawakuwa na any heart whatsoever. They were like characters from Dicken’s Oliver Twist – totally merciless.

Eh lakini some pupils stood up for themselves. I remember one guy who was quite tall for his age (“kichwa ngumu” without apologies). A new teachay came in, she was youngish, I guess in her twenties, and she told the guy ‘ebu you inama so I can cane you with this pipe.’ The boy was like wapi? He grabbed the cane from her and shook it at her, and she was like “woiye usinichape, please, usinichape.’ Maze we wanted to fall over, it was so hilarious.

Another teachay came as a placement from uni and he shrubbed constantly; we took advantage of his niceness and we giggled everytime he shrubbed: “The inflastructa..” (giggle) “..of animos” (giggle) “..and prants..” (giggle) Aah we took it too far, and he told our class teacher, who was mkali like pili pili and we were whooped sijui how many strokes of the cane like convincts in Kamiti. Mwingine alikuja also as a placement from uni and he had ideas about how far he could take his power. We could obviously see that he wasn’t much older than a kijana, so we decided we were not going to treat him the way we treated other teachays. By that time we were in std. 7, so you can imagine we had maringo ati now we were seniors in primo. That teachay made the mistake of using a cane with roughness in it (kumbuka there were smooth canes and there were canes with thorns). Heh-heh, he chapad my deskie and her hand had a couple of cut marks. After lessons, we all crowded round her and cooked up a drama (exaggerating “maze he just beat you with thorns”) and we took the case to headie, saying ati that teachay beat her with a thorny stick and now she was bleeding kidogo and maybe even she might contract Tetanus (wee! Usicheze na 8-4-4 medical knowledge!). The teachay didn’t last long after that.

By that time schools were changing, and if it was before no one would have flinched. In the ‘80’s-proper, pupils had marks on their arms, bleeding on their legs, blisters on their hands, lakini no one – not even paros – made any noise. Teachays used to come with all manner of sticks, canes, pipes, I’m surprised they didn’t go the whole hog and bring those whips from Kunta Kinte. Kwanza there were some pipes filled with cement – you can imagine a te-a going to Jua Kali and saying “mwagia cement ndani ya hiyo pipe, mi ni mwalimu” or going to Karura Forest and telling a nearby chokora: “nichukulie ile stick iko na thorns.”

One time in junior primo we were alone in class without a teacher. We knew that if any “noise” whatsoever was made we would be caned (remember the command which sent shivers down our spines: “who was talking? Prefect, write down the names of the noisemakers”). Usually, it would be a random teacher passing by and if she/he (usually they were she’s) heard any noise, she/he would come in and demand a list of noisemakers. If you were enemies with the prefo that was it, you would be on the list regardless. So that day we decided to sing, so that if a teacher came she/he would find us committed to the war against noisemaking. We sang that Lesotho (or South African?) pop song Zaminamina e e waka waka e e zaminamina zankalewa, wana wa a a; Zambo e e zambo e e zaminamina zankalewa, wana wa a a” I still have no idea what that song is about (anyone know who sang it?) A stray teachay was passing by and she asked “who told you to sing?!” we were promptly whipped.

The day before start of term my stomach would be churning. Weirdly, I look back at those primo years and realise that they were ‘just’ eight. Okey, 8 years are a long time for kiddos, but when you grow up 8 years can just fly by. Primo term-time seemed to have lasted for a whole century whereas the holidays flew by like Concorde. Before start of term there would be the inevitable trip to the hair salon – aarggh I hated going. Those mathe’s at the salon were always unsympathetic to the tangles of afro hair. Back in the day hakukuwa na mambo ya detangling conditioners, leave-in conditioner, hair lotion, mousse, and every other contraption that women use today. Those mathe’s could easily maliza someone’s scalp, the way they just pulled at the hair when they were plaiting it like people in tug-o’-war. Kulikuwa na “banana” style, “pineapple” style, or just plain lines; after some maendeleo they started a style with a mock side-fringe-thing at the front – yani the chicks who had it were considered the bomb-diggity).

Remember exercise books? Aah I wonder if they are still used in Kenya. We were ordered to “cover” them in brown paper (cover them from what? What maridadi is required for an exercise book?). For maths they were square-ruled, and for other subjects they were plain-ruled. If you had fikad sijui std. 5 or 6 you could supplement your maths book with a separate graph-book sellotaped on. In that graph book went trigonometry – karibu they teach us calculus in std. 5!

I hated Home Science, more so when I went to seco. Yes, I can see the benefits of teaching kids how to saw, but did we really need to saw shirts, skirts, shorts, pyjamas, lap-bags (mambo gani hayo? What is the purpose of a lap bag exactly?), knit sweaters, scarves, embroider vitambaa… The only one we didn’t learn was crotchet. To this day I still think that they should have added crotchet, which remains a mystery to me (how is it that a single needle produce those vitambaa?), and in fact the way European fashion goes crocheted garments can be very de rigueur. If I could crotchet I could sit watching TV and crocheting like mathe’s used to do in the ‘80’s.

Kumbuka agriculture? Yes, ours is an agricultural country, so I can see why agriculture was an important part of the curriculum, but sometimes it seemed as if we were just being used as farm labourers. In seco we had to arrive with jembes/pangas, we were given “plots” to cultivate, and when the produce was ready we had to harvest it, but when it came to eating of the good of our own sweat wapi? And when it came to claiming your jembe after you cleared 4th, wapi? Neither the produce nor the implements were retrieved. I bet the teachays distributed the maize, beans, potatoes, and fork-jembes amongst themselves (“Mr Mkulima teacher we need to eat githeri in our house, when are your students harvesting the maize?”)

What I pendad about school was the learning; I liked the no-nonsense syllabi, sio kama Europe/US schools where they don’t learn the stuff we learnt in primo/seco until their BSc’s. School in ‘80’s Kenya was intellectually rigorous, and we didn’t even have calculators (wazunyes use calculators even in primo!). Hakuna mambo ya calculator in Kenya, we used log tables or paper/pencil. I loved mathavu (maths), and we had a teacher who practically hyperventilated as he taught maths ‘cause he was so excited about the subject.

We weren’t just taught stuff by rote. If it was CRE, there was conk theology in there, if it was English it included linguistics/syntactics, if it was physics karibu you construct a spaceship for 4th year, if it was bio then you were well equipped to attempt experimental genetics (am I mistaken or were some Kenyan students reportedly pioneering a cloning experiment back when it was unheard of?). The only thing I would say about the Kenyan edu system then is that it lacked variety (students shouldn’t be forced to take subjects they don’t want to take in high school) and the subjects were just too many. Even now there is still hullabaloo about which school topped the KCSE/KCPE league tables, and students are under so much pressure to achieve high marks, karibu they jinyonge. We need to re-evaluate the pressure which students are put under, ‘cause learning should be a positive, enjoyable thing, sio kitu people do with gritted teeth.

I don’t remember the content of too many ‘80’s progis – I mean there were hardly any for kiddos to watch. I recall a weekday schedule of obscure cartoons/ children’s programmes starting at 6 (or was it 5.30?). There was a German cartoon about, I think, a bird which flew from valley to valley saying ‘Auf Weirdessen’ and of course there was Danger Mouse, there was also at least one Russian (then USSR) cartoon with communist messages probably hidden in the background. Remember Archie & Sabrina (with Jughead, a dog, and some other occupants of an all-American tao). There were also some Kienyeji progies, like one was about stories, so there would be a grownup sitting with a circle of kiddos and the grownup would say “Hadithi, hadithi,” the kids would respond “Hadithi njoo,” then the grownup would say “Haya basi, hapo zamani za kale…” I also vaguely remember a progi called You asked for it (with Casey Casem??), one called Butterflies that I never saw but kids were always talking about, and there were progis like Button Moon, Pingu (which are both still being shown worldwide).

But majority of VOK airtime was filled with progis that were boring or weird (remember Majitu? Haiya it made me think that shetani has dreadlocks). On weekends there would be Dunia Wiki Hii on Satos, followed by a footie game like Gor Mahia v Harambee Stars, then later in the evening there would be Football Made in Germany (sijui Bayan Munich v Cologne), then there would be a boring movie later, halafu Kufunga Kituo. Remember the national anthem being sang at the start and end of each broadcast day? We used to stand to attention and sing along.

As for news, I wasn’t interested in them then, it was propaganda anyway; kila siku they would anza: “Mtukufu Rais…” aah even if there was an earthquake somewhere they would still begin the news with details of his daily activities. Usually such activities consisted of “giving” at a harambee, planting a tree, or being sang to. Kumbuka Mass Choir on public holidays? I can’t remember any of the songs, but it was like the way the North Koreans line up to sing to their dictator. The Mass Choir kids would practice for months, singing songs ‘praising’ “baba Moi,” ati sijui amejenga taifa (wapi?) Then Muungano Mass Choir would sing a mixture of religious and patriotic songs. The whole day on TV on a public holiday would consist of the events at Nyayo stadium or Uhuru Park; I can’t believe people actually attended the thing (apparently later in the ‘90’s the attendance rate fell drastically mpaka they stopped holding them?)

The rest of VOK was filled with junk imported from sijui South America (sorry to South Americans, lakini why does Kenya need its soap operas?? Si we can make our own) called the Rich also Cry, No one but you, Wild Rose – lakini these began in the ‘90s. In the ‘80s the soaps were Dallas repeats and Dynasty; all I remember about these was the big shoulder pads, big hair, heavy jewellery, and JR wearing a cowboy hat (also remember Bobby? Those Dallas chicks were always saying “Aww, Bobby, why you gotta go?” or something) Bobby later turned up in a sitcom on KTN whose name I can’t recall. VOK also showed Gillet World Sports, and a collection of documentaries from anywhere on the planet. I remember one about Mali, another about Egypt, oh also I remember Around the World in 80 days.

Ah remember URTNA? It was a series of progis from across Africa (I think ilikuwa kama an exchange thing). I kumbuka there was a Ghanaian soap opera, there were music progis and perhaps current affairs ones. I wonder if URTNA iko tu, I hope it is.

I have to say that VOK’s own progis were not of the highest quality. Kulikuwa na Vitimbi, Vioja Mahakamani, both of which were just plain genius. VOK iliwapatia rubbish sets/ props, lakini they made good progis from what they had. Remember Vituko? There were also other dramas, and in all of them hakukuwa na chakula. For example if there was a scene where the characters were supposed to be sipping tea, you could clearly see that the cup was empty and if they were supposed to be eating the plates would be empty if it was a children’s progi (or it’d be ugali/sukuma for adults).

Lakini those Coastarian progis had endelead. When VOK-Nairobi was shooting progis in a rubbish indoors set, Coastarians were shooting on-location. I recall Fedheha, Zingatia, Tamahaki (sp?) and I think Tushauriane was also Coastarian. There were recurrent characters like Mzee Juma and sijui Mama Sofi. The women in those progis would say “Sitaki! Usiniletee mie!” and “Huko huko!” mpaka they became catchphrases that we used – like if we were playing hide & seek and someone didn’t want to count we’d say “huko huko utacount”

Mnakumbuka Music Time with Fred Obachi Machoka? That progi used to come every Sunday and it was repeated during the week. That Machoka furahishad people, is he still on TV? Aah tena there used to be that thing where you could send people happy birthday greetings and sijui for a whole hour on weekends VOK would air them.

When KTN tokead (in ’91?) VOK started bringing better progis. KTN yenyewe ilikuwa full of American progis like Alf (a talking furry alien), Fresh Prince, Hanging with Mr Cooper, 21 Jump Street (apparently it’s still shown!), then later Family Matters (remember Steve Urckle!), Living Single, 227, Saved by the Bell and dramas like Sisters, North & South, Life Goes On. It’s amazing how one remembers progis from way back but I can’t recall most progis from a couple of years ago (there are so many channels here). Even in Kenya they have six or so free channels now, so it has endelead beyond the one channel we grew up with. Remember when VOK said that people had to pay a license fee? Heh-heh the whole nation lengad.

Although we wished there were more TV programmes to see, I think that because kiddos nowadays can just sit all day watching TV, they don’t have the impetus to go out and play like we did. If it was my kiddo I would funga the TV with a padlock and say “go out and play.”

PS:- For in-depth memories of '80s TV you have to see http://nicholasgichu.blogspot.com (esp the Oct-Dec 2004 archives, this guy has great recollections y'all!)

Kiddos today might have computer games, video games, consoles, etc, but the sheer joy of playing with a mkebe in the 80s cannot be matched. I pendad ‘Shake’ (why was it called shake?) ‘cause it brought together nearly everyone from the Esto. I bet some people even met their future mchumba right there whilst playing shake. The good bit was being in the team lengaring the gate-keepers, the bad bit was being tapped or being the gate-keeper. There was also hide & seek of course, which I also loved, but that one’s been there since the 1780s (or from Huckleberry Fin’s time) so it’s not really unique to our childhood. In one episode of hide & seek we decided to actually hide in someone’s hao – a complete stranger’s, and we just went into their living room and burudikad on their velvet sofas! Haiya, the mathe walked in and she just smiled, saying ‘hello children’! Amazing that community spirit in Estos.

Then there were marbles and conkers; I never liked these. Kuna faida gani hapo? And there was patco (?) or was it pata? It involved the insides of soda bottle tops (kumbuka those round, white things lining the inside of a bottle top). The point of the game was to blow them or something. Then Coca Cola tokead with a competition, whereby if you found certain images on those white mamthings you could win something (usually a tennis racket or ball), so people kept a collection.

Aah what about Bladder? Hiyo ni innovation ya Kenya pekee, someone should patent it. That idea of recycling tyre-tubes (baada ya making ‘Kala’ shoes) is so Nai 1980s. Some people could ruka that bladder even when it was held as high as someone’s shoulders, and sijui there was a thing where a player twisted the bladder round one ankle, rukad with the other – aah mambo mingi with just one elastic rope. If you lacked vironda it showed you didn’t have Bladder prowess as the road to conquering the game involved many falls and scratches.

Skipping is like hide & seek – not particular to 80s, but can any one remember making their own skipping rope? In class we used to be asked to bring sisal for art/craft lessons, and so we would plait our own skipping rope. These wouldn’t have the necessary nguvu, as skipping ropes were supposed to be heavy, so they were too flimsy to skip with. At some point double-dutch arrived in Kenya, but I never got to mastering it.

As for “electronic” games, there were various varieties of Nintendo hand-held thingis. Uchumi tried to make their own version (I think the concept was ‘shoot the fish in the barrel’ – how marvellous) with bits of plastic fish surrounded by water, and the thing you ‘shot’ with either failed to materialise or it went in one direction, so that was pointless. Those were mainly for boys, though; for girls there were just dolls. Lakini hakukuwa na Barbie, Cindy, and other stick-dolls. Those dolls were chubby, rosy cheeked, with mathe hairstyles, and although I was never a dolls kinda person, they were okey to play with.

Other games included Monopoly, Snakes & Ladders, Cards (is it still true that playing cards outside is arrestable?), Scrabble. These games were played in the hao or in chuo in the week before closing day – kumbuka that feeling, exams over, no lessons, aah what bliss. There was also Lido (or is it ludo or cludo?), Dominoes, Chess, Drafts (hata grownups used to play drafts – just take cardboard, chora checks into it with Bic, find bottle-tops and voila).

Then there were silly or sinister games like ‘tapo’ (run around, tap someone and they’re “it”), kaka (was it the one with a stick and a mkebe?), play-pretend (imagine and act as if you are a teacher/nurse/ policeman [“Maze toa kitu kidogo hiyo toy moti ina mwaga brake fluid”]) constructing your own language (ours had an extensive vocab and additional sign language).

I almost forgot that game “STOP”. It involved 2 or more players and sheets of paper with columns drawn into them for names of cars, countries, foodstuffs, people names, etc. So basically, someone would name a letter from A-Z and the players would have to fill in the columns (so for letter A: Alfa-romeo, Algeria, Apple, Alice). The first person to complete the column would say “Stop”, then everyone would exchange their answers and award points. That was an enjoyable game unless someone said X, Z, V or some other such letter (“ufala kabisa”). Other games involving paper and pencils included noughts & crosses, hangman (what a sadistic concept), join-the-dots, and crosswords or word puzzles from Sunday Nation (Young Nation was a must-read then; sijui walifanya nini nayo).

Then there were bicycles. Kiddos would ride their bikes up and down the Esto tirelessly, all day and all week in the holls, and they would nyima others a ride. Sometimes it was after dark, and you could still find a kiddo riding their bike. Some could do “wheelies,” or the equivalent of vehicle handbrake turns (when you spin a car with the handbrake on – err not that I’ve tried it myself). There were BMXs, Raleigh bikes, Mountain bikes, but a bike was a bike, and they were in demand.

The entire school holls were spent playing these games (no TV before 5.30, remember?) – but then chuo came up with the not-so-nice idea of compelling pupils to attend “holiday classes” and TV expanded, so I guess that’s when the bliss of Nai childhood started going down the drain.

Ah boys seemed to be very aggressive back then – lakini pia wasichana. Who was it that tokead with the “ngoto”- that thing where you scrape at someone’s kisogo with your knuckles, so someone would just be sitting at their desk and they’d get a ngoto. Then there was the “flare”, where guys used to flick at each other with their ties – ties zinaseem harmless enough until someone flicks at you with one. What about that thing called Green Mamba? where you’d wring someone’s arms kama kukamua nguo mpaka they had marks like a nyoka.

Who kumbukas the name of that weapon which involved an empty biro pen, bits of tissue (rolled into small balls with spit!), then you’d blow the ball through the biro and those things were ouch yenyewe. Hata on the ceiling there were bits of tissue stuck from that, aah disgusting kabisa. Then there were paper planes, which were used as weapons also – weeh! They had sharp corners which could cause injury.

Halafu kulikuwa na craze ya kukick someone’s butt when they weren’t looking (“Kadenge na mpira shooti goal”) mpaka people started standing with their backs to the wall just in case. There was also that craze of pushing people in the swimming pool – deep end or no deep end (hakukuwa concerns za Health & Safety). The influence of Kungu Fu/ Karate/ Taekwondo etc was also heavy. Kids would go “haaaiiiyyaaa!” (as in those Karate screams) accompanied by sijui a “chopstick” (that thing where you aim with the side of your hands). Wengine walijaribu kickboxing lakini no one could really ruka like that. When a Ninja film was shown on TV the next day kids would wear a ninja-style mask and say “prepare to exhale for the rast” in a Chinese accent.

When a fight broke out everyone would kimbia from their haos to witness it. If it was in chuo we had to keep our voices down or else a teachay would notice, so like one time a chick and a dude were fighting (zile za she knees his balls, he pinches her matiti) and it was more comedy than action, so we were half-falling over, half-applauding in whispers.

Lakini, na sio bias, chicks could maliza a dude ‘cause girls used to mature physically quicker than boys. There was this chick in our Esto who was a Muislamu and all the teenies used to mwaga mate at the sight of her. Heh-heh one teenie let it be known to her that he liked her. Wacha! When the chick heard that she banged on his gate and she was like “weeh! Unanikosea heshima!” then she pigad him many ngumi. Woiye, what a crime to be pigiwad for. Lakini that chick was later married off by her paros before she hit twenty.

When two people ajirianad a fight but one of them could clearly foresee that they would be maliziwad, they would ask their housie to standby for backup. Heh! Some housies were mbaya, yani they would fight for their hao’s kiddos bila any restraint whatsoever. One of the provocations for a fight was pointing at someone. Ai hiyo tu? Also if there was haramu in a game a fight would tokea. Another provocation was accusing someone of having a crush on someone. Wehseh! Even if it was true it was still a case for “tutafight.”

There used to be a hierarchy in our Esto of who had the most nguvu and who had the least – but, weirdly, some people had the reputation of being formidable fighters lakini hakukuwa na any living memory of them actually fighting (hao walitengeneza public relations). One day there was a blackout, and it was after dark (yani in Nai the sun would go down at sijui 6pm sharp). A fight broke out between two “quoros” and you could only see silhouettes fighting and punching. Baada ya lights returned each side claimed to have won lakini yote iliremain a mystery.

Lakini nowadays it’s not ngotos and flares, it’s visu and risasi. Back in the day the only weapons we used were sticks and stones and bare knuckles (Rocky style) lakini nowadays kiddos might go too far ‘cause weapons are more kawa. Back then, after two people or two quoros fought, after a few weeks or months you’d see them talking and laughing like no one could kumbuka any prior disagreement. Aggression is a part of growing up lakini kids shouldn’t take it to the level of visu and risasi. Hata in fact most fights were verbal – thus arose The Mchongoano.

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Many people had dogs/cats; dogs were typically called Simba, Chui, Shaka (as in Shaka Zulu) and they were either friendly/ useless in the face of thieves, or they were kali and unreasonable. Maze those dogs probably had rabies, lakini the important thing was for them to protect a hao. Mnakumbuka those signs on people’s gates: “Mbwa Kali” with a picture of an Alsatian? We used to stand outside the gates of such haos and irritate the dog, so one person would be standing behind the hao making noises and the dog would rush from the front gate to the back gate barking like mad.

There was the belief that if you fed your dog raw meat it would become even more kali, so people would feed their dogs nyamas with blood on them mpaka the mbwas contracted tapeworms. There was medicine which dogs with worms were supposed to be given lakini no dog would kubali to take it, even if it was laced into milk. Aah dogs used to lenga even wash-times; people used to chase after them with soap and a brush but then the minute the dog was rinsed it rukad into the dust and rolled in it.

Dogs used to have a sense of community amongst them and oddly they would bweka in unison in the middle of the night (like in WereWolf). When mbwas reached their on-heat cycle there was nothing that anyone could do to prevent them from heparing over or under the fence and finding the nearest female/male dog. In such events the whole Esto would kimbia to see them – woi we were so juvenile, and when the dogs’ tails got caught up with each other no one went to okoa them we just stood in a huge crowd laughing and cracking jokes.

Cats used to be elusive and mysterious, like they would just be in the hao for breakfast and supper, after that they would toroka. One time a strange cat started coming to our hao to spend the day (yani cats haven’t got any fidelity?) and we fed it excessively mpaka it was nono kabisa. The purpose of cats was supposed to be to kamata rats/mice (actually I don’t think there are any mice in Nai), but those cats were piceful like “I’m not eating that” so rats would run loose. There seemed to be fluctuating populations of panya; several months could pass by without seeing a panya then boom, two hundred would unleash themselves on the Esto. Those things used to hover everywhere and have a heyday. Our housie was so scared of them, she’d jump on a chair and tetemeka when she heard one (like that woman in Tom & Jerry).

Then there were geckos – urrggghhh I hated them. They would be away during the day then they would tokea at night and creep on the wall wherever there were lights on. Eurrgh I’m feeling thithi just thinking about it. Even if you locked the windows 24/7 they would still find a way in like Freddie Krueger. They would then creep onto the ceiling and you’d change seats just hoping the thing wouldn’t fall on you. Imagine if a gecko fell into your mouth whilst you were asleep! Uh-uh those things should be exterminated from Nai. One day in chuo a gecko crept out of some boy’s bag – the girls screamed and ran and from then on I kept my school bag in a cupboard. Now I’m even more squeamish about them than before, hata afadhali a lizard – kumbuka those dark ones with white stripes, they just used to mind their own business and stay out of the hao.

The birds of Nai were hardly sweet, chirruping things. They were hawks and crows (the jet black ones with white patches which used to mwaga waste on peoples heads). Those hawks were Machiavellian. If you happened to be eating or holding a samo or sausage or something with meat in it (hawks can tell from miles up) they would just swoop down and kamata it, scratching someone with their claws. In chuo and in public parks they were all over the place, perched on trees kama vultures, just waiting, watching, and preparing to swoop on your nyake.

At some point rabbits became pets of the year, and people rushed to buy them. A society in our seco kept rabbits to breed and one morning the person feeding them found them all dead. A troop of siafu (safari ants) had malizad those rabbits. Woiye it was so sad. Those siafu are deadly, not like the black ants that used to climb into haos in a mlolongo when they sensed the presence of sugar. Nothing could keep sugar and black ants separated.

The more dangerous side of Nai creatures was the nyokas. Hakuna mambo ya ati “some snakes are harmless” but at least Nai is not too hot like Nanyuki or sides of Voi where nyokas apparently pumzika in people’s haos. There was a small field of grass in our Esto, and the grass had overgrown with bidii. We were playing near there and our ball fell inside the grass. For several minutes we stood kando ya the field arguing because no one wanted to go and retrieve the ball, lakini there was a chick new to the Esto who didn’t know that nyokas lurked in that grass, so we told her to go and fetch the ball. Obviously she was reluctant but she couldn’t toa fujo as she was new, so she went in. Hiyo nyasi ilikuwa waist-high at our age, so she almost disappeared. After several minutes she hadn’t returned (we couldn’t see her either) and we debated on whether to go and find her (“Labda ameuliwa na nyoka, tutatell paros zake nini?”) but still no one was willing to go in. Suddenly she came running, screaming that a nyoka had swished her legs with its tail. Heh-heh we all kimbiad away, and that ball remained there until someone cut the grass one day.

Other wanyama included frogs, which croaked relentlessly. At some point we found tadpoles swimming in a pool of water after the rain and we thought that fish would tokea from them. One kiddo went home with them in a plastic bag and waited. When churas grew from the tadpoles she screamed. There wasn’t any mambo of ati animal welfare; we used to mwagia salt on slugs and snails (lakini snails got the message and they stopped showing up in Nai). One day a chura was kanyangwad by a car and our science teacher brought it to class with its intestines hanging out ati so that we can see the internal body parts of a chura. Aah tabia mbaya hiyo. Oh and who kumbukas those insects which used to emerge whenever it rained? They were like maggots with wings, really big wings, and after the rain they would lose those wings and we’d find them lying around. I wonder what they’re called.

People who lived near a forest like Karura or Aboretum used to see monkeys regularly and some would toroka with their clothes hanging on the washing line. I loved going to Animal Orphanage, but thinking about it now I hate the idea of animals being caged up like that, woiye if you just look into those lions’ eyes you feel bad for them. There was also Giraffe Park, where the giraffes would try to busu people and lick them with their long tongues. In Nairobi National Park rhinos would kimbisha cars and there was a place whose name I forget where peacocks would hepa when you tried to approach them. Na je that huge elephant sculpture in the National Museum? Aah I loved going there. Kumbuka snake park, which also had crocodiles? One time a vet daktari with a white coat was walking on a wall surrounding a crocodile and you could just see the crocodile eyeing him intently like “ukislip kidogo tu ...” Then the vet threw nyama at the crocodile. Aah someone could go on Safari right there in Nai.

The ‘80s music that we could access consisted of off-cuts from Top of the Pops, a German music show on VOK (remember that video they were obsessed with about Kylie Minogue in a spacesuit), an all-American music show (I think the Mickey Mouse Club or something), and VOK also used to show music videos in-between progis. I remember Stephanie Powers singing “The Power of Love” between Habari Kwa Ufupi and Vituko, and “STOP! In the Name of Love” before Leonard Mambo Mbotela asked us “huu ni ungwana?” in his progi.

There were songs which embody the ‘80s like that song with the lyrics “pump, pump the jam, pump it up, why your beats are stumping..” There was also that song “Back to Life” (1990 I think) which was particularly poignant on the last day of the holls. Remember that song “teretetetere.. I love your smile,” and of course there was MC Hammer and that ‘running man’ craze. There was also ‘Take My Breath Away’ from the movie Top Gun, a Euro-pop song involving sailors, more Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan (singing “Too Many Broken Hearts in the World”) – anything they came out with was a hit because they were in Neighbours and personally if I missed even 5 minutes of a Neighbours episode I would raramika.

Kienyeji songs included Mariru, Mumunya (both by Sam Muthee), Kamaru songs, Benga (like Daniel Owino – mnakumbuka that song “Shauri Yako.. shauri yako eeh”), and I remember a song on Music Time by an elderly man singing “(something) (something) theremende.” Yvonne Chaka Chaka was also very popular, I remember Uquombothi (“wema sameni, wo uqombothi”) and a song about a DJ (“please, Mr DJ, I need you”). Aah then Lingala tokead. There were so many Lingala songs that I can’t remember them now, but I recall Kwasa Kwasa by Kanda Bongo Man. Other Lingala artists included Professor Namaan – that guy reportedly ate 30 eggs everyday. I also remember Tshala Mwana and Mbilia M’Bel; Lingala dancers used to be gymnastic and they followed that craze whereby women shaved off their eyebrows and drew a line starting above the eye and ending up in the forehead like antennae. I also remember Queen Jane and Them Mushrooms.

At some point people’s music “collections” in the ‘80s (these being pirate cassettes) shifted from general or Europop stuff to RnB. I kumbuka Gladys Knight, Luther Vandross, Mariah Carey when she was shy (I still love that song ‘Always be my baby’), Chaka Khan, Boys II Men (wooii remember when their music hit Nai). Rap was also becoming popular – those were the days of Public Enemy, NWA, Heavy D, Kid & Play, Salt & Pepa. As the ‘90s ingiad hip hop and RnB became more prominent but in the ‘80s any song from America/Europe was considered to be okay. I kumbuka some weird robot-type electro/techno type songs.

MJ dominated (“aauu”) as per kawa, as did people like Stevie Wonder (“I just called to say..”), Michael Bolton, Prince (Purple Rain, 1999), George Michael (that song “never gonna dance again” always reminds me of those days in the mid 80s). Kulikuwa na saxophone obsession kubwa sana. Kumbuka Cyndi Lauper (“girls just wanna have fun”), Whitney Houston with rainbow makeup (“wanna dance with somebody,” “one moment in time”), Tevin Campbell of course – every chick had a crush on him, Will Smith/Jazz’s collabos “Boom, boom shake the room” and “summertime.” Aah those were songs we loved.

When KTN ingiad there seemed to be an outburst of Kenyan musical groups. Kina Jimmy Gathu’s group (it had like twenty members) sang that song about road safety, Five Alive tokead, as did a group who sang about how “sorry depleted the mzungu’s ngombe;” there was also Swahili Nation. Oh and remember VOK/KBC bringing Taraab music on Sundays? That music was heavy on the ear with those accordion-type instruments and those mathes imploring us in conk Swaha, then the people in the audience would weka Ksh 20 notes on her. On Music Time there were Kienyeji songs involving a one-man-band: a guy would play a nyatiti, a percussion instrument, and also a flute at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking.

Yenyewe I can’t really remember music being that great in the ‘80s. I think that Nai people our age only really began to get into music in the ‘90s when, everywhere you turned, kulikuwa na ‘ziki hata kwa mathree. Kina SWV, Jodeci, TLC, Bone Thugs N Harmony, R Kelly were big names. By then everyone was obsessed with the “latest music” (latest in as far as it arrived on that progi at 6pm KTN, or on Fred Obachi Machoka’s ‘Music Time.’ Hakukuwa na any radio stations for teenies as far as I can remember). I kumbuka kids being told ati “you don’t know who Keith Sweat is? Haujasikia the latest Babyface song? Aah weh mshamba kabisa.” We were also obsessed with dance moves; the last one I bothered learning was the “shuffle.” There was also a dance move which involved moving the shoulders pekee, another one involved twisting the feet on tip-toes.

Woi how could I forget Kriss-Kross – what happened to them? Remember that song “Jump jump, mack daddy’ll make ya.. jump jump, Kriss-Kross will make ya.. jump jump.” They were pendwad by chicks sana. Aah- and New Kids on The Block!!! “Candy girl..” I think they sang. Also we didn’t consider Vanilla Ice to be uncool as a matter of fact “ice ice baby” and I also remember a male group called the “Spin doctors” singing “if you want to buy me flowers/ just go ahead now.”

Rock in the ‘80s was quite prominent. I recall Def Leppard, Sting, Bryan Adams “everything I do..” (from the Robin Hood movie) and some song about “living on the edge” until there were storos in the press about Rock being the devil’s music and ati there were hidden messages hapo ndani so Rock kinda became unpopular in Nai. Also we were told that playing such records backwards reveals hidden, sinister messages??

As a matter of fact we were also warned against rap (too violent), RnB (too suggestive), Country music (erm Kenny Rogers had a beard), Lingala (too excitement-inducing), Kienyeji songs (too Kienyeji), so I guess our only recourse ilikuwa to hum our own music.

During the holls, especially, tulikuwa na mob time on our hands. When we fikad seco we felt sweet ati we were too old to play, so people took up the pastime of re-telling movies – mnakumbuka those groups of people hurdled round one person telling everyone, scene by scene, about a certain movie. Yenyewe we were bored kabisa. I kumbuka someone relaying Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom. Hah-hah when I finally watched that movie I was like woah! Jameni people had story-telling skills.

Chicks also began to write their own novels. There were so many people writing novels lakini there was a waiting list to soma them. We used to soma kina Sweet Valley High (a series about twins, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield andikwad by Franscine Pascal – amazing the details I kumbuka), Sweet Dreams (different teen romances), Mills & Boon, Harlequin (like Mills but more daring), Temptations. Aah those vitabu were ufala kabisa, yenyewe when you grow up you realise that romance sio kama hivo. Hakuna mambo ya square jaw bones na chiselled arms. Sijui one kitabu was called “Pink Champagne” and we were marvelling ati “ai, pink champagne? Hatujawai kusikia mambo kama hayo.”

There was also Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. In one special edition they all met!!! Nancy Drew was dating a guy called Ned (he didn’t like anchovies on his pizza), na walienda hapo na pale wearing dark clothing, solving crime mysteries. They were like teenage detectives, much like Famous Five (maze I somad all the Famous Five books repeatedly, I could do a mtihani on them) – they were always going for picnics in Kirrin cottage and drinking “ginger beer” with their mbwa Timmy. Oh na pia Danielle Steel novels were popular – I remember watching a movie version of one, ilikuwa slushy sentimental kama those progis the Bold & the Beautiful/ Sunset Beach (for boys there was Wilbur Smith).

When people started writing their own novels they were almost always romances, na ziliandikwa kwa exercise books – hata zile za squares. The people in those novels were all white (haiya?!) and they had a Dynasty-style life; when you fika in wazunyes’ countries you realise hakuna kitu kama hicho, yote ni fiction. One day in seco a teachay caught someone writing their own novel during her lesson and she confiscated it. Maze the teachay somad the novel in the staff room and although she somead the chick to stop writing novels during lessons she threw in a complement. I’d love to soma those novels now, maze I hope those chicks are still writing.

In tao there wasn’t really much to do – but can anyone kumbuka that video arcade on Moi Avenue? There were pinball machines, fruit machines, and such like; ilikuwa packed kabisa, just thithino pekee. In tao there were also cinemas – aah when the movie Break Dancing tokead my big cuzo took me to see it (kumbuka Shabba Doo and the characters break dancing on the ceiling). Lakini for the most part cinemas showed movies from years before (mambo gani hayo?)

In chuo like after exams there used to be a company which showed us movies on projectors. Those movies were so bizarre (I recall one involving an evil bat) or they were deemed inappropriate for some age-groups, so half the school would be nyimwad the movie. I remember, when a kissing scene was about to appear, the projectionist would ‘thogotha’ the reel and we would miss the scene. Aah we used to tusi him for that. I also kumbuka our headie refusing to show the Naked Gun movies cause he thought it was about nudity (ushamba kabisa hapo).

Mnakumbuka how, in tao, people had loads of time to spare, even if they had jobo or biashara, so like you’d see people standing on avenues just talking for almost an hour. Kweli there is no hurry in Africa. There would also be those “meetings” that grownups had (“let’s meet and have tea/samos”) in cafés which would endelea mpaka lunchtime and into the afte. I used to penda them, I recall ordering all sorts of things – apple pies, carrot cakes, cream donuts, whilst the grownups endelead talking. People also used to go to other people’s offisis and just chill/ kunywa chai, thus taking the saying “haraka haraka haina baraka” to the limit.

Also in tao people would stop to watch a commotion, like in a mini-riot (mnakumbuka “mob justice” sides of River Rorry). There were preachers who used to set up a pulpit on a street and people would stop to listen, putting mashilingis when the preacher said “give and you shall receive.” There were also those waganga-types who would sit somewhere, draw a circle round them, and tell passers-by ati if anyone walks into the circle they’ll contract a disease. Yenyewe people would go out of their way to avoid the circle, hata karibu they were kanyangwad by passing vehicles.

Aah I almost forgot ASK show (‘Agricultural Show of Kenya’). Hakuna mtu ambaye alienda Show ati kuona agriculture. It was an opportunity to go on the merry-go-round, that ‘train’ for kiddos, the jumping bouncy-castle thing (woe if someone’s shoe-buckles tore it). Merry-go-round was a must, but it had a long, long mlolongo, mpaka you could waste the whole afte just waiting for your turn. When you did get on, the whole thing was dizzying mpaka I decided never to go again. In Show there were also tents with “wonders” – as in “ingiene hapa kuona half-man-half-goat” or “hapa ndani kuna magic extravaganza.” There was also the Tatoo in Show, but that started in the evening (or the day-one wasn’t the real thing). Yenyewe Show was not a safe place. There were storos of kids getting kidnapped in 1982 na several years later they were patwad selling mandao in Dagoretti Corner.

People used to ajiriana to meet in Show (ati “tukutane on KCC stand” – the KCC chapos with ghee were tamu kabisa) lakini ASK was so big and there were so many people. Lakini it was great makosa not to make an effort dress-wise ‘cause come Monday kiddos would say “I saw so and so in Show dressed like a shao.” Aah maze if you turned up wearing those Bata rubber shoes you’d be enjoyed kabisa. Every year people would get excited about Show, na kama you weren’t taken there by your paros it was big deprivation. The food used to be taka-taka of every kind, from those sweet-foam thingis (candy floss), to packets of chips which were floating in oil, to nyam-choms (but the nyam-choms in Show were ngumu).

When NBA started being aired on TV, backe became the in-thing. Basketball pitches started appearing on every Esto and all the teenies would dress up like Michael Jordan (complete with head-bands). Chicks would sit on the sidelines and squeal. Then there was Rudge (rugby); guys used to eat protein with bidii so they could join the team. Sports were aplenty (like hockey was played in chuo and in Esto fields). For chicks there was rounders – to paraphrase Comic Book Guy in the Simpsons rounders is the “worst game ever.” I hate sports with a passion anyway. However, mob times sports “lessons” involved being told to do ten laps round the field (aah bana, not ten laps again) so even rounders was a welcome change.

Also there was the pastime of going for picnics in Uhuru Park. If a hawk didn’t kamata your ham sandwiches it was sawa. Some people were brave enough to hire and ride a boat in the Uhuru park pond-lake – heh! If the thing fell over those people could catch Bilharzias. In places like Uhuru Park, Jeevanjee gardens, KICC, kulikuwa na Crusades every weekend. Maze those things were packed, and sometimes there were preachers from West Africa telling the congregation about how they used to eat people but now they were okolewad (haiya I saw a news-piece about something similar recently). After hearing such things watoi couldn’t sleep that night.

Other pastimes included watching Esto dogs fighting, going swima (in YMCA mnakumbuka ‘Teacher Tom’? He was a Frenchman who had been in Nai sijui since serikali ya gereza so he talked Swaha and he was always swimming backstroke), going to Kenya National Library (hah-hah those books are apparently still ibiwad) or MacMillian library (remember that kienyeji song-video shot outside MacMillian with the lyrics “she wore black and blue”?).

Lakini thinking about it we actually had many games and pastimes to choose from.

ps:- can I begin by saying I love Kenya and Africa soooooo much. Love to you oh sweet continent and all peoples of Kenya and Africa.

· Miniskirts being raruriwad– back then it was kawa to hear such storos and apparently kina Mungiki revived that bad tabia, even in Mombao kulikuwa na recent backlash against hipster traos. I’d say wacha kuonea wasichana.

· Mkate na chai: that combo was so popular. If you went to someone’s hao they’d give you chai and akida with blueband/jam, ilikuwa kama the law. But then if you were entertaining people from outside Nai and you gave them those thin tao slices of mkate they’d feel like you nyimad them (nje ya Nai they pendad those mambig slices of bofuro).

· Mkojoo mahali popote: people used to take the saying “Mwenye haja huenda choo” too literally. Remember those signs telling people “usikojoe hapa” then manos would kojoa precisely on the signs. If your hao’s fence bordered a public road it would be kojolewad kabisa.

· Mkokotenis: those people could kanyanga anyone, when they came people just ran to the side of the road/street, and walikuwa barefoot or wearing akala siku hizo. Yenyewe they were really strong, for one person to carry all those fruits and vegetables and sacks of potatoes it must require mingi nguvu.

· Mobile photographers: I pendad those people sana, they were so industrious. Na for real they didn’t toroka with your pictures. Hata they used to be in tao, and in places like Uhuru Park, but they’d also circulate round Estos offering to take photos (I think they had a bell).

· Names like: (for shops:) International Kiosk, Wanyama Butchery, Consolidated Fish & Chips Inc., (for businesses:) Mikono Juu Security Services, (places:) Ngomongo, Gorovani, Matopeni (for TV characters:) Tamaa bin Tamaa, Masanduku, Otorong’ong’o, Mzee Pombe, Mama Kayai, Inspector Sikujua … aah those names furahisha me so much

· Ndarama street religion: remember those dinis which used to walk through Nai on Sundays – even through Estos – singing nyimbo and pigaring ndarama. There were Wakurinos and other dinis, as well as Jeshi La Wokovu.

· Nyama-choma megacentres kama Kariokor: hakuna concerns za Environmental Health, those people knew how to roast nyake carbon emissions or no carbon emissions. There is even that song: “Kenya I love you like fish & chips, Kenya nakupenda kama nyama choma” aah hiyo patriotism ni ya saa ngapi?

· Piki-piki men: the KPTC (electricity) and water men used to drive piki piki, I wonder if they still do. One day I went near one of their pikipikis when the engine was running and it wekad a scar which is still hear to this day! Talk about mobile memorabilia.

· Riots a go-go: there seemed to be many riots especially siku za ‘Saba Saba.’ Uni students also used to riot like everyday, I kumbuka them being kimbishwad by the police with tear-gas. Especially outside central Nai, people used to mwaga mate at the thought of a “mob justice” episode, nevermind whether the guy’s innocent, and sometimes if they saw a crowd running they’d just join in and start running bila knowing why (stampede a go-g0).

· Small talk: kumbuka those casual conversations: mtu 1: “ati baba wa maziwa?” mtu 2: “e-eh, yule analeta maziwa.” Mtu 1: “o-oh.” And: mtu 2: “ati Simati? Nani huyo?” mtu 1: “si yule wa mama Simati.” Mtu 2: “o-oh huyo.” (loosely lifted from a Kienyeji song about a Mama Sofi who turned the singer’s hao into a “soko ya wanaume”) I penda that “pole pole ndio mwendo” small talk.

· Strange meats: err ever eat a donkey, rat, frog, pigeon, without knowing?? Apparently ziliuzwa ndani ya samos or in butcheries and no one would know. Also there were storos of chameleons hiding in sukuma wiki, and some woman sliced/cooked the sukuma without checking then her children were eating and asking “mmm which nyama is this?” You can also buy crocodile (tastes like chicken apparently) and ostrich in Carni – jameni, where do they draw the line?

· Temaing mate ovyo ovyo: maze woe unto your windscreen if someone just flung a splash of mate on it – aah funzo baya kabisa.

· Tuning methods: like ile ya kuita dame by saying “tsks tsks.” Other manos would just tell a chick to “kunja hapa” or “nitakununulia mayai na soda.” Weeh! Lakini in some parts of Nai the manos used that technique of stopping in his tracks and saying loudly “haiya, huyu ni bibi wangu! Wooiii Huyu ni bibi wangu aliniacha! Nilimlipia wanyama tofauti halafu akatoroka” then a crowd would gather and tell the chick to stop heparing from her husband and the man would beba her by force.

· Vibuyu: the craze for vibuyu arrived, although since the ‘70s people had been bebaing packed lunch in vibuyu. The craze of wekaing tea in vibuyu really caught on, and sijui they came in shiny colours (red, purple, blue) with a white kikombe on top. The way Kenyans love tea those makers of vibuyu could never go into hasara.

· Watu wa visu: do you remember those men who used to make raos in the Esto with that wheel-thing for sharpening knives? People would tokea from their haos carrying several knives to be sharpened.

· Zaaing of watoi in Kenya bus: there were so many storos of women giving birth in buses, on road sides, in tao, mpaka in Home Science lessons we were taught how to deliver a baby in such conditions (I kumbuka the list of required implements: razor blade, hot water, a leso, newspapers..) That’s Nai.

· KCPE/KCSE school results mania: kumbuka paros camping overnight in certain primos so that they could enrol their kids into pre-unit, and people engaging in magendo to get their kids into certain secos ati ‘cause that primo/seco did well in the exams. Hata siku za CPE na CAPE kulikuwa na the same exam results mania.

· Kei-apple fences: hah-hah those were called “kayapa” or “keiapa” – they were grown as fences and they were full of thorns so that no mwizi would risk getting pierced. There were also those cedar? fences which looked nice but they couldn’t keep off wezi. Lakini nyokas pendad the kei-apple fences so people opted for stone walls. These stone fences had particular designs, usually floral and popote you were in Nai the floral designs were similar.

· Kusengenya serikali: aah you couldn’t ati talk about politics and the government ovyo ovyo or you would be pelekwad Nyayo house haraka sana (apparently huko kulikuwa na matunnels, caves and they’d throw detainees in maji baridi). Maze people were so scared of talking about the serikali for fear of an informer/undercover CID. If someone criticised Moi they were told ati he/she was trying to geuza the serikali; wehh hizo siku za one-party state zilikuwa oppressive sana. I still marvel at how far Kenya has come.

· “Kenya-1”: I think it was the name of that car that Mo1 tokead with as the first Kenyan-built moti. Hah-hah we chekad when we heard ati a moti had been jengwad by Mo1 and it was shown sijui in Kasarani stadium being driven round the athletes’ track lakini that car became a mkebe very quickly.

· Kiosk-“hotels”: aah these used to furahisha me. Our housie used to take me with her (before I started chuo) to a kiosk-hotel during the day. There used to be Kienyeji music and people would be eating combos like githeri na soda, chapati na mayai, matumbo na chai. Our housie was a splengo and the men in that kiosk used to fuata her, and they used to insist on buying us sodas. One day some guy ordered porridge for me, I was like “err no thank you” lakini that was the community spirit. Those kiosks had grandiose names like “The Intercontinental,” “Hilltop Hotel,” “Mt. Kilimabogo resort.” Those kiosks used to get good biashara.

· Kiosks kawaida: hizo ni essential kabisa, I think they are unique to Nai/Kenya. They used to sell everything from newspapers to household necessities – hata jembe na fertiliser I’m sure they sold. Usually there were a few kiosks per Esto lakini nowadays I think they’ve multiplied too much – back then you juad the Esto kiosk owner, you saw his kiddos grow up, lakini now kuna kiosks mingi sana.

· Kuchinja mbuzi/kuku: some haos bought their own kukus live and they’d chinja them themselves. One day our housie was chinjaing a kuku by cutting its head off and the kuku ran off bila kichwa - woi woi I still don’t like live kukus to this day. And they used to lia when they were being chinjwad. Aah I heard about some Kenyans in a wazunye country who bought a live mbuzi for Jamuhuri day; heh they wanted to chinja it for the sikukuu lakini the wazunye neighbours itad watu wa Animal Welfare and that mbuzi was okolewad by an animal sanctuary. Hah-hah watu wa Nai kabisa hao.

· Kusoma gazeti extensively: maze people in Nai somad gazeti from cover to cover and they would gawanya the Nation, Standard and Taifa Leo (people didn’t penda Kenya Times cause ilikuwa propaganda ya Moi pekee). On Sato/Sunday I pendad reading the youth sections of the papers.

· Mare kwa mare: they had like a uniform theme tune (“mare kwa mare” in alto-soprano), and when you heard them you could go and exchange your old newspapers or clothes for household goods. People always stored their old newspapers, hata some people had Taifa Leos from siku za Kenyatta. In return you’d get cutlery, glasses, ndoo, etc. I hope those mare kwa mare people still do their thing, hiyo ni biashara kitamaduni style.

· Mathrees: they could get you where you wanted to get quick, fast, with no timetable or highway-code restrictions, with added customer experience of being tuned, free high-volume soundtrack, and one-to-one contact with other passengers upende usipende. Kumbuka those Peugot mathrees (peugot 604 “with Injection”), maze people would be squeezed in like warus.

· Mathree touts: it’s good that Nai has revised its mathree system ‘cause for real those manamba of back in the day were wenda wazimu but in a good way. I pendad the way they used to hang and swing from the side of the mat (we should have wekad them in the Gymnastic team of the Olympics). Hao kazi yao ilikuwa kusikia music pekee na kutune dame, yani until the owners of mathrees went hasara and they decided to take over. Next time chicks climbed the mats they found middle aged budehs taking money – sio the manamba that were tuning them. Lakini some chicks took it to the extreme. I remember pandaiing a mat with a chick who thought that paying fare was not her forte so she tried to tune/be tuned by the tout lakini he was like “hakuna kitu kama hicho.” Maze I had to pay for her to save her the embarrassment, the way she was flicking her eyelashes at him. Back then most mats were new, ziki was allowed (I’m sure it malizad many people’s hearing capacity), mats had names like “Knight Rider” and “Starship Enterprise,” lakini nowadays mats are more like mikebe.

· Maziwa (mala, ya nyayo, na kadhalika): maziwa was like the backbone of Nai. I pendad maziwa mala sana sana, yani just add sugar; it came in those bluish tetra-packs. And maziwa kawaida also came in tetra-packs with green stripes (shaped like a pyramid). Mnakumbuka being sent to the kiosk to buy maziwa? I pendad it, it was an excuse to get peremende. And at chuo we were force-fed “maziwa ya watoto wa nyayo” – it came in orangeish tetra-packs (KCC really pendad those pyramid tetra-packs). I heard ati one kiddo found a human kidole in their maziwa ya nyayo. Weh! I never drank it again.

· False advertisement: mingi “fish & chips” shops only sold sausage & chips, and you could ingia a restaurant and order the ‘dish of the day’ lakini you’d be ambiwad ati it wasn’t available. Siku hizi its swimming pools without water (ymca), bakeries without cakes mpaka afte (the one in 20th C) … err but hizo ni part of the hubbub of Nai

· Fanta na Coca Cola: those were the sodas to drink. Kina sprite, sijui mirinda, tangauzi lemon, ginger ale, those sodas couldn’t compete with fanta/coca cola. Hata when fanta blackcurrant na fanta zingine tofauti tokead they still couldn’t beat fanta orange. Lakini mnakumbuka when small kiddos drank soda alongside biscuits? Aah they used to wacha “floating fish” in the soda bottle. "Hamna adabu?" They'd be asked. Na mnakumbuka that thing in chuo of sharing a soda, and before one person passed it on to the next they would wipe the bottle with their sweater sleeve? Eurrgh sana hiyo.

· Football Africa style: there were mob football fields hapa na pale and people would kutana there to play matches. Some players were barefoot lakini they gongad the foota mbali sana. Na je those days of Gor Mahia (“Gor biro”) v. Harambee stars, and people in the stadium would riot and jump over the podiums into the field. Some wobohos only arrived at the mwisho of the game in time for the riots.

· Footwear like: sandak (they’d melt on people’s feet when the jua tokead), akala (sijui kama they were moulded with fire au they were sewed together from tyres), ngoma (bila style but handy for impromptu running for a matt), safari boots (lakini they were mostly valiwad by tourists with those khaki outfits) oh and who can remember the colour of their slippers? Yani every Kenyan wore slippers at home, it was a total and absolute Kenyan tabia. Heh-heh try playing in an area with thorns and unavaa slippers! Mob thorns ingiad people’s feet that way. Ooh "ndutu" also ingiad people's feet when they wore slippers.

· Gates: Na pia gates had sharp spikes – hah! We used to ruka over our gate when we were katazwad to go nje and play, but then those spikes could wound someone. Mnakumbuka those metallic gates with ornamental designs and a kaplace to chungulia from? Hakukuwa na mambo ya ati doorbell, you gonga on the gate with a shillingi. Na gates used to be fungwad with a chain and padlock – some padlocks were industrial-style and our mbwa used to cheza with that chain and piga kelele with it.

· Githeri-to-go and chai-na-bofuro-on-the-run: mnakumbuka those hawkers in every part of Nai who used to sell cold marrow in sacks, chai from vibuyu and mkate bofuro (those big slices with blueband). Maze they were kimbizwad from central tao lakini people used to stop and drink tea there.

· Gongaing on bus roofs: as a signal that you’d fikad your destination in Kenya buses. Maze they used to be so packed, lakini the dereva could hear when someone gongad the roof and the bus would simama mahali popote – bus-stop or no bus-stop. Also matts used to stop for passengers anywhere.

· Gout: the way people ate that combi of nyama choma and Tusker/Pilsner, mob men developed gout and beer bellies. Hata some manos objective yao ilukuwa to eat nyama pekee and to drink beer, day in day out.

· Handshakes: it surprised me that wazunyes don’t really shake hands with each other lakini in Nai if you didn’t shake someones hand it was rude. Us kiddos pelekad the handshake a step further – who kumbukas the name of that handshake whereby the thumbs clicked accompanied by that craze of saying: “‘sasa?’ ‘fit’ ‘story?’ ‘hakuna’) heh-heh maendeleo ya teeniez.

· Hao watu wa: makaa, wa sukuma wiki, wa roasted maize, wa fried samaki (aah the harufu of those samaki was too much), watu wa fried nduma, wa mitumba, wa kubeba mizigo (like you could pay them to beba crates of soda or mizigo from the market on bicycles/ wheelbarrows), wa sugar cane (aah I really loved sugar cane, yani that sukari is second to none lakini they could maliza your teeth). Asiye taste sugarcane raw hajawai kutaste sukari.

· Hospitals za kubeba your own blanket: aah that’s not ungwana. People going to public hospitals had to beba their own spoons and blanketi or they would tetemeka in the cold.

· Idle/leisurely TV presenters: hah-hah kumbuka when a VOK/KBC/KTN was being aired and the sounds of the presenters/staff talking could be heard; ai yenyewe. Na pia when the weather was being presented the weatherman/ woman wouldn’t have prepared a script beforehand, they’d just randomly point at a map of Kenya and sema “err huko Mandera hakutanyesha… err…Mombasa kuna humidity…. Oh- na pande za Rift Valley kutakuwa cloudy. Okey goodnight. Oh na pia huko Pwani kutanyesha. Goodnight” Woi woi we would cheka, those presenters were comedians bila kujua.

· Interactive advertisement: mnakumbuka those mathes outside markos or hairdressers who used to urge passing women to go and have their nywele songwad, karibu they vuta them by force, mpaka you could enter into an argument with those mathes saying to you “ah-ah lazima tukusonge nywele.”

· Joto, flood-rains, cold nights: Nai could be hot, hot, hot, especially siku za Christmas but at night the temperature would plummet kama ile ya Sahara desert. And when it rained it was liked someone mwagaing a bucket from mbinguni hata we used to sing “rain, rain go away/ come again another day/ little children want to play/football (or netball).” Lakini it would continue to nyesha and we'd play "stuck in the mud."

· A school being founded every five minutes: so many academies, primary schools, preparatory institutes, kindergartens, secondaries were being opened, mpaka every ad break on TV advertised “join Mulika Torch Academy today.” Especially after KCPE results day those chuos would kimbisha their ads ati so that people wouldn’t raramika if they didn’t get into their chosen school.

· Ayahs and housies: nearly every Nai household had a housegirl (back then they were also called ayahs) na wengine walitreatiwa vibaya sana, hata to this day I think the serikali should review the system – lazima walipwe better because of the way they keep Nai households going. Usually they were from shags lakini if you got a housie who was shanukad she could hepa with your clothes or drink your hao’s pombe during the day.

· Benga music: it wasn’t until I grew up that I started to appreciate Benga music (kina Daniel Owino Misiani) – it’s that Kienyeji music with prominent electric-guitar sounds. I heard a Benga-type TZ song (orchestra Makassy) the other day and the singer was like “attention! no smoking! mke wangu/ nilimlipia mbuzi/ arusi imefanyika/ kufika Dar’esalaam akatoweka/..” aah that Benga muziki just furahishas me. I heard ati Mugithi has really taken off in Nai even amongst young people, aah that’s good. These were the kinds of music that they played in markos when people were being songwad nywele, in kiosks, in mathrees (mbele ya ‘90s), in bar-butcheries.

· Blackouts: zilikuwa regular sana, especially jioni. I hated the way that, when you were just about to pumzika and watch The Rich Also Cry (kumbuka kina Leonora with her red cheeks) the lights would go off and you could only listen to radio. Lakini in seco when there was a blackout we were still expected to maliza homework by candlelight.

· Businesses of every description: from njembe & farm implement holdings to car spare-part extravaganzas (River Rorry), knitting needle warehouses (Bazaar), khanga/kikoi/fabric stores (Ngara), filing & typing agents (central Nai).. I penda Nai for that.. that’s the entrepreneural spirit of Kenya. Right now it’s computer-related biashara, lakini back then the popular one was “fish & chips” shops, every five footsteps kulikuwa na duka ya chips.

· Banana trees & other fruit trees: yenyewe Nai Estos were like orchards. Fruit trees used to grow ovyo ovyo. Some people in our Esto had banana trees, wengine had passion fruits climbing on their walls, wengine had guava trees, others had berry trees, na mnakumbuka those kei-apple fruits which grew on those thorny fences? Heh-heh apparently they weren’t edible lakini we used to throw them at each other. Those kei-apple fruits were mbaya when they got rotten.

· Chokoras: back in the 80s they were called “parking boys” cause they’d stand near parking spaces in central tao and promise to watch over your gari if you gave them a shillingi (weh! Siku hizo a shillingi could nunua sijui a mandao and a soda was 3 shillings). Back then there weren’t many parking boys and most didn’t sleep in tao, and they didn’t iba people’s handbags or toroka with their ngepas. When they became wobohos it became tabu.

· CID: hao walikuwa kama 7feet tall na walikuwa mysterious, lurking around Nai waiting for someone to sengenya the serikali. I think Inspector Sikujua in Vioja Mahakamani was a CID lakini the real ones were scary kabisa. There were so many people being pelekwad to Nyayo house na hawakuemerge with all their faculties, so people just nyamazad instead of risking saying “ero kamano” to Nyayo house.

· Colloquial language: although other nchis have their slang, the slang of Nai has to be unique. Yenyewe sheng has endelead mpaka it’s as if the sheng of today is a different lugha. Lakini it would be bad if kiddos sahaud real swaha – having said that even KTN news siku hizi is broadcast in swaha so that’s good.

· Dengu mania: or is it ndengu? At some point they tokead in Nai and every hao was eating them with chapos. There used to be such ‘epidemics’ of food crazes, mpaka things were standardised across Nai, like that method of making tea (sijui 2:1 parts water to milk, or is it 3:1?), the method of making chapos (one method tokead of folding them like a snail shell then rolling them). Other standardised dishes included kachumbari, lakini I’ve never seen the ubora of pilli pilli.

· Doors of chuma: hah-hah they were fun to swing on. At some point people became security conscious and they started wekaing milango ya chuma to supplement their front doors, so they’d lock them at night or when they were away. When they tokead those biasharas of metal-welding became popular lakini if you passed by a metal-welder you were warned not to angalia the flame (like the onyo not to angalia the sun with bare eyes).

· Eggs: our nchi pendad mayai- egg boiro sandwiches, egg & chips, kuku na mayai, mayai na ugali. I kumbuka having to eat eggs ati cause they have protein mingi, but I still don’t like them. One day I was tengenezaing a cake and I broke an egg to find that a kuku was already growing inside. From that day I always put an egg in water first to see if it floats hata ikifloat kidogo ishindwe kabisa. In seco we were going for a field trip and the teachay insisted that we carry eggs boiro for the packed lunch. Ushamba sana. I also kumbuka a moral story (the ones we’d be taught in Sunday school) about a boy who stole an egg to eat it in secret and the moral of the story was whatever you do God is omnipresent, lakini nauliza the kijana ate it raw?? Ai jameni.

· Ever-hazzardous swimming pools: I kumbuka many swimming pools getting greenish, yani if you dove in you disappeared. They used to weka chlorine that wasn’t enough or they didn’t bother wekaring it. Ai yani you could find churas germinating their tadpoles in swimming pools, thinking it was a pond. You hear wazunyes going on holiday somewhere and complaining ati the swimming pool was green and you’re like “kwa hivyo?” we swam in them na hakuna danger kubwa hapo.

Asiyewai kuexperience having a crush on someone hajawai kuexperience youthful abandon, expectation, viewing maisha through rose-tinted spectacles, nearly hyperventilating at the mere mention of the crush… Why do people stop having crushes when they grow up? (or they have them less? Ever heard of a pensioner having a crush on someone?) Adulthood involves the risk of defeated hopes, resignation to a reality of 9 to 5, acceptance of an existence that is mundane, with severely trivial, petty rules/concerns (anyone watch that movie – Office Space– whereby the main protagonist gets harassed at the office for not having read the memo about putting a yellow cover sheet on invoices instead of the pink cover sheet blah blah it’s too mundane to recount, and the protagonist eventually goes on a rampage ‘cause he finds it all so mundane he’d rather chew his own tongue. Hah-hah-hah but that movie ended weirdly though).

Anyway, having a crush involves idealising someone who can realistically be idealised (na kina Jungians wanaweza kuadd eti mtu huproject their idealistic expectations onto the person they’re having a crush on). Lakini when you become a mtu mzima you’re like pinned down by mundane stuff hata if you were nearly about to have a crush on someone you’d probably balance the pluses/minuses of it on Excel.

Mnakumbuka that movie Camp Cucamonga? That was the epitome of the crush culture of back then. Steve Urckle was in it and he was bila specsi or mazguembe (like in Family Matters) and he paired with that dimple-smile chick who later sang in a Fanta advert. Aww. Also, remember that episode of Fresh Prince whereby Ashley went on her first date (with Tevin Campbell!!! Auuuu karibu chicks faint, everyone had a crush on that guy). In progis like Saved By the Bell, there were similar crush-culture representations – those ones of: “can I buy you some fries and a soda?” and “did you get my card? I made it in Art lesson” and “can I walk you to the bus-stop?”

There was this guy in primo who, as we chicks could clearly see in advance, was a good catch, so me and this chick kubalianad ati we would be his two wives when we grew up, then we went to tell the guy and he was like “sawa.” Hah-hah, polygamy in advance, maze what’s that guy up to siku hizi?

Lakini my first crush was a different dude that I met outside chuo and he was the hunkiest guy I had ever seen or heard of and I don’t think I’d met a nicer, more innocent, more kind-hearted guy (tumieni thesaurus) before or since. Ohh he had eyes that were just wow and he was gorgeous as in ouch-hot. Double-auuu. Maze that guy had sijui how many chicks tafutaing him lakini alininotice and I was like… wow.. you know those guys that are hunted down by those Beverly Hill 90210-type chicks (called Larissa or something) lakini he had time for homegirl.. woooiii if I heard that guy’s name I would get all jittery, if I saw him my heartbeat would get aggravated sana sana, and if I met him I’d manage to appear calm (or so I thought) lakini my heart was pigaring fujo karibu it jumps out and ketis chini to pumzika. Aah this guy was quality – forget crème de la crème this guy was:-

[√crème de la crème + ∑{(Quality – Hype™) ÷ time} + (ZZ + Й)] = this guy

(whereby ZZ is the estimated time spent dosing in class whilst thinking about him and Й is the time spent doodling his name and Hype™=the contagion of girls saying ‘he’s so fine, he’s so fine!!’)

Heh-heh, blame Microsoft word symbols facility maze you can get carried away! The last time I ever saw him was on a mat; I was with my big cuzo going into town and he just happened to board the mat. The guy looked so good mpaka my mdomo was agape like a samaki. When the gari fikad tao he asked me to wait for him outside whilst he spoke to someone in the mat, so when my cuzo and I got out I asked her to chill kidogo. Wapi? Cuzo was like no we have to go, so we went, and I didn’t get the chance to say ‘bye and I know it sounds petty but that bugged me for years. Kuna mambo mingi I would have liked to say to him. I still have an idealized vision of him, and I hope he didn’t sahau me, and to this day I penda guys who are sweet/ innocent/ shy-ish, sio wale cynical and hardened kama chapos bila mafuta.

Siku hizo Nai guys used to buy flowers, chocolate (kumbuka Bourneville or Old Jamaica), cards (“roses are red, violets are blue..”), na walivaa old-fashioned cologne (kama sailors or sea captains). Pia hawakuwa na ill-intentions. Leo hii it’s misogyny and onaing women as objects (what happened to the soul-mate theory??), au are the kinds of guys that chicks had crushes on back in the day still representing? Maze these teenies of today should be pigwad viboko if they’re vandalizing the concept of crushes; it should be about dreamy-eyes and doodling their name, sio ati “tukutane huko Carni” wehh! Mariza daraza ya vorm 4 gwanza!

One time a teachay caught me with a couple of stickers (remember the mania for stickers, which people put in books and on desks?) that had love-hearts with phrases like “thinkin’ about u” on them and I think I planned on giving one to the ‘this guy’ (equation hapo juu). Woi woi that teachay made me get chongolewad ‘cause of those stickers. What would you say to your first crushes, people??

The phrase “high school” in ulaya triggers images of cheerleaders, boys called ‘Shep’ (say what?), and teenies eating endless burgers, fries and shakes (‘meet me in Wimpy, babe’). Lakini kama uko Kenyan the words ‘high school’ zinatrigger mamemories, smiles, winces, nightmares. Kweli you know what kind of chuo Oliver Twist attended.

Yenyewe the day our KCPE results were announced … heh heh heh, I remember it crisply and clearly. To say that nilikuwa anxious is an understatement sana, na yani they would hang everyone’s results on a noticeboard, kama bus timetables at KenCom. By that time (before mitihani) we’d all chosen our desired shules – unless of course for those who’d be fast-tracked by way of kitu kidogo, au wale ambao akina private chuos like Muso, Kanda, Saints, were their destination (I hear walijienjoy sana). Hakuna ku-hate.

As for us we chose sijui one national and four provincials. Woe unto you if you lived outside Nai, many of the provincials outside were kidogo woboho/rough.

Baada ya KCPE results wakina headi na deputy headi of high schools would go to chagua their desired students; the higher up the chuo on KCSE results league tables, the more choice of students they had. By the time akina Kaloleni High and Ndumberi Secondary fikad to chagua, all the swots had been kamatwad.

Maze when I heard I’d gotten into my first choice provincial (a certain prison barracks), aaah watu wote walinicongratulate sana, yani it was like such a big deal. Ignorant and unaware of what awaited, niliwaste those holidays kabisa, ati I couldn’t wait to anza chuo. I hang out at Metho (swima), went to 20thC cinema kidogo, lakini I didn’t make full use of those holls. Heh heh, big mistake.

Haya basi, opening day. Already mumenunuliwa all the things on the list – akina bloomers and legwarmers. Hah hah, mambo gani hayo? Hata “brazierre” were on the list. Na pia we had blueband, jam, tomato sauce, Marie biscuits, fruit. Baass. Shule ianze. The prefos greeted us like we were long lost relatives, kumbe it was all an act for the paros. Woiye.

When supper time came that’s when us borm-ones started angaliaing each other ati ‘what have we gotten ourselves into?’ Namwambia that first supper ilikuwa marrow – na sio kama ya home, ati with mkaangiko and onions or roiko. That marrow was boiled beans and maize and potatoes. Kwisha maneno. Hardly a borm-one ate more than a couple of spoonfuls. They should have had a standby dentist, ‘cause those mahindi were ngumu like stones. We were shangaaing ati form twos, threes, fours, were kaukaring their plates, hata they went for seconds. Maze a year on we also kaukad our plates and went for seconds.

We’d already wekad our luggage in the dorms. The dorms were actually colourful, for some reason. And they were on 5 floors – or was it 4? Carrying a bucket of water up the stairs was no furaha. I shangaa ati no one torokad through the windows, even though you could ona the outside world for like a mile around.

Once the gates were closed, michezo kwisha – “now that we’re alone” – like those sinister characters in movies who turn into Freddie Krueger once everyone else leaves. Hata the watchies and their mbwas had a conspiratorial gleam in their eyes.

Form, 2-4s were like ati we had pice, but we just nyamazad. After supper, we acquainted ourselves with fellow borm-ones, hata some quoros were formed there and then. Yani we were so excited. That evening, we were called for a meeting by the prefos – the “cops” (sameheni, it’s giving police a bad name). Ahh they were wabaya. Whoever said ati ‘power corrupts absolutely’ juaad that mambo. Jameni the head-prefo stood there like “err we have no rule book, so we can’t tell you what the rules are. But ignorance is no defence. If you are caught breaking a rule, you will be punished.” We were like yeah-yeah whatever, tutahandle any rules. Leta hiyo. Ha!

Get caught on the lawn – get booked. Get caught not running when the bell rings – get booked. Get kamatwad not having done ‘duty’ vizuri – get booked. Come Sato you’d spend the afte like some Kamiti convict, slashing the nyasi or suguaing the pavements ‘cause of all your bookings.

Daily schedule ilikuwa as follows: kengele at 5.30 a.m (imagine that - some of us we hadn’t really onad nchi ya Kenya at that hour before; yani by sunrise, kitu 6.30, we were awake like owls). Weh-seh, if you had outstanding homework, you endad class at 5.30-6.00 to maliza it. By sijui 6.20 if you were patwad in the dorms, unless you had ‘duty’ there, you were booked haraka sana. ‘Duty’ was unpaid labour, everyone had 2-3 ‘duties’ a day – from cleaning the vyoos, maintaining the dorms, sweeping class, laying out breakfast … bla bla the whole shabang. Kwani hakuna child labour laws in Kenya? Ministry of Manpower Development ilikuwa wapi itutetee??

Breakfast was perpetually tea and bread, or porridge. When I say ‘tea’ and ‘porridge’, natumia those words loosely. Anyone would have thought kuna shortage ya tea leaves au maize flour, the way they rationed them. Eurrggh, I couldn’t stand tea for many years. I’m so glad they didn’t serve coffee, ‘cause bad tea is one thing, but bad coffee is going too far. As for maize porridge, the thought of hiyo inani-make queasy. Pia Bournvita siwezi kuistand.

People would miminya blueband and jam on the bofuro slices – they were like an inch thick, and you juad mpaka lunch hakuna any other food. We used to wish our chuo was like those other boarding schools that kubalishad grub, lakini the Austrian nuns who ran it semad ati bringing grub would promote inequality. If that was so, kwanini those nuns ate like Henry VIII? We used to be tormented by the harufu of their three-course meals, aah it was just torture having nothing but dissolved cabbage and ug in your stomach na hao nuns wanajienjoy without wasi wasi.

Although the food was mbaya, we form-ones had many more things to get used to. Little did we know that we’d spend everyday after the mwanzo of a term counting off the days left till midi or end-of-term. Little did we jua that those 4 years would crawl by like a mkokoteni stuck in traffic in Nyama-Kima. Little did we imagine that a chuo, a high school, could have so many politics (some of us dreamt of a revolt, Che-Guevara style, lakini wapi?), campaigns (wannabe-prefos sucking up to teachays), malice (a.k.a. ‘manje’), stress (hata wengi walipata ulcers), ahh just ngojea I unleash in High School part II.

Stay tuned for High School pt. II. Can’t say I have fond memories of high school, kwa hivyo my subconscious has dharaud a post entitled ‘high school pt II’ until badaaye.

Is it just my perception or are Kenyan men and women shorter than they used to be? Niaje na protein deficiency au is it just that as you grow up the way you ona other grownups changes. When I was a kiddo anyone over 18 looked and acted like a grownup. Maze those days men/women used to wear suits, skirts, blouses, na kadhalika. Women would tengeneza their nywele like Margaret Thatcher (kumbuka that perm/hair rollers combo) and men would aspire for a pot-belly. Haiya there was a time when a beer-belly was the epitome of a mdosi – hah-hah mnakumbuka Bogi Benda, that cartoon strip? He used to kunywa pombe everyday and his mke would raramika. I also kumbuka women wearing headscarves esp if they were endaring to shagz or the rough sides of tao.

Lakini siku hizi niaje, you cant really distinguish an 18 year old from a 25 year old, yenyewe they all look the same. Hakuna mambo ya suits na ties, yote ni baggy jeans pekee. Aah that’s not the way grownups used to be. Back then kiddos would call anyone over 18 “Auntie” and “Uncle” and the purpose of kiddos in the hao was to be tumwad hapa na pale: “get my handbag” “bring my slippers” “tengeneza chai” lakini siku hizi labda you bribe the kiddo first ama you lipa them a salary.

I used to dream about what I’d be when I grew up. I planned on buying a hao near central tao, driving a Peugot 504 (heh-heh kumbuka those cars they were so popular back then, they were like a saloon car with a kisogo) and vaaring mamsuits, blouses, etc., Lakini when you fika the umri of being a grownup you find that actually you want to hold on to your youth, na hizo masuits unavaa reluctantly – and who in our generation would vaa that Maggie Thatcher hairstyle or weka those Kaunda Suits that were popular with budehs?

One of the things about being a grownup in Nai is, now when people address you hawasemi “msichana” or “kijana,” they sema “huyu Auntie” or “yule mwanamume.” In the 80s I kumbuka all women over a certain age (esp if they were married) being called ‘mama’ lakini now chicks would be like “weeh, I’m still a youth.” Hakuna mtu ambaye anataka kuwa old anymore. It’s a shame yenyewe, maybe one day the prezzo of Kenya will be wearing a ngepa and jeans or thong nyande.

Personally I used to think ati the faida of growing up was having the independence and the bakes to do what you wanted. I planned on kulaing ice-cream for breakfast and chibos/milkshake for lunch everyday, lakini now I’m like weh hizo zina cholesterol na saturated fats, zishindwe kabisa. Back in the day hakukuwa na any mambo of cholesterol, in fact I kumbuka that if someone was skinny they were enjoyiwad and if they had big madiabs/ hips the teenies would fuata them. I kumbuka people kulaing with bidii so that they could have a figure “8” (kaa binti alikuwa na figure 11 alienjoyiwa kabisa).

The economic situation in Kenya back then wasn’t bad at all if I kumbuka correctly. I think it’s mostly to do with the lower population level in Nai back then, siku hizi cause everyone heads to Nbi hakuna majobos mingi. I kumbuka my cuzos finishing in Nbi Uni and getting jobos bila shida yoyote, now they own a hao and a gari (+land for some). Lakini siku hizi it’s much harder for kina 20-somethings to live that grownup life in Nai. Back then people used to move out of home when they malizad their education lakini siku hizi 8-4-4 has held people back.

I remember an ad in the ‘80’s that had different kids saying “when I grow up I want to be..” There were aspiring pilots, engineers, doctors, lawyers, the whole stereotypical shabbang. Lakini when people heard ati med training involves handling maiti they were like ‘ai basi hiyo hatutaki.’ Kina business-type careers became popular and yenyewe 844 ensured that we somad ‘business education’ – I kumbuka balancing profit/loss accounts in std 6.

Kila mtu aliassume ati prosperity awaited them when they grew up provided they somad - remember the song “someni vijana/ mfanye kazi yenu na bidii/ mwisho wa kusoma/ mtapata kazi nzuri sana.”

Another feature of Nai grownups was their rights with regards to bus seats. Yenyewe you could wake up early to board the bus first lakini when the thing got packed a grownup would either ask you to simama or they would look at you intently until you simamad. Lakini the same principle was applied irrespective of age (so grownups stood for elderly people). I heard a storo about a packed Kenya bus into which a mzunye tourist climbed, then an old cucu stood up to give him her seat (ai, jameni!); the mzunye kubalid and sat down. Weh-seh! He was mobbed sana ati doesn’t he have any heshimu for a mzee.

Na je these days, what does it mean being a grown-up in Nai? Si you’ll enda Bubbles (was that its name?) or Carni and kutana with akina form 2s huko ndani hanyaring like there’s no homework to complete.

Tunaiita ‘Lingala’, but really Lingala is the language. Ulaya they call it ‘Soukous’ lakini whatever you call it is is unmistakable. The moment you hear those tingling guitars, you amka and start dancing whilst they sing “mama mundu ehh.. na bolingo o-yoo” Aaah I love that music sana sana.

When Lingala fever tokead in Nairobi, circa 1991, I fikiri it was Kanda Bongo Man who made even mathes and fithes shake their bolingos when he sang “kwasa kwasa.” Hata I kumbuka my kid-cousin singing that song, and when she heard Kanda anza “eeh mwana ngu saaii” aah she would simama and show everyone the moves. Lakini Kanda was kidogo gimmicky, what with his balloon-like trousers and a haircut that can cut mkate.

I fikiri Pepe Kalle was/is the Rolls-Royce of Lingala; for some reason, every thing he ever tokead with was just perfection. Listen to his album ‘Larger than life’ and amua that music has never aged. He was a kubwa man, was it him that used to eat mingi eggs? I also have a sahani by Pepe Kalle’s 90s band ‘Empire Bakuba’ – from market mamas in Kinshasa and Kenyatta marko to jungu backpacker types, I fikiri every world music fan enjoys his music.

The days of Lingala anzaad kitambo. I was somaiing ati it actually began amongst wakina Franco, Sam Mangwana, Nyboma, Wuta Mayi, when they were hanging out in West Africa and Cameroon in the 70s. Kwa hivyo Lingala music is based on West African high-life (“shake body-o, not so?”), Cameroonian Makossa, Congolese Rumba (ever heard ‘Co-operation’ by Franco/Mangwana? A 15 minute song). Can you imagine going in a time machine and ingiaing a densi with kina Pepe Kalle on stage? Wooii. Wapi time travel?

Real instruments, lyrics with maana, combinations and key changes that shangaza, and no pretensions of being “westernised.” Hata even when they imba in French, the kitamaduni nature of the music remains.

When Lingala fever was seizing every stereo and radio and music progi, there were a few Congolese (not Congo-Brazzaville, but former Zaire, now DRCongo) families that moved into our esto. Kumbuka around that time, the military fujo tolewad by Mobutu Sese Seko (full name: “Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku wa Zabanga” – can you imagine kiddos in Kinshasa playgrounds just chezaing with that name! ha ha ha). So we had a few Zairean hunks let loose in the neighbourhood. Quickly, one of them kamatad the esto splengo. She and her jamii had just moved from Stato. Another Zairean guy conquered several of the esto housies, lakini when one said she’d toshad him, he physically kimbishad her round the esto with him saying ati “mama! Na kosana nini ehh?” with her kimbiaing bila turning back hata she lost her slippers on the way.

So there would be impromptu Lingala parties, with every vinyl record a kitamaduni DJ could wish for. And also the Zaireans, along with TZ-eans in the esto, pendad rice. Yani if you nyima them rice it’s vibaya sana, and I also happen to penda rice with a passion, so there’d be plates of pilau being kulwad, afterwhich the watu wazima would dance to Lingash and kunywa Tusker.

Even with all that utamaduni stuff going on, with so many Lingala musicians in Nai (as well as local Benga ones, kumbuka “vunja mifupa”?), the ubaya thing is that non-western music was deemed to be “uncool” by some. It was like if someone sikilizad those types of music, they’d be said to be “uncool.” I didn’t really appreciate that music until I grew up – and, irony sana, until I went to ulaya. I can walk into a music store in central London and find more African music than if I trawled through the whole of Nai’s central business district. A couple of years ago nilienda Yaya, ati to check out local music, and the shop assistant twirled her hair-weave and angaliad me like ‘oh we don’t deal with those kinds of music.’ It’s so pathetic. Aki if I was in siasa, I would have had her arrested. Ha hah. Make it the law for African music to be sold in every music shop, kama hawataki watoke hiyo nchi.

From Tabu Ley, to Tshala Mwana, from Mbilia Bel, to Les Quatre Etoiles (Syran, Bopol, Wuta Mayi and Nyboma). And don’t forget Koffi Olomide and his ndombolo. Even the names of Lingala musicians are just so mzuri: akini Dally Kimoko, Lokassa ya Mbongo (aah I love that name), then there are names like Dilu Dilomana. My favourite is Nyboma. His album ‘Anicet’ has never dated.

I saw a docu about Papa Wemba who ishis in Paris, and jameni that man was misbehaving sana with the ladies. It’s vizuri that huko Paris, all the Zairean people haven’t sahaud their culture and muziki, hata it’s in Pari that most of the muziki is recorded. You ona their mamis on stage, all ages and sizes, representing themselves. Kumbuka Yondo Sister, and those dancers in Lingash videos. Weh! The way they’d zungusha their limbs it was like they’d katika at the waist.

Sasa, if you want timeless Lingash, angalia anything produced by Ibrahim Sylla (he’s actually Malian/Senegalese, lakini that man is a Maestro sana with all genres of muziki ya Afrika). Songs produced by Sylla like ‘Manuela’ (sung by Ricardo Lemvo/Makina Loca), Zonga Aime (Pepe Kalle), Papy Sodolo/Coup de fil (Quartre Etoiles), Bapasi (Tshala Mwana) just furahisha someone. Manze I can andika all day about this music, even though I’m still learning about it, kwa jili there was so much Lingala produced in the 90s.

There was an episode of Vioja Mahakamani whereby a mshtakiwa woman allegedly had an affair with a Zairean man who was a musician, mpaka her husband stormed his music set and destroyed all his guitars and equipment. The woman denied all charges. Then the prosecutor asked her “well then how come all your watois are named ‘Bulanda’ and ‘Lokiyo-Boyo’”? Hah hah hah yani I chekad so much my tumbo hurt. Maze that programme is a national treasure.

I went to a party in Nai not too long ago and the hostess was from TZ. All afte and evening she to-ad for us Lingala albums that just shangazaad us, yani I thought I was a collector lakini kuna mingi Soukous albums and groups I have yet to jua. Long live Lingala fever. As for the language itself, Lingala words sound so vizuri, I hope to learn it one day. If you speak Swaha you can understand many of them, ‘cause Lingala’s a Lingua Franca like Swaha, but sometimes not knowing what the words mean makes music even more délicieux.

I penda reading sana sana, yani I will read anything, when I watch TV I find myself reading something with my ears sikilizaing the tv na hata kama it’s the label of something hiyo nitasoma pia. Hata inside a bus I’ll be somaing those signs like ‘ati manufactured by Stagecoach ltd., 47 standing, 50 sitting.’ Na pia when I finish reading a newspaper I’ll turn back, reluctant ati the newspaper has malizikad and soma those ads and notices (ati “notice to tender”).

Aside from the jungu novels that we used to soma (manze I kumbuka all sorts of literature in our hao and in chuo libraries – who ever somad those filthy Westerns about womanisers who said ‘yeee-haah’ au that dirty French kitabu called ‘Emanuelle’ – wehh!! It’s filthy kabisa).

Who ever used to frequent the Kenya National Library? Namwambia kila siku if you pitad past it there would be a mlolongo of people, and pia inside it was so sweaty it made a Kenya bus (saa sa rush hour) seem like a BA lounge. Ai ai, lakini yenyewe can anyone deny having one or two Kenya National Library books at home, hata to this day, nahamjawai return them? Those books were somwad and re-somwad hata the pages were like “woi please acha me I rest kidogo.”

My favourite Kenyan author is Grace Ogot. The way she anddikas you just visualise every single scene of her novels or short stories. I was reading ‘Land Without Thunder’ again recently and I was like “yawa” the lady wrote so beautifully. Now I know what the ‘ayaye’ phrase means. Ha ha. You’ll be semaing ‘ayaye’ ovyo ovyo by the end of the novel.

Siku za high school we somad ‘Elizabeth’, the Grace Ogot short storo about a secretary who was harassed by her boss. Yenyewe are there any secretaries somaing this, pliz eleza us the situation siku hizi, if y’all get groped by your boss like those secretaries of zamani. Wapelekeni FIDA mbiyo. Pia there was that short storo about a guy who kulad a nyama (liver) that an eagle had droped, and he endad hapa na pale looking for the source of that meat, hadi he became a carni ‘cause he was so obsessed with the taste of that meat. Funzo mbaya!

Ah- and who used to hepa to library during high school prep (the compulsory preps after supper, sijui till bed time)? Manze I used to soma novels during prep, ati pretending it was for an English lit. assignment. I somad Ngugi wa Thiongo’s ‘A Grain of Wheat’ lakini how ironic that I first somad his kitabu (the banned one) ‘I Will Marry When I Want’ in an ulaya library!! [It’s not about a jamaa refusing to get married ha ha] But my favourite Ngugi book is ‘Devil on the Cross.’ Hilarious is not a strong enough word. Yani that is satire kabisa, kabisa. The bits about Harambee speeches had me chekaing so much my stomach hurt with nguvu.

We had an English teachay who used to be involved in the Kenyan National Theatre, and she was so inspiring, lakini she hepad the occupation and joined the theatre fulltime. I wonder if she’s a playwright siku hizi.

Mnakumbuka those kitamaduni ‘comic’ books (i.e. illustrated traditional stories)? Who somad ‘Lwanda Magere,’ ‘the beautiful Nyakio’… hata I don’t kumbuka the rest but they were mingi. There were also books of traditional stories for kiddos – yani if you don’t jua what happened when the hyena tried to attend two parties at the same time (he split at the cross roads), when the hare and the tortoise raced (hiyo storo imekuwa worldwide), when the donkey lengad housework permanently (it painted itself with stripes, hence becoming zebras of leo). Hah hah please someone kumbusha us more.

Oh and there were storos about orgres (chungeni sana ladies if you marry someone who lives inside a lake or river – huyo ni orgre kabisa for sure), about people eating groundnut stew, about leopards talking … ahh yani if we were born in the 1800s those were the storos we would have been told by wazee round the fire. Manze I want to eat groundnut stew now come to think of it.

One Swaha book that we read for Kiswahili lit. in primo was about a man and his mchumba. Weh-seh! You think some Taraab songs have naughtinesses hidden in metaphors and conk vocab? That kitabu had very vivid descriptions of them – err, procreating. Our teachay was a Giriama or from the coast and he understood the conk Swaha (we were bila kamusi in the lesson) and he was just chuckling to himself yet all we could decipher was “(something) (something) mchumba wake alishuka kitanda … (something) (something) moyo wake ukafilisika” and we were like huh? Hebu tuelezee.

Na surely everyone somad John Kiriamiti’s ‘Life of Crime.’ It had a reddish cover, and I will tafuta that book to re-soma it. Yani it was like heavy in detail (it was based on the guy’s own past) and it made you hold your bag tight next time you went sides of Tea Room. Na je Meja Mwangi’s novels. Ahh I’ve sahaud the title of the one I somad, it was about two ‘vagabonds’ (the 70s name for street urchins) and I kumbuka it had mingi swear words. I wish someone can write a Sheng version of a book like that.

There were also books like ‘A Soldier’s Wife’ by Pat Ngurukie (I think it put me off army men or those in uniforms), ‘Song of Lawino’ (hilarious domestic satire! Who somad the sequel?) by Okot p’Bitek. Oh and what about ‘Truphena The Student Nurse,’ which someone on this site kumbushad me of (by the same author who wrote ‘Pamela the Probation Officer’– hebu someone remind me the author’s name).

All those narratives about characters eating millet, yams, cassava, sorghum porridge … Nani anapenda sorghum porride pia, it’s tamu sana. Fermented sorghum porridge with milk, lemon and sugar, woo I loved the stuff. Where in central Nai can someone buy millet, yams, cassava, sorghum? Hapo hapo you can buy Korean black bean balls and Thai glutinous rice lakini hamna millet na hamna cassava. Sio ungwana.

I hear kuna revival in Kenyan literature, it’s vizuri sana and I hope it continues.

NAIROBI MEMORIES DATABASE

Food

Innocence

1980’s teachers

School in general

TV

Games

Aggression

Pests and Pets

Music

Other Pastimes

A-Z of Only in Nairobi (M-Z)

A-Z of Only in Nairobi (K-M)

A-Z of Only in Nairobi (F-J)

A-Z of Only in Nairobi (A-E)

First Crush

High School pt.I

Grownups

Lingala Fever

Literature